Page 17 of Marrying the Enemy

Plus, there was a part of her that thrived on the feel of his strong body shifting and flexing under hers. She reveled in the excuse to pin her arms around his chest, hugging herself into his strength while pressing her face into the smell of his skin beneath his shirt.

They didn’t speak until they were on the beach. Which was empty. Very, very empty.

She pulled open the Velcro pocket of her shorts and took out her phone. There was no signal here, either. The entire island was out of range.

With a huff of despair, she limped her way into the loo, thankful for that small mercy.

When she came out waving her hands, drying the disinfecting lotion, Dom was at the door of the shack, scowling at the locked knob.

“Got a hairpin? I can’t kick it in. It opens out.”

“What about the window?” The wooden awning was secured with two dead bolts on either side, neither of which was locked.

She slipped each free and Dom lifted the awning, propping it with the dangling sticks. The sliding order window was small, but it slid open when she reached up to touch it.

“Look at us with our teamwork,” she said with a sunny smile of triumph.

It faded as she glimpsed his humorless expression.

He linked his hands and bent to offer a stirrup. “Knee,” he said. “See if you can unlock the door from the inside.”

Oh, this was going to be even more graceful than being slung over his shoulder.

She took hold of the window ledge and set the knee of her injured foot into his hands.

In another show of his supreme strength, he boosted her high enough she dove headfirst through the opening where she knocked a few caddies of condiments and utensils to the floor.

She caught at the counter on the far side as she dragged her feet in, then under, herself. There wasn’t much room to step, though.

“Good news. We can get roaring drunk,” she told him through the window as she picked her way over crates of alcohol and around the racks of sarongs and towels to reach out and flick the lock.

He opened the door from the outside and peered in. “Radio?”

She looked around. “No.”

Another curse, one with more resignation than heat.

“He has to come back for it at some point,” she said.

Dom made a noise of agreement and took the well-used plastic milk crate from inside the door. He set it as a step, then reached for the nearest box of bottles. “I’ll throw some of this underneath so we can both fit in there.”

There was only a small strip of floor between the counters and the cupboards that lined the walls. The back of the shack held a sink, a stove and a deep fryer that was covered and thankfully empty, despite the lingering funk of grease. The front counter serviced the window. Beneath it was a small refrigerator stocked with bottled water and a few unopened jars of pickles, but little else. The cupboards over the window held canned and dry goods. The ones at the back were full of cooking implements.

Eve stowed what she could of the things she’d knocked over and stacked the sarongs and beach towels onto the shelf by the window, since they would only blow away or fill with sand if they were left outside.

When the last rack and box of alcohol was removed, she hitched to sit on the counter beside the sink, instantly feeling claustrophobic when Dom stepped inside.

He set a six-pack of premade Bloody Mary cocktails on the ledge by the window.

“It looked like the only thing with nutritional value.” His shirt and hair were soaked. His nipples were sharp points beneath his shirt.

Not that she noticed.

She handed him a towel. He ran it over his face and hair, then his bare arms.

He’d secured the door open, but it rattled in the growing wind as did the awning. She made herself look at those things, then above where the rain had become a steady drum on the roof.

“Power?” he asked, flicking a switch by the door.

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