Not that I’d know anything about that.

The Anterdec helicopter is there, ready and waiting. I have no idea who the pilot is, and as long as he doesn’t speak Russian, I don’t care.

“Where are we going?”

“Volcano tour.”

“Shannon.” His look says, I don’t believe you.

My look back says, You want that blow job?

He stops with the skepticism. Instantly.

“Don’t worry. I arranged everything.”

“That’s exactly why I should worry."

“We are,” I say, words sprinkled between kisses, “going to be exactly where we need to be.”

“Stunt people for a new Castaway movie?”

“Just don’t mistake me for Wilson.”

He stares at my breasts. “I can see how that could happen.”

I laugh.

“Last time we flew in a helicopter, we were escaping your mother.”

“This time we’re escaping Anterdec staff.”

“I’ll take my own employees over Marie any day.”

I punch him.

He kisses me.

Fair exchange.

I have no idea where we’re going, but I trust Grace. I have to.

It’s not like I have a choice.

“Fifteen-minute flight, Mr. and Mrs. McCormick. A quick jump.”

Declan frowns. “That’s too short!”

“Huh?”

“There’s not time for—you know.” He looks down at his groin.

“Where we’re going, there’s plenty of time for so much more.”

“Really?” He perks up. I rest my palm on his thigh and slide up and in. Oh, yeah. He’s ready.

“Oh, yes.”

“I’m not sure I can wait,” he confesses.

“Oh,” I say sweetly. “Don’t worry.”

And then I hold up one finger as the helicopter pilot starts the lift.

For fifteen minutes, I tease him over his Bermuda shorts until Bermuda has grown from a tiny island to a continent with an awfully large peninsula jutting out.

“Tease,” he hisses in my ear.

“What do you think you were yesterday! I’m more a Smurf now than when I was covered in airplane toilet water!”

“What?”

“Women get blue...you know...too.”

“Do not.”

“Do too!” I shout over the chopper sounds. “It builds up.”

“There’s nothing to build up. Guys have semen. Women just...”

“Have orgasms.”

“And that’s not fair, either,” he says, clearing his throat as if I’ve committed some grave offense.

“What’s not fair?”

“You get more than one.”

“More than one...”

Oh.

That.

I give him a big smile.

“Beginning descent,” the pilot cuts in, his voice clearly filled with restrained laughter.

I look at Declan’s headpiece. I reach up and touch mine.

Oh, damn.

We’ve been on global microphone the entire time.

The landing involves zero eye contact as we climb off the helicopter, onto a cement helipad right off the beach. It’s morning, a crystal-clear sky where the blue deepens as you go up from the horizon.

“Mr. and Mrs. McCormick,” says a young man who can’t be more than eighteen, with closely cropped dark hair and a face covered with moles. He has warm brown eyes and wears an outfit nearly identical to Declan’s. “I am David. My instructions are to take you directly to your quarters, and to respond to requests, but otherwise provide you with privacy.”

“What is this place?” Declan looks around in marvel. There are about ten hut houses along the beach, a huge zero-entry pool, a poolside bar, and...

Nothing else.

David looks at me. “Should I answer that?”

Declan gives him a WTF? look, then shines it on me like a searchlight.

“Excuse me?” I gasp.

“Our instructions were to avoid all discussion of business.”

Declan’s mouth tightens. He’s about to argue.

I reach for his hand. “Business later. Personal first.” I rub my hip against his. He looks down at me, jaw still grinding, but he nods exactly once.

And I lead him by the hand to our quarters.

Five minutes later, we’re alone, a tenth of a mile from the next hut house, every luxury at our fingertips.

Including the luxury of privacy.

Money can’t buy happiness.

But it can buy you space. Sometimes it can buy you time.

And if you’re lucky, it buys you freedom.

Chapter 9

The hut is a sex palace.

Not really, but we’re turning it into one, with each piece of clothing shed, each rasping kiss, every light and hard touch. No one’s around. No one will interrupt. No cell service. No Bluetooth. No laptops, no corded phones, nothing but us.

The island has all the conveniences of modern civilization, but they’re in the main resort building, a quarter mile away, which is just enough distance to make sure I’m Declan’s focal point.

And he is mine.

“Finally,” he says, the word rubbing against my neck like a spell he intones, his lips making their way up, tongue trailing down the curve of my ear, my shiver pushing blood from my pulsing heart through every part of me, quickening.

Sex isn’t about sex any more. It’s not about getting off, or turning into beasts who use friction to meet some biological destiny. It’s not about scratching an itch, or calibrating power balance.

It’s about creating that small, sacred space between the two of us where no one else may enter. For all time, there is this experience that only Declan and I share. No one else. Even if I tell someone—Amanda, or Amy—about the mechanics and emotions of this intimate act, it’s a poor copy of the truth. Because no one can recreate the exact dynamics of stroke and whisper between us. No one can know how it feels in my heart when our eyes meet, the trigger of impulse and relief that comes when we kiss, the cascade of pleasure that comes from a delicate timing that we invent as we go along.

“Finally,” I reply, my face buried in his shoulder as we embrace, fully nude, moving slow. As my hands slide up under his arms and find his shoulder blades, my biceps press against the hard ridge of his ribs, the soft against solid generating heat. Belly to belly, we kiss, letting all our skin say hello. I look up, his hands resting on the top of my ass, not pressing—just there—as my breasts flatten against his chest, thighs settling between each other, bodies working to find that puzzle-piece fit that gives this moment its own unique stamp.