Melt Into You

She frowned. Two grown men on a beach vacation together? Great, not another good-looking guy who preferred other good-looking guys. Not that she was looking for anything to happen anyway. He was a stranger. An extremely pinup-worthy stranger. But still. In her sexually deprived state, a little flirting could be almost as satisfying as an orgasm. Almost.

With gentle hands, he bent her leg and wrapped his wet T-shirt around her thigh. His focus was on the task at hand, but she didn’t miss the sneaky sidelong glance toward her open thighs, where her wet panties were probably revealing every detail of what lay beneath.

She cleared her throat, and his gaze darted back to her leg, but the corner of his mouth tugged up a bit.

Well, well, maybe not so gay.

Her body heated at the thought, even though her brain knew that, straight or gay, she wasn’t going to do anything with her rescuer. “So how long were you out here? I thought I was alone.”

He glanced up as he draped the shirt around her leg a second time. “I was here the whole time.” He crooked a thumb behind him. “Was sitting in one of the lounge chairs on the far end. I thought you saw me when you looked down the beach, but I guess not.”

“You could’ve said something, you know.”

He gave her an unrepentant grin. “If a beautiful woman wants to go for a naked swim, who am I to intervene?”

“Very gentlemanly of you.”

“Hey, never said I was a gentleman. Just a hero.”

“Right,” she said, her tone dry.

He tucked the end of the shirt underneath the first layer, securing it. “Is that too tight?”

“No, it’s actually helping the burning a little.”

“Hold on.” He climbed to his feet and jogged a little ways down the beach, grabbed something from one of the lounge chairs, then walked over to where she had left her clothes and picked up those as well. When he returned he held out her T-shirt. “Go ahead and put this on. You’re not going to be able to put on the jeans, but you can wrap my beach towel around your waist.”

“Thanks.” She took her shirt and towel from him, pulled the first over her head, then got to her feet and knotted the beach towel around her hips. She tilted her head up to smile at him. “So, Mr. Humble Hero, you have a name?”

He stuck out his hand. “It’s Jace.”

Her body froze, the world seeming to tip off balance for a moment. Had she heard right? She stared at him for a moment, taking in every nuance of his face, the earlier whispers of déjà vu now becoming shouts.

Was it really him? His hair was longer, his body harder and more mature, the green in his eyes more wary, but the resemblance was there. It’d been years—twelve actually. The nineteen-year-old boy she’d known had become a man. “Jace Austin?”

* * *

Oh, shit. The recognition that flashed in the woman’s blue eyes had Jace dropping his hand. This chick knew him? He frantically flipped through his mental Rolodex, starting with the girls-I’ve-slept-with file.

When they’d locked gazes earlier, he’d felt a nudge of familiarity but had dismissed it. Surely, he’d remember this dark-haired beauty, especially if he had gotten the privilege of touching that lush little body. But something about her was poking at the recesses of his mind.

He rubbed the back of his neck and offered an apologetic smile. “Uh, yeah. Jace Austin. I’m sorry, have we met?”

She flinched a bit—the move subtle, but not lost on him. Damn, well now he felt like a jackass. Had they slept together?

She recovered quickly, the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Don’t worry. I’m sure I look a little different than I did at sixteen. Especially without that god-awful bottle red hair and eyebrow piercing.”

Sixteen? Red hair? The flashing list of names in his head suddenly flipped back over a decade and landed on one he hadn’t thought about in years. One he’d purposely tried to block out. No, couldn’t be. “Evangeline?”

She shrugged and looked out at the water, the wind whipping her hair around and disguising her expression. “It’s Evan now. I stopped using my full name a long time ago.”

“Wow, I don’t even know what to say,” he said, shaking his head. “You look great. I’m so glad to see that you’re . . .” Okay. Alive. “Here.”

She turned back toward him and smiled, though it didn’t light her face the way the earlier smiles had. “It’s good to see you, too. But, if you don’t mind, before we go down memory lane, how ’bout that vinegar?”

“Oh, right,” he said, his mind still whirling. “Follow me.”

And she needn’t worry. The last thing he was going to do was initiate any reminiscing. No, some things were better left buried. And how he’d destroyed the girl he’d sworn to look out for was A-number-one on that list.

TWO (#ua2025c48-69cb-58d3-9896-ba187ad1a3a3)

Evan leaned against the back of the couch in Jace’s hotel suite and clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from shaking. She’d thought about Jace so often over the years, despite her best efforts not to. She had wondered how he was doing, but she’d never allowed herself to look him up and check. She’d been a coward—afraid of how she’d react seeing him all grown up, possibly with a wife and kids or something.

When she was a teenager, Jace had been the perfect boy in her eyes. The only guy who’d been able to make her smile during those dark years. She’d stupidly assumed his attention had meant more than simple friendship, more than pity for a screwed-up foster kid. But God, how wrong she’d been. Of all the disastrous mistakes she’d made in her life, falling for Jace had been her biggest. She’d paid dearly for that error—still paid for it—but he would never know that.

And now he’d seen her moping alone on the beach and going skinny-dipping drunk. Stellar. If she’d wanted to show him how far she’d come, how put together she was now, she’d certainly gotten off to a shining start.

“I’m going to go grab the vinegar from Andre’s room,” Jace said, pulling her from her thoughts. “Why don’t you go in the bathroom and unwrap your leg? I’ll bring you the bottle.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said, proud her voice was steady despite her jangled nerves.

She made her way to the restroom and sat on the edge of the tub, arranging the towel to cover her lap. The burn of the jellyfish sting had lessened a bit from its five-alarm status, but still made it hard to sit still. Or maybe it was the fact that Jace was here that had her ready to jump out of her skin. Even after all these years, simply being near him had her stomach doing silly flip-flops. She needed to get it together.

She unwrapped the makeshift bandage and laid it over the edge of the tub right as Jace poked his head into the bathroom. “How’s it looking, Ev?”

The affection lacing her old nickname poked at something she’d long since buried. She forced a casual shrug. “Looks like I got in a fight with a jellyfish and lost.”

“Here.” He stepped inside and the room seemed to shrink as his tall, still shirtless frame filled up the space. He squatted next to her and uncapped the bottle of vinegar. “This should neutralize the sting. Might be a little cold.”

She winced when he poured the liquid over her thigh, but despite the shock of the contrast in temperature, the sting started to ease. “Ooh, that’s better.”

His hand cupped her knee and he ran a thumb over the curve of it, causing her breath to hitch. He glanced up from his crouched position, his eyes seeming to see right through her this-is-no-big-thing façade she was working so hard to maintain. “You okay, Ev?”

She could tell by the somberness of his expression, the edge of concern in his voice that he wasn’t asking about the sting. The combination of his touch and the sentiment almost undid her, almost brought forth the tears she’d hadn’t cried in a decade. She looked back at her leg. “I’m fine, Jace. Really.”

He blew out a breath and stood. “Pat your leg dry. I’ll be right back.”

A few seconds later, he returned—thankfully with a shirt on. God knows she was having enough trouble concentrating around him without the added distraction of his bare chest. He tossed a ball of blue fabric to her.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s a pair of track shorts you can use. They’ll be big, but hopefully the drawstring will help. You’re not going to want to put your jeans back on over that sting.”

“Oh, right. Thanks.” She stared down at the shorts.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, why don’t you go ahead and get changed. I’ll be in the living room.”

He’d already seen her in her underwear on the beach, but she knew why he was giving her privacy. Now that they knew who each other was, the wall of the past was firmly erected between them. There would be no more lighthearted flirting. Certainly not from her end.