He looked as if it took him a minute to rouse himself from whatever daydream he had drifted off into. And it didn’t take a lot on her part to figure out exactly what that daydream entailed, since she could feel the kick of it in her own blood.
And between her legs like a sweet, insistent fire.
She told herself it was the fact that she was nearly naked, with her ass hanging out and all of her bits on display. It was the fact that the breeze could wash over her, touching parts of her body she wasn’t sure she’d ever bared outside the privacy of her own shower. That was why she felt so animated. So intensely alive.
Outside herself, she told herself, the way anyone might feel after such a long trip.
But she knew that wasn’t true.
What was true was that she felt more inside her own body than she ever had before.
Lucinda shoved that odd notion aside. Because Jason was moving again. For a brief, terrified instant she thought he was reaching for her—
And she knew, even as she categorized it that way, that what she felt certainly wasn’t terror—
But he didn’t put his hands on her, and Lucinda had to swallow back a protest. He pulled open a drawer an inch or so away from her. Then another one, rummaging around until he found a bright orange and blue tube it took her entirely too long to understand was the sunscreen she’d requested.
Their eyes met. Held.
“Come on,” he said, his voice gruffer than before. “Let’s go.”
She wanted to demand that he put the lotion on her here and now, but she didn’t. Maybe because, for all her bravado, she thought that if they stayed here in this dim, deserted lobby—just the two of them—she would find herself in a whole lot more trouble than she’d bargained for.
She tried to ignore all those clamoring parts of herself that wanted exactly that. And when he started walking out from behind the desk, she followed him. After losing a pitched battle with herself, she stopped pretending she was more high-minded and let herself gaze at the stunning expanse of his muscled, tattooed back as he stalked across the lobby in front of her.
He was beautiful, full stop.
And as they walked out from the lobby area onto what once had been a 1950s version of the sort of flowing, open-space lanai that Lucinda wanted to build, he became only more beautiful. As if he was meant to be outdoors on an island just like this one, a part of the sun, the inviting ocean before him and the gleaming white sand that beckoned. He stopped at the edge of the terrace near an old iron railing, his eyes shadowed as the sun beat down on him. He didn’t say a word as he gazed down at Lucinda. He only lifted one of his big hands and motioned for her to turn around with one lazy finger.
Which is not a sexual act, she snapped at herself.
She ordered herself to brazen it out, already, and made herself turn her back to him as if she had all the confidence in the world and he was the one finding it hard to keep his tongue in his mouth.
And as if she wasn’t casually exposing the whole of her backside to him, with nothing but one fragile string across her back and another around her hips to break up his view of...all of her.
She was facing the sea. Her eyes hurt, from all that glare and deep blue, but she didn’t shut them. She didn’t dare.
That felt too much like surrender.
Her heart kicked at her, anticipation and something else she wasn’t sure she could name clattering around inside her and leaving chinks wherever it hit. She heard a click when he opened the tube of lotion. The squeaking sound of the tube as he squeezed it.
Then there was nothing but the breeze dancing up from the sea, smelling of salt and green. The fragrance of all those brightly colored flowers she couldn’t name because they didn’t bloom in cold, wet Glasgow or gray London. The rattling sounds of the coconuts in the trees, the restless rattling of the palms. She could hear raucous birds in the distance, and the tumble of the surf, but there was nothing else beyond it or beneath it.
No traffic. No sirens. No people.
She felt as if she was standing on the edge of the world, and worse still, a steep and dangerous cliff as beguiling as it was deadly. The devil behind her, the blue sea before her, and her own treacherous body smack in the middle.
This time, when she broke out in goose bumps, she knew he could see them. His low, rich chuckle tumbled over her like a different kind of touch altogether.
Lucinda didn’t have time to fight it off, because that was when his hands made contact.
And she stopped breathing.
He started at her neck. He traced the delicate column down, then spread his big, wide palms out to take in her shoulders. His palms were hot, hotter than the sun beating down from above, and spread fire everywhere they touched.
And they touched everything. Every inch.
He traced her shoulder blades, then moved farther down, all along the indentation of her spine. Then he tracked the flare of her hips.
He covered every inch, then moved lower still. He paused to get more lotion, then slicked those hard, intensely masculine hands over the curves of her ass.
Lucinda...fell.
Right off that edge into sheer insanity.
She stopped worrying about trifling concerns like goose bumps. She stopped trying to control her breath. She let go of her threadbare control as she tumbled fast and hard over the side of the cliff she’d imagined in her head, and the world disappeared.
There was nothing but here, now.
There was nothing but Jason Kaoki and his talented, impossibly calloused and tender hands, working their way over every square inch of her overheated skin. He didn’t linger anywhere in particular, which made all the places that longed for his attention heat up, as if in protest.
And deep inside her, something turned over, then began to hum like an engine, low and insistent and wired to the soft heat between her legs.
