Temptation Island Read online

  Soon, I was lost among the gauzy panels. Pushing through the fabric, I headed right, trying to find my way.

  A shadowy figure, obscured by the filmy fabric, stood on the opposite side of the gauze panel in front of me. Gasping softly, I squinted, trying to make out the face, trying to see through the fabric.

  “Icarus?” I asked. “Is that—“

  Strong arms encircled me from behind, startling me, but instead of flinching or struggling to twist away, I stood still, my heart slamming.

  “Looks like everything is okay in here,” he whispered, his lips close to my ear, his deep baritone resonating through me, and I felt a dull throbbing between my legs. “But I need to check the back room. Make sure no bums are using the place to sleep off a bender.”

  “Okay …” I said, wondering how he’d managed to slip behind me so quickly when, seconds before, I could have sworn he’d been standing on the other side of the panel.

  “Will you come with me?”

  “Sure,” I said, cringing at the strange, high-pitched squeak in my voice. I thought I heard him chuckle softly as his arms slipped away, and then he stood next to me, taking my hand. The throbbing increased when I saw he’d removed his coat, revealing muscles barely contained by the white dress shirt he wore.

  Icarus guided me through a passageway and into another room. After passing through another hallway, we stepped over the threshold and into a large room dominated by a king-sized canopy bed, draped in mosquito netting.

  “Well, there doesn’t seem to be anyone in here,” I said, heart thundering, terrified by what might happen next, and yet curious and even excited.

  “No one except us,” he said, moving to stand in front of me.

  I swallowed again but not for fear this time. A burgeoning lust erupted within me, so intense I was afraid I might not be able to control it, afraid the feeling might compel me to do things I wasn’t sure I should do, irrational things. And yet, hadn’t I come to St. Mateo to be wild and decadent, not chaste and modest? I’d agreed to come to the Heliconia Hotel so I could live out my most erotic fantasies with good-looking, sexy men.

  Like Icarus, who was staring at me as though I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and all he wanted to do in the world was make love to me.

  Which obviously wasn’t true, I thought, forcing myself to be cynical.

  Icarus was probably a master at enticing and entrancing women like me. Women who had allowed anxiety to damn near ruin their careers. Women who needed to get their mojo back in order to get their lives on track.

  “It’s a little warm in here, don’t you think?” he asked, unbuttoning his dress shirt and then unfastening the cuff links. He took his shirt off, and I ogled him without realizing it, enjoying the show, marveling at his muscles and how broad his shoulders were and how he towered over me. When he unbuttoned his pants, I turned from him and stared at the bed, my heart racing. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see him naked. A moment later, I felt him standing close behind me, and figuring that he had no clothes on, I trembled and my heart beat wildly. Part of me wanted to run for my life. Another part wanted to allow the fantasy to play out as the hotel had obviously intended it to. The story line was fairly simple, I surmised. Woman comes to island and gets spectacularly banged by her hot chauffeur. It made me excited just thinking about it. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live out the fantasy. I didn’t know if I could …

  Icarus took off my sundress, pushing the thin straps from my shoulders. The flowing, A-line dress dropped to the floor, and I stepped out of it, shivering despite the balmy atmosphere in the bungalow. As he reached around and unhooked my bra, I stiffened as his fingers brushed my breasts, and my nipples immediately hardened. The pink lace bra sailed across the room and landed in the seat of a chair next to a small round table. My panties would be next, I knew, and I didn’t know whether to prepare myself or protest, but during my mental debate, Icarus placed his hands on my hips and then inserted his fingers beneath the waistband of the matching bikini-cut underwear. Paralyzed by a jolt of lust, I shivered, feeling his hands trail down my legs as he slid my panties down until they ended in a little pink pool around my ankles. Gently, he lifted my right foot, so I could step out of the underwear, and then my left foot.

  He picked up the panties and tossed them onto the chair, and then just like that, I was completely naked.

