***
The dress Mrs. Johnson picked out was gorgeous, a delicate canary yellow silk that dipped low over my breasts and was going to drive Drake mad. It also seemed to complement the sapphires on my collar. Drake had asked that I wear it tonight and, frankly, my hands had been shaking so hard since Carol’s call that even if it was a source of shame for me, I couldn’t get it off. I could have asked Mrs. Johnson, but the last thing I wanted to do was draw more attention to my collar, especially since she’d made such an effort not to mention it at all.
I had to respect the woman’s ability to ignore things.
Maybe she’d seen far too much working for Drake already.
The beach was set up much as it had been that first night. This time, it was a sound system playing romantic violin music on the stretch of private sand and not the live quartet. However, there was a table adorned with silver domed plates and white linens and twinkle lights strung up to light the waves in a haunting glow. Drake stood by the table, a bouquet of roses in hand. He looked delectable in khakis that still managed to hug every muscle in his legs and a loose, white Oxford shirt with its tail blowing in the breeze.
I forced a smile to my face and hoped I hadn’t accidentally started crying again. I’d been doing that on and off since Carol’s call, and I wasn’t even sure when I’d started up again. I probably looked like a raccoon with mascara smeared all over my cheeks.
Drake handed me the bouquet, and my smile grew more genuine. “They’re beautiful.”
He let his hand caress my cheek. “They’re not even close to you.” Then he dropped his hand and touched one of the stones on my collar. “You look so fucking hot in this. Did I tell you that enough last night?”
I set the roses on the table and my shoulders shook. “Thank you.”
Drake frowned and swept me up into his well-muscled arms. I almost wished he’d worn a short-sleeved shirt since I loved his sleeve of tattoos. Maybe I’d see that later…
No, I can’t think like this. I’ve made a mess of everything.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I swallowed hard but couldn’t keep from shaking even in his warm grip. “Carol called me on Skype, and I wasn’t thinking. I answered the phone, and she saw my collar. The things she said…”
Drake clenched his jaw for a while, taking deep breaths before he could speak again. “I’ll kill her. I’ll ruin her career, anything that makes you feel better. No one should treat you like that.”
I laughed but it wasn’t a relieved sound, just a bitter one. “Don’t even joke.”
His nostrils flared. “Who said I was fucking joking? I’m completely serious. I can blacklist her in PR forever. She shouldn’t have made you feel bad.”
I shook my head and pulled away from him before sitting down at one of the chairs and shoving my head in my hands. “I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
Drake nodded and sat down beside me, his hand stroking my back. “Then tell me what to do to make it better. I’m a soldier, even now. I strike back. It’s what I do. I have to have plans of attack and plans B and C, too. How can I make this better?”
I looked back up at him, now sure my mascara was everywhere. I was definitely crying hard enough. “Am I a bad person?”
“What? No, Belle. I can honestly say that you’re the best person I know,” he said, his chocolate eyes full of the same warmth they always held for me. “Why would you even say that?”
“Because I’m having fun here. I mean, damn it, I’m having the best time of my life here. I’m supposed to be saving my father’s company, and I’m having sex. My family is back in L.A., worried about their future. I’m negotiating, sure, but I’m also swimming with dolphins and having wild playroom adventures nightly. I’m being a selfish bitch and I know it.”
Drake snorted and then pulled me into his lap. I tried to resist at first, but mostly I just needed the comfort. I needed to feel anything at all.
“You, princess,” he said, stroking my bare arm, “could never be selfish. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know. You’re the reason that center exists and wildlife is getting saved. You’re the reason I can talk a little about my past, that maybe one day I could forgive myself. You came out here for a raw deal—and we both know it was at first—because you knew your family needed you. How can you possibly believe you’re a bad person, let alone a selfish bitch?”
“Because I wasn’t supposed to enjoy this. I was supposed to keep it all business and not fall for the seduction side of things, but I don’t even know anymore,” I said, looking up into his eyes. “There was something between us the minute we met in that boardroom. There was something there that I didn’t fight once I got to the island. Then you saved me, and I fell so hard that it took my breath away. I can’t be happy though. I don’t deserve it, not when my family is miserable.”
He stroked my hair and I leaned into the gesture, enjoying the feeling of his lightly callused palms against my skin. “You can be happy, too, without ruining your family.”
“Maybe I can’t,” I said. “My mom’s sick, all right? She’s been fighting cancer for a few years and the fact that we’re broke has made it so much harder. That advance you made on the deal helped some, I think. She’s in some experimental therapy and seems better for the first time in months all because we had the money to buy our way into the trials.”
Drake quirked his head at me. “Why didn’t you tell me? All this time? I was always going to sign the deal for eighty cents on the dollar. Truth is that I need to have Maurice on my executive team as much as you need the merger and influx of capital.”
“What?”
“The last head of my charity turned out to be embezzling funds. It’s too embarrassing and damaging to my own image to admit what had happened. I couldn’t let people know that the first charitable foundation I ever ran was turned into a sham through mismanagement. It would devastate my brand to admit it. I wanted Maurice’s name and his experience with management and kids to help turn it all around. But I needed it to look hard, to keep people guessing. If it looked too seamless or too eager, the press would dig and see the mistakes I made. But, Jesus Christ, we’ll settle on all the points you want tonight once we’re back. I don’t want to delay any other treatments your mom can get.”
