Private Paradise(45)

“Jesus,” he said into her hair as the now cool shower spray washed over them. “I'm sorry about that.”

“Sorry? What the hell for?” Carla asked. “Believe me, there was nothing about that to be sorry for.”

“I forgot the condom,” Sam said.

“Oh,” Carla said. “I guess I didn't notice.”

“Well one of us should have,” Sam said a little indignant. He pulled away, turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.

He grabbed a towel, patted himself dry and wrapped it around his waist. How often, he wondered with a burst of something that felt an awful lot like jealousy, had Carla trusted another man with that kind of intimacy. In that minute he wanted names and addresses. He wanted to hunt down every last one of them, wipe them away until he was positive he was the only man on earth who had ever felt the slick, tight, glory of Carla's pussy coming around his unsheathed cock.

“'I'm sorry,” Carla said. She snatched up a towel and started drying herself in quick irritated strokes. “I've never forgotten one before. I guess I just got kind of...carried away.” She wrapped the towel around her, sarong style, and moved over to the marble vanity.

Irrationally relieved, Sam walked behind where she was finger combing her hair in the mirror and dropped a kiss to her shoulder. “Me too. I've never forgotten a condom before in my life.”

He watched in the mirror as Carla cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Never?”

Sam shook his head. “I might have been careless about lots of things, but I enjoy sex way too much to risk fucking up my junk,” he said, satisfied when Carla couldn't hold back her laughter. “Or worse, run the risk of knocking some one up.”

He pressed another kiss to the side of her neck. “Anyway, I don't want you to worry about anything. Along with always using a raincoat, I've gotten a full system check every year since I joined the Army and my last physical was six months ago.” He watched as she did the math, and saw the moment she remembered he'd admitted to being ten months celibate.

“Well,” she said as she tucked the towel tighter around her, “thank God you had the presence of mind to pull out. Can you imagine if I'd gotten...” she trailed off as if unable to utter the word. “Can you imagine what a disaster that would have been?”

“Yeah, a disaster,” Sam said, trying to infusing his voice with fake relief. Frankly, his mind was full of images that were anything but disastrous. A typical guy, he'd politely acknowledged his friends' offspring but he was never one to gush and coo over a baby, for Christ's sake.

But it was scary how easy it was to imagine a baby, he thought. Not just a baby, but his and Carla's baby. Part of him and part of her pulled together into a chubby little being with a mop of dark curls that she would cradle to her breast.

Connecting them together forever, no matter what.

He met her eyes in the mirror, and he thought he saw something in the candlelight, a soft dreaminess, and for a split second he wondered if maybe her thoughts were wandering in the same direction as his.

Then it was gone, leaving nothing but relief at the knowledge that she'd just dodged what could have been a very complicated bullet.

Sam backed away, inwardly shaking his head as he marveled at his own insanity. Like tying her to him with a baby would somehow lead them to happily ever after. He'd seen enough of his friends go through that on both sides to know that shit never worked.

As he padded down the hallway, he accepted that if he wanted to win Carla, he'd have to do it by continuing to chip away at her defenses and continue to prove that he wasn't the same weak-willed man child who'd hurt her in the past. Only when she believed that would she really open up and give him another chance.

In the meantime, he thought as she walked in the room all smooth bare skin covered by nothing but a towel, he'd use every weapon in his arsenal to get her to come around.

Under his towel, his cock twitched as though expressing interest in the thought. He followed her into the kitchen and started to reach for her. As she reached for a loaf of bread and some more cold cuts he thought better of it.

They had a long night ahead of them, and Carla was definitely going to need her strength.





Chapter 11





After their snack, they radioed Chris again to let him know they were okay and had made it through the worst of the storm. Carla risked cracking open the sliding glass doors that led out to the beach.

The normally turquoise waters were choppy and gray, and rain still fell in a heavy patter, but the deadly wind had lessened significantly. Carla, who had once again donned her robe, stepped out onto the wet sand, noting the branches and other debris that littered the normally pristine sugar sand beach.