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“I hope so.”
He was placating her, she could feel it, and she was torn between trusting him with her very life and running from him because he was dangerous—if not physically, at least emotionally. He kept her off balance; one minute she found him incredibly attractive on a purely sensual level, the next she feared he was part of some murky master scheme to do her harm. But why? Who was behind the plan? Why would anyone want to hurt her? Why did she feel like a pawn in some game of political intrigue?
The thought struck her like a lightning bolt. Political intrigue. Politics! She felt as if she’d inadvertently tripped over a major clue to her being on the island. But what? Her head was beginning to pound all over again. What was it Connie had said, that the women reporters at the Seattle Observer weren’t allowed on the big, newsworthy stories? That they were kept away from political scandal and corruption and anything that could potentially be award-winning material? The thought was there, just under the surface of her consciousness, niggling at her, something that would give her a clue to her past as well as her present. She concentrated, but try as she could, the thought slipped away, into the black oblivion that was her past. Damn! Damn! Damn! Why couldn’t she remember something this important?
“I think we should get back.” Trent tugged lightly on her arm, but she yanked her hand back. She stared at the empty, ruined church and shook her head.
“Why did I pick Salvaje as a place for the honeymoon?” she demanded as suddenly as the question popped into her mind.
“I don’t know. It appealed to you, I guess.”
“But why not Jamaica or Bermuda or Hawaii? Why an isolated island like this?” She walked through the crumbling archway and viewed this island from the highest point. Little more than the top of a great, submerged mountain, Salvaje was as wild as its name. To the east lay the sea, a deep angry blue that looked as threatening as the darkening sky. To the west, the jungle, hot and sweltering and untamed. Far below, the city of Santa María, a small speck of civilization. She walked to the far side of the ruins, where the horses were tethered. Trent’s arms surrounded her and he laced his fingers over her abdomen.
“Salvaje appealed to you.”
“Didn’t you think it was odd?” she asked, turning in his arms, wishing she could yank off his aviator glasses and stare into his eyes—search for the truth.
“We wanted to be alone.” A stiff breeze ruffled his hair and he adjusted his sleeves, already pushed over his forearms.
Her stomach did a strange little flip. “But there are tourists, other people….” He stared at her lips and she had to fight the urge to rim them nervously with her tongue. She saw him swallow and wondered what it would be like to touch his broad chest, to trace the small scar at his hairline, to feel his lips warm
and wet against hers.
As if reading her thoughts, he lifted one side of his mouth in a crooked smile that caused her pulse to leap. “We’d better get going. There’s one helluva storm brewing and we don’t want to be caught out here.”
“Don’t we?” she said, thrusting out her chin as the wind billowed her skirt. “I thought you said we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, that we were so hot we had to get married, that we came here because it was so damned isolated. So why is it now, when we are alone, not a soul in sight, you want to run back to the hotel?”
His back teeth ground together. “I’m only thinking of you.”
“Are you?”
“Your injuries—”
“I don’t believe you, Trent. This whole thing doesn’t wash. I think I came here because…because of some story I was working on at the paper, or because I was running away from something or because I had to get away, but I don’t believe that I came here to be alone with you—Oh!”
His mouth claimed hers. As the wind began to howl and the little mare whinnied and reared, Trent pulled her still closer and his lips molded firmly over hers. Gasping, she tried to struggle free, but he wouldn’t let go.
His tongue gently prodded her lips apart to slip into the moist secrets beyond her teeth. Nikki knew she should stop him, that she was playing with fire by goading him, but she couldn’t help it, and as his tongue flicked against the roof of her mouth, her knees threatened to buckle. The palms that pushed hard against his shoulders moved as her fingers curled to grab his shirt and feel the warm flesh beneath the cotton fabric.
Stop him, Nikki! Stop this madness! her mind screamed, but her reeling senses, already spinning out of control, demanded more. She couldn’t get enough of the male smell of him, the feel of his hands splaying against her back, the taste of his mouth on hers.
Her heart was thundering wildly as, with his weight, he pulled them both to the ground. When he lifted his head from hers, he ripped off his sunglasses and searched the contours of her face. “You make me do things I shouldn’t.”
“Like…like this?” she asked, her voice catching as his blue, blue eyes gazed into hers.
“Like everything I’ve done since the first time I saw you.”
Clouds moved through the sky as he traced the line of her jaw with one long, callused finger. “I told myself to stay away from you, that you were more trouble than I needed, to run like hell until I forgot your name.”
“But you didn’t,” she prodded.
“Couldn’t.”
But still he didn’t love her. She swallowed hard as he wrapped his fingers in her hair and settled his mouth on hers again. She returned the passion of his kiss. Their tongues met and danced, stroking and mating, thrusting and parrying.
Nikki’s blood ran hot. Her body began to ache with a willful need that tugged at her heart and burned deep within her. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her neck. She was breathing so raggedly her breasts rose and fell, aching to be touched. She barely felt the first drops of rain.
Trent’s lips moved easily down the column of her throat and his hands found the hem of her T-shirt, moving upward to scale her ribs, her skin feeling branded where he touched.
