She sat in the chair he held out for her and grinned at him as she smoothed her napkin across her lap. “The perks of knowing the owner aren’t to be discounted.”
He paused beside his chair and rubbed the heel of his hand above his sternum. She’d seen him do that a lot. Usually before he whipped out some profound statement that left her dumbfounded. The wind tousled his longish hair and the candlelight sparked in his soft blue eyes. “Not sure it’s to my benefit to point this out, but you’re flirting.”
A sharp burn stung her cheeks, but she kept her chin up and held his gaze. Stupid blush. Being a redhead was hell. “Could be flirting. Could be maximizing resort connections. Perspective is everything.”
That panty-dropping smile of his whipped back into place. She’d have to snap a picture of it before she went home and show it to McKenna. She’d caption it, Tread carefully, cross your legs, and don’t believe anything when you see this expression.
Zade lifted his chin and caught the attention of a passing waiter. “I wasn’t sure you’d show,” he said to Janie.
“I wasn’t sure I would either.”
He sat back in his chair, head tilted, waiting in that patient way of his. With his uncanny composure, he should have been a counselor or psych professional.
She straightened the knife beside her plate. “I thought about what you said.” And about his touch. “You were absolutely right. It was a reflection of my own self-confidence.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who normally lacks self-confidence.”
No, not normally. Not before Gerald had shaken her well-ordered world and left her staggering through the devastation. Every time she told the story, the burn got worse. And the pity. Damn it, she hated the pity in people’s eyes.
Still, he’d told his story. Maybe sharing with a stranger would be therapeutic. “To tell you the truth, I never thought too much about my appearance until recently.”
Zade propped his elbow on the arm of his chair and dragged his thumb along his lower lip. His eyes glinted, a silent dare for her to keep going.
“Last week I turned forty and signed my divorce papers.” Talk about diving in headfirst. Absolutely zero wind up on the delivery.
Zade’s eyebrows shot high, but in more of a you don’t say way than in shock. He waited for the waiter to set their water and fresh bread in place, then picked the basket up and offered her a roll. “Busy week.”
She took one and set it aside. “Yes, well, I’m not including the nine months it took to get to an agreement I’d actually sign. Twenty-two years of marriage takes a while to untangle.”
The waiter returned with a chilled bottle of white and an uncorked red. “Blanco, o tinto?”
Zade lifted one eyebrow in silent question.
“Red, please,” Janie answered.
The waiter filled her wineglass and looked to Zade for his choice.
“Tinto para me, también.”
Another note for McKenna. Young men with a mind for foreign languages are a sexual hazard. Seek shelter at the first opportunity.
He circled his wineglass. God, his hands were big. Long fingers. Powerful. No wonder they’d felt so good. “Did you want the divorce?”
A lash on her heart, as raw and sudden as the day Gerald first uttered the idea. “No. He came home on a Friday night, disappeared into the bedroom for about thirty minutes, and came out with a suitcase. In less than three sentences, he upended what I’d thought was a perfect world.”
“Tell me about it.”
“About him leaving?”
“No, about your perfect world. What was it like?”
The ocean breeze swept across her nape. The scent of salt and a trace of citronella from the tiki torch fluttered in behind it. “A home. A comfortable routine. Two, mostly well-adjusted, kids. All of our needs met and most of our wants.” Dreams and goals from so many years rippled through her mind. “McKenna starts college next year. We’d have finally had the house to ourselves. Been able to take the trips we said we’d take.”
“Where did you want to go?”
“Exploring.” She sighed, letting go of the memories. “At least, that’s what I wanted. To see how other people live. Other cultures. To see if the places I’d read about in books matched my imagination.”
“When did you get married?”
“I was eighteen. Fresh out of high school.” She sipped her wine. “It’s the one thing I’ve encouraged my daughter not to do. Not because I regretted my marriage, but because I didn’t see the things I wanted to before I committed to raising a family. I want both my kids to experience as much life as they can before they settle down.”