He smoothed his palms down the backs of her thighs, the hollow of knees that already felt too weak, and then down to her calves.
“Turn around,” he ordered her, his voice like gravel.
It didn’t occur to Lucinda to disobey.
She turned and instantly everything was worse. Or maybe better. Certainly hotter, because now there was no pretending that she was standing by herself on the edge of the world having erotic daydreams of a man’s touch.
A touch she could feel cascading over her, through her, then deep into her. Making her quiver, deep in her pussy. Making her want to shift, run—something to release the impossible pressure building inside her—
Because he was right there in front of her, big, brawny and almost indescribably beautiful.
Jason crouched down before her, so tall that he still came up to her chest. And he was so close that when he slicked more lotion on his hands, then looked up, the world shuddered to a halt.
That pulsing pressure between her legs grew. She could feel it in her toes. Her breasts. Her stiff nipples.
His eyes were dark fire. And she could see, so clearly, all the things he wanted. All the images that were chasing each other around and around inside his head, as if they were both watching the same movie that starred the two of them.
But he didn’t do anything except reach for her foot, then start making his way up one leg. Then down the next.
Each slick slide of his big hand over her flesh made her...tremble. Each lazy, smooth bit of heat collected in her pussy and made her clench her thighs to keep from surrendering to all that pressure and need and longing.
When he reversed direction and shifted his attention to her belly, he slowed down. Or time did.
Lucinda knew she was breathing too fast. That she was showing too much and surrendering whatever claim to power she’d had inside.
That it was entirely possible her body was about to betray her, right here and now.
But she couldn
’t seem to stop herself.
And she couldn’t seem to care, either. Something she was sure would concern her when this was over. But he was moving higher now, smoothing his way over the slopes of her breasts, and her mind went blank.
Blank...yet full of color and sensation, all of it spiraling down through her body to wind her tighter and tighter. Her clit was so ripe and ready she might simply tip over that edge all on her own the next time she squeezed her thighs together.
But she didn’t. Somehow, she didn’t.
His hands were wicked and left her shaking, yet he never went too far. He was restrained if not strictly clinical—but that only made the heat and need between her legs worse.
He slicked the lotion, smelling of coconut, over the exposed curves of her breasts and then moved higher, as if he was unmoved either way. Which only made Lucinda feel more exposed. Time ground to a halt as he worked, until there was nothing but the sound of her own breath, the beat of her heart and the rough slide of his fingers over her skin.
She could feel every touch as if those talented fingers were working her clit.
And she shuddered, close. So close—
“Give me your face,” he ordered her, his voice gruff, and Lucinda didn’t understand why it felt like some kind of surrender when she obediently inclined her head toward him.
Or why she felt like this was another frankly sexual act, the way he smoothed the last of the lotion over her forehead, then her cheeks and jaw. He took extra care with her ears, carefully covering the strip of space behind each one, and even ran his palms over her hair.
And when he was done, he moved his hands back to her cheeks and held her face there.
And everything in Lucinda...throbbed. She could feel it in her breasts, her clit and everything in between. She could feel that shuddering inside her, tipping her toward that edge again, sweeping over her and through her in a trembling rush.
Bright and hot and like some kind of madness, caught up in the light and the breeze and the tumbling waves behind her.
So close—So close—
And she knew full well it wasn’t the scenery that made her shiver, it was the man kneeling before her.
Jason studied her, his dark gaze frank and carnal, and the heat of his palms made her ache. Her breasts were too full, her belly quivered uncontrollably, and her pussy was soaking wet with molten heat.
And her clit was a breath away from taking her over.
She wanted him. All of him, so huge and hard and outside her experience in a thousand different ways. Lucinda had no time for seduction. She preferred to throw back a few drinks, then find a likely lad in an upscale bar. Back to his to get off, then out the door.
This felt nothing like any of those half-drunk encounters, with Lucinda always on top and in control, then gone.
This felt like melting. This felt wrong, somehow, but delicious all the same, a part of the bright sun and the palm trees overhead and the insistent caress of the air all around her.
Thousands upon thousands of miles away from everything she knew.
Lucinda felt electric and helpless all at once and told herself she hated the sensation.
But that was another lie.
The truth was that scalding, insistent heat between her legs.
She was so close—
But she refused.
She refused to come like this, from suntan lotion and his hands on her skin. She refused to allow herself to lose the game like that, before she’d even begun to play it. She refused to hand over control.
She refused.
Her gaze locked to his, she made herself breathe. She found the rising crest of that tide and somehow, someway, pushed it back.
Before it could sweep her away where she stood.
And for a moment there was nothing but the little bit of space between them and the fact she hadn’t come. Because she, by God, was in control of something here. Not the heat. Not what she was wearing. Not whether or not he’d let her build her hotel.
But Lucinda would come when she wanted to come, thank you.
