Wicked Nights (Men of Discovery Island 2)

Nope. She suspected it was something else.

There had been plenty of island gossip about Cal’s last mission. Things had gone wrong, and his team had lost a man, or so she’d heard. He’d come home, but maybe he’d brought some mental baggage with him. Or he’d been injured and hadn’t wanted to tell anyone—again, just like Cal. She looked back toward the house. She could ask him.

In fact, she’d tried.

He’d shot her down. Deflected her with a night of hot sex.

The decoy routine alone was almost reason enough to ask him again before she started jumping to conclusions.

Or was tempted to read anything else into their night. Hot sex did not a relationship make, and she couldn’t afford to forget, not with the Fiesta contract on the line.

* * *

CAL DIDN’T GIVE up control—ever—and he’d certainly never played bondage games. Or any kind of games. Piper challenged those rules, just like she challenged everything else. Her wicked bet had him out of control. And the problem wasn’t just the sexual chemistry that made it hard to focus on anything but luring Piper back to bed—it was their fundamentally different approaches to diving. To life. To everything.

He did plenty of thinking while he showered, per Her Highness’s royal command. He wasn’t stupid enough to refuse the offer. These old cabins had notoriously flaky water heaters and he preferred hot water. Piper might have returned to the island two years ago—thank you island gossip—but she’d clearly been doing some redecorating since her arrival. The small bathroom had a new ceramic-tile floor and a sea-foam-green coat of paint. Her selection of shampoos and soaps were correspondingly girlie, and he either tolerated smelling like a fruit bowl when he got done or went dirty.

Using her shampoo caused trouble in the wanting-Piper department. She’d specified one night but, as he squirted apple-scented shampoo into his hand and lathered up, parts of him wanted to abandon the shower and go after her. Maybe she’d have downed enough coffee to shake the grumpiness and make her amenable to going back to bed. He didn’t know what she wanted. Hell. He didn’t know what he wanted, just that the Fiesta Cruise Lines folks had put both of them in an untenable position and he didn’t see any way out of it.

She wanted to provide resort dives to new divers, while he wanted to focus on technically challenging dives. His business plan would offer dives for the select and the best of the best—while she believed everyone should have a chance to slip underwater and see. This wasn’t kindergarten. Not everyone left with a gold sticker and a trophy, but convincing Piper would take a miracle. She was one of the most stubborn people he’d ever met.

Of course, her willfulness also extended to bed, and he had no complaints about that at all. He was just starting to heat back up again remembering last night when the water temperature proved the plumbing hadn’t improved with time. The pipes groaned, wheezed and then drenched him in icy water. The unexpected cold shower took care of his erection, so he got out and toweled off, dropping his used towel into the empty linen basket. After pulling his clothes back on, he moved out in search of Piper, who’d clearly bolted with no intention of returning. She wasn’t in the bedroom or the kitchen, although both rooms bore clear signs of her passing, since Piper wasn’t a tidy person.

She’d accomplished her mission in the kitchen. The room smelled of coffee beans and fresh brew, although there was no Piper. He poured himself a cup from her Mr. Coffee and cleaned up the damage. There was sugar on the counter, along with an open carton of half-and-half, a partially eaten muffin, which couldn’t possibly sustain life, and a dirty spoon. It wasn’t hard to figure out where she’d gone. Not only was the porch door open, but she’d left a little trail of disaster behind her, including an abandoned newspaper, muffin crumbs and the coffee cup sitting on an end table by the windows. Since the cup was still warm and therefore presumably fresh carnage, he snagged it, because she clearly was the kind of woman who, morning person or not, needed her caffeine in order to be civilized. He wasn’t going to push his luck.

When he stepped outside, she was parked in an Adirondack chair down on the scrap of beach. Little waves teased her flip-flops, but she didn’t seem to mind that her toes were definitely getting wet or that the ocean had attained a balmy fifty-five degrees.

He nudged her shoulder with his hip and offered her the cup. She traded him a smile for the mug, so he was already in the black for the day. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected after her sudden flight from the bed.

“So,” she said, taking a slurp from her mug, which had him wincing. “What’s your plan for the day?”