Tempt (Take It Off) (5 page)

I searched furiously through the wreckage, my heart pounding and tears swimming in my
eyes. Surely she was still here. Surely life couldn’t be so cruel as to kill a woman twice.

I felt the jab of something sharp in my hand and I yelped, yanking it back and seeing blood. I wiped in on my shirt and kept on rummaging.

Nash searched alongside me, lifting up the heavier items that I didn’t have the muscle to move. Dread spread through my limbs the longer we looked and came up empty. I was about to completely lose it when Nash called out from behind. “Found it!”

I made a sound of relief and rushed over as he pulled the black suitcase from underneath a pile of junk. It was scuffed up and the fabric was lightly
shredded. He laid it down and I ripped at the zippers, my fingers just not being able to move fast enough. When I got it opened, I flung the lid back and stared down at the contents inside.

The urn was still in once piece. It was completely unharmed.

A single tear slid down my cheek as I lifted the container carefully, inspecting it and then hugging it close to my chest.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Nash.

He wrapped me and the urn in his arms and held me close while the strongest of my emotions rolled through me. I could bear to lose anything else to this crash except for this.

He pulled back and wiped at the tear on my cheek.
Then he looked at my hand and frowned. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m okay.”

He retrieved the first aid kit, and I scowled at him. “I’ve had enough stitches to last me a lifetime. If you plan on pulling anything out of that case other than a Band-Aid, I’m going to kick you.”

“So violent,” he said, grinning.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Will you consent to a little antibacterial cream as well?”

“Fine,” I grumbled and flung out my hand.

“I think we should clean this place up a bit or we
’re going to keep hurting ourselves. Maybe we can find some soda or some food. And maybe we can find an extra blanket or two to hang up over the part that’s missing.” He motioned toward the gaping hole that used to be the tail.

“I have some protein bars in my suitcase if we can find it.”

He nodded. “I’ll try to radio for help.”

As promised
, he applied a Band-Aid and then put away the kit. We worked together, cleaning up the debris, lining up a few of the stray seats against the wall and blocking the broken windows with whatever we could find.

My eyes strayed to the broken radio
. Regret burned the back of my throat. How different things would’ve been if we could just call someone. But there would be no calling for help.

But I did
manage to find my suitcase, and I squealed with joy. I had a toothbrush, a comb, and even some tiny bottles of shampoo and soap! I’d never been so excited over shampoo.

Nash managed to find three cans of soda, another water bottle
, and a couple bags of peanuts and pretzels and piled them in an extra chair. I added the box of Luna bars to the stash and the pack of gum I found in my suitcase. It wasn’t much, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.

By the time we were done, I was sweaty, thirsty
, and even dirtier.

“I have some bad news,” Nash said, coming out of the cockpit and looking at me grimly.

“What?” I asked, a sinking feeling in my stomach.

He held up a cell phone. A very broken and cracked cell phone.

“Was that yours?”

He nodded. “It’s useless.”

“I haven’t even found mine.”

“I didn’t find another either.”

The odds of one of our cells even getting any service here, if they worked, was slim to none anyway, so I tried not to take it too hard.

“I found the protein bars,” I said, holding up the box, trying to lighten the mood.

“God, I’m starving.”

He took the box out of my hands and looked at it. Then he looked back at me and lifted an eyebrow. “Nutrition for women?” he read off the front.

I grinned. “Don’t worry. If you start to grow boobs, I’ll lend you a bra.”

He gave me a wolfish smile. “Does that mean you wouldn’t be wearing one?”

Desire swirled low in my belly and for a few long moments, I stared at him, unable to say a word. Then I snapped out of it. “I found my suitcase,” I said dumbly. “I have extra.”

“Too bad,” he drawled, looking back at the box. “So why are these for women?”

I shrugged. “I think it’s because they’re high in folic acid and vitamin D. Those are vitamins that are especially good for women.”

“Chocolate chip cookie dough flavored,” he said. “I’ll eat anything flavored like a cookie, even if I start to grow boobs.”

I laughed. “They’re my favorite.”

“What do you say we take our dinner and only meal today out on the beach?”

I nodded. He opened the box and pulled out two bars with brown and blue wrappers and the words
Luna Protein
scrawled across the front. “These are tiny,” he grumped.

“
They fill me up.” I defended my snacks.

He snorted. “You’re tiny too.”

“I’m almost five-foot-seven!”

“I’m six
-three.”

“Take two,” I lamented
, realizing a single bar definitely wasn’t going to be enough for him.

He shook his head. “No way. We have to conserve this stuff.”

I nodded. He grabbed up a can of Coke and motioned for me to follow him. We made our way down to the sand in no time. The sun was still pretty high in the sky so I knew we had hours of daylight left.

We sat down side by side, facing the ocean
, and he handed me a bar. I tore open the wrapper, relieved to see only a little bit of the chocolate coating had melted onto the inside of the wrapper. I groaned when the chocolate hit my tongue. “So good,” I moaned.

“If you could eat anything in the world right now
, what would it be?” Nash asked me as he took a big bite of his bar.

“Hmmm. Veggie pizza
with the pan crust from Pizza Hut. That’s the thickest. And a chocolate milkshake.”

“A girl that knows what she wants.”

“What about you?”

“A huge cheeseburger piled high with all the fixings, onion rings, and a chocolate Coke.”

