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  “Damn it, where are you going?” He fell into step beside her, mesmerized by the bouncing profile of her breasts. They tantalized him, the far one nearly bouncing out of its confinement again when she stopped abruptly and whipped around to face him.

  “Where does it look like? I’m going up to Jager’s house. We need to talk, to get some things straight before we take this bizarre plunge.”

  “Wait, I—”

  Kiona jammed a fist onto her hip and twirled the sunglasses in the other hand. Her eyes glistened like twin Hawaiian sunsets behind black, storm clouds.

  “Look, I’m here for one thing and one thing only.” She wagged the shades in his face, emphasizing each word. “To get the contractual agreement out of the way. You need a wife to smother the supposedly false gay rumors in Hollywood, right? Fine,” she went on, not allowing him time to so much as nod. “I can be that trophy wife who’ll leave no one doubting your manhood anymore. As you should already know, I require a husband to satisfy my asshole makuakane’s—my father’s—wishes to see me married. Then and only then, he’ll finally turn my trust fund over to me. And frankly, Wulfrum, I don’t give a damn if you’re a box-office-busting movie star or Hercules himself. I won’t be sleeping with you. This will all be in name only, just as you yourself specified in one of the many contracts Jager drew up for us.”

  She whirled and started up the steps, taking them at a brusque pace. He followed on her tail. “But that was before I met you. It was just to protect myself. I had no way of knowing what—or who—I’d be getting.”

  Kiona threw him a scalding look over her bare shoulder as she climbed. “First off, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m using you as much as you are me, I’d take that as an insult. Secondly, Jager has known me for years. I’d think he’d have given you a photo, or at the very least, a clear description of what you were getting. Obviously for me, you’re shoved down my throat every single day just by being you, so I knew what I was getting from the start. Well, to an extent, since you’re even more arrogant in person than you come off to the public.”

  Ouch.

  They reached the upper deck, a wide cedar expanse jutting out toward the sea. The Pacific winds whisked in again, thrashing her hair around her face, plastering her dress to the lush curves of her body and making him think of some Hawaiian goddess.

  “Well, he briefly described you, but I trusted his judgment and never asked for a photo.” He shrugged. “I know, dumb. Maybe I should have, but I’m a busy man, and I didn’t really care since a real wife was the last thing I wanted.”

  A noise suspiciously resembling a cat’s growl escaped her throat, but she said nothing.

  “Look, it was never meant as an insult,” he added a bit too eagerly. “Everything was all business, presented to you in black and white just as it was to me. I thought you were in agreement.”

  She bent and removed her shoes one at a time. Something about the fact she stripped them off now after leaving the beach, when it seemed more appropriate to have them on, made his gut clench. That and the sight of her bare, slender feet. His hungry gaze devoured the small tattoo on her right ankle, just above the gold anklet she wore. What was the design she’d chosen to adorn herself with? He strained, longing to get a clearer view. Almost deliberately, she twisted her foot to the side, denying him the pleasure of exploring it.

  “Nothing’s ever black and white, Mitch. Nothing.”

  He scratched his head, perplexed, reluctantly adoring the sound of his name on her accented tongue. For some reason she’d switched from the formal Mr. Wulfrum to his first name. And he liked the hell out of it.

  “Okay, I’ll go with that. So then, can you tell me what the hell color we just painted together down there on the beach?”

  “Yes.” She pivoted, sashaying across the deck toward the house, weaving her way around patio furniture. Kiona stopped at the glass slider, wrapped her fingers around the handle, and turned back to him. Her gaze had transformed into something even colder than before, something pure cutthroat and businesslike. “Let’s go inside, get the specifics out of the way. Then I’ll tell you all about what just happened between us—and about the package deal you’ll be getting with me. As if Jager didn’t already tell you.”

  “Package deal? Jager didn’t tell me—”

  “All right, Hollywood, play dumb if you want. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You know, for an Oscar winner, you sure are lacking in your acting skills at times.” She let go of the handle and flung out her hand. “But whatever. So anyway, yes, to answer your original question, it’s a firm, non-negotiable package deal. You see, People’s Man of the Year, it’s like this…”

  Did she have to sound so condescending? “I thought you didn’t read the tabloids.”