The questions kept coming, all of them light and comfortable topics. Janie answered between ordering and eating. How Thomas would probably stay in school three years longer than she or Gerald wanted or planned to support. How McKenna would probably finish college six months early from sheer impatience to tackle the world. Where Janie would travel to first if she won the lottery, and what she liked best about raising kids.
She tucked her spoon into what was left of her flan and stifled a moan. “What about you? How’d you end up taking sexy pictures of women in their bedrooms?”
“My mom swears it was divine guidance from the universe.”
“Your mom?”
He laughed and eased back into his chair, and stretched his long legs out to one side. “I know. Sounds deviant, doesn’t it?” He anchored his elbow on the arm of his chair and rubbed his chin. “It was a complete accident. I was in my first year of college, aimed for a business degree. I’d always had a thing for pictures, but wasn’t diehard about it. I just seemed to take good ones. Tried to capture the things I found beautiful.
“Anyway, I was home and visiting with my mom and one of her friends at the kitchen table. Her friend was down on herself, frustrated she wasn’t seeing results from some new diet she’d devoted a ton of time and energy to. I told her I didn’t understand why the hell she was on one anyway. She said, ‘Because I’m thirty-three and don’t have a man yet. I’ve got to keep my figure or I’ll end up an old maid.’”
He shook his head and grinned. His distant gaze refocused and latched onto Janie. “Really, she had an amazing figure. I don’t know where she got such a stupid idea.”
Oh, she knew. So did every other woman over the age of thirty who’d found their first wrinkle or gray hair. “And?”
“We argued. I told her I could prove it. That I’d give her photographic evidence she was as sexy as any twenty-five year old in the same situation. She took the bet.”
“You took them in a bedroom?”
“Well, technically I took them in her house and she was wearing a bathing suit. She was so damned excited after the first time, she suggested the boudoir thing. My mom and her friend couldn’t keep their mouths shut, and before I knew it, I had a side job to help pay for college.”
“You captured the parts of them that were beautiful.”
“Everything’s beautiful when you focus on the right things.”
Janie shuddered, and her lungs seized. He might be a lot younger than her, but he had a profoundly old soul.
He stood, laid his napkin on the table, and offered his hand. “Let’s take a walk.”
Such a simple request, and yet a tingle bubbled up inside her. Like the walk equated with a swan dive off a tropical cliff into perfect Caribbean waters. She placed her hand in his and followed him down a stairway to one side of the balcony.
The beach stretched out before them, and a large boat with white lights marking its outline floated on the dark ocean. A perky pop song sounded from somewhere behind them, muted by the dining room walls.
“Shoes.” He sat on the edge of a raised concrete flowerbed, kicked off his worn, high quality loafers, and rolled up his pant legs. “There’s a mandatory barefoot stroll on the beach with every resort date night.”
“Is this a date?”
He grinned up at her and a raki
sh lock of hair fell over his breathtaking eyes. “I showered, put on decent clothes, and fed you. Next on my agenda is getting you comfortable enough, you let me sample your lips the same way you tackled dessert. So, yeah. It’s a date.”
A tremor wracked her and shimmied straight between her legs. Remembering the feel of his hands on her at the beach had made dressing for dinner a challenge. Processing now what his lips might feel like nearly incapacitated her. She kicked her flirty coral espadrille wedges off and hooked them with two fingers. “I’ve never been on a date with a younger man before.”
He wrapped his arm around her and steered her to the beach, his devious smile doing funny things to her insides. “Everyone deserves a chance to be daring in paradise, don’t you think?”
Indeed. And she still didn’t know how old he was. “Just how daring am I being?”
He lifted his eyebrow.
“You’re old enough to have made it through college,” she said. “So I know I won’t be carted off for any illegal actions in the morning, but I’m trying to gauge how high my Dirty Old Woman factor will rate.”
“I think the new slang is cougar.”
