She was being completely sincere and also saying something bound to keep him interested in her.
But for how long, if she completely rejected his sexual advances?
Sex was a much easier commodity to come by these days. A guy like Colin could find it just about anywhere he wanted it.
She couldn’t have sex for the job. Even she had boundaries.
“I’m open to any suggestions,” he told her. But he said no more, asked no more. Walking with him on the deserted beach, their voices silent while life raged around them—the waves against the shore in tune with their heartbeats—Chantel fought the most dangerous battle of her life.
She wasn’t going to sleep with him.
But she couldn’t just send him off, either. Couldn’t risk him losing interest. Not with beautiful, vibrant Julie passing her life at home alone. Not with Leslie and Ryder possibly running from a demon in their own home. And in their hearts. Not when, if what she suspected was right, the two cases were joined by the same wrongdoing. Not when by fixing one she could fix the other.
And what would have happened if neither Leslie nor Julie existed? That insidious inner voice taunted her.
Then she’d already be upstairs with him. The answer came swift and sure in the moonlight with a bit of wine in her.
An answer that allowed her to convince herself that she wasn’t using him or whoring herself when she said, “You want to take the rest of the bottle upstairs?”
She wasn’t going to have sex with him.
But they could play with fire for a little while. Until the wine was gone.
* * *
HE TRIED NOT to pay too much attention to her room. But he was interested in every single thing about the luxury space that said she’d been there—the desk chair pulled out slightly from the desk, the closet doors firmly closed after she’d accessed them to dress that evening.
The soft scent of whatever it was she wore on her skin. Nothing he was immediately familiar with. But something that drew him to her every time he got a whiff. More so than the finest wine.
Or the best steaks on the grill.
He was hungry for her in a way food and drink were never going to assuage.
She left the lights low, turning on only one, by the couch and chairs that faced a sliding glass door. She’d pulled the sheers, but not before he’d seen the balcony beyond.
“You’ve got a beach view,” he said. Because something had to be said. They’d been quiet for too long.
“Yes.”
She didn’t sit. Or fidget. She just stood there, her empty glass on the dresser beside her. Her hesitancy—and maybe a tiny lack of confidence—turned him on more than the cleavage showing at the top of that sexy black dress.
Something became quite clear to him then. Chantel Johnson was not a woman you hurried.
Or had casual sex with.
Even if their liaison only lasted weeks, it would mean something to her. It was his duty to be aware of that.
“Ready for another glass?” he asked. The one he’d had on the beach had been his first for the night. He could easily afford a couple more. Even if he found himself behind the wheel of his car before morning.
“Y-yes, I’d like that.” Picking up her glass, she approached him, hips swaying like a model’s as she traversed the carpet in the heels she’d put back on the moment they’d left the sand.
He was looking forward to taking them off again. And putting his tongue where the grains of sand had been.
First, though, with his own glass filled, he sat with her on the sofa, facing out to the ocean hiding in darkness.
He knew it was there, though. Living and breathing. Swelling. Rushing. Occasionally dancing. Grappling. And sometimes killing, too.
“Do you remember the first time you ever saw the ocean?” he asked, ready to be patient. Content to sit with her in the intimacy of her room. Learn more about her.
Her life was an aphrodisiac.
As were the blond curls that moved along her shoulders when she shook her head. “My family used to go to the ocean for holidays when I was little,” she said. And then blinked as though she’d forgotten herself.
He wanted to know what she’d remembered, and why the memory seemed to cause her unrest.
“What about when you were older?”
Another shake of the head was his only response.
“What?” she asked, looking at him over the top of the wineglass at her lips.
“I didn’t say anything.” Not out loud at any rate. Did she have any idea how incredibly beautiful she was? And how different from every other woman he’d ever known?
“You had a look... You were frowning.”
He smiled. “The way you answered my questions...made me wonder if you’re growing-up years weren’t as blessed as I’d assumed they were.”