Arabella

When Gaige had said he’d booked a cottage for us, I was picturing something small and quaint. Not a full-fledged house with an ocean view. “Three bedrooms? Does that mean you’re planning on us not sharing?”

I meant to say it as a joke, but there was also an underlying vulnerability that came out as I spoke. After spending the last couple of nights with Gaige—with him sleeping while fully dressed over the covers that first night because I wasn’t about to let him sleep on the couch, and then wrapped in his arms with both of us completely naked for the limited amount of sleep we’d gotten between bouts of sex the second night—I wasn’t sure how I’d feel if he actually said yes.

“No,” he growled, tugging me into his arms. “It means I wanted us to have the privacy that the hotels and bed and breakfasts couldn’t provide. The room with a king sized bed is ours, although you could easily talk me into breaking in the queen and both twin beds, too, if you’d like.”

I gave him a considering look. “What about the table, couch, floor?” I rattled off every flat surface I could think of.

“The shower, beach, patio,” he added.

“Yes to the shower. No to the beach and patio.” I wagged my finger at him. “I’d be too worried about getting caught.”

“You’re underestimating me if you think that you’ll be paying attention to anything but me and what I’m doing to you.”

“Only if you talk me into it in the first place.” I caught the predatory gleam in his eye and ran in the opposite direction. I didn’t make it far before he caught me from behind, wrapping his arms around my stomach.

“You throwing down the gauntlet, sweetheart? Because I’m more than happy to pick it up,” he breathed into my ear.

“No!” I squeaked. Then I jerked my chin towards the windows that went from the floor to the dramatic cathedral ceilings, with a spectacular view of the harbor. “But I think the living room is a decent compromise with those windows that anyone could look through.”

“Compromise accepted.” He lifted me off my feet and settled me on the ground and went about making me forget about my worries that someone might see us. As I was writhing beneath him, my whole focus was centered on him. An entire parade could have marched past us, and I wouldn’t have noticed. He was just that good at making me lose my mind. A skill he demonstrated to me over and over again for the next week, while giving me the best vacation of my life.

“What are we going to do today?” I asked, nudging Gaige in the side when he didn’t look up from his laptop. We were settled side-by-side in the chairs on the porch, enjoying our coffee after breakfast the same way we had each day since our first morning there. It felt like we’d been doing it forever, and I’d quickly grown accustomed to the habit, to the point that I couldn’t imagine a morning without it.

“Sorry,” he murmured distractedly. “I think I might finally have a lead on the chocolates.”

We’d been having so much fun that I’d almost forgotten about the reason Gaige had come to LA in the first place. He hadn’t brought it up in all the time we’d been on the island, and it had lulled me into a false sense of security. Or not quite false since I didn’t have any doubts that Gaige would keep me safe. “What kind of lead?”

“They were brought to the set by a courier service. The guy I have helping me out was finally able to pinpoint the time they were delivered. It took so long because they sat for a day before the production assistant gave them to you,” he explained. “My guy got a still shot of the courier off the studio’s security tapes, hunted him down, and questioned him about it. Luckily, he remembered the chocolates. He said it’s rare for them to accept a package from UPS and then turn around to deliver it since there isn’t a reason it couldn’t have just been sent directly to you in the first place.”

“That is odd,” I agreed. “Is the UPS delivery trackable?”

“Yeah, it came from Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?” I echoed. “Pierre Marcolini has a store there. It’s the only one in the United States.”

“Yeah, I figured that out right away, but finding the customer would be next to impossible without more information. Getting them to release customer information without a court order is hard enough, but it’s nearly impossible without being able to say that we knew for a fact that the purchase was made from their store. An exact date would make it even easier.”

I nodded as I listened to his explanation. “I can see how it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“The upside is that we’ve been able to whittle it down to a small pile of hay,” he sighed as he set the laptop on the ground and rubbed his face with his palms. “I’d hoped to know more by now, but at least it’s progress.”

I put my mug on the table between us, rose from my chair, and climbed onto his lap. His arms wrapped around me, and I rested my head on his shoulder. “The other good news is that I haven’t gotten any more surprises since you came to town. Maybe you scared whoever it is off.”

“It’s possible,” he agreed. “But I still need to find the person behind it all and make sure they understand that an approach to you—any kind, no matter the reasons behind it—is unacceptable. And that if they decide to try it again, I’ll be the one giving them your response.”

I shivered at the dark promise in his voice. One thing was for sure; I wouldn’t want to be in that person’s shoes. Gaige pissed off was a scary sight, even when his anger wasn’t on my behalf and not directed towards me. But he didn’t scare me. In fact, it was the opposite. His determination to eliminate what he perceived to be a threat to me, no matter what it took and where it came from, made me feel like the safest person in the world. It also didn’t hurt that he pretty much catered to my every whim.

“If the trail leads to Hawaii, do we need to go there?” I asked, blinking at him with feigned innocence.

“You trying to talk me into a trip to a bigger, better island?” He dropped a kiss on top of my head, squeezing me tight.

“Nah,” I laughed. “This one’s perfect for the two of us.”

“Damn straight it is.”

“Is there anything else you need to track down this morning?”

I felt him shake his head. “Nope. I’ve already reached out to an old Army buddy who lives in Honolulu. He’s going to stop by the store when they open today and see if he can talk them into sharing their receipts from the day the chocolates were shipped. If we’re lucky, one of the employees will remember something since they aren’t supposed to do mail orders from the retail shops.”

I leaned back to look at him. “Not only did this person know what my favorite chocolates were, but they went well out of their way to get me a box. That’s weird, right?”

“It might have been easier than we think. Just like I’m doing to figure out who this guy is, he could have asked a friend who was in Hawaii to buy the truffles for you.”

I scrunched my brow in confusion. “But wouldn’t that friend have shipped them, too, instead of the store? Then their name would’ve been on the shipment, and this whole thing would be so much easier.”

“Not necessarily. Think about how simple it would be for us to ask one of the shops here to ship a purchase home for us because we don’t have enough space in our luggage. Or because we’re tight on time and can’t go to the post office ourselves.”

“You’re right. That art gallery offered to pack and ship the painting I was looking at when we wandered in there the other day.” He flashed me a knowing smile, and I was filled with a sudden certainty. “You bought it, didn’t you?”

“Yup, and I had them ship it to my house.” This time he was the one who tried to look innocent. It didn’t work for him any better than it had for me.

I let it slide, just as I had all the other things he’d done that hinted at his intention for me to go to Atlanta with him when this was all over. “If you’re free, can we rent the beach bicycles like we talked about yesterday?”

“You still want to do that today?”

I jumped off his lap and grabbed his hand to pull him up after me. “Yup. Let’s get going so we aren’t out there when it’s ridiculously hot this afternoon.”

“Sure, sweetheart. I know how much you prefer to save all the really sweaty activities for when we’re home alone. Naked.”

Of course I did. That kind came with all the orgasms I could handle.