The Perfect Gift

I’m supposed to be securing the future of my family with a payoff from a billionaire.

How could I ever have agreed to such a thing?

What will I do now that I’ve fallen for the man behind the serious veneer?

My instinct tells me I should come clean, but Lincoln isn’t a man that trusts easily. If I tell him about the plan hatched by my sisters, a plan I agreed to, he’ll hate me no doubt. But he’s given me no indication that he plans to stay on the island beyond a week. The man is a certified workaholic and he’s going to return to New York at some point, while I remain here. With my sisters. If I let them down, they will make my life a living hell.

Conflict is winding its way into my gut when I hear a loud splash, a few feet away.

I open my eyes under water and see Lincoln encapsulated in a cloud of bubbles.

Shirtless.

My womanhood squeezes tight like a fist and I almost drop the coconuts.

This is the first time I’ve seen him without a shirt and oh my goodness, he’s built like some ancient warrior. If I used his abdomen as a slide, it would be like riding a roller coaster. That’s how defined those muscles are—and his arms. Lord, I think he could tip a phone book in half without a single grunt.

I was already on cloud nine over Lincoln letting himself touch me, for trusting me to be the one he overcomes his affliction for, but knowing this is the man who I brought to a climax with my butt? I think my temperature could heat this whole lagoon.

Lincoln and I lock eyes underwater.

His fury would have made me catch my breath if I had any left. But I’m running short of oxygen, so I kick to the surface. I’m only a few feet from shore, so I throw the coconuts onto the grassy embankment and wait for Lincoln to surface.

A second later, he does, a couple of feet away, his broad shoulders cresting the top of the blue-green water, moisture dripping from the ends of his hair. Jaw clenched.

He’s extremely angry at me, that’s easy to see, but I’m too spellbound to care.

“You look so handsome,” I blurt. “With the waterfall behind you and—”

“You jumped, Nova,” he shouts, plowing a hand through his soaked hair. “You will never do that again. You didn’t even warn me.”

“The happiness made me do it.”

Lincoln opens his mouth to shout more, but he stops short, brow furrowing. “Happiness.”

“Yes.”

His voice is much more silent when he says, “I…made you that way?”

“Uh-huh.” My smile is so wide, it’s starting to hurt my face. “And you jumped, too. You touched me and you jumped off a cliff. You’re learning how to let go and relax, Lincoln.”

The man is looking at me like I’m crazy. “There was nothing relaxing about watching you jump off that edge.”

“If I promise to warn you next time—”

“Next time?”

“Will you tell me why you don’t like being touched?”

Lincoln tenses, his gaze growing far-off for a moment, before it returns to me. “I’d like you on the shore, please,” he says gruffly. “Where it’s safe.”

“Okay,” I whisper, swimming past him to the embankment. I feel his eyes on my back, my bottom, my thighs as I climb out. Though I pick up the coconuts with the intention of cracking them open for our breakfast, I can’t help but watch Lincoln lift himself out of the water, his thick triceps flexing, water sluicing through the dark pelt of hair on his chest.

Daddy.

The act of thinking that one single word makes my clit throb.

I’m so over-the-top breathless, I turn away so I don’t embarrass myself. Kneeling down, I lift the first coconut over my head and smash it down on a rock, creating an opening on the rough, brown side. Sensing Lincoln approach at my side, I hand him the cracked nut with an encouraging smile. “Drink.”

He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You first.”

“Very well,” I say primly, cracking my own coconut. Then I tilt it a few inches above my mouth and let the sweet nectar dribble onto my tongue. There’s so much of it, I can’t swallow fast enough and it drips down my chin, onto my breasts. If I was alone, as usual, there would be nothing odd about the act of drinking the coconut juice, but with Lincoln watching me, his chest moving in quick heaves, I feel like I’m giving a naughty performance. My body reacts to how much he’s enjoying it, my back arching, my tongue licking to collect excess drops.

“Goddammit, Nova,” he grates. “I better be awake. You better not be a fucking dream.”

What does he mean? “I’m not a dream. I’m real.” Standing above me as he is, the sun outlines his head, making him look like a shadowed god, especially with his amber eyes shooting sparks at me. “You seem like a dream to me, too,” I whisper.