Mission: Seduction

That bothered him. She was such a kind soul. He’d recognized that about her from the instant they’d met. That and the fact that she’d welcomed him to her resort without a second thought. There was an immediate connection between them, one that disturbed Rafe because of its strength. The pull toward her was something that should only come after knowing a person for months, not minutes.

What amazed him the most was how fast he was over his initial disappointment of Mimi not being there to greet him.

Stop it.

He kicked his feet and swam back to shore. Once there, he claimed the towel he’d brought with him and sat down on the sand.

Had she felt the same awareness? Just because Kelly had been nice to him was no reason for him to think she might be interested in him.

Give it up.

You’re here to hang out with her sister.

“Those look like some deep thoughts,” Kelly said. She stood before him with her board stuck in the sand. How had she snuck up on him like that?

Great, marine, just great.

“Not so deep, I promise. You’re a great surfer. I mean, I don’t know much about the sport, but you ride those man-crushing waves like a pro.” Rafe had stayed in shallow water to avoid the large swells, which rolled in higher by the minute.

“I am,” she said.

He gave her a questioning look.

“A pro,” she said, and laughed. “I surf professionally on the circuit. At least, I did until a few months ago before I decided to hit Pause for a bit and buy this place.” She nodded toward the resort.

If she made enough to afford this luxury spot, she had to have done pretty well as an athlete.

Rafe chastised himself for staring at her. Bikini bottoms with tiny red bows at the hips flattered her long, tanned legs. Her flat stomach was slightly ripped with muscles, just enough to show she wasn’t afraid of a good workout.

Rafe cleared his throat as he stood up. The interest in her toned-in-every-way body had to stop. He searched his brain to recall what they’d been talking about. “Why did you hit Pause?”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe that’s the wrong expression. I think of it as a long vacation. To reevaluate what I want to do next with my life.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “I’ve been traveling the world from one competition to the next since I was sixteen. Burnouts happen a lot in my sport. And to be honest, I was heading that way. I forgot my love for surfing and I wanted to remember why I’m addicted to those waves. And it’s helped. A month’s gone by and I’m already anticipating the next big meet.

“Listen to me. I sound like some confused chick trying to find herself.”

“No, you don’t,” Rafe said quickly. “I love being an active marine and serving, but there are some days I want to give it all a rest and be a farmer or something.”

She grinned. Her amusement pleased him. “You don’t seem like the farmer type.”

“That would be kind of funny, since I don’t know a thing about it,” he admitted. “But some job where you work with your hands and you’re alone out in nature. There’s no one to report to, and you don’t have to constantly watch your back.”

That was true. After his last assignment, he’d begun to reevaluate what was important to him. Unlike Kelly, he had no idea what might be next. He had invested in his friend Will’s private security company so he would always have a job there. That was his safety net.

But Rafe seldom took the safe path. His beat-up leg and shoulder were proof of that.

“How did you end up here? Seems like a lot to take on for one person.”

She shrugged. “I’d been coming here for years during my off time because the waves are great for most of the year. A friend of mine owned it. One day he said he wanted to sell it, and everything fell into place so easily that I knew it was the right decision. It is a lot of work, but manageable. For the most part, it can run itself as long as there’s someone to oversee the accounting and business stuff. Everyone who works here has been here for years, so that also helps.”

Rafe studied her. Kelly was proud of what she’d accomplished, and she should be. From what he’d seen so far, this was about as close to paradise as one could get.

“So what time did you say dinner was?”

“Oh, thanks for the reminder. I need to get back there. It’s at seven, and it’s casual. Very casual. Shorts are fine. Well, see ya tonight.” She grabbed her board and swung away with a jaunty lift to her step.

Rafe couldn’t take his eyes off her bikini-clad body striding up the beach. The woman was insanely beautiful. It wasn’t fair.

He laughed.

What was paradise without a little temptation?

3

RAFE SPOTTED KELLY from the open glass doors of his cabana. She was dressed in a white T-shirt and dark shorts. A pair of pink flip-flops graced her feet.

