Island Love Songs: Seven Nights in Paradise / The Wedding Dance / Orchids and Bliss

“One minute I saw you with them at the beach, the next minute, you’d disappeared.”

“And you think...”

Melanie’s shoulders drooped. This wasn’t what she had planned to talk about the next time she saw him. What was she doing?

“Forget what I just said,” Melanie told him. “Obviously I gave up any rights to you a long time ago.”

Something flashed in his eyes. Hurt? “What you saw was me and Shemar being friendly with two women. No big deal.” He paused. Held her gaze. “The truth is, I wish I could get involved with someone else. Shemar keeps telling me that I need to start dating again. But damn it, all I keep thinking about is you.”

Butterflies began to flutter in Melanie’s stomach, but she said nothing.

“Do you know I came here to try to forget you once and for all?” He laughed without mirth. “Instead, I get here and you’re at this resort. Of all places. Talk about a kink in my plan.”

“If I had known...”

“If you had known, what? You would have avoided coming here? That’s how uneasy you are at the idea of seeing me?”

Melanie said nothing. Because every time she opened her mouth, she was saying the wrong thing.

“I always believed that you loved me, Mel. But I guess I was wrong.”

“Of course I did!” she said immediately.

“Then prove it.”

Melanie looked up at him in confusion. “What?”

In a flash, Lawrence took her by the shoulders and brought his lips down on hers. He kissed her in a heated, almost angry fashion. As his tongue tangled with hers, he slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her close.

She sighed against him. His kiss... It was like coming home. Coming home when there was a celebration going on. Because the sensations she felt were hot and thrilling, like fireworks going off in rapid succession.

Lawrence eased his lips from hers. “God, this is what I wanted to do since the moment I saw you again. It’s what I wanted to do every day for the past nine months.”

A lust-filled sigh escaped Melanie’s lips, and then his mouth was on hers again. Her hands were moving up his back now. She dug her fingers into his shirt, needing to feel more of him. Re-familiarize herself with his magnificent body.

She hadn’t felt this alive in a very long time.

And as his tongue twirled with hers, creating the most delicious sensations, and as her body overheated, she acknowledged that this was the truth. Since the day she had dumped him by not showing up for the wedding, a part of her had been dead.

But that part had just come roaring back to life.

Chapter 8

All too soon, Lawrence broke the kiss and stepped back, leaving Melanie feeling dazed and confused. She stared up at him with narrowed eyes, not understanding why he had stopped just as things had gotten decidedly hot.

“What— Why are you stopping?” Melanie stammered.

Lawrence took another step backward. “I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you again,” Lawrence repeated, too dispassionately for Melanie’s liking. “Maybe that’s my own way of getting closure.”

“Closure?” Melanie nearly choked on the word as she said it. “You—you kissed me for closure?”

“Good night, Melanie.”

“Good night?” Melanie repeated, totally baffled.

But he was already turning, already starting to walk back toward the hotel.

Melanie scrambled after him. “I don’t understand. You follow me out here, you kiss me like that—and then—and then—”

“And then nothing.” Lawrence paused. “You don’t trust me, remember? I’m a man, so I’m bound to cheat. Right?”

Melanie didn’t want to think about what she had said to him, the words she had used to push him away. Because right now, she wanted to be lost in his kiss again. The sensations she had just experienced were overpowering and so delicious that nothing else mattered.

“You’re right, I was wrong to mention those women,” Melanie said.

Lawrence raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“What I’m saying is that, right now, it doesn’t matter.”

“It might not matter for you, but it matters for me.”

Lawrence began to walk again. Melanie was hot and bothered and utterly frustrated. She continued after him. “Okay, I don’t believe you slept with that girl from the bar. I’m just saying that, even if you did, I don’t have a right to be upset. I pushed you away.”

Lawrence stopped, looked at her. “Great. See you around.”

Melanie was at her wit’s end. He couldn’t leave her like this!

Holding up her dress, she ran in front of him and stopped him by putting her palms on his chest. Her heart was beating hard. She smoothed her hands over his firm, hard muscles and drew in a shaky breath. Oh, how she had missed this.

“Lawrence, I don’t understand. You come out here on the beach with me, and you kiss me like—”

“You needed to let me go, and I needed closure.”

“Then why stop at just a kiss?” she asked. “Why don’t we... Why not make it a night of real closure? One last time.”

She knew she sounded desperate, and she was. That kiss... She wanted more of him.

Lawrence placed his hands over hers, and Melanie’s heart began to beat more rapidly. But then he lifted her hands from his body, removing rather than caressing them, and the night air around her seemed to suddenly chill.

“No,” Lawrence said.

“No?” Melanie said, her voice sounding like a little cry.

“You don’t understand, Mel. I can’t do what you want. I can’t make love to you without emotion and just go on.”

“Why not?” Melanie asked, one last desperate attempt. Again, she was aware that her words had come out wrong. But she didn’t want to argue, to bring up the past. Because she was certain that once they fell into bed together, everything else would fall into place.