Now that he mentioned it, she had heard her son mention the term a time or two, though she’d never thought it would apply to her. “Okay. Cougar. So, how old?”
“Twenty-six.” He angled his head and studied her in the moonlight. “And more than capable of pleasuring my date when I get her home.”
Translation: Naked, tangled, and sweaty. Her sex clenched so hard, it was a wonder she didn’t face plant in the sand mid-stride. And how the heck was she supposed to respond to something like that?
“You never said what brought on the divorce,” he said.
Thank God for topic changes. This one might not be all that much easier, but at least with full disclosure, she could address the whole sex-probably-won’t-work expectation up front. “He fell in love with someone else.” Swallow. Deep breath. Relax through it. “A younger woman.”
He stopped. “Is that why you started doubting yourself?”
The stars sparkled bright in the midnight blue sky and the easy ocean breeze caressed her bare skin. Peaceful and perfect. The first safe haven she’d found in months. “I’ve had one lover in my life. My husband. Everything I knew about my sexuality, my goals, my future, was tied to him. To our kids. Since I was eighteen, I haven’t had one thought, one decision, where I didn’t factor in the impact my actions would have on my husband or my children. Gerald leaving me for someone so much younger? Yeah, it jarred my self-confidence.”
She swiped a long line in the sand with her toe and shrugged. “So, you might want to re-think your endgame of getting me into bed. I’m not nearly as worldly or experienced as you might think.”
He widened his stance and stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. “You make it sound like I have a different woman in my bed every night.”
Shoot. Not at all the way she’d intended the message to come out. “I meant worldly and experienced in a good way. Though, Arlo did mention your swagger and suave moves.”
He cocked his head and scratched his chin. That lopsided, ornery smile of his crept into place. “What Arlo failed to mention was my mother’s unconventional influence. He’s right. I get along great with women, but that doesn’t mean I sleep with them all. Most of what I love about women I learned from watching my mom.”
Sexy, responsible, insightful, and held his mother in high esteem. The more she learned about him, the more he lured her in, as gripping as the ocean’s riptide.
He eased closer and pulled her to him, his confident, yet soothing touch a welcome anchor. “But I also learned from watching my dad. The way he treated her. Valued her. When he touched her, kissed her, it was powerful. Fucking art in motion.”
Oh, yes. Definitely in trouble and teetering on surrender.
He cupped the back of her neck. His fingers seared her skin, radiating an amazing warmth. “Sex is the single most intimate connection we can make with another person. I don’t engage with just anyone. Won’t cheapen it with something that’s surface deep or with someone I don’t feel a connection to.”
“So, at the beach when you said you wanted to see me—” God, she couldn’t even say it out loud. “You know.”
“That I wanted to see the look on your face when you come?” He tightened his grip on her neck and his voice dropped to a delicious rumble. “I said it because the first time I looked at you my world tilted. That’s a connection, and I want more.”
Oh, that look. Lips parted just enough to let a man slip his tongue inside. Eyes wide and glossy, pupils so dilated the hazel barely showed. Zade couldn’t decide if Janie wanted to bolt, or take him to the sand and go at him right here.
She had a wild streak, for sure. It burned behind her gaze, sharp and sassy, but was tamed behind what sounded like a lifetime of expected behavior. How much would it take to set that passion free? To rile her enough to let loose and give herself free rein?
He stroked the length of her arms, and laced his fingers with hers. “I want to show you something.”
She swallowed and lifted her chin. “Show me what?”
Christ, that voice. Scratchy and broken. A dirty-thoughts and I’m-pretty-damned-close-to-losing-it-even-if-I-know-better voice. At this rate, she’d make him come like a sixteen year old with a stolen Playboy before he’d so much as kissed her.
He moved beside her, putting the ocean at their backs. “Uncle Arlo set you up with a pretty nice room, but this one’s the best.”