Yep. She was as hot as he remembered.

Hell.

What was he going to do? Rafe lived by the code of the corps, but he had his own code, as well. Before he’d ever thought about the Marines, his mother had instilled in him a profound respect for women. His father was strict when it came to treating others as equals. Rafe had grown up in the melting pot that was New York, and on his block everyone knew everyone else’s business. There was no chance of getting away with treating a girl he dated any less than was expected.

Kelly leaned over to hand someone a drink, and he couldn’t avoid it—the way her shorts stretched over her butt nearly sent him back to the showers for a cold one. As he approached the group of other guests, he noticed the man she’d given the drink to follow her with his eyes. The appreciation on his face didn’t sit well with Rafe.

Hey, weren’t you doing the same thing?

Shut up.

There were several people gathered in the mansion’s central room. A big flat-screen was on in one corner where some of the men watched a soccer match. An older couple admired the fish in the aquarium that separated the room from the dining area. Rafe wondered how they kept the tank clean. It was enormous.

“Rafe, I’m so glad you’re here,” Kelly said as if she were surprised to see him.

The confusion must have shown on his face.

“After so many hours on the plane and the swim you took earlier, I thought maybe jet lag might have taken over.”

He returned her smile. “It did—I passed out for a while, which is why I’m late. Sorry about that.” In truth, it had taken everything he had to push himself out of bed and into the shower. Only the curiosity of wanting to see Kelly again had kept him going.

Careful there.

“Can I get you a drink?” she asked.

Rafe shook his head. He’d taken two pain pills so that he could make the walk over, and the doctors had warned him not to mix them with liquor.

“Nah, I’m good. Maybe some water?”

“Kelly, the dinner is ready,” announced a lithe teen with the same beautiful skin of the Fijians and bright blue eyes that spoke of another ancestry.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Kelly asked the young girl.

She nodded.

“Okay, but if you spill anything—”

“I know, I know.” The girl almost rolled her eyes but stopped. “Sorry. Yes, ma’am.”

The girl left them, presumably for the kitchen.

“Nari reminds me of myself,” Kelly said softly. “I would do anything to surf when I was a kid.”

“I don’t follow,” Rafe said.

“Oh, she helps out around the resort and occasionally waits tables to pay for her surf lessons here.”

“You give lessons?”

“That she does, mate,” said the man who had been watching Kelly when Rafe had shown up. The Australian was nearly as tall as Rafe’s six-foot-four, but he had white-blond hair and the body of a boxer. Big biceps, short neck. Rafe couldn’t imagine the guy on a surfboard.

“This is Josh,” Kelly said as she introduced them.

“Rafe,” he said as he stuck out his hand.

“Ah. You’re the soldier Kelly was telling the Seymours about. Been in Afghanistan, I heard, and you were shot up pretty bad.”

Rafe glanced at her to find her cheeks were pink.

“Gracie is a doctor,” Kelly said. “I...had heard about how you’d been wounded and I wanted to make sure we had the right therapies for you, and that we didn’t push you too hard. I promise we weren’t gossiping.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Rafe said. “As long as there’s a gym, I can follow up with what my trainers started in Germany.”

“Best facility on the island,” Josh told him, and slapped him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. Rafe struggled not to wince as a shot of pain raced down his back and into his aching hip. He reminded himself he was lucky to be alive. Unfortunately, there were few places on his body that hadn’t felt the effect of his time in the military.

“Yep, they’ll get you fixed up, all right. Came here a couple weeks ago to recover from a bruised hamstring and lower back troubles, and boom!” The man clapped his hands together eliciting a few startled glances. “All better now. This little chicken knows what she’s up to. Got me back to fighting form months before the docs thought it would be possible,” Josh announced to the group, squeezing Kelly into the crook of his arm.

Rafe took pleasure in the fact that she didn’t seem too happy about being smashed up against the guy.

“Josh, can you check that the doors to the kitchen are closed? I want to make sure we don’t get sand in there and it looks like the wind is picking up.”

“On it.” The Aussie lumbered through the main room over to the dining area.

