She jabbed him in the chest again. Harder. “I work for a different branch of the government.”
“You’re part of my team.”
She sighed, poked him one last time and then gave up the information. “Laney’s just come out of a bad relationship. She wants to flap her wings a little, and I applaud that.”
“I hear a but.”
“So I want her to have fun, not get hurt.”
He stared at her. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
Because they were on the same page. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Laney. He wanted her to have fun, too.
“Just be careful with her feelings, okay? She wants to have hot vacation sex and then get on the plane home. You’re her temporary man.”
“Her temporary man,” he repeated. Okay, that was a new way of looking at things. The hot sex part he was on board with, and temporary worked for him, as well. He didn’t do relationships. Laney didn’t want one. No problem.
“The last thing she needs is another guy getting serious about her,” Ashley added pointedly.
“Do you see me on one knee?”
Not that he was necessarily averse to the institution of marriage, but he’d never thought of himself and holy matrimony in the same sentence before. He didn’t have it in him to make that kind of emotional commitment to a woman.
Ashley elbowed him. “You’d be lucky if Laney let you propose, but no, I know she’s safe from you. Her last guy was a jerk. She caught him cheating on her with a nurse three weeks before their wedding. So she doesn’t need another guy getting serious when she’s still getting over the first. All she needs is hot breakup sex.”
“Thank you, Dr. Ruth. You’re not concerned about what I need?”
She shrugged. “You’re a big boy, and Laney’s fantastic. I’m sure you’ll get exactly what you deserve.”
Uh-huh. “Is that why her reservation was for two?”
Ashley made a face. “Yeah. He made her book the honeymoon, and then he couldn’t be bothered to show up. I’m glad she came, anyway.”
He was, too.
* * *
DATING WAS GOOD.
As were casual encounters, opportunities to get to know each other and anything other than immediately ripping off his clothes and having her way with Gray’s body. Sure, the naked Gray fantasy made Laney quiver, but the reality was that she needed to get to know him better before she got naked. She hated the awkwardness of the cocktail menu hookup, of not knowing whether he’d found the setup as humorous and exciting as she had. She’d also woken up worrying that every staff member she passed knew she’d tried to order sex off the menu. God. That sounded sleazy. Or desperate. And yet it hadn’t really been any of those things, had it?
When she’d told him the story about the shots, she’d been able to take on a different persona. Someone who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to tease or play. She liked that person. And yet, when she’d run into him that morning—okay, after she’d stalked him and caught him by the massage cabanas, but he didn’t have to know that—she’d been tongue-tied. So much for her suave, sexy side.
Her brain went AWOL around Gray. She’d stood too close to him, gazing into his gorgeous brown eyes and inhaling the scent that was uniquely him. That part had been good, but she’d also been at a loss for words. He hadn’t seemed in any rush, though. Instead, he’d waited for her to get to her point.
“Look, I’d like to see you later, when you’re not working.” Yep. That was what she’d finally said. Wanna go out with me?
He hadn’t blinked, just rolled with it. “Okay. Give me the when and the where. I’m free any time in the afternoon.”
And so here she was, off for a little hike up to a scenic lookout point. Given that the path only went about a half a mile up, it was more of a stroll than anything, but the resort brochure claimed the views were spectacular, and it wasn’t as if she could take Gray to the movies. This was also her best chance to get to know him better since massages didn’t exactly lend themselves to intimate conversation.
The lack of details hadn’t bothered her before, but now she’d had a night to think on it and, it turned out, sex with a stranger wasn’t in the top five of her fantasy list. In fact, it wasn’t on there at all. She was a chicken. A horny, guy-less, had-a-date-with-her-vibrator chicken.
Ten minutes later, she was standing at the bottom of the trail. Tilting her head, she looked up. The path was definitely more hill than mountain, but the abundance of palms sprouting from either side of the dirt trail guaranteed they wouldn’t roast. Gray materialized out of the jungle, and her temperature soared. Maybe he knew a secret employee shortcut because one minute she was alone and the next he was standing there in front of her. He’d dressed for the part today, too, in boots, cargo pants and a form-fitting black T-shirt.