“Because I’m not the kind of guy that you made me out to be,” Lawrence said, holding her gaze. “I never was.”

Melanie swallowed.

“It’s okay, Mel. Now that we don’t have the pressure of a relationship between us, we can be friends.”

Friends?

“Like I said...I’ll see you around.”

And with that, he walked away from her with long, fast strides.

Melanie watched him, feeling as though her heart was breaking.

All over again.

* * *

Walking away from Melanie had been one of the toughest things that Lawrence had ever done. To see the look of lust in her eyes, to know that she wanted him in her bed... It would have been so easy to simply say yes. Say yes and end the nine-month dry spell with the woman he still loved.

But he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. He wanted all with Melanie, or nothing.

And he had a plan. Sort of. The kiss had been calculated. To give her a taste of what she had walked away from. And if a part of her still loved him, then she would now be remembering that love.

He knew that she wanted him physically. But he wasn’t about to start a booty-call relationship with the woman he had once planned to marry.

Oh, no. He wasn’t going to do that. But if she loved him, he was willing to try and work things out.

Because the truth of the matter was that he had come here, halfway around the world, to escape the memories of Melanie. And yet she was here. Making forgetting her impossible.

And maybe, just maybe, there was a reason why.

Fate?

Shemar would tell him he was an idiot, but he couldn’t help how his heart felt. When he and Melanie were together, snuggling in bed, or talking about their hopes and dreams, he saw a passionate woman he wanted in his life forever. So if fate had any hand in trying to give them one more chance at love, he was willing to take it.

But the ball was in Melanie’s court. She had to show and prove now that she wanted the same thing.

And if she didn’t... Well, then he would be able to move forward with a sense of closure.

* * *

Melanie had a night of tossing and turning and sweating. But mostly, she spent the hours thinking of Lawrence when she was awake and dreaming of him when she was asleep.

She couldn’t forget the kiss they had shared, nor could her body. And knowing that Richelle was spending the night making love to her new husband only had her feeling more alone in her beautiful resort bure.

Melanie was still hot and bothered the next morning. And confused. Why would Lawrence kiss her like that, claiming it was for closure, and not want to take it to the next level?

Of course, she knew she was speaking as a woman whose body hadn’t been touched in nine months.

Though she was barely rested, the sun was shining and she was in paradise. She wasn’t going to sit in her room and mope. Besides, staying inside would ensure that she didn’t see Lawrence.

Maybe once he saw her again, in the sexy gold bikini she’d packed, he would change his mind about sharing her bed.

What’s gotten into me? she asked herself. She wanted to bed the man she had left at the altar. It wasn’t natural.

She got up, got dressed, packed a beach bag and took a golf cart to the restaurant for breakfast. She knew she could contact Richelle’s family, see about spending time with them now that Richelle and Roy would be honeymooning. But she preferred to enjoy the morning breakfast alone and then head to the beach or the pool.

She entered the restaurant and looked around with a fluttery stomach, wondering if she was going to see Lawrence. But he wasn’t there, at least not from where she could see. She didn’t even know when he was leaving. For all she knew, he had left the island already.

She continued to look for him as she was escorted to a table, and not seeing him, she felt a wave of disappointment. Then she felt stupid. Maybe the kiss Lawrence had laid on her hadn’t been about closure, as he’d said, but about a sort of payback. One last hot kiss designed to make her remember just how good they’d been in bed—and drive home the point that she would never have him again.

Priya, one of the waitresses she had come to know, greeted her with a warm smile. “Good morning, Melanie. Would you like some coffee?”

“Please.”

Priya filled her cup and asked if she was dining alone.

“It’s just me,” Melanie said cheerfully.

“I hear the wedding was beautiful,” Priya said. “Maria is very pleased with how everything turned out.”

“She was a fabulous wedding planner,” Melanie commented. “Everyone was thrilled with how the day went.”

“Maybe you will come back here one day for your own wedding?” Priya said, her voice rising on a hopeful note.

The very mention of marriage made Melanie’s stomach tickle. Right now, she should be in bed lying in Lawrence’s arms, recovering from a night of wild lovemaking. But to Priya, she said, “Perhaps. But for now, I would love to try the strawberry crepes this morning.”

“Excellent,” Priya said and headed off.

Melanie’s gaze wandered to the view surrounding the restaurant. It truly was magnificent here. But what was she going to do for four days on her own?

Reaching into her beach bag, she found her novel. She opened it to the page where she had left off, and then saw the shadow of a body approaching her from behind. She looked up, hopeful.

And saw Edward.

“Morning, Mel,” he said, smiling brightly at her. Then added, “You don’t mind if I call you Mel, do you?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“You’re not dining alone, are you?” he asked.

“Richelle’s married now, so it’s just me.”

“Dining alone...it isn’t right. Let me join you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you have company already. Don’t worry about me. I was planning on enjoying a quiet breakfast, so I’m perfectly fine.”

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