Delicious and Deadly by CC MacKenzie Read Free Book Online

His back was tanned, the skin clear, pulled taut over strong muscles. His waist was narrow and dipped low before the rise of the smooth curve of his butt. His incredibly tight butt. Her eyes went wide. A butt that had the imprint of her fingernails dug deep.
    Shocked at her own wanton behaviour, Emma took stock of her own aches. The soft flesh of her inner thighs had been rubbed red by his beard as he’d... Heat scorched her cheeks. Her nipples tingled. And when she spotted a love bite on her breast her face went nuclear.
    Omigod.
    They’d gone at each other like rabid animals.
    What on earth had she been thinking?
    What on earth had she done?
    Emma knew the frantic need to escape was wrong, childish even, but all she wanted at that moment was to be alone. To gather herself together. To think. To work out what to do next.
    Like a thief in the night, she slid out of his bed, grabbed her clothes, and tip-toed out of the bedroom. The sitting room was immaculate and she remembered that Oscar liked order in his life, in his environment. She dressed quickly. Thought about leaving a note, then thought again.
    Without looking back, Emma raced down the beach and up the path to the castle as if the devil himself was at her heels.
     
     
     
     

Chapter Seven
    Oscar Zamani Spencer had been born more than rich.
    He’d been born one of the privileged few.
    In his choice of careers, both of them, he’d been surrounded by people who wanted to be the best. In Eden, he’d had a blast developing an exciting new menu and teaching new skills to a first-class team.
    Eden had also given him plenty of down-time to edit his cookbook. But more importantly, to think.
    Usually when Oscar had down-time he preferred to enjoy solitary pursuits; listening to music, reading, things that permitted his creativity to relax.
    He was anything but relaxed now.
    No one knew where she was, who she was.
    Emma Ludlow was not, apparently, a guest of Eden.
    The Master was off island and no one knew when he was due to return.
    Now Oscar strolled along the sand and wondered if he’d dreamed the whole fucking thing. Maybe the events of this morning had just been a figment of his overwrought imagination? His fingers fiddled with the hair tie on his wrist. The hair tie he’d found in his bed. She’d been no dream. She’d been real alright. He hadn’t dreamed the way she laughed, that mysteriously smoky sound that had flowed like molten honey over his heated skin. He hadn’t dreamed that he’d been burying his face in the glistening dark copper of her hair either, or the way it glowed in the sunlight that flooded his bed.
    God, she’d been so soft, so giving, as she’d whispered desperate promises in his ear as he’d filled her over and over. Promises that even now had tiny aches rushing over his flesh. He needed her to whisper those words, look at him, touch him, like that again and again.
    So where the hell had she gone?
    And how had she left the island since, according to Connie, no flights or boats had arrived or departed for two days.
    So like the good soldier he was, Oscar considered the facts.
    She was divorced.
    He found the reality of that fact hard to grasp.
    In his mind he’d imagined the beautiful Emma swanning around Washington, D.C. Hosting high-powered cocktail parties, intimate dinners, for her Senator husband. Pressing the flesh, working all the angles.
    Living the fucking dream... just as her mother had planned.
    If he lived to be a hundred, Oscar would never forget the way Catherine Ludlow had told him her daughter had married and was on her honeymoon. He'd never forget the triumphant malice in her polite voice, the sneer on her thin mouth, or how her grey eyes filled to the brim with a loathing she reserved purely for him.
    Bottom line - in spite of his background - he wasn't good enough for Emma.
    And all because his maternal grandmother had been African.
    Bigots.
    Oscar knew the world was full of them. But Emma's mother was in a league