“If what you want is sex, I regret to inform you that’s not why I came here. I understand if yesterday blurred the lines. Nevertheless, I think we really must get ourselves back on the right path.”
“Are you sure?” Because he knew how to make her scream. And he wanted to peel her out of all that unrelenting black and make her bright red again. All over him. “It seems to me like you were more than happy to use your body if it got you where you wanted to go. What if that’s the only path I know?”
But he didn’t want to be the guy who loomed over a woman while he said something like that, so he settled himself in the chair at an angle to hers and made a quiet little show out of lounging there, bonelessly, like he was this close to falling back asleep.
Rather than hot and hard and ready. Which, right at this moment, he didn’t feel she deserved to know.
“Where I want to go is a luxury resort with world-class amenities and personal butler service,” she told him, sounding faintly apologetic. He knew perfectly well it was a tactic. A strategy. There wasn’t a shred of apology anywhere on her. “Not another tour of your bedroom.”
Jason was prepared to manfully let that go, because his possessiveness was his problem and she certainly didn’t owe him anything and blah, blah, blah, but she smirked. She didn’t even pretend to hide it.
As if this was her letting him down easy. Him. As if he was some puppy who didn’t know the difference between a run-of-the-mill one-nighter and what had exploded between them last night. Over and over again.
“You said you wanted a dream come true, Lucinda. And your dream came true in my bedroom easily enough. Repeatedly, in fact.”
She rose to her feet, a fluid, elegant movement that made him regret that he’d thrown her childhood dream in her face. And he didn’t understand how he could legitimately regret that while also wanting nothing more than to mess her up all over again, with his hands and his mouth. He didn’t like her so prim. So cold. Not now that he knew exactly how hot she ran and how loud she screamed when she got what she wanted—
And it was astonishing to him that he could care this much. About anything, when until now, he’d thought the only thing he was capable of feeling was the exhilaration and fear of doing stupid shit like jumping out of planes, climbing very big rocks with no ropes and living too large and too fast like he didn’t care if it imploded around him. He’d been so sure he’d burned right through all those feelings other people seemed to have. He’d been so sure he was safe and numb.
But he couldn’t seem to stop. Not here, with Lucinda.
“This is my fault,” she said quietly. No trace of apology, but something else on her face that made him feel pretty much anything but lazy. “I underestimated the effect that kind of long-haul travel would have on me. To say nothing of the jet lag. Add to that the tropical heat and all this sunshine and I’m afraid I gave you nothing but mixed messages.” She inclined her head. “I have no one to blame for that but myself.”
Jason recognized that tone, though it took him a moment to place it. And then he did.
“Are you letting me down easy?” He let out a deep bark of laughter that should have razed the house, and had very little humor in it besides. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“If you truly don’t want to develop this island, ever, then we have nothing more to discuss.” The worst part was, the smile Lucinda aimed at him wasn’t even brittle. It was pitying. “I’ll wish you well, call for my return flight and be on my way. It will be as if I was never here at all.”
And he watched, temper kicking at him, as she waited there with that same faintly pitying look on her face. For him to say something, he assumed, that didn’t have anything to do with his dick or how wet he knew she was, right now.
Nothing came to mind.
Or nothing that wouldn’t lead to high volume and his hands in her pussy, anyway.
When he only stared back at her, fully aware that he was looking at her like this was a boxing ring and the bell was about to ring, she nodded. As if he was merely confirming all her suspicions. Then she turned smartly on one heel—because she was actually wearing fussy mainland shoes in this island house, which Jason felt like yet another insult—and started away from him.
Like that was that.
And Jason, always a little too in touch with his animal side for his own good and other people’s peace of mind, was surprised to look down at his own, tense body and discover he hadn’t in fact sprouted fangs and fur. Because that was exactly how wild he felt. Like he was four seconds away from some full-on wolf shit.
“This isn’t a power move, Lucinda,” he growled out after her, taking maybe too much satisfaction when she stopped walking as if he’d yelled. When he’d wanted to yell his head off, but hadn’t, because he could be a fucking gentleman when he felt like it. “You can tell yourself it is, if you want. I bet you are. But you know and I know that what you’re doing is running away. Scared out of your mind.”
She made a sigh into an opera with the suggestion of eyes rolled up into the back of her head, though she didn’t actually roll them at him. Or not where he could see it, anyway. She turned back around to face him while she did it, and this time, there was a razor’s edge to that smile of hers.
At least it was more real.
“I don’t generally find business scary, Jason. I don’t generally find business emotional at all.” She cocked her head to one side, a move that no one had ever managed without aggression behind it. He was sure she knew it. “Do you? Maybe that’s an American thing?”
He didn’t know he meant to move. One minute he was sitting where she’d tried to leave him, there on his own lanai without even a cup of coffee. And the next he was towering over her—taking particular notice of the way her pulse betrayed her, there in the hollow of her throat, while she stared up at him. Silently daring him to comment.
