Bound to Happen

DINNER THAT FIRST NIGHT at the villa on Coconut Caye was one of the more intense meals Ray remembered sitting through. The men, along with Poe and Kinsey, had carried the conversation, sharing tales of past vacations gone bad.

Among the six of them, they’d seen more than a few ports of call on more than a few continents and had faced lost luggage, mistaken identities and bungled reservations from car to hotel.

So far Lauren hadn’t said a thing. She’d never even met Anton’s gaze.

Sydney had talked, but not a lot, as if carefully weighing the import of what she had to say against the mystery of remaining silent. The mystery, of course, was all in Ray’s mind, driven by her refusal to hold his gaze when their eyes met. Every time he glanced her way, he caught her staring. He even caught her looking back before he’d turned away.

Her expression teased him, the way she slowly lowered her lashes, the way her nostrils seemed to flare. The way her chin came up and her lips lightly parted. Even the way she lounged so casually, invitingly, one elbow braced on the chair back, her head propped in her hand, her crossed leg swinging with a motion that lifted, then lowered the gap in her sarong.

Ray couldn’t decide if he was amused or intrigued. But he was definitely working on aroused, as he had been since they’d set sail this morning. Or, more accurately, as he had been every time they’d been in the same room since he’d introduced himself to her beneath the oak tree in Boom Daily’s backyard eight long years ago.

There was just something about Sydney Ford that Ray couldn’t get his mind around to figure out. The things he’d known about Sydney as a girl didn’t mesh at all with what he’d learned recently from her father. Or what he knew about her as the CEO of gIRL-gEAR.

He wasn’t sure the remaining days of this vacation would be enough time to reconcile his curiosity with the facts, but damned if he wouldn’t be giving it his best shot, he mused. He forced his gaze from Sydney and back to the others as, one at a time, they finished up the meal of grilled steak and tossed salad put together at the last minute by Kinsey and Lauren, with questionable help from Jess.

Kinsey, at least, had no trouble making or maintaining eye contact with anyone at the table. And Poe—Poe had upped the stakes and was making contact with her body, Ray realized, as she got up to clear the table and leaned over Doug’s shoulder to reach for an empty serving bowl.

Doug had pulled on a sleeveless shirt before sitting down to the impromptu dinner. Poe still wore her black bikini top. She brushed the barely covered swell of her breast against his barely covered shoulder. Ray couldn’t say the move was made on purpose, but she didn’t seem the least bit self-conscious about a touch that made Doug’s eyes bulge.

In fact, now hugging the salad bowl to her middle, her hip cocked to the side, Poe glanced around the room with one brow arched and a twist to her mouth that Ray could’ve sworn meant trouble in paradise. Leaning into the forearm he’d braced on the table, he toyed with his steak knife, swirling the pointed tip in the sauce on his plate, smiling as he waited to find out exactly what she was up to. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Is it just me,” she said, looking from one man, one woman to the next, her dark eyes sparkling with indescribable mischief, “or do the rest of you get a sense that there is an unhealthy level of sexual tension in the air?”

After several silent seconds, Doug burst out laughing. Anton followed suit, snickering behind his hand, which had Lauren fuming and Sydney crossing her arms beneath her bandeau top and fighting to keep a straight face. All Ray could do was sit back and enjoy the show.

“At least it appears to be sexual.” Poe gave a light shrug and started gathering up utensils. “I could be wrong, but I think the facts speak for themselves.”

“Uh, Poe, what facts are you talking about?” Kinsey asked, prodding Jess’s rib cage with her elbow and glaring when he leaned over and started breathing heavily into her ear. “Enough of that, mister. If I need heating up, I’ll let you know.”

Jess laughed. Sydney laughed. Even Poe laughed, this time leaning between Kinsey and Anton, giving Anton a dose of Doug’s medicine while stacking the used dinner plates.

“The facts as I see them are that we’re in the tropics, on a gorgeous island, surrounded by sand and surf, an incredible moonrise, a soft ocean breeze. And we’re staring at each other and a table of dirty dishes when we could be having a lot of extracurricular fun.”

With that, Poe headed for the kitchen—a huge open-air affair separated from the main dining area by a wide serving bar—leaving the others speechless, but only for a second or two, then everyone started talking at once.

“Extracurricular works for me,” Jess said, leaning in closer toward Kinsey again, nuzzling his face against her bare shoulder and making whimpering puppy-dog sounds.

Wearing a bright-red tank top with her khaki drawstring shorts, Kinsey patted his head accordingly. Then she threaded her fingers into his hair and used the hold to pull his head from her shoulder. Her smile was a show of bared teeth. “What part of ‘enough’ don’t you understand?”

Jess sighed and slumped in his chair. “Does that mean extracurricular is out of the question?”

Eyes rolling, Kinsey could only shake her head. “You’re hopeless and I give up.”

Doug, being a guy, was more in tune with Jess’s plight and told him so. “What it means, buddy, is that you’ll have to take matters into your own hands.”

