I RUN BAREFOOT THROUGH THE resort with my emotions in a stir.
“You don’t put your life on the line for a plaything. You don’t risk six years of work, a house full of people, and your own heart for a plaything.” His words echo resoundingly.
Before I know it, I’m standing in front of bungalow number forty-six, knocking—more like pounding—on the door. Jett, please be here. I urgently wipe away the tears from under my eyes, black streaks staining my fingers from my watery mascara.
“Hang on!” I hear him shout from behind the door. Thank God! A moment later, it swings open to a half-naked Jett. I nearly choke on my tears. “Ellie?” He looks at me with a perplexed expression. It’s half-confused, half-concerned.
Holy shit. I can’t respond because my jaw has unhinged from my face. Jett is ripped, like completely shredded.
“Ellie?” he repeats again, but I can’t draw my eyes away from his body, his glinting nipple ring, or the brightly colored tattoos running over his collarbone and down his chest like a wave crashing over the shoreline. All the time Jett and I spent together, I never so much as saw him without a shirt, and now I sort of feel shortchanged. He saw me naked every day and deprived me of the view in return.
“See something you like, sweet thing?” Jett asks flirtatiously, grabbing onto the doorframe above his head. The cuts of his muscles rippling, becoming more defined.
Um, hell yes.
“Ahhhh . . .” I finally look up into his eyes and they are dancing with humor, and possibly something else. Something hot and completely forbidden.
“What are you doing here, Ellie? Shouldn’t you be trying to reconcile with Kayne?” he asks suggestively. Oh, how little does he know. Kayne and I are nowhere near reconciling. Like not even a little.
“We got into a fight.” I bite my lip.
“A fight?”
“I threw wine in his face.”
Jett frowns. “I see.”
“I’m so confused.”
“About what?” he asks concerned.
“Everything,” I answer exasperated.
“Oh boy.” Jett releases the doorframe and steps outside. “Let’s talk.”
I nod.
Jett and I sit on the side of the wooden walkway, our feet dangling over the edge. I fiddle with my fingers silently not knowing where to start.
“Ellie.” Jett takes one of my hands in his, and I tighten my grip. I feel grounded when I’m with him. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I heave a sigh, looking over at him. You know it’s really not fair to the rest of the men in this world. Jett is too pretty and nice and intuitive for his own good. He has me gawking like a fool at his cut muscles and light eyes accentuated in the moonlight.
“What’s going on?” I repeat. “Great question.”
I gnaw on my lip, hard, nearly drawing blood as I try to figure out where to start.
“Um?” I struggle, trying to pinpoint exactly where everything went wrong. Probably when I got on the plane.
“Okay,” Jett senses my dilemma, “let’s start at the very beginning. How did you feel when you saw him again?”
“Confused.”
“Confused how?”
“I didn’t know how to act,” I admit ridiculously. “I wasn’t sure if I should kneel at his feet or spit in his face. I don’t know who to be around him.”
“Ellie,” Jett’s voice pitches. “You don’t need to be anyone but yourself. That’s who Kayne wants.”
“Myself?” I scoff. “I barely know who that is. I’m nothing but a twenty-three-year-old college freshman trying to figure out her life. That’s who he wants?”
“Sweet thing,” Jett squeezes my hand, “I’ll let you in on a little secret, we are all just twenty-three-year-old college freshman trying to figure out our lives. Kayne especially.”
I give him a skeptical look.
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Ellie. Kayne is in the same place you are. He’s just as confused, and borderline desperate.”
“Desperate?”
“Mmm hmm. Desperate to get you back.”
“What if I can’t . . .”
“Forgive him?”
“Trust him.”
Jett studies me like a science experiment, those turquoise-blue eyes poking me like probes.
“Trust him not to lie to you?”
I look up at the stars and take a deep breath. “In a way. I’m afraid he’s always going to see me as an object. I’m afraid his feelings aren’t real, and I’m afraid if I open myself up I’m just going to get hurt again.”
