Uh-oh. That expression had we need to talk all over it.
Cutting him off at the pass, Vee splashed into deeper water and dived under the next wave. Cool water bubbled over her and she kept her eyes closed tight as she kicked through the wave and surfaced into an overarm crawl. Strong fingers wrapped around her ankle and yanked.
Her eyes popped open to greeny-blue with tiny flecks of seaweed floating in it, then she gasped, sucking in a mouthful of salty brine. Coughing and spluttering, she wrenched her ankle out of Sam’s grasp and whipped around to face him. The water was just a little too deep for her feet to touch the sandy bottom, so she had to tread water, wheezing and wiping her eyes.
“What the hell?” she gasped. “Why’d you do that?”
Sam stood a couple of feet away, closer to the shore than she, watching her with a stoic, almost bored expression on his face.
Great. Now he decided to go all strong, silent type.
“You gave me a Jaws flashback.” Hard to sound authoritatively righteous when you were bobbing in the water like a cork, so she stroked sideways, preparing to swim around him.
He mirrored her sideways motion, blocking her. She smacked the water between them, sending a plume of spray over him. He still said nothing, just flicked water droplets off his face and continued to watch her with those sinfully dark eyes. She twisted around to face the horizon and an oncoming wave. If she dived under it, she had a chance of evading him. A small chance, but—
“Don’t make me chase you in my element,” he said softly behind her. “You won’t win.”
And why exactly was she trying to get away from him? Pull up your big girl panties, she ordered herself.
“I wasn’t trying to get away from you.” More like she was trying to outrace the bats doing acrobatics in her stomach. “I thought we were swimming. You know, that thing where you windmill your arms around in the big blue wet thing?”
He crooked an eyebrow. “I want to talk to you.”
Yeah, she’d figured. And she could surmise the topic he wanted to discuss so maybe there was an element of her running away. “So talk.”
He flicked a glance over his shoulder to where the girls played on the sand, then met her gaze again. “After you left today, Eric pulled me aside. He was concerned he and Julia staying with us had caused trouble because he sensed a disconnect between us.”
A chill streaked down her spine. “He suspects we’re lying?”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. Just that what we’re saying—that we’re a loved-up couple—isn’t matching up with our body language when we’re together.”
She frowned, glaring at her fish-belly white fingers rippling through the water. “Well, Julia seems on board the whole Sam-Vee love story of the ages train.”
“Yeah, but Eric’s more observant than we gave him credit for. His exact words were, ‘She looked madder than a wet hen and fixin’ to rip your balls off when you hugged her outside the workshop.’”
“Huh.”
She didn’t quite know what to say because she had been irritated and caught off guard. “Remember when I agreed to this we talked about acceptable PDAs? I’ve kept my end of the bargain. We’ve held hands, and you had your arm around my shoulder. And I kissed you goodbye this morning.”
“Didn’t count. It was hardly the passionate kiss of two people in love.”
She snorted. “What would you know about being in love?”
“Not much,” he said evenly. “But I can tell you women who share my bed don’t give me a dry peck on the cheek when I leave.”
“I’ll bet.”
She was aiming for flippant and disinterested, but she heard the faint undertone of jealous curiosity in her voice and winced. There it was. The underlying reason why she was avoiding a confrontation. She’d kissed him—albeit a peck on the cheek gone wrong—but unlike her, he hadn’t felt the jolt of it from head to toe. He hadn’t spent any time wondering how it would feel to kiss her for real, as a woman. Not as a partner in crime, the fellow charlatan conning a mark. But as any other attractive woman he couldn’t keep himself from tasting.
And now he was—what? Asking her to be a better, less frigid actress? She pressed her lips together and arched up her chin.
“What you’re saying is I’m crap at kissing?” Then realizing that sounded a little whiny with a side of fishing for a compliment, she added, “I mean, crap at kissing you, in particular. I’m a good kisser—a great kisser under normal circumstances, but nothing about this situation is normal. With you, I mean. There’s nothing normal about kissing you or you kissing me, for that matter.” Somebody shut her up. Right about now she’d welcome becoming a great white shark’s predinner snack.
