The Price of Pleasure by Kresley Cole Page A

been in no particular hurry to return home. Now Grant saw it as his only salvation. Victoria would lose her appeal in his world. She was too outspoken, too bold.
    He stared at the sinking sun, struck by the violent searing of color across the sky. Only here would he see such a scene—bloodred battled orange, magenta, and the night’s coming blue, the fierce colors mirroring his own crazed feelings. Grant was about control, and if she destroyed his control, she destroyed him. She stirred his emotions to a startling degree. A dangerous degree.
    No woman had ever made him… want. Made him desire more than he could or would have.
    When he returned to the inlet, she was gone, so he trudged to the camp. Halfway up the trail, he smelled cooking. Nothing could smell that good. The scent became more intense and, like an animal’s, his mouth watered.
    He found her preparing their catch in the open-fire hearth, and concluded he’d never been more hungry in his life. After sweeping a glance around the clearing, he asked, “What do we eat with?”
    She laughed without humor. “You’re assuming you get to eat?”
    â€œUtensils?” he grated.
    She gave him a long-suffering sigh. “You’re looking in vain. Be glad for the plate.”
    He peered down at the wooden disk she called a plate, piled high with flaky white fish. Eating fish with his hands?
    Victoria had already begun and her savoring sounds didn’t help his resistance. Finally, even manners were tossed aside, and he scooped the meat into his mouth. He closed his eyes before he could stop himself. It nearly melted. The taste, the texture, the smell registered with him as no food had before. He caught her observing him and flushed.
    They devoured everything. Grant struggled to eat like a civilized person, but in the end, he wasn’t particularly successful. He’d shoveled every bit of food into his mouth like a beast and was looking for more. Victoria had to yank twice at his plate to take it to clean. The island was beginning to get to him. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—let it. He was stronger than the pull here.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” he asked when he saw her squeezing juice from some type of fruit onto her fingers. She didn’t answer, just tossed him the other half. The scent was tart and obliterated the smell of fish on his hands.
    â€œYou got along fairly well without the utensils,” she mused as she fell sinuously into the remaining hammock.
    â€œI don’t see why you haven’t made some. I saw you’d carved hooks out of bone. I know you’re capable.”
    â€œWhy would I waste my knife—my one knife—carving a fork when I have fingers and opposable thumbs?”
    He sat on a log before the fire. “Because you’d have some semblance of civilization? You’re going to have a lot to learn when you return.”
    â€œWhat if I haven’t forgotten?” she asked. “Perhaps I’ve chosen to disregard certain things.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    She dropped a leg outside the hammock and used her toe to rock herself. “Such as what doesn’t fit out here. Dressing like a lady, for instance. Putting myself in three hundred pounds of petticoats—even if I had them—would be suicidal. You have to adapt or you’ll die.”
    â€œThat’s not the civilized mind-set.” Taking a branch from a pile of tinder, he stirred the embers. With the fire banked, he could clearly see her face. “It doesn’t matter where you are—you can’t lose your manners, your dress. Otherwise, you lose your identity.”
    â€œAnd why would I want to keep my identity?” She tensed and eyed him. “Understand this, Captain. For eight years, we thought we were dead to the world. There’s a freedom in that.” She relaxed again. “And whether you know it or not, you’re adapting just as I