It’s just a pub, Elizabeth, she told herself, and they’re just people. Nothing to be afraid of.
She took a deep breath and threw herself into the melee, slowly weaving her way toward the bar.
“What can I get you, love?” the barmaid asked.
“I’ll have a Pimm’s and lemonade, thank you.”
The barmaid frowned. “Pimm’s. God, I haven’t served that for years.” She turned toward the man working the other end of the scarred wooden bar. “Trev, we got any Pimm’s, do you reckon?”
“Pimm’s? I don’t know. Let me check out the back.” The barman glanced at Elizabeth curiously.
“It’s okay, don’t bother,” Elizabeth said, feeling foolish. Of course they didn’t have Pimm’s. She was a long way from home, after all. About as far away as she could get.
She gestured toward the frosted glass the barmaid had just handed over to the previous customer. “I’ll just have one of those.”
“A VB? Not a problem,” the barmaid said.
A minute later, Elizabeth was handed a tall, frosted glass full of beer. She took her first sip and gasped, surprised by how icy cold it was. After the heat of the day, however, it was hugely welcome and she took another big gulp as she spotted an empty table in the corner. Good. A table would give her a refuge to hide behind and make her feel less conspicuously alone.
She dodged a couple of well-muscled backs as she made her way across the bar. She was just about to put her drink down when a dark-haired woman slid her glass onto the table at the same time. They stared at each other, startled, then the other woman laughed.
“I’d call that a draw, what do you think? Should we toss for it?” the other woman said good-naturedly and Elizabeth recognized the familiar vowels of an East London accent.
“It’s fine. You got here first,” Elizabeth said politely.
It had been a mistake coming downstairs on her own, she could see that now. It was too loud, too hectic and she was jet-lagged and very uncertain about what move to make next. The sooner she drank her beer and returned to her room, the better.
“Hey! English! Cheers!” the other woman said, her face splitting into a welcoming smile. She lifted her glass to clink it against Elizabeth’s. “How long have you been in Oz for, then? Me and my bloke have been here nearly six months, in case you couldn’t tell by the tan.” The other woman proudly showed off her nut-brown arms. “Bugger skin cancer, I say.” She gave another laugh.
Her name, Elizabeth soon learned, was Lexie and she insisted that she and Elizabeth share the table since Lexie was waiting for her boyfriend to join her and had no idea when he was going to show up.
“You can help me fight off these randy Aussie blokes until he gets here,” she said with another of her loud, unselfconscious laughs. “Horny bastards, and they don’t mind having a go, let me tell you, even when you let them know you’re taken.”
Somehow Elizabeth’s one beer turned into two when Lexie insisted on treating her, then three because Elizabeth had to return the favor. By the time it was full dark outside she was feeling more than a little squiffy. By that time Lexie’s boyfriend, Ross, had arrived with the rest of their friends and Elizabeth was drawn into their circle. When music started up out in the beer garden she went along quite happily as the rest of them swept outside.
Hips swinging in time to the music, cold beer in hand, she glanced around the bar, a dreamy, happy smile on her face. Despite her initial nervousness, she’d held her own with Lexie and Ross’s loud, friendly group. No, more than held her own—she was having a good time. A great time. For the first time in her life there wasn’t someone watching, waiting to remind her of what she should say or do or how her actions might be perceived. She wasn’t worried about what Martin might think or living up to her grandparents’ expectations.
She was on her own. Free. For the moment, anyway.
Which was when she glanced across the garden and locked eyes with Nathan Jones, leaning against the far wall with a beer in his hand as he watched her with a small, speculative smile.
3
NATE STARED ACROSS the sea of people at the woman in the bright, breezy dress. It was amazing the difference a few hours and, he guessed, a few beers could make. Gone was the pale, tense society princess he’d met this afternoon and in her place was a flush-faced blonde with a swing in her hips and a smile on her lips. He almost hadn’t recognized her, but nothing could disguise the way she held herself and the tilt of her chin.
His gaze ran over her body again. Her red-and-yellow dress ended just above the knees and tied around her neck. The neckline was modest by island standards—half the girls in the pub had come straight from the beach and there were dozens of bikini tops and skimpy tank tops on display—but it was tight and low enough to reveal that Elizabeth Mason had great breasts.
He lifted his beer and took a long swallow, not taking his eyes from her the whole time. The smile faded from her face as their gazes connected, but she didn’t look away, either, even though he was pretty damn sure she wanted to.
He wasn’t sure what was going on. He’d noticed her sexually this morning, there was no denying that—the shape of her ass, the flash of her bra, the long line of her neck. But she wasn’t the kind of woman he’d been spending time with lately—“spending time” being shorthand for casual sex, which was all he was good for these days. Elizabeth Mason had hard work written all over her. And that was before he even got into the whole mess of her being here to find her father.
And yet for some reason that he couldn’t explain, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Across the room, she finally looked away, turning her shoulder.
