CHAPTER ONE
Pushing my sunglasses from my eyes to rest on top of my head, I tilt my face toward the still-hot early-evening sun. Letting my leg dangle off the edge of the lounger, I push my toes into the soft white sand. Jake is beside me on his own lounger, his hand in mine, fingers laced together, as he talks on the phone to Stuart.
“Just tell them to do the job I pay them to do. If they have a problem with that, then remind them they are not irreplaceable…I know. Fuckin’ idiots…oh, you know that thing I asked you to do for me…you did? Good, thanks.”
With a sigh, Jake ends his call and tosses his iPhone onto the side table.
“All okay?” I ask, turning my head to look at him.
God, he is beautiful. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to how breath-stealing Jake truly is.
He looks even more stunning here, with his skin sun-kissed, causing the freckles on his nose to show more prominently. He looks yummy delicious.
“Hmm? Yeah, everything’s fine,” he answers, sounding a little distracted. “Just people not doing what I pay them to do.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No.” He lifts my hand to his mouth and brushes his lips across my knuckles, placing a specific kiss on my ring. “There are a lot of things I want to do with you while we are here, Tru, and talking about work is not one of them.”
Ignoring his desire to not talk about work, I say, “Do you need to get back to LA early to sort the problem out?”
Jake shifts onto his side to face me. “No. You and I are spending time together here, alone. Nothing and no one will get me off this island and away from you. I plan on spending the next five days keeping you in the minimal amount of clothes possible, if not none at all, and spending most of that time fucking you senseless.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
I love it when he talks to me like this. Dirty and domineering. It’s incredibly hot.
“You’re such a romantic.” I roll my eyes playfully.
“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”
I let my gaze drift to serious. “No, I wouldn’t.”
I reach over and grab my bottle of water off the table and take a drink, letting my eyes drift over the beautiful scenery before me.
We’re on a private island in Fiji. More specifically, we’re staying on Turtle Island, one of the Yasawa Islands in Fiji. It’s where The Blue Lagoon was filmed. It’s private and exclusive and has only fourteen villas on the whole island, but Jake being Jake, he has rented out the whole island for a week. A week of total isolation for him and me. Dave and Ben, Jake’s bodyguards, are with us, of course, staying separately in one of the other villas at the far side of the island. I’ve barely seen them since I arrived here. And aside from the staff who live on the island, it’s just Jake and me.
That’s how it’s been for the last two days, and it is heaven. Absolute heaven.
After the show at Madison Square Garden, when Jake did his stage dash to come after me and ask me to marry him, things got a little crazy…well, crazier, as life with Jake is always crazy.
Basically, I wasn’t thinking straight after everything that had happened that night, and I wasn’t as smart as I should have been. I didn’t hide my ring. As Jake and I entered the hotel after leaving the show, a member of the waiting press spotted it, and all hell broke loose.
For the next two days we were literally confined to the hotel. Press and fans gathered and hollered outside. It was suffocating. When Jake suggested we get away and leave the country for a while, I was fully on board.
I left all the travel arrangements to Jake. I didn’t care where we went, just as long as we were alone.
And alone we are.
I love being here with him. It’s the first time since we got together that it’s been just him and me.
I know I just offered to go back to LA, but in all honesty it was a halfhearted offer. I don’t want to let this go—what we have here right now—the complete solitude to do what we want, when we want.
But I know there’s something bothering him workwise. The tone of his voice when he was talking to Stuart was clear enough to tell me that. Even now, I can tell his mind is elsewhere as he stares out at the ocean, his fingers tapping restlessly against my hand.
I hate that he won’t share with me what it is. I know it’s because he doesn’t want to burden me, but I want him to burden me. I want him to share everything with me. Our lives are entwined now, and I don’t want him carrying things alone anymore. The last time he did that, he fell off the wagon, and we lost each other as a result of it.
Jake is still only a few weeks’ clean, and I, for one, want to keep him that way.
I’m glad he’s here, away from all temptation at the moment. Well, all temptations except me, that is. I do worry, though, how things will be for him when we eventually go back to the real world.
“You fancy a swim before the sun goes in?” I nod in the direction of the water lapping the white sand, deciding not to push the subject further. I’ll tackle his communication issues later, when he’s more relaxed.
Jake’s eyes set on my body, his gaze roaming every curve, causing all the muscles in me to involuntarily clench. Especially the ones between my legs.
“You’re asking if I want a chance to see you wet, wearing that bikini?” A grin curves his gorgeous mouth as he lifts his brow in question.
I glance down at my favourite and most recent bikini purchase. It’s white with pink flowers and has tiny diamantes sewn in. I picked it up from the airport. It was love at first sight.
“How do you manage to turn something as simple as my request to swim, into sex?” I ask, chuckling, as I climb up from my lounger.
I pull my sunglasses off my head and drop them onto my towel. Hands on hips, I stare down at him.
Jake’s eyes skim my curves again. “When you’re in the equation, sweetheart, everything is about sex.”
He slides off his lounger, rising to his feet in one graceful move, and comes over to me.
My whole body suddenly aches for his touch. I feel hungry for him.
I simply cannot get enough of Jake. And I don’t want to. Ever.
Jake presses himself against me. My hands instantly go to his hard stomach, fingers pressed against his rigid muscle, as I stare up into his beautiful blue eyes. Eyes I could spend a lifetime staring into.