He couldn’t have framed the setting any better with his camera. Tucked at the deepest point of the cove with palm trees and tropical plants on all sides, save the beach, was his bungalow. Moonlight poured onto the mostly thatched roof, a big skylight in the center. The bungalow had weathered teak wood walls with an oversized sliding glass door across the front, and skinny native tree trunks held the patio’s overhang upright.
Janie paced forward a few steps, scanned the private inlet, and then glanced back toward the rest of the resort. “The Stargazer Bungalow.”
“You’ve got a good memory.” And an eye for details. Something they had in common. He steered her up the scarred wood slat porch and tossed his loafers on the wide porch swing. “The couple Arlo and Dahlia bought the place from years ago lived here. You can’t fully appreciate Gypsy Cove until you see this particular room.”
“But he said it’s occupied.”
“He’s right.” Zade opened the sliding glass door and waved her in. “By me.”
The foot she’d lifted to walk across the threshold went back to the deck. “This is your place?”
“For five more nights, it is.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and fought back a chuckle. “I realize what I’m about to say is the height of cliché, but there’s something I want to show you inside.”
Janie busted out laughing, a full, beautiful laugh that brought a firefly kind of peace to the space around them. “You’re right.” She covered her mouth, chest rattling as she tried to stifle her outburst. “That’s pretty bad. Even for a woman who hasn’t been on a date in two decades.”
A sheer curtain billowed between them. Zade caught it and held it back. “Then cut a guy some slack and go inside.”
She studied him and bit her lower lip.
Damn, he wanted a taste. To nip and lick that same spot. Devour her mouth until it was plump and two shades darker than her rose lipstick. “Arlo’s a wiry man, but he and Dahlia would castrate me if I hurt any woman, let alone, a guest. And that’s assuming my mother didn’t do the job first. But there’s no pressure. If you’d rather wait, we can go back up—”
“I’m fine.” She took a breath and met his stare head on. “To be clear though, don’t expect anything more than a visitor. When I’m ready to leave, I’m leaving.”
He nodded, but on the inside he pulled a fist pump and gave himself a high five.
“It’s lovely.” She paused in the middle of the bungalow, scanne
d the open floor plan, and meandered toward the small, but well-appointed kitchen along one side. “So what did you want to show me?”
Damn. If she’d laughed before, his next pitch would put her over the edge. He tried to couch his smile, but couldn’t hide the lip twitch. He motioned to the raised section along the back of the bungalow and the king size bed in the center. “If you want the full effect, you need to lie on the bed.”
She spun to face him, one eyebrow cocked high.
“Seriously,” he said. “Swear to God, I’ll keep my distance.”
Strolling into the living area, she swept her gaze along the cobalt blue sofa and love seat and pursed her lips.
“I’ll make you a promise,” he said. “The only way I’m getting in bed with you is if you invite me in. Deal?”
She dragged her nails along the chenille armrest, contemplated the beach behind him through the open sliding glass doors a moment, and nodded. “Fine. I’ll play.” She dropped her shoes and purse on the thick Spanish tiles and padded up the steps to the bed. “Any particular side?”
Guess he’d found a way to rile her after all. And thank God for that because spunky looked damned good on her. Fire and spirit. Flame and snap. He shook his head. “Wherever is comfortable, so long as I can watch.”
She planted her fists on her hips, studied the bed, shrugged, and went for the closest side. Despite her moxie, she settled carefully, mindful of the taut, neatly made covers. She snuggled down, rested her head on the pile of pillows, and laid her hands on her belly, one on top of the other. “Okay. Ready.”
The laugh jumped out faster than he could catch it. “Spoken like a true sacrificial virgin.” He ambled up the stairs.
The fingers on her top hand tightened.
He strolled to the nightstand beside her and reached for the small box mounted on top. “Look up.”
She gauged him for a good long pause, and lay back.
He pressed the red toggle switch on the box.
A muted metal click echoed through the room and a light, motorized whir kicked in behind it. Moonlight slanted above the headboard, a sliver at first, stretching inch by slow inch, bathing Janie in its pearlescent glow.
What Janie Wants Page 4