Against his smarter instincts, he pushed away from the wall and made his way toward her. He told himself every step of the way to rethink, to turn around and find some other woman to dance and drink and maybe go home with, but he didn’t stop until he was standing behind her. Elizabeth must have sensed his approach because she tensed, the exposed muscles of her back flexing as though she was bracing herself.
“I figured you had to be around somewhere when Tania told me someone had tried to order a Pimm’s,” he said.
She didn’t turn around, didn’t so much as twitch.
He smiled. He hadn’t been given the silent treatment since third grade. It hadn’t worked then, either. He never had been able to resist a challenge.
He leaned a little closer, whispering right into her ear. “Do you want me to go away, Betty?”
“What do you think?” she said without moving.
He was standing so close he could see the fine blond hairs on the nape of her neck.
“I think that that was a pretty long look you gave me just now.”
She swung to face him, ready to object. Her eyes widened when she registered his proximity. She took a quick step backward and crossed her arms protectively over her chest.
“Scared of me, Betty?” he asked, amused by how skittish she was.
“Of course not. And my name is Elizabeth, if you don’t mind.”
He cocked his head to one side. Was it his imagination, or did her accent get even snootier?
“Elizabeth is kind of an uptight name, don’t you think? Makes me think of old ladies with scepters in their hands and cast-iron underwear.”
“It’s a very old, very traditional name, and it happens to be the one my parents gave me.”
“Like I said, uptight.”
Her nostrils flared. His smile widened into a grin. She was so prim, so proper—and so damned easy to get a rise out of. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.
“What exactly is it that you want, Mr. Jones?”
He took a mouthful of beer and let his gaze slide past her chin to the neckline of her dress. Her perfume drifted toward him, something light and crisp and citrusy.
“Just being friendly. Making sure you settled in okay,” he said.
She gave him a cool look. “Perhaps you could clarify something for me. Am I
supposed to be charmed by all this? The smiles and the suggestive comments and the standing too close?”
“What do you think?”
“You don’t want to know what I think, let me assure you.”
“I can handle it, Betty, I promise. Hit me with your best shot.”
She peered down her nose at him—quite the accomplishment given their difference in height. “My grandmother taught me that if you can’t say something nice about someone, you shouldn’t say anything at all.”
“Your grandmother. That explains a lot.”
Her eyes narrowed. “All right, then, since you insist, here is what I think—that you believe an overdeveloped beefcake body and passable good looks give you a free pass to get away with anything where women are concerned.”
He laughed. Couldn’t help himself. “Overdeveloped? Which parts of me are overdeveloped?”
He watched, fascinated, as she blushed again.
“You have the fairest skin I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. Every other body in the bar was brown from the Australian sun, but she was as pure and cool as a lily. He reached out a hand and ran his thumb along the curve of her cheekbone. As he’d suspected, she was as soft and smooth as silk.
She swallowed audibly. “Do you mind?” Her eyes were very wide, the pupils dilated.
“You know, I think I might, Betty,” he said, surprising himself.
He dropped his hand. He’d crossed the bar to tease her, to fill in some time, to amuse himself on the way to oblivion. But she wasn’t amusing. She was…disturbing, with her crisp, standoffish accent and tilted chin and uncertain eyes. For a moment they were both silent as they stared at each other.
“I’m not going to sleep with you, Mr. Jones.”
That made him smile again. “No one asked you to, Betty.”
Then, because she was too complicated, too messy, too challenging, he lifted his glass.
“Cheers,” he said. He turned and walked away before she could say another word.
HE WAS UNBELIEVABLE. Earlier today she’d thought he was surly and uncooperative and rude, but now she added insufferably conceited and arrogant to the list of Nathan Jones’s crimes. She honestly didn’t know where he got off, touching her like that, standing so close she could smell the detergent he’d washed his clothes in and the sun-warmed, salty scent of his skin.
As for how he’d laughed at her and looked at her as though he could see straight through her clothes…
She’d never dealt with a man like him before. Cocky and arrogant and so…physical it was impossible to look at him and not imagine him on top of her, his heavy weight pinning her to the—
Elizabeth took a huge swallow of her beer. Why was it that when she thought about Nathan Jones her mind automatically descended below the waist?
She peeked out of the corners of her eyes to make sure that he really had disappeared into the crowd. He had and she relaxed a notch. With a bit of luck he’d leave the bar altogether and she wouldn’t have to deal with him again.
A vain hope. Half an hour later she glanced across to where a few people had cleared some tables to create an impromptu dance floor to see Nathan in the middle of the swaying crowd, his arms around a small redheaded woman. The other woman was wearing a skimpy sundress with lots of strategic rips and tears in it, her swimsuit clearly visible underneath.
In London she’d be arrested for indecent exposure. At least Elizabeth hoped she would.
She watched as the woman wriggled in Nathan’s arms, laughing into his face, one hand pressed flat against his chest. Nathan said something, then lifted his head suddenly and stared directly across the room at Elizabeth. She tensed as she met his pale blue eyes. She should have looked away before he caught her watching him. She should look away now.
