“Daeg Ross,” she said and, from the way she pronounced his name, she was still plenty upset about how their last encounter ended ten years ago.
He, meanwhile, still wanted to kiss her, and that was the problem, wasn’t it?
He’d already kissed her—just once—all those years ago, not too far from this very spot. Fresh out of the search-and-rescue training program, he’d had two weeks’ leave before he shipped out to the Middle East. Cal’s family had been the closest thing to family Daeg had—his own father had never been part of the picture and he’d lost his mother in a car accident a few years before. So when his leave came up, returning to Discovery Island had seemed natural.
It had been prom night when he’d last seen Dani, and she’d been seventeen—too young for the likes of him, ice cream aside. He hadn’t been the one to take her to prom—she hadn’t asked and honestly, he didn’t even know if she knew his name, although he’d caught her looking at him a few times. Prom night he’d found her walking alone on the beach. She hadn’t started out the evening alone and they both knew it.
One look at her sad, disappointed face and he’d broken every rule in his book right then and there.
2
SHE STILL WANTED to kiss him.
Daeg Ross had dropped into her lap like a gift from the gods. Dani Andrews snuck a peek at his hard face. The gods of war, maybe. Daeg Ross was a bad boy through and through. He wanted something from her and she didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what that something was. The slow glide of his hot gaze over her made his interest clear, as did the warm smile that lit up his eyes until they were crinkling with amusement. He’d done a number on her seventeen-year-old self, and apparently the experienced soldier could be even more lethal.
He’d let go of her, but that light touch of his fingers still burned against her skin. There was a military tattoo on his wrist, and he seemed tougher and stronger, almost impervious to the growing chill in the air. It was getting more and more dark, and a mean wind was turning the usually flat surface of the bay into tiny whitecaps and raising goose bumps on her arms. It wasn’t bikini weather but this was her vacation, damn it. This was supposed to be her honeymoon.
Her fingers caught the ties on the sides of her bikini bottom and she noticed his gaze dipping to the sight, betraying him. And then he brought his focus back up slowly to her face. For once, her big, tough navy man was showing some emotion. Surprise. He hadn’t expected to find her here of all places.
Too bad.
He’d walked away from her once, breaking her heart in the process, and the irony of it was he hadn’t even known. He’d seen a young girl on a beach and after giving her a kiss she’d never forget, he’d run like hell. Back to the military. Away from her.
She’d gotten over him, moved on. Now he was merely a memory. She swallowed. Unfortunately, he was still too darn sexy. Her older self appreciated what she was seeing, even more than what her younger self had. His face had matured. It was stamped with experience, and those eyes of his were intense and knowing. Confident. He was a man who made things happen, forced the world around him to change. It was all too easy to imagine him diving out of a rescue chopper and into wild, turbulent waters. He’d cut through the churn effortlessly like he had everything else in his path, because she’d never met a man so focused or determined.
She’d grown up, too, though. She’d left the island behind her and earned her finance degree from UCLA. She’d analyzed risks for Fortune 500 companies and then suggested ways to manage those risks, earning her way to the top of the consulting firm she worked for. Right now, however, the biggest risk of all was standing in front of her, and she refused to let him leave her tongue-tied. “Hello, Daeg.”
“Dani.” Her name was a rough growl on his lips. Was that a hint of something deeper in those watchful eyes of his? He was eyeing her, she realized, like she was dangerous.
The sensation was intoxicating.
And infuriating.
She hated how anger and desire competed inside her, leaving her uncertain and wanting. Mostly, she wanted to leave him standing there alone on the beach. Daeg Ross was wicked temptation, but as she reminded herself again, she’d grown up a long time ago. Maybe this meeting was a chance encounter, a handful of seconds soon over. But then his eyes were taking in her body, making her insides clench with need, and that definitely made her mad. How could he just look at her and the years fell away?