  “Saw it at the market. Couldn’t miss it. It was plastered all over the cover,” she shot back too quickly. “So, as I was saying, if you want to pretend you didn’t know, and hear it straight from the source, here goes… I’m already in love.”

  He blinked.

  “And like it or not, I won’t be giving him up to enter into this fake marriage with you.” Kiona slid the patio door open and disappeared inside his rented beach house.

  Chapter Two

  Kiona couldn’t believe it. She actually sat on a leather sofa next to Mitch Wulfrum, famous movie star, American icon, unparalleled, world-famous playboy. Oh, it wasn’t as if it should be a shock to her. She’d known all along that Jager, her makuakane’s PR manager, had expanded his clientele and also served as publicist to Mitch and several other celebrities. But Heloki ’Alohi had secured Jager for his company, Kabana Pure Cane Sugar’s promotional interests some ten years ago when Kiona was sixteen, well before Mitch’s rise to fame.

  Though Jager’s promotional company was based on the mainland in California, he’d become a regular KPCS fixture over the years. He’d even attended a few family gatherings and become more visible on Kabana at certain crucial times when her makuakane demanded Jager’s expertise in business matters. Eventually, Jager had bought a large slice of seaside land from Heloki and built a house on it. It was two miles up the coast from the cane fields and sugar mill, but close enough for conducting business while on the island. However, Jager was no fool. During his extended absences, he’d capitalized on tourism by booking the property as a very profitable timeshare.

  As Kiona had grown to womanhood and had eventually become the CEO of her makuakane’s company, she’d gotten very close to Jager in a brotherly sort of way. God help them, if Heloki knew of the pact she and Jager had entered into, he would shit a coconut—and break Jager’s handsome neck. Jager secretly knew of her undying love for Nakolo Huaka, her makuakane’s former foreman in the cane fields. He also knew of Heloki’s animosity and hatred for Nakolo—or Kol, as she fondly called him.

  She’d cried on Jager’s shoulder recently about Heloki’s threat to disown her if she didn’t sever her relationship with Kol and soon marry someone of a much higher social stature. Now, despite the obvious gay rumors swirling around Mitch, Heloki couldn’t be happier with her decision to enter into a hasty marriage with the filthy rich and famous star. Heloki was no fool. To associate Kabana Pure Cane Sugar with such a renowned celebrity could only mean big things for his company, no matter Mitch’s sexual preferences. But in the event Heloki had doubts, Jager had managed to convince him that Kiona had met and fallen in love with Mitch on her recent business trip to California, and that she’d given Kol up in the process.

  It couldn’t be further from the truth.

  Other than seeing Mitch’s face plastered on magazine covers, or on tabloid news shows, she’d not laid eyes on him until today. Her relationship with Kol couldn’t be any stronger, but her makuakane didn’t have to know that. In a savvy plan cooked up by Jager, Mitch would become ungay to the world, and she would finally gain control of her sizable trust fund…while keeping Kol on the sly under the pretext
of being a woman happily married to Mitch Wulfrum. She and Mitch both required a public disguise of sorts. Therefore, though the agreement proved unconventional, it had seemed to be the perfect solution for all three involved.

  That is, until she’d met Mitch. Until she’d had her body crushed against his granite-hard one, tasted his hypnotic flavor, and experienced his long arousal grinding against her wet pussy.

  Kiona blew out a long breath and forced her wayward mind to ignore the memory of it, as well as the pounding between her legs.

  “Jager, the bastard, I swear he didn’t tell me this.” Mitch raked a hand through the longish, straight strands of blond hair. Sitting only inches from her, he propped his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. The knuckles whitened and his eyes darted to hers making Kiona feel that fluttery sensation deep in her womb again. “So basically, I’m to marry a woman already taken.”