  I felt both embarrassed and liberated. Physically, I had nothing to be ashamed of; in high school and college, I had run cross country, and though I wasn’t the most dedicated athlete, I hadn’t dropped the fitness routine. I still ran six miles five days of the week. Naturally, my frame was slender, but I had nice curves and cleavage that men paid attention to. Still, I wasn’t feeling entirely confident.

  Skittish, and wary about what Icarus thought of my body, I decided to crawl onto the bed. I felt something huge and heavy settling next to me. Icarus had joined me in the bed. Still worried about facing him, I flattened my body, lying on my stomach, with my face pressed against the soft, downy pillow.

  Gently, he turned me over onto my back. Moving onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow, he stared at me. His whiskey-colored eyes roamed my body, his gaze so intense I swore I could feel it, and when his eyes dropped below my navel, the throbbing made me gasp softly, and I felt an urgent need to arch my hips, an urgent need to be filled completely.

  His hand landed on my cheek, his fingers caressing and then trailing along my jawline and chin before moving to my mouth. Parting my lips with his thumb, he lowered his head toward mine.

  “Wait ... “ I said, panicked.

  He stopped, arching a brow seductively.

  “I don’t want to …” I stammered. “I mean, I want to but ...”

  “Not with me?”

  “Not yet …” I clarified. “I don’t want to right now, I mean.”

  I wasn’t sure what I meant or what I wanted. Everything seemed to be happening too fast. And even though I had been told, or warned, it now seemed to me that my fantasies would start immediately, per the letter from the hotel, I wasn’t ready to start the fantasy, not just yet. It felt too soon. I needed a moment to prepare. More than a moment, really. Forever, I thought. I needed forever to get myself together. Or maybe never, I amended. Maybe never was how long it would take.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No,” I blurted out, feeling foolish and confused. “I mean, yes. I think. I don’t know, I mean …”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Let’s just take our time and see what happens. Everything is all about what you want, remember?”

  I nodded, remembering that it was my fantasy. Supposedly. Although, honestly, I had never actually fantasized about having sex with a limo driver, so I wasn’t quite sure why the hotel had thought I would enjoy this story line. I wasn’t really complaining. I didn’t know if I was enjoying myself either.

  I tried to remember I’d come to St. Mateo to revive, or maybe resurrect, the woman I had been before losing three high-profile cases, but maybe I’d been fooling myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have allowed Lisa to talk me into coming to this place. Maybe I didn’t know what to do. Maybe I did know, deep down, that sex wasn’t going to solve anything. This trip to paradise was a misguided reaction to the deplorable state of my once meteoric career. What I really needed was another chance to successfully litigate a high-profile case.

  Closing my eyes, I let out a small sigh.

  Icarus’s lips brushed against mine, and when I gasped, his tongue slid into my mouth, slow and sensuous and strangely as though it belonged there, as though he had been waiting to kiss me. Eagerly, I opened my mouth to give him more access. I slipped my tongue between his lips as I wound one arm around his neck and the other around his back, kissing him greedily, like a parched woman, swirling my tongue around his in a desperate frenzy.

  Without warning, he broke the kiss, and I moaned in protest, but his eyes communicated he had more in mind for me.

  A moment later, he
pressed his mouth against my forehead. His lips trailed along my hairline, and then he brushed his mouth across my closed eyelids. After a quick peck on the nose, which was playful enough to make both of us smile, he trailed a line of blistering kisses along my cheek and jaw and then behind my ear and down to my neck.

  The throbbing between my legs had escalated to an urgent clenching, and it was all I could do not to slip my fingers inside myself and rock against my own hand, and I might have, but I knew it would be so much better if I was patient and allowed the fantasy to run its course.

  Icarus dragged his lips across my throat and then moved down to my collarbone and continued on to my shoulder and down my arm to my elbow, wrist, and palm. Taking my hand, he pressed his mouth against my lifeline and then kissed each fingertip.

