Blame It on Paradise Read Online Free PDF

have been sprouting wings lately.” Sensing a presence he could not see, Jack spoke in hushed tones.
    “You’ll get this done, won’t you, Jack? Burke is champing at the bit for a shot at this acquisition, and I’m tempted to give it to him.”
    Jack returned his full attention to Reginald. This was the first time he’d heard even a hint of doubt regarding his negotiating skill, and Reginald had never before threatened him with Edison Burke. Burke’s style was far different from Jack’s. While Jack preferred to negotiate person to person, laying all the facts and incentives right out on the table, Burke’s success had been built by stating half-truths and making side deals.
    “Marchand’s mine, Reginald,” Jack stated. “I know this game and I always win it. I’ll get J.T. Marchand. First thing tomorrow.”
    He disconnected the call and tossed the phone back into the bedroom. When he turned back toward the patio, he saw her.
    More stunned than surprised, a pained groan seeped from deep in his chest. True to the advance billing given by Reginald’s photos of Darwin’s female population, every woman Jack had encountered since his arrival, Levora included, had been nothing less than beautiful.
    The woman slowly crossing his patio had to be their queen, which was odd considering that, at first glance, she wasn’t particularly attractive. At least not in any conventional sense.
    Individually, Jack found her features peculiar. Her nose was rather thin and elongated, her odd-colored eyes set too wide and her lower lip much fuller than the upper one. But puzzled together, they comprised an amazingly alluring face. Stars of moonlight gleamed in her blue-black hair and made her dark brown skin glow. Tendrils of her long hair whispered against her exposed shoulders and collarbones, and the movement guided Jack’s gaze lower, to her bare torso. Her breasts were magnificent. Round, high and tipped with tiny mahogany buds, they stoked a very specific hunger within the black knit of Jack’s shorts. Her lightly muscled abdomen drew his eyes to the sensuous swell of her hips, around which she wore a sarong made of what seemed to be a black silk handkerchief.
    She walked with the grace and body awareness of a prima ballerina. Hypnotized by the sylph-like movement of her thighs and calves, Jack could look away from her body only after she was standing directly in front him and had captured his gaze within the crystalline grey of her own.
    When her lips parted as if to speak, Jack had to clench his hands to stop himself from touching his fingertip to the plumpness of her lower lip.
    He took a healthy step back before he embarrassed both of them by poking her in her stomach—with a body part far more insistent than his hands. “I like your outfit,” he blurted. He’d wanted to express admiration for the supple sheen of her skin, but then decided to keep his opening remarks more tame.
    She’d never been self-conscious about her body. This was the first time she’d ever felt naked when she was half nude. Snared in the heat of the handsome American’s serious hazel gaze, she prickled with glorious exhilaration. This was it. He was it, the unknown something she had been expecting. All day, her sense of expectation had been a low simmer in her belly. Now, standing before him, that pleasant sensation began to roil. Following her instincts had earned great rewards or big trouble time and time again, with no in between. Unsure which path the trend would take, she circled the out-of-place American, her island’s most interesting new visitor.
    “Is that a Moriori costume?”
    She narrowed her eyes a bit. So he had done his homework. Many tourists came to Darwin with knowledge of the Maori, the indigenous tribesmen of neighboring New Zealand, but few took the time or interest to visit Darwin to learn of its indigenous people, the Moriori.
    “Do you speak English?”
    She reached past him and ran her fingertip along the rim of his