Under The Covers Read online

  Her insides fluttered, and again she imagined what they might do this evening. Booting up her laptop, she stretched, staring at herself in the large mirror over the low dresser along the wall next to her desk. Her shirt lifted, revealing her belly, which looked flat and taut as she clasped her hands and reached for the ceiling. Still damp, her hair looked almost black, which offset her creamy white skin. Men probably liked women with nice tans, shorter than she was, and blond.

  “Well, that’s three strikes against you,” she grumbled, dropping her hands and then reaching down and touching her toes.

  No matter what she did—walk, shower, change clothes, or stretch—the tingly anticipation swelling inside her continued to distract her. And no matter what Jeremy might have in mind for the evening, she was pretty sure it would include sex. A man didn’t kiss a woman the way he’d kissed her earlier without wanting to fuck her.

  “Crap,” she groaned, plopping down in the chair in front of her laptop and opening her search engine. Without giving it too much thought, once again she typed in Jeremy Fall’s Web site. It didn’t take as long to load this time. Clicking on the ABOUT JEREMY link, she rubbed her palms up and down her legs while waiting for the page to appear. “Jeremy Fall, age thirty-five, never married, and a Capricorn,” she read.

  Mercedes leaned back, glancing toward the open glass door when a breeze hurried into the cabin. A mixture of sweet aromas from flowers in bloom nearby and salt from the ocean made for a pleasant combination. Glancing back at the screen, something toward the bottom of the page caught her attention.

  “You’re kidding me,” she grunted, reading the remainder of the blurb about Jeremy Fall a second time. The last paragraph glared at her, her stomach tightening as she read it aloud a third time. “Jeremy is currently working on his second book, Take What You Need, which is scheduled for release next summer. Although he won’t even tell his editor his exact whereabouts, it is reported that Jeremy is cloistered on a small island in the South Pacific.”

  Her heart thumped uncomfortably against her rib cage when she found another link to a gallery. A handful of pictures showed Jeremy Fall at several book signings. She swallowed the lump in her throat and stared at Jeremy…Faulkner.

  “Why did you lie to me?” she whispered.

  6

  Jeremy double-checked his source, copying and pasting the paragraphs he would use as a reference in the section he was explaining. It had been a lot easier to get lost in his writing after knowing where Mercedes was and confirming he’d see her this evening. He’d licked the taste of her off his lips, though it did cross his mind more than once to go find her and kiss her senseless again.

  He looked up at the sound of someone outside the glass doors. Mercedes’s pensive expression didn’t sway him. She was beautiful, sensual, intelligent, with the perfect amount of hesitation wrapped up among it all.

  “Hi, there,” he said, standing and moving to the screen, remembering at the last minute that he couldn’t let her inside with his work opened up on his computer. Easing the screen back, he stepped outside and closed it behind him. “What’s up?”

  “Would you come with me, please, for a minute?” she asked, her soft voice enticing yet serious.

  He’d follow her anywhere she wanted to go and fell in pace behind her without commenting. They didn’t walk far. She stopped at her cabin in front of her closed screen door.

  Jeremy reached over her head, pulling the screen open for her. “Is everything okay?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. That really depends on you.” She faced him, searching his face, her blue eyes glassy. “I was curious about what you said earlier today and last night, about the research you do.”

  “What about it?” Her hair was damp, and she smelled of shampoo and something musky, possibly perfume. He liked the makeup she’d applied, eyeliner on her lower lids adding to the fullness of her pretty eyes. They were dark, like sapphires, when she studied his face. He reached for a strand of her hair, but she walked farther into her room. “Is there something wrong?” he asked and then saw her computer screen. “Shit,” he hissed under his breath.

  Mercedes collapsed on the edge of her bed, also focusing on her computer for a long moment before letting out a loud breath. “Why did you lie to me?” she asked.

