“Holding still isn’t so bad?” He followed up the wicked amusement in his voice with another sensual tug on her hair.
She didn’t know him. She’d never been the kind of woman who had casual sex. Because that was a personal choice she’d made, she reminded herself. Lovemaking was about as intimate as it got, and she’d never fantasized about letting a stranger touch her.
Before now, the traitorous voice in her head said, because evidently she was seriously considering taking her sex life in a whole new direction. Gray’s direction. The purpose of coming to Fantasy Island had been to take charge of her life. To be someone different, even if the change was only temporary. She wanted to be fun and flirtatious and, yes, just a little wild. In a few more days, she’d go back to being Laney Parker, MD, but on this island she could be someone else. The kind of woman who made her fantasies a reality.
* * *
HE NEEDED TO step back. Laney was a doctor, a paying guest—and a civilian. She was undoubtedly an upright, tax-paying US citizen, and he had no business running his hands over her skin. In fact, he was fairly certain that, Hippocratic Oath or not, she was the kind of woman who’d kill him if he played games with her.
So sue him. He liked that, too.
Because he wasn’t playing nice, he tugged the sheet lower, exposing the dimples above the sweet curve of her butt. She hadn’t gone completely naked beneath her sheet. She’d kept her panties on, and he immediately wondered what it would take to coax her out of them, because he was a bastard and not nice. And iron-hard at just a glimpse of those white panties and the strip of pale skin above the band. He brushed a knuckle over the topmost edge. She’d be wearing something silky, he decided. Panties that were as simple and elegant as the rest of her.
She lifted her head and he retreated a step. Not because he wanted to—he was a guy, after all, and would be more than happy to have her face pressed against his groin—but because he really wasn’t a creeper, and he didn’t want to spoil her enjoyment of the massage. Still, he was sorry he’d moved when she looked up at him, hair tumbling around her face, eyes slumberous.
She mumbled something incoherent that ended with on the menu?
What. The. Hell. He was a SEAL and a fighter. Bar fight, the government’s fight—as long as it involved fists and a beat down, he was all in. This menu business, however, was unfamiliar territory. He had no idea what she was talking about.
“The menu.” He gave her words back to her as if repetition would somehow miraculously clear up his confusion. Spa menu? Room service menu? He hated being out of his element.
She blushed, and blood surged to his dick. God. He’d have given his left nut to know what she’d been thinking. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Her phone dinged behind him on the counter where he’d tossed it, and she bolted upright. “Time’s up,” she announced, looking relieved.
“That’s my line,” he rasped, but she hopped off the table before he could finish getting the words out. He exhaled and considered his options. He probably shouldn’t swing her to a stop, but the way she was hightailing it away from his cabana was far from flattering.
Exercising remarkable self-control, Gray let her go, all the while mentally running through plans in his head. A quick check of the week’s schedule revealed Laney Parker had another massage scheduled for tomorrow. In fact, the concierge had been busy, because she had appointments scheduled for every day this week. He grinned. He’d bet she was the kind of woman who kept a date.
Levi strolled over and dropped a load of fresh towels on the bed. “Do you suck that badly?”
It was a distinct possibility. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“She’s coming back for more?” His pal looked understandably skeptical.
He hoped so.
“She mentioned a menu.” Maybe Levi knew something he didn’t.
“She was hungry?” A frown creased the other man’s forehead. No help there. “Or really, really desperate for something alcoholic to drink? Either way, that means you officially stink at being a masseuse.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he muttered. “It meant something. I need to know what before she comes back tomorrow.”
Levi shrugged. “Then we’ll figure it out.”
That was the thing about working as a team. If he needed something, his shooters had his back, the same way he had theirs. Their briefing hadn’t mentioned menus. It had, however, emphasized that Fantasy Island was an exclusive resort that catered to couples’ sexual fantasies. On-demand sexual fantasies between consenting adults. Laney had been blushing up a storm when she’d run from the cabana. What were the odds...?
“You think it’s something sexual?” Levi’s head had apparently gone in the same direction as Gray’s.
“Yeah.” It made sense. “It fits.”
“Or you’re indulging in a bout of wishful thinking.” Levi grinned and punched him in the shoulder.
GET IN.
Take the target down.
Get out.
By the time Gray had crossed the island and made it to SEAL Team Sigma’s base camp, he was in control again. He’d ditched the spa uniform for his camo and retrieved his weapons from where he’d cached them. Weapons decorated him like ornaments on a Christmas tree. He had a KA-BAR knife at his waist and a Heckler & Koch MP-5 machine gun holstered to his thigh. The Glock resting against the base of his spine was even more welcome.
In his clothes and his own skin, he was starting to feel like his old self again as he worked his way through the thick jungle undergrowth, concealing his trail. Calm. Detached. No emotions. Check, check and check. Those were normal operating conditions. What he felt around Laney had to be simple attraction, compounded by the fact that he hadn’t had sex in months.
Sure, part of him was wondering when he’d see her again and if he could coax her into bed, but the rest of him was back on the job. Fantasy Island—which had to be the most ridiculous name he’d ever heard—was five miles long and two miles wide. Approximately four square miles of that space was jungle. The resort’s owners had opted to keep things in their natural state, so it was acres and acres of dense, rugged terrain. The good news was that he doubted any of the resort’s guests would penetrate farther than four or five feet inside the mess.
Before he’d made the SEALs team, he’d had no idea so many different types of palm trees could be crammed into one small island. Mother Nature hadn’t stinted. She’d parked slender fan palms next to spiny palms that stretched fifty, sixty feet up toward the sky. The island also came with a shitload of coconut palms loaded with ripe nuts waiting to brain anyone dumb enough to make camp at the base. What wasn’t palm was Hispaniolan mahogany and muskwood, and there were vines tangled up around positively everything. The place was “lush, pristine jungle” according to the resort’s marketing brochure, but a tropical pain in the ass from where he