He was happy to oblige.
“That’s a load of crap. And you might be happy to lie to yourself, Scotland. But don’t try lying to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are. You’re so full of shit I can practically taste it from here.”
Her smile was bland, though her blue eyes blazed. “I’m sorry if you find reality confronting. But that doesn’t change it, I’m afraid. Reality is reality, no matter what you think about it, and no matter if you’re used to bellowing and blustering and blowing it all down.”
“Here’s a little reality for you.”
He hooked one hand around the back of her head and hauled her to him. He took her mouth with no holds barred, like he was trying to imprint himself on her. Forever, with this one insane kiss.
Because he knew she could feel the kick of it. The sucker punch. All that fire. All that need.
And he didn’t have to worry about what the hell he was feeling, did he, when she was so busy denying it.
“That’s what you’re afraid of, darlin’,” he said, through his teeth and against her lips, the taste of her flooding him. Making him want to beat his chest or something, roaring out that she was his. The way he felt, that could easily be his next move. “You think I can’t tell?”
She shoved him, hard and a little unhinged, and when he let her go—when he fucking felt like it—her blue eyes had gone stormy. Telling him all kinds of truths he figured she didn’t want to face.
Well, join the club, baby, he thought.
“I’m truly sorry if you’re the sort of person who confuses sex with emotion,” she bit out, because of course Lucinda would dare to say something like that to him. Him, of all people, a man who was known as such a hound dog that his own mother had suggested he go off somewhere and deal with himself. Him. And she was still going. “I can’t help you with that, because I’m not. I’m sorry if you thought there was more going on here. I don’t ordinarily mix business and pleasure, and this is why. The potential
for confusion is too high, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not confused.”
That smile again, sharp with pity this time, and it didn’t matter that he knew it was all for show. It still stung.
“I’m not trying to insult you, Jason. I know you’re famous and used to a certain standard of treatment. You’re obviously very attractive. And yes, of course, you’re talented and exciting in bed.”
“I’ll be sure to put all that on my fucking résumé.”
Lucinda spread her hands wide, a gesture that was possibly meant to look soothing, but all he saw was the lie beneath it. And all over her face. “But none of this means anything to me. No matter how much you want it to be different, sex is just a bit of sport to me.”
He wanted to break something.
Instead, he laughed at her.
Because he knew this routine. Hell, until now he’d thought he’d invented it. He literally couldn’t count the number of women he’d had to speak to the same way she was speaking to him now.
“Karma is a bitch,” he said. “You could argue that I’ve earned this.” But he shook his head, and he settled his hand on the nape of her neck again. He was pretty sure she wanted him to. Wanted him to touch her but didn’t dare ask him to, because that would undercut this whole show she was putting on. And she didn’t bat at his arm, so he knew he was right. “But not from you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What I do know is that none of this, or any other emotional reaction you might be having, has anything to do with my purpose for being here. So if you’ll excuse me—”
“Here’s your problem, Scotland,” he drawled, almost enjoying himself again. Almost. “I’ve given that speech so many times myself that I know you’re full of shit. Because I was there last night. I know exactly how I turned you out. And now I know way too much about how your body works to believe a single thing you’re saying to me.”
This time she rolled her eyes where he could see it.
“I sense this is going to come as a big shock to you, but despite what you might have been taught your whole life, women are just as able to compartmentalize as men. And I know this may well be a surprise, but an orgasm isn’t the same as an emotion. Even for girls.”
Jason didn’t need lessons on orgasms from a woman he’d given so many to, but he only grinned at that. Maybe a little dangerously.
“We’re not talking about girls, plural. We’re talking about you. Maybe you’re used to orgasms that aren’t emotional, but that’s not what happened. Not with me.”
And the admittedly very small part of him that might have wondered if he was wrong about that eased when he saw that storm darken her eyes again.
“I can see it’s important for you to believe that, but that doesn’t make it true.”
“You cried, Lucinda. Sobbed, I think is the term. Over and over again.”
“I’m going to chalk that up to jet lag.”
“Exhaustion is a killer. But you’d just had an eight-hour nap.”
She shoved at his arm, and he let her dislodge him again. Then he watched her step back, every part of her bristling, yet under control.
He had a perfect memory of when she’d tried to shove him down backward on the bed, then take over. And somehow he knew that had been the moment when everything had changed for her. Where she’d surrendered to something he wasn’t sure she understood, but clearly had to do with the same control she was exerting now.
The overly tamed hair, no hint of curl.
He hated the sleekness of it. The artificial smoothness. He felt it like an assault.
“My plane should be here in an hour or so,” she said, her voice clipped and cool, no matter what he could see in her eyes. “I’d appreciate it if you could drive me back down to the water.”
“You’d appreciate it.” Jason shook his head. “What you think running away is going to solve?”
“I don’t have a problem that needs solving,” Lucinda retorted. Then shook her head sadly, as if she felt sorry for him. “But I’m beginning to think that you do.”
