“Good morning.”

Two simple words, but the way Thomas looks at me tells me so much more as his eyes explore me. I’m not naked. I’ve pulled a tank top on over my bikini top, and I swear I’ve slathered so much sunscreen on my arms and face that I must look like a ghost, but Thomas’s eyes tell me that he doesn’t mind in the least.

“Good morning,” I reply, putting my backpack over my shoulder. “How’d you sleep?”

“I’ll be honest, upgrading beds is on my agenda here,” Thomas says with a stretch. “Seriously, futons are not my thing. Come on, let’s get some breakfast. You look lovely, by the way.”

“My Russian roots are going to do a number on me tomorrow. I’m gonna be sunburned neon pink tonight,” I say with a laugh as we leave the resort. “What is for breakfast, by the way?”

“Just down the road, you’ll see,” Thomas reassures me. “And what other roots do you have, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not at all. According to what I was told in the little bits I remember, the Appleman side of me is mostly English. So you’ve got pale and paler. How about you?”

“American mutt, from what I know,” Thomas says casually. “Honestly, I sort of treat heritage like zodiac signs. It’s an interesting factoid, but it doesn’t define us as people. You can toss it out as a conversation gambit, but it doesn’t define you. Even if you’re from the Motherland.”

“Hey, I’m mostly joking—” I start but stop when Thomas takes my hand, entwining our fingers.

“That’s culture, not DNA. You can be proud of that and what your father taught you. You’ve taken the good and hopefully dropped the rest. At least, I’m hoping you aren’t planning on wearing a babushka or stuffing me full of borscht?”

“Gotta admit, I hate borscht and my headwear is more headband than babushka.”

Thomas grins, giving my hand a little squeeze. “Good. Here’s breakfast.”

It’s a fruit stand, and the selection’s stunning. I don’t know what the vendor offers me, but as I bite into the softball-sized golden fruit, sweet and sour and utter deliciousness roll over my tongue and I find myself gorging myself on whatever it is as Thomas hands me another piece.

“Mmm . . . this is like the food of the gods.”

“Isn’t it?” he asks, biting into a green thing that has a deep chromatic red flesh inside. He hums happily, his eyes twinkling before he offers me a bite, and I eat from his hand, licking the juices from his thumb with a flirty look.

He brushes the fruit over my lips, and I suck it for a sultry moment before biting into it with a chomp. “Delicious,” I say, grinning at the quick change of his expression from arousal to fear. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite into you that way, at least not anywhere important.”

We laugh and start off walking, exploring the island. There’s a lot to find, starting with the small town with its tropical slice of Japanese life, complete with a seeming unending plethora of convenience stores, vending machines, posters adorned with cartoon characters, and other little things that just sort of pop out of nowhere.

“I know I sound like a total tourist right now, but that’s just strange,” Thomas says as we pass a construction site. Instead of regular signs to warn people, the plastic temporary fence posts themselves are shaped like a man in a construction helmet, his hand up warningly, a bubble coming out of his head to say something in Japanese. I can only guess it means Caution, or Warning, or maybe Stay the Fuck Out.

“It does get the message across though,” I point out as we swerve around the metal poles. “What made you look here to invest, anyway? It’s a bit beyond your usual scope, though I know you’ve invested beyond Roseboro, obviously.”

“Because of the unrealized potential,” Thomas admits. “Well, someone realized it, hence the resort we’re looking at purchasing, but they weren’t able to make it a reality. I’ve heard that the owner is a motivated seller.”

“What’s his weak point? Financial? Health?”

“Not quite. His daughter and grandchildren live in London, and he’s ready to retire and be closer to them,” Thomas replies.

I nod, setting aside business as we keep walking. We don’t push the pace. We just wander, and after a light lunch at a noodle shop in town, we head back toward the resort, exploring the fifty acres of land there. As we do, the afternoon heat starts to soak in and I strip off my tank top once we reach the shaded privacy of the walking paths that ring the property.

Thomas grins and pulls off his own T-shirt, exposing his chiseled muscular torso and leaving him in just some board shorts. “Need some more sunscreen?”

“Nicely played, though not exactly subtle,” I tease, taking the bottle and rubbing a fresh layer onto my thighs, calves, chest, and belly.

“And you think you’re being sly stripping down to a bikini top that shows me damn near everything? You started it.” The way he looks at me leaves me feeling a lot more than the tropical heat, and as I hand him the bottle, I know my nipples are starting to tighten inside my top.

“Think you can behave?” I challenge.

His hands on my back are thrilling, rubbing lotion into my flesh while at the same time kneading my shoulders, lighting up my body, and leaving me glancing around to see if we’re alone.

