Prologue

       Kris Torrence took a deep, contemplative breath as she stared at herself in the mirror of her postage stamp sized bathroom. This can’t be as good as it gets, she thought morosely. I can’t be as good as I get…

       She was pretty enough, she supposed, with her wine-red hair and cat-like green eyes. Undoubtedly more average than beautiful but pretty enough that she should have been dating, should have been leading a more exciting life. Yet she wasn’t and didn’t.

       Thirty-four and never married, Kris was content with being single—enjoyed it even. She liked living alone, relished the freedom of being able to do what she wanted when she wanted to do it without having to confer with a man about her plans for the evening. Being single definitely has its rewards.

       But, she conceded, it has its drawbacks too.

       Loneliness was the biggest of them. Lots and lots of lonely nights spent staring at the empty pillow next to hers in the queen-sized bed, fantasizing about falling in love, fantasizing about risqué sexual situations she’d realistically never find herself in. She was a normal woman after all. She had needs.

       But mostly, she sighed, mostly she just fantasized about companionship.

       However, she reminded herself, her chin going up a notch, she wasn’t lonely for companionship altogether, just lonely for male companionship. And, she thought pointedly as her cat Hercules sauntered from the bathroom and toward the kitchen with a meeow, human male companionship in particular.

       She winced, wondering not for the first time if she had inadvertently turned into the living portrait of an old maid without even realizing it. Hercules, she thought grimly, was but one of a grand total of five felines living in her apartment.

       Five cats! Kris grimaced. When in the hell had she managed to acquire five cats? It’s as if she’d fallen asleep one night a young woman and woke up the next morning a pathetic spinster.

       She rolled her eyes at herself in the mirror. “Stop it, Kris,” she chastised her image. “You’re not a spinster and you know it. You’re just…” She sighed. “…you’re just lonely and bored.”

       It was the truth and she knew it. Yes, she was thirty-four. Yes, she had never been married. No, she wasn’t dating anyone and hadn’t in at least six months.

       But overall she loved her life. She enjoyed her tenured position as a professor of anthropology at San Francisco State University, found the research she did on other cultures with her graduate students invigorating and challenging.

       And, she sniffed, there was nothing wrong with owning cats. Many cats. Lots of cats. All kinds of cats. Smallish short-haired ones, tall and lanky long-haired ones, big fat furball ones, and—

       Her teeth gritted. Okay, so maybe she owned too many goddamned cats.

       But other than the fact she was a one-woman humane society, there wasn’t anything wrong with her life and she knew it. And really, she thought with a grin as Zeus jumped up on the bathroom sink and purred against her hand while his rough tongue lapped at her skin there, there wasn’t anything wrong with being a hopeless, dyed in the wool, lover of felines. It’s just that…

       Her grin slowly faded as she stared at herself in the mirror. It’s just that she was a bit tired of the status quo, a bit tired of leading a boring, complacent existence.

       And, she acknowledged as she drew in a deep breath, she had needs like any other normal woman. She was at her sexual peak for goodness sake—hardly the time in her life to remain celibate due to complacency!

       She wanted to once—just once—do something wild and crazy, something completely out of character from the Dr. Kris Torrence everyone at the university knew and respected. Something brazen and reckless enough to give her a lifetime of memories she could hug close to her heart whenever she was in the mood to wax sentimental on rebellious days gone by. She was getting older and…

       She sighed. In her youth, and onward into her twenties, she had always done the right thing, the proper thing. As a teenager she had done what the nuns at the parochial school she’d attended had expected of her, she had been the good girl her parents had wanted her to be, and…

       And she was sick as she didn’t know what of being that good girl. No thirty-four year-old woman needs to conform to the expectations of others when those expectations were not her own. Or, more to the point, no thirty-four year-old woman should conform to the expectations of others when those expectations were not her own.

