Private Paradise by Jami Alden

and
two bathrobes draped over his arms. “We need to get out of this wet
stuff,” he said, already pulling his shirt over his head.
    Carla caught the towel he threw at her,
momentarily mesmerized by the sight of his bare chest, all tanned
skin stretched over thick muscle. Her eyes followed the flex and
ripple as he brought a towel up to his head and dried his hair and
face. Then down his arms over his torso before he dropped the towel
to the floor and brought his hands to his waistband.
    “ Carla?”
    His voice snapped her out of her stupor.
    “ You really need to go change.” His
blue eyes met hers, the heat in them bringing an answering rush to
her cheeks.
    “ Right,” she mumbled, took the robe he
offered in a shaky hand and went to the bedroom to change. She
peeled off her sodden shirt and shorts but left her bra and
underwear on underneath the thick terrycloth robe.
    As she reached for the doorknob of the
bedroom, she noticed her hand was shaking. Scolding herself to pull
herself together, she walked down the short hallway from the
bedroom to the main room. The villa's teak floors were smooth under
her bare feet, the air in the closed up cottage warm and still. Yet
as she reached the living room she found herself shuddering with a
bone deep cold.
    “ You okay?” Sam asked. Like her, he'd
wrapped himself in a robe. Because he was so much bigger, his
barely reached past his knees and his shoulders strained at the
seams.
    Carla opened her mouth to answer, but
couldn't speak past the violent chattering of her teeth. She
wrapped her arms around herself and tried futilely to stop the
shudders rippling through her body.
    Sam hurried to her side and led her over to
the plush cream sofa that dominated the villa's living room. “It's
okay, you're just crashing after the adrenaline rush,” he
explained. He wrapped his arm around her and Carla instinctively
burrowed against him as she sought to absorb the warmth radiating
from his skin.
    “ Wh-why c-can't I s-s-stop shaking?”
She stuttered against the bare skin of his chest.
    Sam's hands ran soothingly up and down her
back. “It's totally normal. You had a big scare falling off the
boat and then ran through a hurricane. It's just your body's way of
dealing now that the rush has worn off.”
    “ Y-you don't seem to be having any
problems,” she said peevishly, annoyed at her weakness in the face
of his strength. She was the boss. She was supposed to take charge,
be calm through the storm. Instead all she could do was burrow
against Sam, greedily absorbing his heat as she struggled to stop
shaking.
    Sam's chest rumbled in a laugh that cut
through the cold and sent a ripple of warmth low in Carla's belly.
“I've been through my own share of scary shit. You get used to it
after a while.”
    Without thinking, Carla brought her hand up
to Sam's chest and brushed it over the starburst shaped scar
exposed by the wide vee of his robe. She traced the raised knot of
flesh, thinking how it changed the landscape of the body she
remembered.
    Thinking of how close he must have come to
dying.
    She would probably never know what crazed
impulse compelled her to lean forward and press her lips to the
spot, but before she was even aware of what she was doing her mouth
had replaced her hand. A kiss of thanks for seeing her through the
storm, of gratitude that he'd made it through the last eleven years
alive, all rolled into one.
    She heard Sam's swift inhale, felt his body
tense against hers as an electric current seemed to surround them.
Face burning, she lifted her mouth from his chest and met his eyes,
and any lingering chill in her body fled at what she saw in their
depths.
    Need, raw and naked, burned in his gaze as he
reached for her.
    Alarm bells sounded in her head, trying to
remind her of why giving in to Sam would be a colossal mistake,
resulting in nothing but hurt feelings at best and a broken heart
at worst. As he pressed her back against the cushions, his mouth so
close