His hands drift lower, to the curve of my spine, and I almost want him to drop below the waistband of my tiny denim shorts to grab ahold of my ass.

“I can behave . . . when I want to,” Thomas purrs in my ear, a thumb rubbing up my side and sending a delicious tickle straight to my heart. “But do you want me to behave?”

“For . . . for now,” I admit, turning around and putting my hands on his chest. “You know this is hard, right?”

“Getting there,” he jokes. But when he sees I’m not being salacious, he asks, “How so?”

I hum as I run my fingers through the light hair on his chest. “Because I want this, but there’s a part of me that is still worried. Nobody is saying anything, at least not anymore, but I can see it in their eyes. And I don’t want the reputation as the girl who slept her way to the top. I want to earn my spot because I deserved it. Because I do.”

“I agree,” Thomas says, placing his hands over mine. “Mia, of course work’s going to play a role in all this because that’s part of who we are—a brilliant analyst and a dashing CEO.” He smiles and touches his forehead to mine. “But I do want us to be . . . us as well.”

It a good answer, and one that I can respect. “I want us to be us too.”

It feels like we both just made a major confession, or perhaps a promise. Our version of one, a vow to not change each other and to accept each other as we are in all our geeky, scary, bossy, analytical ways.

I look up at Thomas through my lashes, taking a deep breath. “So, what do we call this? Izzy said you were my boyfriend, but that just seems so . . . not enough.” I’m still analyzing, labeling, and he smiles.

“The name doesn’t matter. The feelings do,” he declares, wrapping his arms around me. In the shaded privacy of the heavy forest, I lean against his warm body, feeling Thomas’s aura envelop me, making me hum in happiness.

“How do always know just what to say?” I murmur, rubbing my hand over his forearm and biting my lip as I feel his muscles tremble.

“I tell myself that everything in the universe is in balance. For every dark, there’s a light. For every luxury, there is a sacrifice. And for every beast . . . there is a princess. And I just say what I think my princess would like to hear.”

His words strike me to my very heart, and I look back at him, somehow loving that he called me his princess even though on some level, it pisses me off that I like it because I’m not that girl. But I’m going to take a lesson from Papa’s rulebook and let it go and just enjoy the endearment without judging myself. I’m about to press back into his shorts when we hear voices, and we step apart, keeping our hands locked as we keep going. I don’t know what trails we’re following. I don’t care. I just trust in Thomas.

Suddenly, we’re headed downhill, and the jungle opens up, revealing another unexpected scene from paradise that seems to dot this island like gems to be discovered, one after another.

I gasp as I look down on the sheltered lagoon below us. We’re on the eastern side of island, and the hills below us slope down to a narrow pristine beach.

By some miracle of erosion, the entrance to the lagoon is covered by a natural stone archway, leading to a pool that’s not much larger than a small, deep pond . . . but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in utter beauty.

Thomas leads me down the path, his grin audible in his eager breathing. There’s a bounce to his step, a joy and lightness to him that I’ve never seen before. It’s another view into the man Thomas could be . . . and the man he is . . . and the man I realize I’m falling for.

Falling? Fallen? It’s an analysis I’ll have to do later because for now, I’m living in this moment, enjoying this beautiful day with him.

Getting closer to the crystal-clear water, we both freeze, watching fish swim in front of us. The schools of tropical creatures are so colorful, I almost feel like I’m in a pet store or in one of those BBC nature documentaries.

Slowly, we sit down on the sand, just watching until Thomas looks over at me and grins. “Thank you. For giving me a chance.”

I lean in, cupping his face as I sense the meaning of so much behind his words that I can’t imagine he said lightly. He doesn’t have to question, and maybe that’s the funny thing. He’s spent so much time being this hard-driving neo-Alpha perfectionist that not many want to get close, if he’d even let them.

“Tommy—” I start before a rumble booms overhead, and both of us look up to see storm clouds coming in quickly over the mountains. I curse the sky as the first drops fall. “The Motherland is not amused!”

He chuckles, and we get to our feet and I cast a final look at the lagoon, reminding myself that this forest and this beach bore witness to the leap Thomas and I both made today. It feels special, like a secret only we share, and someday, I want to come back here.

We get back on the path and hurry back, the trip up much harder than the one down. The rain hits hard just as we’re cresting the hill. The trees help some, but in less than five minutes, both of us are soaked to the skin.

“Well, this is why I said swimsuit!” Thomas says while we take temporary shelter underneath a tree. “How are you doing?”

“I can’t see shit!” I complain, pulling my glasses off. “Here, nearsighted is better than blind as a bat. Can you put this in my backpack?” I hand him my frames and turn so he can unzip the bag to slip them inside.