       Kris nibbled at her lower lip as her eyes slowly strayed down to the bathroom sink counter and toward the magazine laying opened upon it. She mentally resisted rereading the classified ad she’d been compelled to study for what felt like a thousand times in the past three days. But in the end she found her hands reaching for it and her heart rate picking up as her eyes soaked in the words:

       Hotel Atlantis is currently searching for select females to work in our exclusive gentlemen’s resort situated on a private island off the coast of San Francisco. Pay is exceptional for exceptional females as our resort accommodates only the wealthiest of clientele. Women comfortable in the role of submissive are especially needed. Island excursions last anywhere from 3-7 days…

       Kris blew out a breath as she reread the part of the ad that most appealed to her.

       Women comfortable in the role of submissive are especially needed.

       It had always been a fantasy, she conceded as she chewed on her bottom lip. A very big, got-her-wet-every-time-she-thought-about-it fantasy…

       To be submissive to a man. To play slave to his master. To allow a man to tie her up and do anything he wanted to do to her—

       It was something no good girl would do.

       It was something she wanted to do very badly.

       Her heartbeat sped up. Just for one night, she promised herself. Or in this case, just for one island excursion.

       It wasn’t as if nobody had ever heard of Hotel Atlantis. On the contrary, everybody who lived in or around the Bay area knew precisely what the resort was and whom the resort catered to, even if it wasn’t the sort of topic one tended to bring up in casual conversation.

       Hotel Atlantis was the exclusive place that elite businessmen went for sun, fun, and no-strings-attached sex with any paid woman, and as many paid women, of their choosing.

       If you want to live out your deepest sexual fantasies without anybody of your acquaintance finding out about it, this would be the place to do it, Kris. She took another deep breath. There is no way in hell that any of your male colleagues at the university make enough money to frequent that island!

       Kris set the magazine down on the bathroom sink counter and resumed staring at herself in the mirror. She doubted such an exclusive gentlemen’s retreat as Hotel Atlantis would want to hire a woman as average looking as she was anyway. But maybe if she let her long and curly wine-red hair down from the bun, and applied a little bit of make-up, and…

       Her lips pinched together in a frown. Perhaps if she underwent a complete reconstructive overhaul of her average face she could talk Hotel Atlantis into letting her work one excursion.

       She bristled at that. As if she wanted to work in a place where she was destined to be the ugliest woman on the entire island! Especially, she thought morosely, when the entire reason she wanted to go in the first place wasn’t for the money as the other women no doubt were, but to get a little action.

       She sighed as she glanced back down at the ad.

       Hotel Atlantis will be conducting in-person interviews throughout the entire last week of March in the San Francisco area. Call John Calder today at 555-3212 to—

       She stopped reading, her finger tracing the outline of the printed telephone number. “On the other hand,” she murmured, “it can’t hurt to at least call the guy.”

       Closing her eyes briefly and taking a steadying breath, she closed the magazine and slowly turned around to face the exit to the bathroom.

       Nervous and feeling surprisingly giddy, Kris swallowed hard in her throat as she found herself walking toward the kitchen—and the telephone. When she reached it, when the cordless phone’s receiver was firmly in hand, she took a deep breath before pounding out the telephone number she’d committed to memory three days ago.

       “This is insane,” she muttered to herself as she waited for someone on the other end of the line to pick up. “I must have lost my—”

       “Thank you for calling Hotel Atlantis. This is Sheri Carucci. How may I assist you this evening?”

       Kris’s green eyes widened at the disembodied sound of the throaty voice. Her heartbeat picked up so dramatically that she idly wondered for one hysterical moment if it would come thumping out of her chest.

       “Hello? This is Hotel Atlantis. Hello?”

       Her breathing grew labored as her heartbeat climbed impossibly higher.

       “Very funny, buddy. Listen,” the throaty-turned-annoyed voice asked, “you wanna book a stay on the island or not?”

       Terrified, and feeling way out of her element, Kris’s hand flew to the wall console, preparing to hang up. But just as she was about to end the connection, just as her fingers were about to press the disconnect button, her gaze was snagged by a photograph hanging on the wall a foot away.