  Taking my other hand, he reversed his order, starting with the fingertip kisses and then brushing his lips against my palm before kissing the inside of my wrist and then trailing his kisses up my arm, past my elbow, and to my shoulder. From my shoulder, he moved to my breasts, taking one nipple in his mouth, licking and flicking his tongue across it while caressing my other breast with his fingers and hand.

  The sucking and tugging on my nipples was driving me insane, making it almost impossible for me to keep my hips still. His mouth left my breasts and moved down to my abdomen, and then his lips trailed even lower until he was inches from my navel. But, then he changed course and he trailed his tongue diagonally, down to my left hip. After a few kisses there, he dragged his mouth across to my right hip, and then he inched his mouth down below my naval again and began a dangerously delicious descent toward my—

  “Stop,” I said, assailed once again by panic. Sitting up, I scooted away from him, avoiding his gaze.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m not sure I want to …” I took a deep breath, feeling like a ridiculous liar. I suspected we both knew that wasn’t true. I was practically soaking wet, and the scent of my desire for him floated around us, like a hypnotic aphrodisiac.

  “Then you don’t have to,” he said.

  Glancing at him, I was shocked to see he wasn’t naked. He rose to his knees, giving me a full frontal view of the massive bulge in his boxer briefs. My mouth went dry at the sight of it. So big and thick, I didn’t think it could possibly be real. Involuntarily, my body continued to prepare for him as a deluge of natural lubrication slipped from between me.

  As if sensing my disbelief, he took my hand and helped me to my knees, pulling me closer to him. Dipping his head to mine, he kissed me and then slipped my hand into his boxer briefs. My fingers brushed the wide, slick head. Growing bolder, I inched my fingertips along the shaft and then moved my hand around it, realizing I wouldn’t be able to encircle it entirely by touching my thumb to my index finger.

  I slid my hand down and then back up, feeling the veins against my palm. I glanced up at him and gasped under my breath, startled by the raw lust in his intense gaze. I could tell he wanted me, and I wanted him, too, and yet, I knew if I gave in and had sex with him, there would be no turning back.

  Still conflicted, I moved my hand down again, and his penis twitched against my hand, setting off another round of throbbing between my legs as I imagined what it might feel like if it twitched inside me.

  Again, as though he could read my mind, Icarus moved me back down onto the bed and then moved off it to remove the boxer briefs. Completely nude, he was magnificent, but I was worried. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to take all of him. Even though I wanted all of him. I needed every inch of him inside me.

  Icarus moved next to me, lying on his side. He lowered his head to mine and kissed me, slipping his tongue into my mouth, and at the same time, he trailed a finger along my opening while his thumb brushed my clit. Gasping loudly, I started to rock my hips against the strong fingers twirling in and around my vagina. Opening my legs wider, I arched my back, feeling a delicious ache between my legs. Closing my eyes, I moved my hips in a circular motion against Icarus’s nimble fingers, digging my heels into the mattress. A powerful jolt of what I could only describe as electric pleasure sent a charge throughout my entire body, leaving me gasping and shaking as though I’d been struck by lightning.

  While I was still trembling, I felt the head of Icarus’s penis against the opening of my vagina, sliding along the slick, wet slit, sending more shocking sparks of pleasure through me. Those sparks were nothing compared to what I felt when the broad head pushed inside of me. Clenching around him, I lifted my hips, desperate to have him deeper within me. Searing sparks of pleasure made my body thrash and twitch as Icarus continued, separating the walls of my vagina as he maintained his sweet excavation into me, making his way to my core.

  I’d wanted every inch of him, and he was obliging me, sending my body into delightful spasms as he filled me completely. Astonished by the size of him, I wrapped my legs around his waist and spurred him into action, goading him to begin, eager to be screwed like there was no tomorrow.

  He began slowly, drawing back and then slipping inside with long, sweeping thrusts. Over and over, he gave me all of his length and thickness, retreating and returning until I was gasping and crying out, exploding again. My body trembled and shivered in an orgasmic bliss, leaving me dazed.