Right now, before he got the wrong idea.
He lifted an eyebrow. Then the corner of his mouth curled up. Smug bastard.
She tore her gaze away.
She could imagine what he was thinking—that the uptight English woman had the hots for him.
As if she’d be foolish enough to take up with a man like him, a man who was interested in nothing but sex. A man who wanted nothing but to get her naked and take his pleasure. A man who probably knew every sexual trick in the book and then some.
A wave of heat rolled over her.
Be honest with yourself at least, Elizabeth Jane. He fascinates you. You look at him and see every fantasy you ever had, every dirty thought you never dared share with anyone, including Martin.
It was true. It made self-conscious, nervous sweat prickle under her arms to admit it to herself, but it was true. She found Nathan Jones sexually attractive. Extremely sexually attractive. How galling.
She turned and grabbed the nearby jug of beer and poured herself another glass.
He’d been so cocksure when he’d swaggered over to talk to her earlier. So confident of his reception. And she’d been so firm in her rejection. And all along he’d known. The look they’d just shared told her so.
He knew she’d been struck speechless by her first sight of him in all his bare-chested glory. He knew how images of his big body had been slipping into her mind against her will all day. How hot and sticky she felt just thinking about touching his firm, brown skin.
“Bloody hell,” she whispered under her breath.
She felt as though she was on fire, could feel the echo of her heartbeat in the warm heat between her legs. She pressed her beer glass against her cheek, trying to cool down.
Crazy. This was crazy. She’d never felt so overheated and overwrought in all her life. It must be the beer. Had to be. Otherwise—
A hand curled around her forearm and tugged her toward the dance floor.
“Come on, Betty, let your hair down,” a voice murmured. “Dance with me.”
She looked up into Nathan’s lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. God, he was gorgeous. All angled cheekbones and straight nose and firm, chiseled lips.
She dug her heels in and shook her head as he pulled her another step closer to the dance floor.
“I don’t want to dance. Not with you.”
It was a lie, but it was also the truth. He terrified her. He made her scared of herself.
She tugged on her arm. He didn’t let her go.
“Are you married?” he asked.
“No.” Almost, but not quite.
“In a relationship?”
“No.” Not anymore.
“Then what’s the problem?”
He made it sound so simple, as though there were no other considerations apart from what she wanted and what he wanted right now. No tomorrow. No responsibilities or obligations or expectations.
When she didn’t say anything she felt the grip on her arm loosen.
“Your call, Betty.”
It should have annoyed her, the way he kept using that stupid diminutive of her name and the way he gave her a small, regretful smile and walked away again.
It didn’t. Instead she was gripped with a sort of panicky, pressured fear that she’d just let an amazing opportunity slip through her fingers. When would she ever meet a man like him again? A feckless, pointless, incredibly sexy Lothario with nothing but pleasure on his mind? When would she ever be so far from home, so anonymous and free?
Because she didn’t know the answers to any of those questions she pretended to herself that she’d narrowly escaped making a reckless, foolish decision and tried to look as though she was having a great time.
She watched him laugh and dance with another girl. Then another. She drank more beer and let her gaze run over his big, strong body as he moved on the dance floor or leaned against the far wall or stood in a loose circle with a bunch of surfer types, talking and laughing. She thought about the look in his eyes, remembered the way he’d touched her cheek. She thought about home, and how her grandparents had lied to her—with the best of intentions, yes, but it had still been a lie—and the way Martin touched her as though she were made of spun sugar and all t
he times she’d bitten her tongue and done the right thing and been a good girl, over and over again.
She thought about that moment in Harrods when she’d fantasized about destroying all that polished, expensive perfection.
I want him, a little voice whispered in her mind. Why can’t I have him?
There were reasons—of course there were reasons—but they weren’t good enough. They were safe and conservative and controlled and she was so sick of all those things. She wanted the unknown. Just this once. No one would ever know about it. It would be her secret, her moment of madness. A moment just for her, about her, about what she wanted, with no one else’s feelings or opinions or judgments coming into play.
She put down her glass. Then she lifted her hands and checked to see that her hair was neatly pinned. Although why that should matter when she was about to proposition a man for the first time in her life, she had no idea.
She took a deep breath, then started across the room. She’d barely taken two steps before Nathan turned away from his friends and started weaving his way through the crowd toward the exit.
A surge of dismay rushed through her. He was leaving! Surely not, not when she’d just mustered the courage to ask for what she wanted. She paused for a split second, then she started pushing her way through the crowd, her movements increasingly urgent.
If he left without her saying what she wanted to say, doing what she wanted to do, she might never find the courage of this moment again.
She kept her eyes glued to Nathan’s dark head and when he disappeared into the hallway leading to the front entrance she darted urgently past the last few people and was almost running when she entered the hallway.
Hot Island Nights Page 4