The corner of his mouth ticked up. “Come here.”
Whoa, now.
She was close enough to see the gleam in his eyes. The gleam from a man who’d been issued a challenge and wouldn’t back down.
“No need,” she said. “I’m reading you loud and clear. I’ll add more hand-holding, proprietary grooming, sweet-nothing whispering, and snuggles to my routine. Good talk.”
She made to splash past him but he snagged her wrist, and, aided by a swelling wave, reeled her in. He released her as the wave swept her into his chest and she was forced to grip his shoulders. Okay, not precisely forced, but since her feet still couldn’t reach the sand it was either hold onto him or sink.
His skin was slick beneath her fingertips and they kept slipping off the rounded curve of muscle as she tried to brace herself away from him. The roll of the sea worked against her, and her breasts brushed against him, the front of her thighs bumping his. Her nipples were already hard little pebbles in her bikini top thanks to the cool water, but they tightened further at the contact with his chest.
Sam slid his arms around her waist and lifted slightly, keeping her head out of the water. Instinctively, she hooked her legs around his hips. That proved to be a bad move when another wave swept past them, pushing her groin into his body and enabling her to count each of the immovable ridges of his six-pack abs. Or was it eight-pack? Hell if she knew, because her lower body had started to melt and her hands had taken on a mind of their own, petting his shoulders. Her core muscles ached with the effort of not clamping herself to him like a limpet to a rock, now that every one of her nerve endings from bikini top to bikini bottom had awoken with a roar. She dragged her gaze up from his bronzed skin to meet his gaze which was fixed firmly on her mouth.
OhGodOhGod. Be careful what you wish for.
He dipped his head, bypassing her lips to feather a soft kiss at the base of her throat. His tongue flicked out, licking a drop of salt water from her skin.
“We’ll need more than snuggles to convince them.” He trailed more light kisses up her throat until his lips rested against the curve of her jaw.
She shivered under his touch and shut her eyes to the glare of sunlight on the water, narrowing her focus to only the feel of his lips on her. He slid his arms from around her and cupped his hands either side of her face, cradling her jaw.
“Let’s give Julia something decent to report to her husband,” he murmured and crushed his mouth to hers.
Warm, firm lips met her cool, quivering ones and burned the chill out of her in seconds. He drew her in with each light stroke of his tongue along hers, the hypnotic yet arousing rhythm of his mouth that mimicked the rise and fall of the ocean. He drew her in, the way a riptide draws an unsuspecting swimmer into dangerous currents—you often didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late.
But she did know what was going on.
Her breath caught, trapped beneath the invisible bands tightening around her chest. This kiss wasn’t about her. It was about putting on a convincing show for a certain spectator. Performance art without emotion or truth.
She went rigid in his arms. With enough hurt dignity to remember to keep up her end of the bargain, she pried her mouth from Sam’s instead of wrenching away from the embarra
ssment at making such a spectacle of herself.
She pushed herself off him and he let her go, a V of consternation arrowing his brow as she splashed backward in the water.
“Muuum-meee. Saaa-am. Make castles wiv us.”
Ruby’s voice cut through the kiss fog, dumping her back into reality. Her daughter stood by the water’s edge, holding Olivia’s hand. Standing just behind them, hipshot and arms tightly folded across her chest, was Tui. And even from a distance, Sam’s little sister looked less than amused. Maybe a little homicidal.
Chapter 10
Sam didn’t want to get into it with his sister, but trying to dislodge Tui when she was on a mission was like trying to peel a leech off your ass with only your teeth. Impossible, and likely to hurt more than just dealing with the problem in the first place.
They’d eaten their fish ’n’ chips right on the beach. The Wrights had oohed and ahhed over the melt-in-your-mouth quality of the fresh battered kahawai, the salty, delicious hot chips, and the novelty of eating both straight off sheets of unwrapped paper. Tui accompanied them home for drinks on his back deck, all sweetness and warmth and laughter with their guests.