Jett puts his arm around my shoulders comforting me. “I get it, Ellie. I do. You and Kayne have a very sordid past. Your fears are justified, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that Kayne’s feelings are real.” He lifts my chin so I’m looking at him in the eyes. I’m convinced they are the most genuine eyes on the planet. “Let me tell you something about Kayne. Trusting women is a hard limit for him.”
I sit up straight, surprised. “Why?”
“It stems from his upbringing. I’ll let him give you the gory details. You should hear it from him anyway. It’s his story to tell. But I can say confidently, with you, he’s shattering all his insecurities. And it’s making him vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable?” I question skeptically. Are we talking about the same alpha male who stripped me naked, forced me to submit, and controlled my entire existence without one bat of an eyelash?
“Yes,” Jett confirms, “and that’s a very dangerous place for Kayne.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes him lose control.”
“Control of what?”
“His life.”
“Oh.” I frown.
“Ellie, let me paint you a picture to try and help you understand.
Imagine what it would be like to live your entire life in the dark, and then one day suddenly experience the sun. To feel its warmth and bask in its light, to feed off it and become dependent on it. And then in a flash have it ripped away leaving you in the cold dark place you once were.
“Kayne lived in the dark. And then you came. You were his sun, and his light, and his warmth. The moment you left, he was thrust back into the darkness. An abysmal place where he drowns in the demons of his past. He needs the light now more than ever. He needs you. Don’t doubt the sincerity of his feelings. They’re more real than you and me, and the air that we breathe. Trust me, I would never lie to you about something as delicate as Kayne’s feelings.
“He’ll never intentionally hurt you. Of that, I’m sure. The man is more loyal than a dog. But I’ll be honest, Kayne is intense and sometimes hard to handle, especially when his emotions get involved. That’s why he was so over the top when it came to you, in all aspects,” he insinuates, and I nod, understanding. “He wanted you to feel what he was feeling. And it was the only way he knew how to show it.”
My cheeks suddenly heat. The man does know what he’s doing between the sheets. I can still feel every orgasm like they were branded between my legs.
“Ellie?” Jett wiggles my hand.
“Hmmm?”
“Where did you go?”
I feel my cheeks burn brighter.
Jett eyes me knowingly. “Oh, I know. Taking a little trip down memory lane?”
“There is nothing little about it,” I smile.
Jett rolls his eyes playfully. “Incorrigible.”
“Definitely,” I confirm with a shameless smile, and we both laugh.
“It’s good to see you smile.”
“It feels good to smile.” I sigh, relaxed for the first time since I stepped foot on this island.
“How about you go give Kayne one of those smiles, and put him out of his misery.”
“Maybe I should let him suffer just a little while longer,” I joke.
“Ellie, Kayne has been suffering his whole life. He needs some peace, and you’re it.”
“You really know how to work a girl over.” I elbow him.
“And proud of it.” Jett kisses me on the cheek then hauls me to my feet. “Where do you think Kayne learned it from? I taught him everything he knows,” Jett whispers in my ear, sending chills down my spine.
“Everything?” I question.
Jett nods sternly. His aqua eyes so bright they’re crackling like live wires.
Holy shit. I’m suddenly overheating from just the mere thought of what Kayne and Jett are capable of.
“Now, go get your man.” Jett smacks me on the ass. “I know he’s waiting for you. Probably has a search party out right now.”
“Jett, you’re so dramatic.”
He shoots me a deadpan look.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.”
Oh, shit. My nerves re-emerge with a vengeance.
“Think he’ll forgive me for throwing wine in his face?” It’s a rhetorical question.
“Probably, but you can always make it up to him.”
“How?”
“Do you remember the conversation we had when I told you I know what all men like? And you so colorfully answered a blowjob?”
“Yes.”
He pops his eyebrows at me.
“Ugh, guys are such cavemen.”
“Perhaps, but it works every time,” he smiles widely, “do you want me to walk you back to your bungalow?”
“No, I think I can manage,” I smirk.
“Okay. Good. Now, if we’re finished, I have to go club a beautiful redhead and drag her to bed.”
I roll my eyes.
Cavemen. Definitely cavemen.