       Her eyes narrowed into slits. The photograph was of herself and her five cats.

       If only I had been wearing a parochial schoolgirl uniform in that picture the pathetic good girl imagery would be complete!

       Kris’s nostrils flared as she planted her hand firmly on her hip so it couldn’t fly up to the disconnect button of its own accord and nervously end the connection with Madame Throaty Voice against her volition.

       “My name is Kris,” she determinedly gritted out into the receiver, her chin thrusting up. And with the conviction and resolution of a recovering alcoholic at a group prevention meeting, she added loudly and cathartically, her nostrils flaring impossibly further, “and I’m a submissive!”

       “Hold on a sec,” Madame Throaty Voice replied with a yawn. “Let me transfer you upstairs to that department.”

       Kris grunted.

Chapter 1

Three weeks later

       “Good morning, Dr. Torrence.”

       “Good morning, Dr. Moore.”

       Kris smiled fully as she strolled into the faculty lounge, her good mood evident. She was dressed in a conservative navy business skirt that ended at the knee, a white cotton shirt that was buttoned all the way to the top, and her mass of dark red curls was secured in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Completing her usual ensemble was a pair of black spectacles perched at the tip of her nose.

       Clearly, she felt better than she looked. But then she’d never placed much importance in fashion anyway.

       Kris inclined her head to Dr. Moore as she strutted by him, feeling as though she was on cloud nine. She just prayed nobody in the anthropology department figured out why she was in such good spirits. She could hardly believe it herself.

       “How are you doing today?” she asked conversationally. “I’m sorry I’m late.” I was busy packing my bags for my trip to Hotel Atlantis! “Has anything happened around here I should know about?”

       Dr. Moore nodded, his pompous tone as annoying as it had ever been. “Quite a bit actually…”

       She listened to her colleague’s rather long-winded answer with half an ear as she poured herself a cup of what most people would call beans and water, but what the university called, or tried to pass off as at any rate, coffee.

       Kris ignored Dr. Moore as she sipped from the steamy mug of cheap quasi-Columbian brew, and reflected back on the conversation she’d had with Sheri Carucci last week.

       “After meeting with you, John felt that you were perfect for the position, doll. He’d like to have you work the five-day island excursion slated to start one week from today. Or is that too soon?”

       “N-No,” Kris had stammered out, her heart thumping madly against her chest. She hadn’t used up a single day of vacation time this year so she knew she had the days coming to her. “He…he actually thought I’d fit in there?” she asked hesitantly, not certain as to whether or not she’d heard her correctly. Or that Madame Throaty Voice had heard John Calder correctly.

       Sheri chuckled, a grin in her voice. “You sound surprised.”

       “I am surprised,” she said in a bewildered monotone, her jaw slack.

       “Well don’t be,” Sheri replied. “Besides, these rich guys really go for the innocent, good-girl look.”

       Her bemusement vanished as her teeth gritted. “I am not,” Kris said distinctly, each word precise, “innocent. Nor am I a good girl.” She slashed her hand through the air for emphasis, though Sheri couldn’t see that.

       “Uh huh.”

       Kris sighed. “Okay maybe I look that way.” She sighed again. “Okay maybe I am that way. But please believe me when I say I don’t want to be that way.”

       “Hmm,” Sheri said noncommittally, her tone amused. “Why do I get the feeling you don’t want this job for the money, doll?”

       When Kris said nothing, merely sat quietly on the other end of the connection worrying her lip as she wondered if she’d inadvertently given her ulterior motives away, Sheri chuckled again.

       “It’s okay. Your secret is safe with me. Hey! If rich men can come here to get their rocks off then why can’t we women?”

       Kris found herself smiling into the receiver. And immediately taking a liking to one Madame Throaty Voice. “Why indeed,” she murmured.

       And so the chartered flight to Atlantis Island had been booked. For tonight.