  It crossed his mind to play out his story. It would be tricky, but he could convince her he really wasn’t Jeremy Fall. There wasn’t any way she could prove him right or wrong, shy of the pictures on her screen that really looked like him. He should have been more adamant about keeping pictures of him off that damn Web site.

  Jeremy shifted his attention from the computer to Mercedes. He’d allowed the silence between them to go on too long. She sucked in a breath, straightening and pressing her hands into her lap. Her eyes turned a shade he hadn’t seen before, a dull, dark shade of blue, the shade of a deadly sky before a torrential storm erupted.

  “I asked you if you were a writer, and you told me you weren’t.” Her voice was soft as she spoke slowly, taking her time uttering each word.

  “You’re right.” There was only one way to handle this situation. The hell with his books, with the solid, confident advice he offered in them. The damn things might as well be fiction, along with all the documented charts and test studies used to back what was in them. His gut told him how to handle Mercedes. And waiting until she demanded to know what she needed to hear would cause him to lose the upper hand. He wouldn’t relinquish control of the situation by having her throw out accusations and presumptions to him. “I didn’t want you to know.”

  Mercedes’s eyes grew wide when she shot her attention to his face. “You didn’t want me to know?”

  “No.”

  “So you lied to me?” Her expression begged for his response to be something she could stomach. Mercedes was a good woman, hot as hell, and incredibly intelligent. She would get kinky and creative, exploring sexual avenues she hadn’t been down before, but only if she trusted him. Her imploring expression was enough to let him know she ached to have him set the matter straight so she could continue enjoying her time with him.

  “No,” he told her without hesitating.

  Mercedes lifted one eyebrow and then looked pointedly at the computer. “I asked if you were a writer, and you told me no. Exactly how is that not lying?”

  “I told you I did research. Granted, it’s a matter of wording, and if you require a guilty plea, you may have one in my being evasive.” He wondered what had compelled her to pull up his Web site. Glancing around her room, he didn’t see any books. Other than a couple notebooks and her laptop and cell phone, there weren’t any items in her room indicating she’d been doing anything in here other than working. “I didn’t want the conversation being about me or my writing.”

  “Did you think I would be some obsessed fan?” she asked incredulously.

  If her question wasn’t sarcastic, it should have been. One look at her face told him the answer. “I would prefer if you weren’t,” he said flatly.

  “I was never able to finish reading it, and it wasn’t until earlier today that I realized why. But none of that matters now. I think you should leave, Jeremy. Forget about this evening.” She almost jumped off the bed, hugging herself and refusing to look at his face but instead pressing her lips together and focusing on something behind him. “Please leave.”

  Studying her for a moment, it was easy to see that if he pushed her, she’d be an emotional wreck in no time. Mercedes was pissed, feeling she’d been wronged but determined to show him she wouldn’t tolerate deception at any level.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked, fighting the urge to yank her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot she was mad at him. Fighting over something as petty as his writing wasn’t worth it. As much money as that fucking book made him, it had been equally one hell of a big headache.

  Her eyes were bright with her outrage when she snapped her attention to him. “I don’t lie,” she hissed. “And I don’t hed
ge around a situation either. I’m not afraid to say things how they are.”

  Her words sliced deeper than he wanted to admit. But if he said anything else, it would only make things worse. Whether either of them liked it or not, they were on this island together for the next couple weeks, and they were neighbors. Jeremy didn’t say anything else. He left her cabin, closing her glass door behind him as he did. And maybe he imagined it, but he swore he heard her crying when he left her.

  It took another lie to get him through the evening. And as hard as he tried convincing himself that after two days there was no way any woman could get under his skin enough to matter all that much to him, he didn’t believe himself. Even the next morning, after traipsing to the office and downing one cup of coffee before refilling his cup and heading back to his cabin, he couldn’t convince himself he didn’t care he’d upset Mercedes.