“A chocolate Coke?”

“Please tell me you’ve had it,” he said, stuffing the final bite of his dinner in his mouth.

“Never even heard of it.”

He fell back on the sand like he’d be
en shot.

I giggled. “What is it?
”

“It’s basically a fountain Coke with chocolate syrup swirled in it.”

“That doesn’t sound like it goes together,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“Silence
, woman!” he commanded. Then he gave me an ornery smile.

I rolled my eyes and
took another bite of my bar and suddenly felt guilty for eating it. His was gone and I knew he had to be starving.

“Open your mouth and close your eyes
, and you will get a big surprise,” I repeated the rhyme from my childhood.

“Do you have a dead bug in your pocket or something?”

I wagged my eyebrows. “Are you scared?”

Challenge
flared in his eyes and then he closed them and opened his mouth. I popped the rest of my uneaten bar into his waiting mouth. When his lips closed around it his eyes shot open and he sat up. He didn’t chew, just stared at me. “What the hell did you do that for?” he said around the mouthful of food.

“You shouldn’t talk with food in your mouth
,” I informed him.

He gave me a dark look.

“You need it more than I do. I’m fine.” In truth, I was starving too, but I was smaller and didn’t need as much as him.

He acted like he was going to spit it out into his hand. I grabbed his very impressive bicep. “Don’t you dare,” I warned. “That’s a waste of perfectly good food.”

He made a frustrated sound and then gave in and chewed it up. “Why did you do that!” he demanded when he was done.

I tilted my head to the side. “Because you saved my life.”

He snorted. “Honey, I crashed the plane.”

I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only reason it landed here instead of diving straight into the ocean and killing us both.”

“I didn’t do enough. I didn’t keep it up in the air.”

I reached out and covered my hand with his. He looked at our hands and then back at me. “When you realized we were going down, that it couldn’t be stopped
, do you remember what you did?”

“Tried not to shit my pants?” he guessed.

I smiled. “Well, thank goodness you didn’t. Then I’d be stuck smelling you.”

He snorted.

I turned serious again. “You covered my body with yours.” For some reason, that replayed over and over in my head—the weight of him pressing me down. The sound of his foreign tongue whispering to me softly… Maybe it hadn’t meant anything. Maybe it was just a kneejerk reaction on his part, but to me… to me it meant more than he would ever know. That moment was branded into my brain and my heart forever.

“It was the only thing I could think of,” he said, not brushing off what I
said. Something in my chest swelled just a little when those green eyes met mine. “I didn’t know any other way to keep you alive.”

“Even
if it meant you getting hurt,” I whispered.

How had we gotten so close? Our noses were almost touching. I could feel his warm, chocolate
-scented breath across my face. In that moment, I forgot we were stranded. I forgot I was filthy. That my head hurt and that we might never make it home. In that second when his gaze touched mine, we were just two people who were irrevocably drawn to each other. Two people sitting in a tropical paradise with the sound of the waves echoing around us and the hum of chemistry between us.

He
swallowed; I heard his saliva slide down his throat. “I didn’t do a very good job,” he said low.

The huskiness in his voice almost overshadowed his words. Almost.

“What do you mean?”

He reached out tentatively and touched around the
tender area where my stitches were. “You’re still the one that got hurt the most.”

“But you fixed me up.”

The corner of his mouth turned up.

He was going to kiss me.

I felt the pull between us so strongly that it took my breath.

He trailed his fingers down from my head, across my cheek
, and then traced the line beneath my bottom lip. Then he cleared his throat and pulled away.

I blinked rapidly,
shocked that he hadn’t followed through. My body screamed for him to come back.

“You need to drink this,” he said, his voice still husky. I knew he had to be as affected by me as I was by him. Or was that only wishful thinking? “The sugar will do you good.”

“Only if you drink some too.”

He nodded and popped the top on the can.

Brown, fizzy liquid sprayed up, making me squeal and lurch away. I looked back at Nash, who was still holding the can out away from him, with droplets of the sugary soda all over his arms and face.

I pressed a hand over my lips, trying to stop the giggle.

He glanced at me. A drop of soda dripped off his nose and he caught it with his tongue. I lost it. I laughed so hard I fell over in the sand.

“You think that’s funny, huh?” he said, not amused at all.

He turned away and my giggles died away. “I’m sorry,” I said, sitting up, reaching out for his shoulder.

He pounced on me. Literally turned and tackled me into the sand. Pinning me to the gro
und, he shook his head, his dark curls flinging droplets of soda onto my face. I squealed.

“Not so funny now, is it?” he said, rubbing his damp cheek across mine.

His lips brushed the corner of my mouth.

I froze, no longer able to laugh.

My stomach dropped and then started to dance around. He was literally on top of me, his body pressed along mine. Just the mere tease of his lips was enough to make my hands tremble and my knees weak.

He pulled back just a fraction of an inch, turned his head
, and stared down at me. I could barely read his expression because of the way the sun shone around his body like a halo, making him look like he was in the shadows.

But I didn’t need to see his expression.

Because something was pressing against my stomach. Something hard and urgent. Something that I had to make an effort not to wiggle against.

His mouth claimed mine. He literally stole every feeling I was experiencing and replaced them with only him. His kiss was so utterly consuming, so all
-encompassing, that I could do nothing but allow him to ravage my mouth, again and again.