  She held onto that cold blue gaze long enough to see the blustery irritation brewing there. What the hell was Jager thinking not informing Mitch of such an important point in the deal? Her stomach twisted with worry. Hopefully, Mitch wouldn’t seek to nullify the contracts they’d already entered into.

  “Basically. But what does it matter?” She smiled, hoping like hell she sounded more optimistic than she felt. “This was supposed to be a farce for my makuakane’s and the public’s benefit anyway—right?”

  He jolted to his feet and crossed to the bamboo side table. “Your father is the least of my worries. You don’t know the paparazzi, how rabid and heartless they can be. You can bet they’ll uncover your lover eventually. Yeah, I can just see the headlines now…” He turned back to her and drew a hand across the space above him as if to read the tagline on the news. “‘Kiona takes a lover! Is Mitch Wulfrum man enough to hold onto his stunning new wife…or was their marriage all a farce to cover up his true sexuality?’”

  Mitch spun back around and splashed a finger of brandy into a crystal tumbler. He tossed it down his throat with an audible swallow, then glanced over his shoulder and held up his empty glass with an arched brow. “Sorry, would you like a drink?”

  Her gaze scanned the wide, tanned shoulders, the corded back muscles tapering into the blue and green floral trunks. She imagined her hands cupping those hard buns, wondered what his manhood would taste like in her—

  Enough, Kiona! What in the blessed islands’ name is wrong with you? Kol, remember Kol and your deep, passionate love for him…

  In spite of the self-scolding, Kiona’s eyes remained fastened on the perfection of his body, her perusal moving up and down each powerful leg. At the mental image of them flexing between her spread thighs in the throes of sexual thrusts, her heart fluttered and tripped in her chest, and something hot and wild tumbled into her belly.

  She would not only like a drink, she desperately needed one. “Thank you, yes, I’ll take a gin and tonic on the rocks if you have it.” Attempting to steady her quivering voice, she went on. “But, Mr. Wulfrum, remember we were never to have a relationship, anyway. It was understood—from what Jager and I discussed—that we would both continue with our own private lives. Just as you specified originally, name only is how I always wanted it also. I wasn’t expecting…”

  “It’s Mitch.”

  She nodded. “Mitch.”

  “And what you mean is you weren’t expecting this surprising mutual attraction.”

  “No! I meant—”

  “That strange, undeniable, instant pull between us. Well, neither was I,” he grumbled.

  He mixed the drink and crossed back, towering over her. Kiona’s gaze rose slowly, climbing up his tall body, and locking onto those predator’s orbs. She caught his scent, clean male sweat coated over the jarring aroma of animal arousal. Gods and Kane alive, if it didn’t make her feel like swooning. Kiona dragged in a breath to steady the giddiness, clamped her legs together beneath her dress, and fought to hold in the sudden flood of moisture that soaked her bare labia.

  “Here.” Mitch sat on the coffee table facing her, and thrust the tumbler into her hand. It felt cold in her hot, sweaty palm, and she could swear she heard it sizzle, saw steam rise. Though her mouth watered, saturating her taste buds with the remnants of his earlier beach kiss, she tipped her head back and drank every drop of the cocktail. She had to wash him away, to resist this attraction that had taken her by surprise at first sight of those sleepy eyes coming to life. There was, she now knew without a doubt, much to be said for real-life, in-the-flesh meetings as opposed to tabloid or on-screen likenesses.

  She swallowed, coughing and gasping against the blaze of the alcohol in her throat. The cold-hot fluid burned away his flavor, and she welcomed it, along with the heat that now warmed her belly, and the vague buzz that swam in her head.

  Kiona swiped her damp lips. “You’re wrong, you know…”

  “Oh no, Kiona. No, I’m not.” He sipped his drink, regarding her over the rim of the glass. Suddenly, he plunked the tumbler to the wood tabletop and scrubbed the tops of his thighs as if to give his fingers something to do. Then one hand moved slowly across the space between them, reaching out and curling around her wrist. Even as she stiffened and salvaged a shred of indignant resistance in the process, her hand went willingly within the bondage of his…straight up to his mouth, where he sucked her finger in between his teeth.