  There were several more chapters needed before the first draft of his book was done. He was on schedule, although as tightly wound as he was this morning, sitting down and working sounded like an impossible feat. Heading toward his cabin, sipping at his coffee, he stared at the sky past the cliffs he’d planned hiking with Mercedes at some point—dark clouds loomed above them, looking as dark and dangerous as Mercedes’s eyes when she’d kicked him out of her cabin.

  It was going to storm. With only a few days until Christmas, it was only appropriate they receive some bad weather. Maybe he’d head into the village and learn what they planned on doing to celebrate the holiday. Jeremy had stopped in front of Mercedes’s door before he realized his actions.

  “Good morning, Mr. Jeremy,” Francis sang out from behind him. “You’ve missed the pretty lady this morning. Do you know she’s named after a car?” She grinned, her uneven teeth with large gaps between the ones in the front adding to her eccentric, unique appearance. She tugged on the loose-fitting flower-print shirt she wore. “I told her it wasn’t the right day to go today, but who listens to Francis?”

  “To go where?” he demanded, frowning at her closed cabin door. “She’s not here?”

  “Oh, she will be back. I promise.” Francis cackled when she laughed. It fit her nature, although it bordered on irritating, especially when she wasn’t making a hell of a lot of sense.

  “Where did she go?” Jeremy demanded.

  Francis’s expression sobered, and her lips almost disappeared when she pressed them together.

  “What?” He fought the urge to grab and give her a firm shake until her wits settled back where they belonged. “Francis.” He sighed. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not with me,” she said, straightening to her full five feet at the most and puffing out her flat chest. “You are the one who is wrong,” she snapped, her accent thickening. Francis pointed a bony finger at him. “Miss Mercedes is a good woman, a kind woman. And I don’t have to tell you she is a beautiful woman. She likes you a lot, and you blew it.”

  Apparently Mercedes had unloaded on Francis. Now he would have to endure Francis unloading on him. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and it seemed to grow darker as they stood in front of Mercedes’s cabin.

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?” he asked, seeing how fruitless it would be defending himself. Francis had already convicted him of his crime.

  “Not soon enough.” Francis turned her attention to the sky, squinting and then holding her hand up. “It will be a bad storm and be here too soon for Mercedes to return.”

  “Then I’ll go get her,” he said. “If you’ll tell me where she is.”

  “She told me not to tell you.”

  Jeremy sucked in a sharp breath, feeling the humidity in the air as the moisture filled his mouth. “If you don’t tell me, Mercedes will be stuck in this storm.”

  “And if I do tell you, both of you will be stuck in this storm,” she announced, rocking up on her toes as if she’d just solved some riddle.

  “Please, Francis. I can’t make amends with Mercedes if you don’t tell me where she went. And I know you want her safe in her cabin. It is going to be a bad storm.”

  Francis chewed her fingernail, pondering his words for a moment. Then, sighing, she waved her hand toward the cliffs. “She went hiking early this morning. Maybe she will be back soon on her own.”

  Thunder rumbled again, but this time lightning shot across the sky behind him, racing over the ocean before disappearing in the heavy, low, dark clouds.

  “She’s hiking up in those cliffs?” he asked, gulping down his coffee and then handing the almost empty cup to Francis. “You should have a fresh pot of coffee ready when we get back. I’m going to go get her.”

  Jeremy didn’t wait for Francis to respond but sprinted across the yard, not stopping until he reached the base of the cliffs. Large drops plopped on his arms and back when he started climbing. The rocks were slippery and sharp in spots. He reached the path that wound up into the cliffs to where he’d wanted to take Mercedes. Holding his hand over his eyes, he squinted against the rain and searched around him.

  “Mercedes!” he yelled, and his voice echoed around him.

  “Jeremy?”

  Thunder shook the ground beneath his feet, and the hair on his arms stood on end as lightning sizzled through the air. As if that were the introduction needed, rain started pelting his body. His shirt was soaked instantly, and a cold wind whipped around him, pushing him to the side.

  “Where are you?” he yelled, worrying that the wind pushed his words right back into his mouth.