But she refused a ride home with Isaac and Nat when they rose to leave at nine, saying she’d walk back to the place she was house-sitting because she needed the fresh air. The Wrights also excused themselves and retired, leaving Sam with the choice of small talk with Tui, or Vee—since Ruby had been asleep for hours.
“I’ll walk you home, Tu. Turbo needs the exercise,” he said.
“Good luck with that.” Vee busied herself with loading glasses into the dishwasher. “Bet you five bucks you’ll end up carrying him.”
Vee had also been in prime form this evening, playing her role of hostess with the mostest to a tee. She refreshed drinks like a professional bartender, talked fashion with Julia and Nat, found a fellow kindred spirit with Eric in a shared love of old John Wayne movies, and put Ruby to bed with so little disruption that nobody noticed she’d left the deck.
Except him.
He’d noticed every move she made even when she wasn’t directly in his line of sight. He felt her. Like an implant shoved under his skin that caused a low level buzzing whenever she was near.
Tui wandered into the kitchen, bringing with her the last of the glasses from the deck. “Room for these?”
“I can fit them in.” Vee held out her hands for the glasses, but Sam noticed she didn’t meet Tui’s eyes.
Tui passed her the glasses and leaned a hip against the counter, watching as Vee rearranged mugs and plates. This was the first time he’d seen his sister and Vee together in the same room for ages. Once you couldn’t see one without falling over the other. Tee and Vee, thick as thieves, his ma used to say. “Where’s the TV?” was the joke between the Ngata and Sullivan families. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
“You ready, then?” he asked his sister.
She nodded. “See ya, then, Vee.”
“Nice to catch up with you again, Tui,” Vee said.
Frosty politeness stretched between them. His gaze flicked from Vee—her neck and shoulders stiff above the summery top she’d changed into, her hair coiled up into a tight bun—to Tui, wild curls spilling down her back, towering over the other woman by a good three inches even though he could tell by her posture she was trying to appear smaller.
He tugged one of Tui’s curls. “Isn’t there a hot tub at the place you’re staying? Vee should come over and have a soak with you sometime.”
Both women turned and now you die glances on him.
Tui recovered quickest. “Sounds like a plan,” she said smoothly, pushing herself away from the counter. “Give me a call sometime, eh?”
“Will do.” Vee sounded as sincere as a person promising to make a root canal appointment.
Tui grabbed his arm and towed him toward the hallway, giving him a shove in the direction of the door once they were out of Vee’s sight. Not many women were strong enough to push him off balance, but at nearly six feet tall with a warrior ’tude, his baby sister was one female he wasn’t keen to wrestle with.
“What?” he asked when he felt her gaze boring into the back of his skull as he picked Turbo’s leash off a hook by the front door.
“Tō waha, heahea.” She yanked open the screen door and stepped onto the deck.
Shut up, idiot. Yeah, Tui was in a fine mood tonight.
He followed her outside and whistled for the dog. The lumpish shape at the end of the deck didn’t move. He whistled again and this time he got a raised head, for the count of three, before the animal returned to its prone position.
Tui hip-checked him out of the way. “Wanna come for a walk, Turbo?”
There was a whuff from the shadows followed by claws clicking on the decking. The damn dog actually trotted up to her and delicately sniffed her toes before sitting politely at her feet. Tui held out a hand for the dog’s leash and he passed it over without comment. She clipped it to his collar and Turbo willingly kept pace with her as she headed toward the driveway.
“You’ll find most people like to be asked before someone makes plans for them,” she said as he caught up with her on the sidewalk outside his house.
“Some people are too stubborn to make a plan without help from someone. Like you and Vee, since we’re obviously not talking about dogs who aren’t people.”
Turbo took offense at this statement and stopped to pee on a neighbor’s fence post. They paused with him, scanning the pinpricked black velvet sky above them—including the distinctive five stars that made up the Southern Cross constellation—and breathing in Bounty Bay’s distinctive summer night scent of sea salt and grass clippings.
