Still So Hot!

“Celine?”

He sighed. He didn’t want to be responsible for burning America’s newest sweetheart to a crisp. But he didn’t want to wake a sleeping lionness, either. She’d been angry since his rejection in the cab.

Now she looked like a little kid, her mouth slightly open, her smooth, unlined face even more youthful in repose. She was definitely a wakeup call to him. Even though she was just five years younger than he and Elisa, she came across as far more naive.

He’d discovered there was a limit to how far even he would go, and picking up a twenty-two-year-old newbie TV star in a drugstore and following her to the Caribbean had showed him a set of lines he no longer wanted to cross. He’d had to ignore warning sirens in his brain to get himself here, and he wouldn’t do that again. So the scenery might be lovely at this swimming pool, but until further notice, his policy was look but don’t touch.

He was staring at one of the sunbathers when he discovered that she was Elisa. He hadn’t done it with any kind of conscious thought; he’d just let his eyes drift until his attention had been snagged by a woman’s golden limbs and reddish hair. It was always long legs and auburn hair that felled him. He would daydream, notice a woman and then realize he’d been half hoping it was Elisa. Only in this case it was, and instead of his heart sinking with disappointment, he felt a small hopeful glow in the center of his chest. She looked up just then, caught his eye and waved.

Damn it, he didn’t like to be found staring. Men should avoid that at all costs. There was a fine art to scoping. You never let a woman see the top of your head or wonder where your eyes had been. A close outside observer might be able to read your mind, but the recipient of the gaze should never discover that it was directed at her unless you wanted her to. And he didn’t want Elisa to know. Not by a long shot.

She’d gotten up from the lounger and was headed in his direction. Her long strides ate up the pebbled surface of the pool deck.

“Hey,” she said.

She wore what should have probably been the dullest, drabbest bathing suit on earth. It was chocolate brown, with wide straps and a high heart-shaped neckline that curved over the tops of her breasts, and it was almost straight across the bottom, like high-cut shorts instead of a bathing suit triangle. But it wasn’t drab on Elisa. The brown set off her eyes, and made the strands of red and gold in her hair stand out, and the cut of the suit—whatever the girly fashion name for it would be— reminded him of a ’40s movie star and was somehow sexier for not trying to be flashy.

It looked like it would be a bitch to get her out of, but the finest pleasure, too. Like peeling fruit, exposing bare, round, luscious bits of her.

Now his mouth was really dry. “Hey.”

She looked uncomfortable, her eyes not meeting his. “Is she—?”

“She’s asleep.”

Elisa knelt at the side of Celine’s chaise, then nodded to confirm Brett’s diagnosis. He made a superhuman effort not to stare at the neckline of Elisa’s suit and the mouthwatering body it outlined. He tried to forget he knew the exact curve and weight of her, the way her lips parted when he touched her just right. Those sounds she made.

Instead he asked, “How long do we perpetuate this pretend romance?”

She stood up. “I just got off the phone with Celine’s publicist. I needed another opinion.”

“And did you get one?”

“She’s good with the plan.”

“Which is?”

“A couple of hours lounging at the pool together and a few drinks in the bar afterward. And then Celine moves on, and you’re free to go.” She surveyed the landscape of human flesh. “If you can drag yourself away.” She chuckled.

He ignored that last line. “Will she cooperate?” He gestured at Celine. Awake, she’d been sullen and hostile, snapping at his attempts to make conversation and refusing his help to drag an empty chaise out of the shade.

“I’ll tell her she has to. And Haven will tell her she has to. And it’s just a few drinks. How much trouble can she cause?”

He shrugged. It made him uncomfortable to have Elisa towering over him, so he got to his feet. He’d forgotten how tall she was, only a couple of inches shorter than him. He liked tall women because he didn’t have to stoop to kiss them.

He had to stop fantasizing about kissing her, about stripping her out of her clothes, about laying her on a chaise and sliding his body up the length of hers. He’d made the decision on the plane that, if he wanted to be her friend, he couldn’t afford to remind her of what she hated about him. He couldn’t be the man she’d built her whole career around outwitting. He’d shut that part of himself down.

Shut it down. Just like that.

Except he was still thinking about kissing Elisa. With a slight incline of his head, he could have those soft lips against his. And coax her tongue—

He knew exactly how it would feel against his. Like that night, when he’d wanted it to extinguish the craving, and instead it had fed the fire.

What was wrong with him, that he couldn’t put sex out of his head for ten minutes?

She shifted from one foot to the other, hands on hips, which only made her waist look narrower. “So do you have a return flight?”

She’d lowered her voice, and, as if by agreement, they took a few steps away from where Celine lay.

“Haven’t booked one yet. Have you tried to do anything online? Someone said it was insanely expensive to call out if you don’t have an international plan, so I was trying to book through the website, but I couldn’t get my laptop to connect to the hotel wireless—”

Elisa frowned and scraped a toe over the glossy surface of the pool deck. “You should get on that. I can do it on my phone if you can’t get online.”

“First you tell me I can’t leave, and now you’re trying to boot me off the island.”

“I’m just—”

“You want me when you want me, and then you’re done, and you kick me to the curb like I’m garbage—”

“I’m—” But then she got that he was messing with her and smiled. It made him miss the good old days with a vengeance. When they’d smiled at each other all the time, joked and laughed and flirted and—

For a long moment her eyes stayed on his face, as if she were thinking it, too, but just when he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold her gaze, it flickered to something behind him. He turned to look. All he saw was the spiky greenery at the side of the pool. Then his vision resolved a blur of floral color into a Hawaiian shirt on someone holding a long-lensed camera.

“Is that your guy?”

“No. Crap. It’s the guy from the plane.”

“Great. How long has he been standing there?”

“I don’t know. He might have just showed up.”

From where they were standing, they couldn’t hear the whir of the digital shutter, but Brett knew he had to be shooting. It was too good an opportunity. The two of them, conspiring over the prone body of the sleeping TV star. “Do you think he heard any of our conversation?”

She eyed the distance between them and the burst of color in the foliage. “Probably not.”

“So it’s all visual. Stick out your hand. Like you’re shaking mine. Look businesslike.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?”

“Probably. But we can at least not give him any more raw material for scandal, right?”

She stuck her hand out, and he took it. Her hand was small, slim and surprisingly soft. She was angular and regal, but she still had that ultrafeminine, satiny feel to her skin. He wanted to rub his thumb over the back of her hand, over her wrist and up the inside of her arm. He wanted to see if the rest of her was as ridiculously soft and sweet. As her cheek. As her mouth.

Man, he was despicable. She was right about him. She’d always been right about him. And she’d been altogether right to get herself out of his life, because if she’d stuck around, he would have found a way to get in her pants. And there was no reason to think he’d have treated her any differently than the other women he’d discarded.

He’d proved it by running out on her that night and again two weeks later with her sister. God, he didn’t like to think about that.

He was still holding her hand. She took it back and said, all business, “Good luck with drinks.”