  “Lover on the side or not, you want me as much as I want you,” he murmured around her index finger. “I can see it in your eyes, feel it in the electricity between us. It crackles, goes right to my gut.”

  “Please, don’t do… Oh, God.” Kiona gulped back her refusal and soared on the erotic sensations. They were akin to wet molten lava smothering her fingertip. Ashes of desire caught and combusted into licking flames, roiling, sizzling liquid heat. The force of it ignited that irresistible sexual pull from her fingertip all the way up her arm, and into her breasts. Her nipples tingled, hardening against the thin fabric of her halter dress. The heat tumbled down and pooled in her groin like a waterfall in Hades. She groaned, fighting the lure of limpid eyelids and the involuntary escape of panting breaths from between her parted lips.

  At her reluctant yet wanton response, he shifted over onto the couch without releasing her finger, snatched her glass from her hand, and slid it onto the sofa table behind them. The cushions squeaked beneath the shift of bodies, and along with his musky scent, she caught that of leather. In the distance, out beyond the open patio door, she could hear the caw of seagulls. The pounding of the surf on the beach below seemed to mirror the powerful rush in her loins. A fragrant breeze of brine and tropical flora wafted in, making the vertical blinds click and clack. It swirled around them, stirring up a mixture of her perfume and his warm essence.

  All at once, he released her fingers, turned toward her, and drew her body flush to his, closing his mouth over hers in one sweep. His arms wrapped tight around her shoulders and waist.

  “Mmm,” he rasped against her mouth. “You turn the flavor of gin into decadence. Too bad we don’t have time for a few weeks of pre-wedding play.” His lips grazed hers, his tongue snaking out to swipe and delve, to drink every drop from hers.

  “No, please…” Kiona didn’t know why she allowed her torso to be angled and pressed to his chest, or why her body refused to obey her commands to flee.

  But when his warm, fiery tongue parted her lips and entered her mouth with a devastatingly gentle force, the answer became obvious.

  She wanted him in her bed and between her thighs, despite her love for Nakolo.

  For the first time in years, she truly desired a man other than Kol. The realization of it, along with the shame and guilt she felt, made her mind reel with sadness. Even with his velvety tongue twirling around hers, even though every cell within her had come alive once again, she somehow dredged up a shred of resistance.

  “No.” Kiona tore her mouth from Mitch’s at the very second he shifted her so her hip ground against his thick erection. With discipline she didn’t kn
ow she possessed, she pressed her palms against the smooth, hard wall of tight pecs, forcing him back. She resisted the urge to knead and explore his chest…to skim just one palm downward and close her grip around him.

  “I can’t do this,” she said on a moan. “Nakolo’s my life, the reason I entered into this crazy agreement with you. So I can finally be free to have him without Heloki’s interference. I will not do this to him, to us, and I won’t go through with this if you don’t honor my wishes.”

  His striking eyes iced over with a glaze of ire. He leaned back, then forward, finally getting to his feet with a lengthy sigh. “Okay. I see.”

  “Do you? Do you really? Mitch, I…I love him.”

  He stared down at her for a long moment, his gaze raking her body with that overwhelming, sexual aura of his. His swim trunks were strung taut over his full erection. She fought the throbbing of her clitoris, but there was no hope for it, especially when he reached down and gently cupped her face, tipping it so she was forced to look into his eyes. Heat enveloped her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered helplessly.

  “Yes, I understand. And I must say I envy him.” His jaw clenched. He yanked his hand from her face so fast, her jaw dropped, and cool air assaulted her hot flesh. “I’ll go get the latest addendum Jager drew up for us. Wait here.” A knot of disappointment and relief plunged into her belly like a concrete brick. She watched as he sauntered from the room, his back tense with rigid restraint.

  I have to get out of here.

  Kiona located her sandals and donned them, her hands trembling. She must leave before she did something stupid and irreversible. Now. Forget signing the papers. Even though Jager was still in California, she could have him fax or courier it to her—which she should have done in the first place.