       She gulped.

       “Oh,” Dr. Moore continued, breaking her out of her reverie, “I almost forgot to mention that Mr. McKenna is in your office.” He shook his head, perturbed. “He’s waiting to speak to you,” he said disdainfully as he adjusted his tie.

       Kris frowned at Dr. Moore. “Mr. McKenna? As in Jack McKenna?” She sighed as she looked at her colleague, for once sharing in Dr. Moore’s less than hospitable mood. He was the last person she wanted to see today, especially considering how frazzled her nerves already were from the impending journey to Hotel Atlantis tonight. “Oh no, not him again.”

       “Afraid so.”

       “What does he want this time?” she asked resignedly, realizing as she did that if Jack McKenna wanted to speak to her she had little choice but to acquiesce. As the owner of the multimillion-dollar construction company that had built half the high rises in downtown San Francisco, and as a corporate financier of the university’s anthropology department in particular, Jack McKenna was allowed to get away with more than most. A fact that irritated Kris enough to make her teeth grind together from merely looking at the big bruiser.

       “Why don’t you ask him yourself,” a dark voice growled from behind her.

       Kris whipped around, almost spilling her coffee at her surprise as she did so. She hesitantly glanced toward Dr. Moore who was uncomfortably clearing his throat while pretending to readjust his tie.

       Her chin went up determinedly as she returned her gaze to Jack McKenna. She met the calculating dark eyes of her nemesis dead-on, refusing to be intimidated by him and his bullying ways. Her eyes narrowed as she considered him, sizing him up as one would an opponent in the boxing ring.

       One dark eyebrow rose bemusedly, a never-before-seen grin tugging at one corner of his mouth.

       Kris grunted.

       Jack McKenna was handsome enough, she supposed. For a big bruiser type anyway. He was a tall man—probably stood around 6 foot four—and at forty-two years of age was still as thick with muscle as any pro-football linebacker. His hair was short and dark and given to the slightest hint of curl, his big body bronze with tan.

       She knew that he had worked his way up through the ranks of the construction company he now owned, having started at the bottom as a laborer. She could surmise from the heavy musculature of his body that he probably hadn’t given up his former trade altogether when he’d bought out his uncle and taken over McKenna Construction, for he had the strong and powerful look of a man who was accustomed to heavy laboring.

       Not that she’d noticed or anything, she sniffed.

       “You wanted to see me, Mr. McKenna?”

       With Dr. Salazar on vacation until tomorrow that left Kris in the apparently pitiful position of being the most tenured, which meant she’d be the one obliged to hear Jack McKenna growl out his latest demands. Again.

       Six months ago when Dr. Salazar had been on a dig in Mexico Jack McKenna had prowled around the department with his demands. Three months before that, when Dr. Salazar had been at a conference in Hawaii, he had come around growling again. If she didn’t know better, she’d start to wonder if the damn man waited for her boss to disappear just so he could growl at her in particular. But that was ludicrous to think, of course.

       That black eyebrow rose again as he regarded her, a habit of his that always left her feeling decidedly irritated. It was as if he was sizing her up—and finding her lacking. But then a man like Jack McKenna, a wealthy man who’d dated just about every brainless bimbo in the Bay area, would look down his nose at a woman so average in appearance as herself. Physically she was his inferior and she knew it.

       His dark gaze methodically roamed over her body, starting at her legs, working slowly up to her breasts and lingering, then climbing higher to her face. She felt a bit flustered when her nipples hardened at the tingling of sensual awareness that passed through her, but ignored the feeling and quickly pushed it aside.

       Besides, she reminded herself as she raised one of her wine-red eyebrows and met his determined stare with a challenging one of her own, Jack McKenna was probably just trying to intimidate her. As always. Once a bully, always a bully.

       It was ironic indeed that the very sort of man Kris wanted to experience submission with in bed was standing before her, yet she knew she’d never hand herself over to a man like this one in a trillion years. Not that the multimillionaire construction worker cum CEO had ever expressed any interest in doing so anyway, she thought grimly.

