Present tense. Was he asking for more time or was she reading her wishes into his words?
Mallory tipped her head to the side, causing his hand to cradle her cheek in a gentle caress. “Are you telling me Jack Latham is trusting a woman?” she asked wryly.
He grinned. “Trust is easier to give when it’s mutual and both parties have something at stake.”
“At which point it isn’t trust but more like a level playing field.”
He burst out laughing. “I really do admire you,” he said, sobering. His eyes darkened with desire.
Her heart thudded hard in her chest. “Same here.” And she wanted him, with an intensity that frightened her.
To give in to her fantasies again, in daylight no less, would make them that much harder to put behind her when this trip was over. Mallory the dreamer didn’t mind.
Mallory the realist knew better than to cross a boundary with no safety net. And that safety net was distance and control.
CHAPTER SIX
THE TIDE STILL LAPPED at his feet as Mallory looked up at him with wide eyes. Yes, Jack admired her, but did she realize how much he wanted her as well? He could lean forward for a kiss. He could taste the salt on her lips and let her soft body mold against his harder one, but it wouldn’t be enough.
And from the hesitant look in her eyes, she wouldn’t be receptive. Jack admired her gutsiness and intelligence, her spunk and positive outlook for the future. No matter how strong she’d come on last night, he respected her uncertainty now.
He’d been wrong to think the woman from last night was the real Mallory. In reality she was a fascinating mixture of two personas and she intrigued him on too many levels beyond sexual. The knowledge set off warning bells in his cynical brain.
His encounters with the opposite sex were supposed to be simple and fun. Easy to walk away from, no strings attached, no emotional commitments. But the yearning he felt for Mallory was beginning to surpass mere sexual desire.
He wanted her.
He desired her company, too.
But he yearned for another invitation most of all. He could see from the determined look in her eyes one wouldn’t be forthcoming.
Yet she’d set a challenge in motion last night. She’d proven both her femininity and his susceptibility to her charms. His turn next and he intended to prove she wasn’t any more immune to him than he was to her. Up the stakes, even the playing field and they could both retreat, egos intact. Next time.
Kissing her now would destroy any prayer of catching her off guard later. So he pulled back instead. “Ready to go inside?” he asked.
She blinked, obviously surprised at his about-face. He didn’t mind putting her off balance for once. She’d done it to him too often.
She shook her head. “You go on. I think I’ll hang out here for a while. At least until the sun gets too hot.”
They’d each backed into neutral corners. Without her explaining, Jack understood exactly what was going through that analytical brain. The dichotomy in her personality was most evident in broad daylight and there were consequences to them she wasn’t ready to face.
Kissing under the morning sun would have meant acknowledging she’d crossed the line from proving a point last night to something more between them today. He agreed.
Disappointment churned in his gut but he accepted the parameters. It was the only way he had a chance of seeing Mallory, the sexy seductress, again. “Be careful not to get burned,” he said.
A flicker of dismay crossed her features and darkened her blue eyes. Well that was something, Jack thought as he walked away.
The desire to turn back was strong yet he acknowledged their separating now was for the best. He wasn’t ready to walk back to their rooms and part in the hall, not when he’d rather take her into his room and then to his bed. Though his mind accepted the need to leave, his body wasn’t nearly as understanding and a throbbing, unfulfilled desire remained.
He left her standing on the beach. The image of the wind blowing her tight bun out of order and place, of her wide blue eyes staring at him as he backed off, was etched in his memory. He feared it could make its way to his heart, if he wasn’t careful.
But when it came to women Jack was always careful, and Mallory was no exception. He couldn’t allow her to become more to him than a private fling. A memory he could cherish and hold on to, but one he could never reveal—not to anyone back home and not even to himself.
He picked up his pace. Was it his imagination or could he feel her burning stare sear into his back as he retreated to the hotel? He shook his head and let himself in through the back door of the restaurant—the fastest way off the beach and out of her line of vision. Away from his own fanciful musings.
Jack passed through the dining area and then the front desk. He rounded the corner to the elevators, pausing by the gym on his way.
He’d been impressed with the facilities when Lederman had taken him on a hotel tour before their sauna. The spa sported a full-service gym with instructors available for a wide range of requests, including a new full cardiovascular workout—under a doctor’s supervision.