  “Jeremy?” she called again, her voice faint against the roar of the rain.

  He stepped around a large rock, trying to get to a spot where he could better see his surroundings. There was no way to tell which direction Mercedes called from. This wasn’t the first storm he’d seen since arriving on Nativity Island, but it was definitely the worst. Suddenly he couldn’t see, and his next step was on uneven ground. He damn near fell on his ass.

  “Jeremy!” Cold, wet hands wrapped around his arm and pulled him to the side.

  He squinted against the storm, staring at Mercedes. Her long hair was soaked and stuck to her bare shoulders and back.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, continuing to pull him farther into the rocks.

  “I came out here to get you,” he told her. “This storm is going to get dangerous, and it’s not safe out here alone.”

  Thunder erupted around them, simultaneously releasing lightning. It rained so hard he could barely see her, even though she kept a firm grip on his arm.

  “Come on!” she yelled, encouraging him farther around the rocks.

  “Where are we going?”

  Instead of answering, she pulled him around a large black rock. It wasn’t exactly a cave, but she moved them under a ledge, and suddenly he could see again.

  “Why are you here?” she demanded again, letting go of him and shoving her soaked hair over her shoulders.

  Jeremy studied the glass wall of rain that streamed at dangerous speeds over the edge of the ledge in front of them. He was able to stand without ducking, but even pressing against the rock wall behind them, there wasn’t more than three feet of space.

  “I came out here to get you,” he told her, shifting his attention and noticing how her shirt clung to her ripe, full breasts before she hugged herself.

  “You didn’t have to come out in the rain just to find me.” She was shivering as she stared at the steady flow of rain.

  “It wasn’t raining when I left,” he admitted.

  She shot him a furtive look. And, he had to admit, she looked like a drowned rat. The cutest, sexiest, most adorable drowned rat he’d ever seen.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she grumbled. She shoved her tennis shoe into the rocky ground, her wet hair falling over her shoulder as she looked down.

  “Like what?” He fisted his hands at his sides, all too aware of his clothes clinging to him, soaked and hanging wrong. At the same time, he again noticed that Mercedes’s clothes also clung to her, which
showed off her entire body and all her delectable curves.

  “Like you’re hungry,” she mumbled, still not looking at him.

  Something about her, even knowing she was mad at him, made it impossible to keep his hands off her. Her complaint translated in his mind that she still wanted him but didn’t like the foundation they’d created by his lying.

  He gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him. Her pretty blue eyes glowed, and her lashes clumped together with droplets of rain. “Do you want me to lie to you again?” he asked.

  She didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  He rubbed his thumb across the length of her jaw, enjoying her thick lashes fluttering over her eyes. “I am hungry. And you already know that. Do you think I’d stand under a ledge in a tropical storm with just anyone?”

  She made a snorting sound and tried pulling her face from his grip. He let her go but then tangled his fingers in her wet hair.

  “I don’t know what to think about you,” she admitted. “Why did you lie about being an author? You had to have known there was a decent chance of me recognizing you.”

  He would tell her the truth. There wasn’t any way of knowing what might or might not happen once they left this island, but Jeremy didn’t care.

  “I didn’t want you to see how much of a hypocrite I am,” he admitted and willed her to look at him.

  7

  Mercedes stood under the hot shower, watching the water stream off her hair. She stared at her toes, wondering if they’d look better if she took off the pink polish and painted them red. She had only two colors with her—pink and red—and at the moment she didn’t know if she was in the mood for either.

  It was Christmas Eve, three days since she’d been caught in the rainstorm with Jeremy, and three days since she’d spent serious time with him. She needed to see him. Hell, she wanted to see him. She’d listened to him, understanding immediately why he’d lied and admitting to herself it made perfect sense. Jeremy wasn’t the man in his book—although she couldn’t help thinking if he wrote from his heart it would sell better than the book he’d already written. But she wasn’t the writer and honestly didn’t know anything about the publishing world.