Hot Island Nights

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.