“Are you okay?” Kelly asked softly. The light caress of her hand on Rafe’s forearm was enough to send him over the edge. “He has no idea how strong he is.”

“No worries,” Rafe told her, his voice deeper than usual because her hand was still gently stroking his arm. “Do you always order your guests around like that?”

It was a subtle way to find out if she and the Australian were close.

“Yes,” she replied with a laugh. “I’m bossy that way. Just ask my sister.”

At the mention of her sister, she lifted her hand from his arm and frowned. “Sorry. What were we talking about before that?”

“About you being bossy,” he said as he studied her carefully. Was there something bothering her about Mimi?

“Oh, yes. And with Josh, well, he was supposed to be here for a week and it’s turned into several. That happens a lot. Almost everyone who visits says they feel like family, so I guess it doesn’t hurt to treat them that way. We have a fairly exclusive clientele who are used to plenty of perks, but they like it here because they get all that and they get to be surf bums at the same time. There’s no paparazzi or helicopters flying over to see what kind of bikini they’re wearing or what they’re drinking, or who they are with for that matter.” She shrugged.

“I thought I recognized some faces on the beach today.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure you did. They keep coming back, since no one bugs them here. It’s always been my sanctuary when life got to be too much on the circuit, and I wanted to create that for other people as well.”

Sanctuary. If it weren’t for his dilemma with the sisters, this place would definitely be that. The waves had put him to sleep in seconds after his head hit the pillow. The bungalow was warm, but the sea breeze kept it from being miserably so.

Rafe wasn’t overly impressed with the boxer, but he understood why he was drawn to the place. It was the kind of environment a person could get used to easily. As Rafe sat down at the table across from Kelly, she gave him another smile.

Yep. He could definitely see why people never wanted to leave.

* * *

KELLY CROSSED HER legs on the special platform Nari’s father, Duke, had made for her.

Meditation was part of Kelly’s regular routine and, no matter what was happening around her, she did it twice a day. Settling on the raised part of the deck outside her bedroom, she took a deep, calming breath and tried to clear her mind.

Adrien would kill her for not finishing her dinner tonight, but Kelly’s nerves were like taut guitar strings ready to break. She’d have to speak to Josh about his being a little too handsy. Every chance he had, he put his arm around her shoulders or bent into her as if they were sharing a secret. He’d been overly friendly before, but Rafe’s presence must have caused him to turn territorial. She and Josh had known each other a long time, but that didn’t mean he could take advantage of their friendship.

His behavior probably gave Rafe the idea that they might be a couple, which was the last thing she wanted. She’d caught Rafe’s eyes on them more than once during the meal and he had the strangest look on his face. She was adept at reading people, but she didn’t have a clue what was happening in the marine’s head. He’d been polite throughout dinner even though she’d seen him wince more than once when he twisted the wrong way.

He’d caught the soup tureen when it slipped from Nari’s hands, keeping it from crashing to the floor. But his jaw had tightened and his hand shook as he placed the heavy bowl on the table.

In spite of his pain, he’d assured the young girl that all was well. His kindness toward the fumbling Nari had solidified his hold on Kelly’s heart. And, as if that wasn’t enough, she’d admitted she was infatuated with him before he’d even arrived.

What had begun as an act of kindness on her part for one of America’s heroes had now morphed into a complicated situation that confused her. What should she do? He was an honorable man who appreciated the truth. After seeing that up close and personal, she felt certain he would leave if he knew she’d lied to get him here.

She truly cared about him. And if he left before he really got to know who she was, she’d regret it for the rest of her life. Maybe he would, too.

Helping him heal was the one way she could clear her conscience and set her karma straight. He’d been through so much, the least she could do was support him as he tried to put the pieces of his life back together again. She’d recognized the signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome in his letters. His trouble sleeping, the nightmares, his erratic moods. He’d shared a lot with her, and now she knew what she had to do to repay that trust.