“Let’s go, darlin’,” Jason said, low and dark, with too much knowing heat in his gaze and in the curve of his beautiful mouth. Especially when she stared back at him in challenge, daring him to call her on what she’d done. “It’s time to get you out in the water.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE WAVES USUALLY brought him nothing but peace.
No matter what else might have been going on in his life—whether it was football, or simply existing on the mainland that always seemed so far removed from anything he knew—Jason had always found his place in the water. Give him a board and a free hour and he’d find a wave. And with it, a way to get back to what mattered.
But he’d miscalculated with Lucinda.
He kept thinking she would back down. But she didn’t.
He never expected her to put on that bikini and come back out of the office. And once she had, and he’d predictably lost his shit, he’d figured she’d draw the line at his putting his hands all over that tight, curvy little body of hers.
Instead, she’d refused to give in to the wild heat that was still blazing between them. And she’d come out of it a little bit flushed with SPF 50 all over her, while he felt like a sixteen-year-old kid with a boner in gym class.
It would have been funny if it was happening to someone else.
“I don’t know how to surf,” she announced.
He’d hauled two surfboards down to the water’s edge, pretending the whole time that he wasn’t going out of his way to make himself busy with this most minor form of manual labor just to see if he could calm the fuck down. Newsflash: he wasn’t calm.
Jason shot her a glance. She was standing there with the Pacific licking at her toes. There was nothing but a string separating her ass cheeks, and her breasts in the bikini top were valiantly fighting gravity. And still she was talking down to him like she was the queen of fucking England.
“I know how to swim. But I’ve never surfed.” Her blue eyes glinted, a lot like the sunlight on the Pacific all around her, and filled with the same intense challenge. “I’ve never quite seen the point, if I’m honest.”
“You don’t look for the point in surfing, you just surf. The point finds you when you’re ready.”
“That almost sounds philosophical.”
“If you need me to write you a poem about the communion between the waves and the rush, the sea and the sky, you’re never going to get it. And if you’re never going to get it, you might as well get the fuck off my island, Lucinda. Now.”
Once again, he expected her to look a little bit cowed at that. So of course she didn’t. “I don’t need poetry. But some basic instruction might not go amiss.”
He was getting wound up, and that wasn’t him. And it wasn’t smart, either.
Jason had never let his emotions get the best of him. Emotions were fuel, nothing more, and this was no time to change that. Because this woman might look like a sweet dollop of cream slapped down in the middle of the Pacific for no other purpose than to get him hard—to look him in the eye and refuse to come for him—but that wasn’t why she was here. She wasn’t a wet dream come to life. She was one more shark dressed up in business clothes, looking to make him a developer dickhead, just like the old man who was nothing to Jason but a sperm donor.
Fuck Daniel St. George, and fuck Lucinda Graves, too.
For some reason, he didn’t just up and say that.
“Surfing is like most things in life,” he growled instead, scowling at her. “It’s as simple or as complicated as you make it. All you have to do is balance on the board, then stand up and keep balancing. Once you do that, you ride the waves. That’s it. That’s the secret. But how well or how badly you do that entirely depends on you.”
That chin of hers, entirely too aggressiv
e for a tiny slip of a woman who was likely only as dangerous as that red hair of hers was real, lifted. Suggesting to him that maybe the hair really was natural.
“I have excellent balance, actually.”
He shouldn’t have found that at all entertaining. “Do you, now?”
“I come from a long line of ornery Scottish Highlanders, as a matter of fact. What that means is that I can drink wee drams of whiskey all night long and still walk a straight line.” She lifted one milky white shoulder, then dropped it. “Balancing on a bit of water should be nothing.”
He laughed at her. Loud and long, and he wasn’t even performing his laugh the way he often did around people who were interested less in him and more in the things he had—his celebrity, his money, his island. It was genuine this time, and like the hard-on that wouldn’t go away, it told him things about this woman and her effect on him that should have scared the crap out of him.
But he was too busy laughing. “I like your confidence.”
She smiled at that, which didn’t do anything for his self-control. “I would have thought it was pretty clear that any woman willing to travel forty hours to meet a man who was as likely to kick her off his island as say hello didn’t lack for confidence.”
There was some kind of foreboding kick in him at that, like an alarm. It went off, and there was no pretending otherwise, but Jason didn’t heed it.
He heeded a different urge entirely and reached over to smooth his hand over her sleek red hair, hot in the sunshine and still tied back so tightly to the back of her head, like the world would end if it ever tumbled down.
And he knew. One way or another, he was going to get his hands in all that hair and bring it down out of that tight-assed bun. He could picture it so clearly. Lucinda riding him, those perfect breasts right there to get his mouth on, that hair around him like a curtain, and his cock so deep inside her that he was half-blind with it.
He felt half-blind now. And he knew.
It was only a matter of time.
But that time wasn’t now. And he was going to have to find a way to cut down on all those complications he didn’t want to feel, but did, before they wrecked him. Because he had no intention of letting this woman—or any woman—wreck him.
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