He wasn’t going to argue that. He wasn’t going to argue, at all.
Jason wheeled around and stalked back to his bedroom. He threw his jeans on over the boxer briefs he’d been wearing on their own, found the keys to his Jeep where he’d left them and headed back out to the main part of the house. As if she’d anticipated his every move—something he couldn’t say he liked, at all—she was waiting for him, her little roller bag beside her and a certain smug look on her face.
Jason told himself to breathe. Let it go, no matter how tight his chest felt or the insane things that kept running through his head.
Because maybe he’d had this coming, after all. Maybe she really hadn’t felt the whole damned world move the way he had, and maybe that was something he was just going to have to deal with.
Maybe his mama had been right and he’d become his father, and this was his wake-up call.
“It’s all right if you need to sulk,” Lucinda told him as she climbed into the Jeep, her voice as sharp and smooth as her hair in that hateful bun. “I won’t think less of you for it.”
“I’m not sulking,” Jason told her, and he kept his hands to himself. No one ever had to know it almost killed him. “I’m grateful.”
And he let her stew on that as he drove her back down to the beach. He waited with her on the dock, in a brooding kind of silence that seemed unstable and flammable, until his buddy flew in.
Then he loaded her up onto the little hopper plane, watched it fly away and told himself good riddance.
Over and over again, in the hope it might stick.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JASON SET ABOUT living his best life, the way he’d been doing since he’d arrived on this island.
Today was no different. What did it matter that the night had ruined him and there were now blue eyes he couldn’t seem to banish from his head?
Maybe he deserved to be ruined.
“A man isn’t made by the things he collects,” his mother had told him after the will had been read and all the bequests made, as if a hotel mattered from a man who could have been a father but hadn’t bothered to try. Right after she’d compared Jason to Daniel, to really stick that knife in and twist it as only she could. “But by the content of his heart and what he carries there.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he’d replied grumpily, though he’d tried to keep the temper out of his voice because it was his mama talking and she deserved his respect.
“I know you don’t.”
“I don’t have a single thing in common with that—”
“Jason.” That was all it took. Just his name. He’d cut himself off and his mother had shrugged, her dark eyes on his like he was still a kid. Maybe he always would be, as far as she was concerned. “Pa’a ka waha.”
He knew the phrase, Hawaiian for observe, be silent and learn. “If words are exiting your mouth, wisdom cannot come in,” the saying went.
Sometimes it also just meant: shut your mouth.
He’d taken it on board then, and he did now, too. He surfed like it was his job. When he’d done his best to exhaust himself he came in, dried off and drove himself back up to the silent house, where he put in another few, vicious hours in his gym.
Until he sweated the mean out of him. Or tried his best.
And when his phone rang, indicating another one of those damned video calls he’d used to have to suffer through only with his PR people and now had to deal with at least once a week, and with his shiny new family to boot, he took it.
Even though it wasn’t the right time or place for their strained family discussions, mandated by their father’s will and trust.
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you without palm trees in the background and a shit-eating grin on your fac
e,” his half brother Charlie drawled, all his usual Texas in his voice and a sunny balcony behind him with a different sea entirely in the distance. “I don’t how to process that, brother.”
Jason wiped his face with the nearest T-shirt and produced a grin. “Aloha, dick.”
“Oh, good. There’s that island charm I hear so much about.”
“I’m thinking about burning this house down,” Jason said, conversationally. “The lawyer said Dear Old Dad spent years building it. Almost like he planned to live in it one day, though I know that can’t be true. He wasn’t one to settle down, and particularly not this far out of the limelight. How would he get all that attention he was always jonesing for?”
Charlie’s head tilted slightly to one side, the blue eyes everyone but Jason had shared with Daniel St. George going canny. “I was calling to tell you some deeply boring shit about the hotel industry that Angelique passed on because Thor’s on a plane and I’m nothing if not obedient. But if you’re burning down houses, I’m suddenly way more interested.”
Charlie wasn’t obedient. Fun fact, none of the children Daniel St. George had left littered around in his wake were particularly obedient. Hell, if they’d met under different circumstances, Jason might have considered them friends. Or decent drinking buddies, anyway.
“He left you fuckers hotels,” Jason pointed out now, warming to the topic he’d been turning over in his head while he tried to exhaust himself. “He left me a whole island. Why should I turn it into a hotel? Why should there even be a house here? Maybe the greatest kindness I could do is give this whole place to the jungle again, like the old man never existed in the first place.”
He had the strangest sensation he wasn’t really talking about the island, but he didn’t care to explore that notion. He found himself rubbing at his chest as if his heart hurt again, but he didn’t like that very much, either.
Lucinda was on a plane somewhere. She’d claimed she felt nothing.
He should have felt nothing himself.
“I don’t really get the drama,” Charlie said after a moment. “You don’t have to run the hotel. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to stay there if you don’t want. You can just own it and go about your business.”
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