Seductive Fantasy

“Good.” A smile filled with too much satisfaction graced his lips. “You were deliberately ignoring me.”

She opened her mouth to issue a denial, then promptly shut it to rethink her strategy when she realized she’d been caught. “You ignored me first,” she countered, setting her book on the glass-topped table beside her.

“I was hot and wanted to cool off.” He stepped away for a second and dragged a nearby lounge chair over, keeping it aligned in the sun instead of joining her in the shade. Straddling the chair, he plopped down into the seat and finger combed his damp hair away from his chiseled features. “I would have asked you to join me, but you aren’t exactly dressed for a swim.”

She most definitely needed to do something about her attire, including buying a one-piece bathing suit that would flatter her curvaceous figure and attract the attention of a man like Jackson. “I burn easily, so what’s the point of wearing a swimsuit if I’m not going to sit directly in the sun?”

“So you can get all wet,” he said, his amused tone a bit on the naughty side.

Oh, he was bad. And very good. “Which usually leads to playing in the sun and getting burned.”

“That’s what sunscreen is for. And if you just don’t like being in the sun, I’ve been told that there are a few secluded, shady lagoons here on the island that you can reserve for your own private pool party.”

“Really?” she murmured, intrigued by the notion. Intrigued, too, by the subtle invitation dancing in his velvet eyes.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, the sound rising up from his throat in a sexy, arousing rumble. “With waterfalls and hot springs and all kinds of other decadent luxuries.”

He tempted her with his words. He enticed her with the promise she heard in his voice. He enthralled her…lying there in the sun like an Adonis, letting the warm rays worship his body and dry the moisture on his skin.

Unbidden, her gaze drifted to his flat stomach, and she experienced the inexplicable urge to glide her fingers along the droplets of water clinging to the dark trail of hair that whorled around his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his trunks. She wanted to touch the damp, slick flesh stretching taut across his chest, his arms…

“Can I get either of you anything to eat or drink?”

Startled by the intrusion of a third voice, Alex snapped out of her provocative daydream and found herself staring at a waiter dressed in black shorts and a crisp knit shirt. He smiled at her expectantly, pen poised over the pad of paper on his drink tray.

She cleared her throat, realizing that her mouth was very parched and she was suddenly very thirsty. It seemed lusting over a man’s body tended to dry up the salivary glands. “I’ll take a piña colada.”

He jotted down her order. “And you, sir?”

“I’ll take a Tom Collins, and a bowl of fresh fruit.”

The waiter nodded. “Coming right up.”

Once the other man disappeared in the direction of the outdoor bar, Jackson folded his arms behind his head and turned those intense, velvet blue eyes back on her. “So, are you enjoying your stay here so far?”