Tui snorted softly. “Me and Vee don’t need your help.”
Turbo finished watering the fence post and they started to walk again.
“If we wanted to hang out, we would’ve sorted something ourselves.”
Sam opened his mouth to set her straight with the wisdom of his two additional years’ knowledge of the workings of female friendships, when she continued.
“And anyway, what the hell were you doing pashing her in the water like that this arvo?”
Shit. This topic change was inevitable because Tui had skipped town after the lunch debacle at their parents’ house and had only arrived back in Bounty Bay to house-sit yesterday. Although he’d sent his sister a text letting her know the fake girlfriend problem was sorted, he technically hadn’t told her who the fake girlfriend was. He’d hoped it wouldn’t be an issue since Tui making nice with the Wrights hadn’t been part of the original plan.
He kept his gaze focused on the sidewalk ahead and the cool offshore breeze coming in off the bay that ruffled the many trees planted in people’s yards. “I sent you a text telling you Vee was helping me out this week.”
Tui upped her walking speed, forcing Turbo into a trot to keep up. “You texted to say you had a fake girlfriend, not that it was Vee. And not that you’d be checking if Vee’s tonsils really had been removed when she was eight—with your tongue.”
Sam lengthened his stride to match. “So now you’re grossed out seeing me kiss someone? I remember you used to catch me making out with my girlfriends.” He chuckled, but even to his own ears it sounded forced. “Then you’d threaten to tell Ma and Dad if I didn’t pay up.”
“I was a kid,” she said sharply. “And you weren’t kissing Vee the way you were kissing girls back then.”
Point to the observant little sister. Fourteen-year-old Sam had the willpower of a chocoholic faced with a selection of white, milk, or dark. Tall, short, brunette, blond, braces, big boobs or flat-chested, popular or nerdy girls, he hadn’t much cared. If he’d been interested, he went for it and to hell with the consequences. As an adult he was a little more discerning.
“Well, I’m a bit better at pashing, for starters.” He kept his tone as even as his footsteps on the sidewalk. “And we had to sell it to the Wrights that we’re in love. In case you’r
e so outta practice you’ve forgotten, people in love kiss each other. With tongue.”
He’d hoped to make her laugh, to make her wrinkle her nose and complain that talking about her brothers kissing was just wrong. That she’d pounce on the dig about being out of practice and change the subject to whatever current man she’d been dating.
Instead the weight of her gaze settled on his shoulders, as heavy as a burdening yoke.
“Samuel.” I’m serious as shit because I’m using your full name rang in her voice. “Don’t you mess with her.”
“I’m not.” It was a knee-jerk response. “The kiss was for show, Tu. That’s all.”
He felt the falseness of his words carve away a sliver of his mana. Lying to his sister when he’d promised her that honesty was the one thing she could count on from him. That was pretty damn low. It didn’t matter that he wanted it to be true, that he wanted to scrub the memory of how amazing Vee felt in his arms, how sweet the taste of her mouth was on his, how hard he’d found it walking away.
“You mess with her, I’ll shove one of your chisels up your nono.”
“Yeah, yeah.” They turned into the street leading to Tui’s temporary lodgings. “Your ex-bestie is off limits, I get it. She’s a single mum with a kid so don’t lead her on, don’t break her heart, etcetera.”
She snorted and shook her head. “You don’t get jack shit, bro.”
“I have dated single mums and a couple of your friends. You’ve never got your nose out of joint before.”
He wasn’t stupid or callous enough to hurt Vee by pretending he was something he wasn’t. They’d both laid their cards on the table upfront. They weren’t dating, they weren’t getting involved now or in the future, they were each keeping their end of a fair deal. Fake girlfriend for a real business opportunity. Just because there was some unexpected chemistry between them, it didn’t mean the line in the sand wasn’t still drawn. It had merely shifted a little.
Break Your Heart_A Small Town Romance Page 13