A round of groans and cries of “Gross! Eww! Yuck!” went up from the women. Ray found himself chuckling under his breath. Then he found himself glancing at Sydney…and found her gaze focused on him. Not on Doug or on Kinsey or on Jess. Not even on Poe, whom Ray could hear rummaging around behind him in the kitchen cabinets.

No, Sydney was concentrating solely on him. And doing so with a look that wasn’t the least bit shy or evasive. He would’ve said she was flirting, but her expression was hardly that simple. What he saw in her eyes was more of an invitation, a sultry temptation to join her in sin. Her blue eyes sparkled, her wide mouth offered him a private smile that spoke of the intimacies they’d shared long ago.

He wanted to ask her what she wanted, what she was trying to say. He wanted to growl his frustration with this vacation that was becoming too crowded. But he had too much of an audience, and before he could get to his feet and pull Sydney along with him out onto the veranda, Poe returned from the kitchen.

Her rummaging had produced a serving tray bearing eight highball glasses, a decanter of bourbon, another of water and a bucket of ice. Standing behind the chair she’d occupied earlier, she set the tray in the center of the table.

“Now,” she said, continuing the conversation she’d dropped like a bomb. “Since none of us are sleeping together, let’s get drunk and talk about sex.”

2

“YOU HAVE GOT to be kidding.” Lauren pulled her feet up onto her chair and wrapped her arms around her knees defensively.

“Not at all, sweetie. In fact, I’m dead serious.” Poe tugged the stopper from the whiskey decanter and set it on the tray. And then she cast a wicked look around the table, teasing her dinner companions with a sinister gleam in her almond-shaped eyes.

Ever since Poe had made her observation of the room’s sexual tension, Sydney had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, she’d been warned earlier out on the veranda—a warning left wide-open, giving Poe plenty of leeway and absolutely no boundaries.

And so Sydney wasn’t a bit surprised when Poe finally grinned and said, “Truth or dare.”

Stunned silence greeted Poe’s announcement. Sydney knew that, given another second, the gang would come around. But she wasn’t going to wait that long. She was more than ready to get started, more than ready for fun. And, so, with a mental Here goes nothing, she reached for a glass. “I’m game.”

Lauren gave an audible gasp. “You can’t mean that.”

“I can mean it. I do mean it.” Sydney tossed ice cubes into her glass and poured the bourbon. She looked down the length of the table, silently daring Lauren to say another word. “This is my vacation and I want to have fun.”

“Truth or dare is fun?” Lauren asked, anyway, a brow raised.

“The right mood, the right company.” Sydney lifted her shoulders, lifted her drink, glanced briefly at Ray as the fiery liquid slid over her tongue. The look in his eyes added to the burn, and it was all she could do to finish her reply. “Not to mention the right alcohol in the right quantity.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Poe said, and finally everyone relaxed enough to laugh. Everyone, that is, but Lauren.

Lauren looked around the table, meeting one gaze after another, lingering the longest on Anton, whose expression was impossible to read. He definitely had stoicism down to an art, Sydney thought, but whether the look in his eyes was anger, intrigue or true indifference, she couldn’t tell.

Lauren, obviously, wasn’t having the same trouble. What she saw when she looked at Anton seemed to be all she needed to make up her mind. Decision made, she reached for the decanter and splashed a double over the ice cubes she’d added to her glass.

With a quick shake of her head, she downed a quarter of the drink, whistled, shuddered, then thumped the crystal against the table. “Fine. I’m in.”

“All right,” Doug said, and clapped his hands together. “I think we might just have ourselves a party.”

At that, Anton grabbed his own glass and, not bothering with water or ice, downed the shot he poured. “Hell. If the subject is sex, count me in.”

“Then sex it is.” Poe pulled the stopper from the decanter of water and gave Sydney a quick wink. Sydney mentally crossed her fingers, hoping Poe hadn’t gone too far. The last thing she wanted was for this game to backfire.

What she wanted, in fact, was for this game to rid the room of inhibitions. To rid Ray, in particular, of any hang-ups he might have that would prevent him from being open to her advances. Judging by the look in his eyes, however, judging by the way his gaze fairly simmered with uninhibited invitation, hang-ups weren’t going to be a problem.

“So, Poe. Does your version of this game have rules? Or do we make it up as we go along?” Jess added two cubes of ice to two separate glasses, splashed both with bourbon and passed one to Kinsey. “I’ve got as good an imagination as the next guy but—”

“But like the next guy, you need direction. You just hate having to stop and ask.” Smiling brightly, Kinsey toasted the other women with her drink and a round of high fives.

The men sat back, glowered and glared. Sydney had a feeling they were only biding their time. She’d yet to know a single man who didn’t get a kick out of delivering a slam dunk comeuppance—especially to a woman.

“Hey, I asked. I asked.” Jess tossed up his hands in exaggerated exasperation. “And like the next guy, I can’t seem to get a straight answer, which is what I expected with a woman in charge.”