       But if he had tried to take her to bed, she knew she would have said no. Not only because a messy affair could cause problems for her at the university, but also because Jack McKenna wasn’t the sort of man who would take dominance and submission as a mere sexual game. He was the type of arrogant male who would take it literally, expecting a woman to cater to him always, whether in the bedroom or out of it.

       Definitely not her type.

       Even if he was masculine sexuality personified.

       “Hell yes I want to see you,” he growled. He jabbed a finger in the general direction of her office door. “Let’s go talk, lady.”

       Or masculine idiocy personified, she thought with down-turned lips.

       Kris frowned severely, even as she decided that she might as well get the royal summons over and done with. The faster she listened to his growling session, the faster the big bruiser would be gone. But, she decided, she would not speak privately with him until she set him straight on one score.

       “My name is Doctor Torrence,” she said pointedly, sounding as pompous as Dr. Moore at that moment. “And if that is too long and too complicated of a name for your brain to absorb, then Doctor will suffice.” She inclined her head. “I did not, sir, spend eight years in college earning my Ph.D. to be talked down to as though I am an idiotic twit.”

       He sighed, then pinched the bridge of his nose as he seemingly gathered himself together. No doubt a delaying tactic to keep himself from snapping at her.

       He glanced up, his jaw clenched, his dark eyes blazing into her green ones. “Look lady…”

       She clucked her tongue, fascinated by the vein throbbing at his temple.

       “Doctor Torrence…” he growled.

       She smiled, then nodded. “You wanted to speak with me in private?” she asked sweetly. Too sweetly.

       His nostrils flared as he narrowed his dark gaze at her. “Yes,” he hissed.

       A hiss. She’d never heard him hiss before and found herself wondering what precisely it meant. Odd as it was, she was good at detecting Jack McKenna’s moods. Not that it took a Ph.D. in anthropology to do so for he only seemed to have two moods in total: surly and surlier.

       Telling herself it didn’t matter, and that she had better things to do with her time than quarrel with an overgrown Neanderthal—such as prepare for her chartered flight tonight!—she waved a hand easterly and strolled toward her office door.

       Her nemesis was quiet for the entire walk down the hallway, which Kris found distressingly odd for such a huge and generally loud man. She felt a queer premonition pass over her, that sort of bizarre jolt that makes the hair at the nape of one’s neck stir when you somehow become aware of the fact that you are being watched.

       She stiffened. Jack McKenna doesn’t watch like a normal man does.

       Jack McKenna studies. He calculates. He assesses.

       He hunts.

       She swallowed a bit roughly, wondering what it was precisely that he was hunting today. Kris didn’t fool herself for even a moment into thinking the big bruiser had all of a sudden become taken with her as a woman. On every occasion she’d been obliged to deal with him, and admittedly she’d seen to it that those occasions were few and far between, he had shown her nothing but hostility, disdain, and even, for whatever reason, resentment.

       Perhaps he resented the fact that she was a woman with a Ph.D. Perhaps he resented the fact that she had red hair. Perhaps he resented the fact that her automobile of choice was a conservative, no frills Volvo. Perhaps he resented the fact that—

       Bah! Who knew what his reasons were.

       Where Jack McKenna was concerned, one could never be certain of anything. So basically you were best off not even trying to figure them out to begin with.

       Kris closed the door behind him after he entered her small, modest office. Motioning for him to have a seat, she decided to ignore him when he merely grunted without sitting down. Sighing, she seated herself behind her desk and smiled as politely as she could. She folded her hands on the desk before her and met his gaze. “How can I help you, Mr. McKenna?”

       He frowned as he stared at her in silence, his dark expression brooding. They faced off in stark quiet for what felt like the tensest hour of Kris’s life, their gazes locked in mutual challenge, when in fact it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds that had already ticked by.