Taking another calming breath, she shut her eyes, but just before her mind went blank, a vision of Rafe on the beach overtook her thoughts. Water dripped from his dark hair, his swim trunks riding low on his hips, his chiseled jaw and toned abs some of the best she’d ever seen on a man.

She sighed.

Well, no one ever said karmic justice was easy.

4

RAFE LIMPED INTO the yoga studio, ready to tell Kelly he wasn’t up for her class. Like the cabana where he was staying, the studio and adjoining gym had glass sliding doors so that the view was of sand and ocean.

Before he could apologize for backing out of the class, the sight before him rocked him to the core.

Kelly, pawing through yoga mats, was dressed in pink shorts and a skin-tight bra top. He thanked the heavens for blessing him with this particular moment in time.

Rafe wasn’t sure if he should continue to ogle or announce himself, but she peeked up at him.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m trying to find you a mat. We have larger ones for tall people, but they’re in the bottom of the box.”

At the mention of bottom, he turned around to leave, but the Seymours were just arriving. Gracie was a physical therapist and her brother a trainer for a college football team. They were friends of Kelly’s who worked the pro-surfing circuit while putting themselves through college. Behind them was James Limon, one of the most popular directors in Hollywood. He and Rafe had discussed Limon’s time serving in the Gulf War and about his passion for surfing. He’d encouraged Rafe to try the sport when he was feeling up to it.

With nowhere left to hide his appreciation of Kelly, he rushed over to the box and knelt, as best he could, next to her.

“Here,” he said, grabbing onto the first mat he spotted. Thankfully, she couldn’t see the evidence her fine body had on his body. When he lifted his head, his eyes were level with her breasts.

Rafe sucked in a breath. He’d survived three tours, and now the universe was determined to kill him with her beauty.

“Oh, are you okay?” She was stared at him worriedly. “You shouldn’t kneel with your leg the way it is. Let me help you up.”

Panicked, Rafe mumbled, “I’m fine,” and made his way to the back of the class. Others had joined in while he’d been talking to Kelly.

By the time she began the class, there were four women and three men, one of whom looked like a pro baseball player, but Rafe wasn’t sure. Everyone put their mats on the floor and rolled them out. He couldn’t quite do that yet.

Facing the back wall, he willed his body to calm down. He forced himself to think of the last time that he’d been shot. The muscles in his body clenched, but the pain solved his problem. A few seconds later, he sat on the floor like the rest of the group.

Well, almost. His legs didn’t quite cross the way theirs did. He put the pads of his feet together. That was as much as he could do with his stiff leg.

“This is rehab yoga,” Kelly announced from the front of the class as she sat down and crossed her legs. “We have a new guest—Rafe.”

Everyone turned to smile and wave at him. He gave them a grin that was probably a bit more like a grimace, as his sore leg chose that moment to tense up in a charley horse.

His jaw tightened as he worked the muscle with the heel of his hand and then flexed his foot so the calf could lengthen.

“These exercises are done on the floor to ease the muscular pressure one might experience if doing them in a regular yoga class,” Kelly explained. “Today is about stretching and helping those muscles to relax so your body can heal. Okay, let’s start in the lotus position. That’s good, Rafe. If you need to you can separate the soles of your feet,” Kelly instructed. “You should not feel pain.”

Rafe’s groin wasn’t happy about where his legs needed to go, but he ignored the pain. He didn’t have the heart to tell Kelly that the pain never left his body. It served as a constant reminder that he was human and just as mortal as the next guy.

In the military, he’d been taught that he could do anything. Survive anything. But as they moved through the next two positions, he wondered if his body would ever recover from Kelly’s pretzel-like torture.

No pain, my ass.

“Now lift your arms up and over your head as we open ourselves to the sun.”

As she gracefully extended her arms above her head, Rafe noticed her top pulled tightly against her chest. He’d never make it through the class if he didn’t stop looking at her. Leaving was his best option, but he didn’t want to disappoint her. She had such high hopes that her classes would be beneficial for him.

Doing his best to stop staring at her, he switched his attention to the other men in the class and followed their actions. Finally, Rafe brought himself and his rebellious libido under control.