“Here, hand it to me,” he says, taking the bag. “The straps are already rubbing you pretty raw.”

I look down, seeing the faint red marks, and help him adjust the straps to fit over his broad back. It’s actually funny and cute, seeing Thomas’s muscular frame carrying a miniature pink backpack.

“I’m so taking a picture when we get back,” I tease him, wiping my eyes before pulling my hair back over my shoulder. “You look cute in pink.”

“And you look hot in white,” Thomas says, his voice full of heat as he looks at my bikini top which might as well be translucent by this point. He pulls me in close and kisses me, but before we can do more, lightning splits the sky and thunderbolts pierce the clouds and crack almost directly over our heads. It’s so close that both of us jump, and I can feel the hair on the back of my neck trying to stand up despite the deluge.

“Should we make a run for it?” I ask.

“I think we’re safer under cover,” Thomas says, and we watch as the path turns to mud before our eyes. We go deeper under the heavily fronded palm tree, letting the leaves create a semi-shelter against the torrent.

And suddenly, we’re kissing, ravenous for each other. I don’t care that we’re outside. I don’t care about the rain or my soaked feet. I don’t care that the drips coming through the imperfect foliage roof are sending chills down my spine, because Thomas’s hands are equally hot, cold and heat blending inside me and sending my heart racing.

Thomas reaches up, rubbing a thumb over my nipple through my soaked bikini top, and I moan, reaching down to cup the huge thick heat of his cock, tugging at the drawstring of his shorts.

“Fuck me,” I moan in his ear. “Right here, right now.”

“I can’t wait to be inside you,” he whispers, pinching my nipple before sliding his hands around to cup my ass through my shorts, kneading my cheeks and making me moan louder. “You’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” I whisper, tugging the Velcro fly of his shorts open and wrapping my fingers around the warm girth of his cock. He’s huge, masculine, and thick, with the flared mushroom of his head pressing into my fist as I stroke back, making him gasp. “All of me. And right now, you’re mine.”

I emphasize my point with a swipe of my thumb over his head, collecting the pre-cum there and spreading it down his shaft.

“Always,” he groans. “Not now, always.”

He pulls me to him, my hand and his cock pressed between us, and he grabs my ass with a punishing grip as I buck my hips into him. His fingers drift toward my rear cleft, and I nod, whimpering when I feel a single digit stroke down my ass and over my hole, thrilling and naughty.

“There?”

“Even there,” I promise, pumping his cock with my hand. “Do you want it now?”

Thomas’s finger probes, but he withdraws, shaking his head. “Not yet. Turn around.”

I nod, letting go of his cock and pressing my shoulder against the tree. I feel his hands on the waistband of my shorts, but out of nowhere, a horn blares.

Thomas pulls back, quickly tucking his cock back in his shorts. “What the fuck?”

“We were worried! Went looking for you!” the voice calls, and out of the rain, a man appears. It’s the same resort worker who picked us up from the dock. I think he’s probably the only guy besides the owner of the resort who speaks any English, and he’s grinning widely while I hurriedly try to hide behind Thomas and unzip my backpack to grab my tank top. Everything’s a matted mess, and the first thing I get out is Thomas’s shirt, but I don’t care. I yank it over my head while Thomas shelters me.

“How’d you find us?” Thomas asks, and the man smiles widely.

“Saw the pink bag in the distance!” he says, and I’m struck with the insane coincidence that I was just about to have sex, outdoors, in the middle of a rainstorm, and it was interrupted because somehow, the guy driving around looking for us saw my bright pink nylon bag hanging from Thomas’s back right before he was about to get my shorts down.

Of all the fucking luck.

Thomas gives me a wry smile as we follow the man, and both of us are surprised when we realize how close we were to the main road. At least the heater in the truck is blasting, chasing the chill from my body a little bit.

“We still have the rest of the afternoon,” Thomas whispers in my ear. “My room’s more private than yours.”

And I feel a warmth rush through me that has nothing to do with the truck’s heater.

Unfortunately for us, as soon as we step out of the vehicle, Randy’s there along with Kenny, who’re looking thankful that we’re back.

“It’s getting nasty out there, Thomas. I’m glad you’re safe,” Randy says, a hand on her chest. “Uhm, I hate to bring even more bad news, but Randall Towlee’s been calling non-stop.”

“What the hell does he want?” Thomas asks, confusion marring his face.

“Something about the hospital project, he says it’s important that you talk to him immediately.”

Thomas turns to me, a regretful twist on his lips. “Looks like work calls.”