       She grew increasingly anxious on the inside, her heart rate picking up dramatically, but on the outside she looked ice-cool.

       And then finally, thankfully, he opened his mouth to speak. But whatever it might have been that he had been about to say was interrupted when Dr. Salazar made an unexpected appearance into the office.

       Kris blew out a breath as she stood up, relieved. She wouldn’t be obliged to deal with the growling grump after all.

       “Alma,” Jack said politely if a bit gruffly. Almost as though he was disappointed by the fact that their impending conversation had been interrupted. But then that made no sense really.

       Jack respectfully inclined his head when he stood up to greet the department head, inducing Kris’s forehead to wrinkle. This was the first time she had ever seen Jack McKenna and Alma Salazar interact and she had to wonder at it. Kris had always assumed that the bruiser probably treated the older woman as surly as he did the rest of the world. Apparently that assumption had been wrong.

       She frowned when she wondered if Jack saved up all of his bad manners for her alone.

       Jerk.

       “It’s good to see you, Jack,” Dr. Salazar said sincerely, causing Kris to blink. But then Kris couldn’t imagine anybody being happy to see Jack McKenna. It was like the Whos down in Who-ville being happy to see the Grinch before he’d reformed his wicked ways. “I came back from vacation a day early because I’m behind with paperwork. I’m glad I didn’t miss you. But I see that Krissy here was helping you.”

       She winced at Dr. Salazar’s casual usage of the name Krissy. She winced again when she realized the feminine sounding name hadn’t gone unnoticed by the Grinch. That damn eyebrow of his shot up again as he flicked his gaze toward her.

       “Yes,” he said dryly, his voice a low growl. “Krissy and I were just getting ready to discuss the problems down at your team’s excavation site.”

       Kris frowned, her hands folding under her breasts.

       Dr. Salazar’s eyebrows drew together quizzically. “Problems, Jack? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

       He nodded. “Yeah. Problems. The problem being it isn’t excavated yet. Look,” he said in the calmest tone of voice Kris had ever heard him use, “I don’t mind delaying my men by a day or two so your team can finish digging up those old bones we happened across, but time is money, Alma, and your team is taking up a hell of a lot of my time.”

       Dr. Salazar nodded. “I understand, Jack. Krissy and I will get right on it ourselves.” She patted him on the shoulder, an affectionate and platonic gesture. “No need to worry. We’ll finish excavating it tonight.”

       Tonight?

       Kris’s eyes widened. Of all nights, please not tonight! she mentally wailed.

       Jack McKenna turned his head and stared at Kris as though he was working her out in his mind—as though he had figured out he was thwarting her from doing something she had really wanted to do tonight. And damned if he didn’t look pleased by that realization.

       Jerk!

       “Good,” he murmured, his gaze never leaving Kris’s.

       She stiffened, her chin notching up, as it was apt to do whenever she felt defensive. “I’ll be more than happy to excavate the site with you, Dr. Salazar,” she said in a professionally clipped tone as she tore her gaze away from Jack’s. “But if you want me to be a part of the excavation I’m afraid it will have to wait until I return from my vacation in a week.” She nodded definitively, letting it be known that in this one particular instance she would not waver. She had a solid reputation for being a team player, so she wasn’t worried Alma would think poorly of her.

       Dr. Salazar inclined her head, affirming her assumption.

       Jack frowned, his dark eyes broodingly raking over Kris. “Why?” he barked. “You going somewhere with a guy or something?”

       “Or something,” she said sweetly, letting him wonder. She decided to ignore the fact that his interest in the subject did weird things to her belly. Like put butterflies inside of it.

       Nerves. It had to be nerves that had made her stomach flutter. The only thing Jack McKenna did to her belly was give it indigestion.

       Kris picked up her purse, nodding at Jack and Alma as she strolled toward the door. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I have a lot of work to do in the lab today before I leave for vacation.”

       She blew out a breath. And a lot of mental preparation to perform in anticipation of tonight’s flight to the exclusive, private island...