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“I’d imagine it means a well-staffed house accessible only by boat or by air, in the farthest reaches of one of the most remote island nations on earth.” He eyed her, standing there with her feet in the sand and the South Pacific around her because he’d imported her straight into her fantasy. “Wherever will we find such a place, do you think?”
“I play a part, Cairo. A role.” Her words came fast and hard now, and he found he enjoyed watching her unravel far more than he should. It meant this was getting to her, too. That he was. Cairo couldn’t regret that. “I’ve been playing it since I was a kid. Vanuatu was supposed to happen when I finally left it all behind, not while I’m neck-deep in the middle of yet another performance!”
Something eased inside him then, though that pressure in his chest remained. He thought the way she scowled at him was beautiful. He thoughtshewas beautiful—even more so than the island paradise that waited all around them.
He saw the way her lips trembled slightly before she pressed them together. He saw the way she leaned back, as if she’d wanted to put more space between them, but had forced herself to stand still.
This wasn’t affecting only him. He wasn’t the only one without a mask.
“Come here,” he said. It was more of an order.
Cairo had the distinct pleasure of seeing that melting expression move over her face before she balked, visibly, and straightened where she stood. Hefeltit, everywhere. In that pressing thing in his chest. In his sex.
“I’m standing one foot away from you,” she said, crossly, and he was insane to find that tone of voice comforting. He was a madman, there was no other explanation.
But he didn’t care.
He sighed in the officious manner that had servants at aristocratic balls leaping to tend to his every whim, and then he merely reached across that one foot of space, hooked his hand around her neck and hauled her to him.
She hit his chest an instant later, made one of those soft noises that made the hunger in him burn white-hot and threw her head back to look up at him. She was scowling, of course. She was always scowling. But that meant she wasn’t hiding behind her mask of composure, and Cairo loved it. He craved it. He wanted more.
“Cairo—”
“This is not a performance,” he told her, holding her where he wanted her, her body flush against his.Where she belongs,something in him whispered. “You, me. Here. None of this is for public consumption. It is only ours. It is real.”
The truth was the way she flushed at that. The way her eyes darkened with the same need he felt careening around inside of him, changing him. Changing the whole world.
“There’s no such thing asours,” she whispered. “There’s nothingrealhere.”
“Tesorina,”he murmured, “of course there is. It tastes like this.”
And then he bent his head to claim her mouth, and showed her exactly what he meant.
* * *
The weeks that followed were like a dream. The best version of her favorite dream, in fact.
Brittany never, ever wanted to wake up.
It wasn’t only that the house and island were even more beautiful than she could have imagined they’d be. It wasn’t that they were staffed to the extraordinary level of discreet, nearly psychic level of service that Cairo demanded. That meant that almost the moment they had a thought or a desire, often before it was expressed, the plate of food was laid out or the tray of drinks was presented. That meant fresh towels and a selection of new, tropical clothing to better while away the days every time they exited one of the property’s pools, or wandered out of the sauna. That meant the tiki torches were always lit the instant the sky began to turn colors at the end of the day and there was always a hammock waiting between two palm trees should they take a walk along the beach.
All of that was divine. Luxurious pampering far beyond anything Brittany had ever imagined. But far more remarkable than the level of service was the solitude. Their first night there, after Cairo had carried Brittany off to the vast master suite they’d shared ever since and after they’d worked off their jet lag in the most delectable manner possible, they’d agreed to simply...shut out the world.
“No one will miss us for five weeks,” Cairo had said when evening had started to creep across the sky, orange and red, outside the open floor-to-ceiling spaces where walls would be in another house. “They will barely notice we are gone, with so many other headlines to keep them occupied.”
He’d been sprawled out on his back on the bed, the sheets in complicated tangles at his feet. Brittany had been stretched out over him, the dizzying heat they’d built in each other still there where she pressed against him, even as the lazy ceiling fan moved the cooler air around on her back. Her head had been a cascade of images of all the ways they’d had each other already in that single, perfect, endless day. All the things he could do with his hands, his mouth. All the places on that stunning body of his she’d tested with hers.
Her body had still been humming. She thought perhaps it always would.
“I suppose we have the rest of our lives to be terrible,” she’d agreed drowsily, unable to think of much beyond the simple perfection of the way their bodies fit together. The way they seemed perfectly crafted to come together like this and drive each other wild—
There had been something in her that had balked at that, deep down beneath the layers of satisfaction. She might not have had sex with anyone before Cairo, but she wasn’t a complete idiot. She knew sex made people crazy. It made them imagine intimacies that didn’t exist outside the bed. Hadn’t she watched her own mother make that mistake again and again? Brittany had always vowed she’d never be one of those deluded fools, no matter what.
But she could put that aside for a little over a month, too, she’d thought then. She could simply sink into this thing and not worry about what came after or how she’d have to play it when they went back to their carefully scripted, relentlessly public lives. She could decide not to worry about it—about anything that wasn’t Cairo, or herself, or how they made each other feel—until this honeymoon was over. And until then, they could lock their phones and laptops in one of the cupboards and let themselves soak in the peace and quiet of this little island so far away from anything.
“I think this is the purpose of a honeymoon,” she said.
Cairo smiled, his hand moving lazily down the length of her spine, then back up again. “I thought it was an opportunity to post pictures from exotic locales onto one’s social media pages, the better to maintain one’s presence and public brand. No? Are you sure?”