Until he glanced over and saw Kelly with her legs stretched wide.

As the class neared its end, Rafe’s muscles relaxed for the first time in months. Amazingly, the exercises had helped his leg. His muscles seemed considerably looser. The group was attempting one last stretch when Kelly put her hand on his ankle to turn his foot the right way.

“You want to keep it perpendicular so that you don’t pull on those hip tendons too much.” She gave him one of her dazzling smiles, and he was lost. Her gentle touch sent heat through his body.

“Thanks,” he said roughly, using every bit of his control to keep himself in check.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as if she were trying to figure something out, but she returned to the front of the class to do the last bit where they lay down on the mat to rest.

Rafe now equated yoga to sexual gymnastics. Sure it worked, but he was exhausted. A shower and a nap were next on his agenda.

“Close your eyes, and listen to the waves,” her gentle voice directed. “Feel the movement of the water as it caresses your body and sends you to your happy place...that Zen only you can find.

“Namaste.”

The sound of the waves filled Rafe’s head, and his body became so light that it seemed to float out over the ocean. He hadn’t been this calm in years.

“Rafe?” Kelly’s voice penetrated his thoughts. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t want anyone interrupting this peaceful feeling. Gesturing toward her, he hoped she’d get the message.

Kelly giggled, and his eyes popped open. She was biting her lip to keep from laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You,” she replied sweetly. “I bet you were riding those waves like a Zen pro.”

Rafe chuckled. “I don’t know about that, but I have to stop making fun of froufrou yoga crap. I feel better than I have in months, maybe years. You’re a great teacher.”

“Thanks.” She extended a hand to help him up.

Rafe was shocked to find they were the only ones in the studio. “Where did everyone go?”

“You’ve been like that for about fifteen minutes. I let you rest while I cleaned up. I would have just left you there, but I worried your hip might stiffen on the hard floor.”

“Right. Well, I guess I’d better hit the shower. We didn’t move that much, although I did sweat.”

“Yes, it’s funny what happens when you are really working those muscles. Why don’t you take your shower, and I’ll put you down for a massage later this afternoon. Mason, one of our top masseurs, has terrific hands, and it will be good to get in there and work those muscles while they’re relaxed.”

“Great idea. See you later,” he said as he rushed out. The woman affected him like no other.

Walking straight into the ocean, Rafe used the cold water to rein in his libido again. This might be the longest two weeks of his life if he didn’t find a way to manage his attraction to Mimi’s sister.

* * *

RAFE WANTED HER. Kelly put her hand over her heart. The very impressive bulge in those loose shorts was impossible to miss.

She stared after him while he all but ran into the waves. His broad back, muscular shoulders and that tattoo of the rising phoenix across his back didn’t help the runaway train her emotions had become. The man was too hot for words.

Was that really in response to her? He’d avoided eye contact with her for most of the class and watched Clifton during the exercises instead. At first, she thought it was because he wanted to see the male version of the moves, but now she wasn’t so sure. Did she have that kind of sexual sway over him? She had to know.

“Rafe,” she called as she jogged out onto the beach.

“Yes?” He didn’t turn around.

“Your massage appointment is set for noon, and I’ve ordered some special oils that soothe aches and pains.”

“Okay.” His voice sounded strained.

She cleared her throat, stifling the urge to smile. Yes, she definitely had an effect on him.

Last night, she’d promised herself she would be a good friend to the marine and get him back into tip-top shape.

But knowing he wanted her as much as she did him—at least she hoped—changed the game entirely.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, Rafe showed up at the spa wearing a crisp white T-shirt and royal-blue board shorts.

The man could have been a model the way he wore clothes.

Kelly ushered him into one of the Zen rooms, as they called them. She lit a candle and switched on some soothing music.

“Strip down, okay? That way the therapist can work on your hip.”

“Got it,” he said.

“We always ask if you would like a silent massage. Some people like to have only music without any talking so they can relax. Other people need the chatter because they may not be comfortable with someone touching them so—intimately. The choice is yours.”