  Pulling back until only the thick, broad head was inside me, Icarus gave me quick, shallow thrusts, again and again. My body seemed to be breaking apart and then coming back together and then breaking apart again.

  Holding me close, Icarus kissed me, thrusting his tongue into my mouth in the same way he thrust in and out of me. Grasping him, I moved my mouth from his as I felt the pressure building between my legs again. As I closed my eyes again, anticipating my next explosion, I felt Icarus’s mouth near my ear and heard him asking me how I wanted him to make love to me. Faster? Harder? He trailed a tongue along the edge of my ear before grazing the lobe with his teeth.

  He hadn’t asked if I wanted him deeper. He was already deeper than I thought was possible. Honestly, I didn’t know what to tell him. Fast or slow, it didn’t matter. Either way, I knew he could make me come like I never had before in my life, over and over, with an intensity so powerful I thought it might drive me insane.

  In response to his question, I could only manage an unintelligible moan. Icarus took it upon himself to thrust faster and then harder. He changed his rhythm more than once as he pushed into me and then drew back, sometimes slow, sometimes faster. He slid into me with unrestrained passion and then with tenderness until I was panting at the searing pleasure rocketing through me.

  Soon, his thrusts became more determined and tumultuous. He stared at me with those whiskey-colored eyes as he drove harder, his thickness moving within me in a desperate furor that seemed different somehow as he reached a place I wasn’t aware existed, a sensitive spot he stimulated over and again until my body seized, and then it felt as though some sort of sensual detonation went off between my legs, stealing away my breath and all my thoughts and everything I needed to survive.

  Seconds later, Icarus had his own explosion, and the vehemence of his orgasm was powerful enough to cause more implosions deep inside me, jerking me violently until I went limp.

  Chapter Three

  The limousine pulled under the portico and stopped at the front entrance of the Heliconia Hotel.

  The grand façade was impressive and reminded me of a tropical version of the palace at Versailles with its arches and rows of columns amid mid-sized palm trees nestled in oversized planters.

  The journey to the hotel had taken a little over an hour, due to our bungalow detour. The experience had been indescribable. Never in a million years had I expected to be made love to moments after arriving on the island. The hotel had said the fantasy would start immediately, but I’d thought they’d meant the fantasy was merely being miles away from my disappointing career.

  I still couldn’t believe it had happened.

  Couldn’t believe I had done it.

  Co
uldn’t believe I hadn’t stopped it from happening.

  Still slightly dazed, I tried my best to pull myself together and somehow ignore the insistent throbbing between my legs and prepare to get out of the car and check into the hotel.

  Icarus opened the door and helped me out of the limo with a polite deference I found slightly strange and distant, considering we had just made love with the sort of wild, reckless abandon reserved for the romance novels I used to read in high school.

  Now, he was professional and a little too polished.

  I tried not to feel disappointed, but I sensed a broken connection between us, which was ridiculous because I hadn’t come to St. Mateo to make a connection. The inconsequential sex was about releasing tension and getting rid of anxiety so I could stop having crazy nightmares. A few mind-blowing orgasms would just be icing on the cake. And yet, I worried I’d become attached to Icarus, for some reason. I hoped not. I didn’t want to be one of those women who latched onto the first man who gave them some good sex.

  Maybe Icarus was being distant because his role in the fantasy was over. He was “off the clock.” The lusty limo driver had played his part. He’d exited stage left, so to speak, and was now back in the real world, where he was a hotel employee who drove a limo.

  Icarus escorted me up the grand stairway, where four uniformed bellmen stood at attention. In the expansive, opulent foyer, a young, slim, attractive St. Matean woman was waiting to welcome me to the island and to the hotel. She introduced herself as Liberada and announced she would be my personal assistant for the duration of my stay. “In addition to myself,” she went on, “you will have, at your disposal, a personal staff, which will consist of a concierge, a butler, two housekeepers, a secretary, and a driver, Icarus, who you’ve met.”