“I… really?”
He kissed me, his tongue ferocious and firm against my own. “Of course. I wish you’d told me. Fuck, princess, I could have done more these last few weeks, too.”
I snorted and wiped at my eyes. “Maybe we could have been completely honest earlier. I shouldn’t have hidden Mom’s cancer but I didn’t know you well enough before. I was worried you’d use it as leverage. It was before I knew you.”
“And no one is ever allowed to know my mistakes. I didn’t want you to have leverage on me either, but no, the deal gets signed tonight. We’ll get you home to your mother as soon as you need. You’re not selfish; you were just trying to protect your family. Believe me.”
I sighed and stroked his cheek. “I wish I could.”
“Then let me show you,” he said.
He stood up and, carrying me in a fireman’s lift, set me on the sand. “Do you mind making love here, Belle?”
“I… so this isn’t a scene?” I asked, gesturing to my collar.
“No, this is just us. Just you and me. No kinks, no games. I want to make love to you, Belle, just like you deserve,” he said, kissing my cheek. He reached up behind my neck and unclasped the collar, tossing it to the sand beside us. “Just Drake and Belle.” He punctuated that final point by unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it aside as well. The moonlight splayed over his eight pack, highlighting his perfect abs and just hinting at the scar on his hip and side.
“I…”
He took my hand in his and placed it directly over his scar. “This is about us, Belle, and I’m as exposed as I can be. I want you. I don’t just want games or BDSM. I don’t just want you on this island. I want us. So let me make love to you like you deserve.”
Tears stung my eyes, but this time they were tears of joy.
“Please do,” I said, sitting up long enough for him to slip the soft yellow fabric off my body and chuck it next to my collar and clutch.
Drake didn’t move at first as I lay stretched out before him. It was like he was digesting every detail of my body with his eyes. Then he reached down and stroked my soft skin, tracing patterns on my collarbone that only he seemed to know. Leaning down, Drake laved at the hollow pulse point of my neck and then nibbled at my shoulder. Goosebumps pebbled over my shoulder and up my body, a chill sweeping through me that had nothing to do with the hot and humid Bahamian air around us and everything to do with my desire. The salt stung my nose and mixed with his cologne, his natural musk, and even a hint of the garlic-laden dish we didn’t eat. All of it tickled my sense of smell.
His mouth moved lower, littering my chest with what felt like a million kisses before he found my breasts and began to suckle at the right one, his mouth wrapped tightly over it. My clit pulsed with need and it felt like sparks exploding over my skin, tingles shooting over every nerve. I moaned and bucked my hips, desperate to join him.
To really be with him with all artifice stripped from us was like the first time, but now the trust was there, the bridge we hadn’t yet built the night he took my virginity.
He pulled back long enough to shake his head and stroke my hair. “All the best things take time, Belle. I thought you knew that by now.”
“But I want this so badly,” I said.
“I know you do, sweetheart, but let me worship you like the goddess you are,” he said before moving on to kiss a trail down over my stomach, to the hollow of my belly button, and finally stopping to nibble at my hipbone. “God, you taste so wonderful, did you know that?”
Drake continued even lower, his nose nuzzling at the soft apex of down at my mons. “You smell amazing, too.”
I blushed and could feel the heat flare on my cheeks, even if he couldn’t see it. “I’m just me.”
He lifted his head and kissed my lips. “And you’re perfect.”
Drake shifted his position so that he was over me then and nudged my legs apart with his legs, goading me to part them. He didn’t have to try hard to do that, not at all. His bulk was above me, pressing me to the sand so that the little flecks dug into my skin, but I didn’t care about that now. All I wanted was him inside me, to feel his length buried deep against my core.
He slid in slowly at first, teasing me, until I leaned up and nibbled at his shoulder.
“You can go faster. It’s okay.”
“But this should be slow and sweet. I rarely do it that way, so you should take advantage of it, Belle.”
“But I want it however you can give it,” I admitted, laughing a little, despite my earlier mood. “It’s always fast and furious between us, so why would now be any different? I like that, the wild side you bring out in me. I didn’t even know it was there.”
He nodded and thrust deeply until I felt his testicles slap against me. I shuddered at every inch of him buried deep inside my core, my skin feeling like someone had taken those sparklers from the Fourth of July and pressed them against me, igniting a riot of heat and power and fire all over my body.
“Are you sure?” he asked once more. “I can go slow, too.”
I leaned up and kissed him, biting his lip playfully as I pulled away. “Just fuck me, Drake, please.”
He didn’t need to ask again. He pounded into me then, his hips pumping with all their force, his length hitting up against my G-spot over and over again. Digging my heels into the ground, I tried to get purchase in the sand. My fingers passed through the sand, grabbing onto nothing before digging deeper into the wet layer beneath the grains. Blood pounded in my ears, but that noise just blended with the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Still, he continued, the force of his flexing hips making sparks arch over me again and again, driving pleasure from my very core.
I came soon enough, even before he flooded inside of me. It was like fireworks exploding all over me, firing over my skin and bursting behind my eyes.
In the afterglow, I laid there, curled in his arms and laughing.
“What is it?” he asked with humor in his voice.
“I think we forgot about dinner.”