“I’ve been doing that all my life and I know it’s not everything. It’s good to reach out to others sometimes too.” He regarded her with those velvety-dark eyes.
Yeah? Well she wasn’t about to reach out to him. She was firmly staying on her side of this big block of wood.
“Do you reach out to others?” she asked skeptically. This was the guy who seemed unbreakable. Not to mention isolated in all his serious silence.
He cocked his head, his gaze still intent on her. “I have a couple friends.”
She knew his friends. Logan, Rocco, Connor. Nice guys. “What, you’re telling me you guys sit round and emote?”
“Nah, we don’t converse, we beat the crap out of each other.”
She rolled her eyes but knowing those guys, he was probably telling the truth. He didn’t have those muscles from doing nothing. And she understood that exercise addiction, she had a few muscles too—liking to work out her kinks with sweat and effort.
“Who are you going to beat the crap out of here?” she taunted softly.
He didn’t answer but the slowest smile spread across his face.
“You’re here on your honeymoon?” She’d meant it as a tart put-down but the second she voiced it, jealousy struck at the thought of him with another woman. In turn that jealousy angered her. She didn’t want to care—she didn’t want his attention. She refused to want it.
Yet she’d liked him looking for her. Liked being the sole focus of his eyes. And when she’d first seen him on this island, her heart had stopped. She was still recovering from that shock.
“You know I came here alone,” he said. “You watched me walk up the beach all by myself.”
“Maybe she’s on the next boat.”
“Maybe she’s already here.” As he watched for her response, something kindled in his deep, dark eyes. “How do you roller-skate in this sand?”
The change of subject threw her momentarily. “I don’t.”
But she’d roller skated at the pop-up pizzeria every night as part of her persona.
“That’s a shame. I wanted to see your wheels spinning some more.”
“My wheels?”
“Okay, I wanted to watch your ass. You have one hell of an ass. Not to mention the most sensationally long legs.”
Heat burnished her skin. Trembling, she brushed a strand of hair back from her face.
His gaze followed her movement. Suddenly his eyes narrowed and that hint of smile vanished. “Why are you wearing a wedding band?”
“It makes it smoother if guys think I’m not available.”
“But you’re not married,” he clarified.
“No.”
“So you are available.”
She paused. “That depends on whose asking.”
“I’m asking.”
She was silent.
He actually smiled. “You’re too scared to say, I figure that’s good.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“The hell you’re not,” he softly called her out.
“If I was scared of you, I’d have called my boss over. Or I’d have stopped talking and gotten one of the guys to serve you. You don’t scare me. I know you’re not about to hurt me, if you’d wanted to do that, you would have done it months ago. What I don’t know, is why you’re here.”
“Sure you do.”
Her stomach flipped as his soft smile emerged again. So rare. So freaking gorgeous. But she shook her head. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to think it. Because she couldn’t let this happen. She’d run away from New York for this very reason.
“I came for you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Hunter prepped for every possible scenario. He envisaged what could go wrong, how he’d deal with the unexpected, how he’d escape. But in all his imaginings he’d not nailed how seeing Luisa Williams in the flesh again was gonna feel. Luisa with her smokin’ hot, sexy body and that tart tilt of the chin as she turned her back on him.
It felt good. Adrenalin surged through his veins, as if he was about to enter the ring for the fight of his life. For the last six months he’d worked relentlessly from one case to the next. Traveling half the globe and back again. It wasn’t that he needed the money. He was trying to forget the raven-haired, wild woman who’d looked at him with such need in her eyes. Who’d tempted him with just a look. Only she’d not stepped closer. She’d turned and fled.
And he couldn’t forget her. Try as hard as he damn well had, he couldn’t shake her from his dreams.
In those hours when he’d been waiting for planes at the airport, when he’d been driving down endless freeways, when he’d been alone in his bed at two in the morning… Invariably his damn thoughts had turned to her.
She’d sucked every inch of his attention from the second he’d first seen her all those months ago in New York. A slim, streak of a woman with long dark hair and even darker eyes that slid over him like a silken scarf of fire. Almost always she’d been clad top-to-toe in black—like cat woman. Though one time she’d been dressed as a man, down to a fake mustache and all. Still sexy and fascinating as fuck.
But now she wore a demure navy skirt and a pale shirt, the resort uniform. Understated, subtle, everything Luisa Williams wasn’t. She was the free-spirited pixie keeping everyone hydrated and happy. Her hair was swept back off her face and hanging in a long braid down her back. She was brilliant and full of zest. It was her vibrancy he’d first noticed, him and the rest of the world. Despite that customary black clothing, she had an impenetrable aura around her—a tempting, joyous light that had an addictively acidic side. She was like one of those hardboiled candies, both eye-catching and sweet, yet tart as—and once you started, you couldn’t stop sucking, they were so damn delicious. Not necessarily all that good for you, but utterly irresistible and always leaving you wanting more.
She’d not danced near him, in fact the opposite. But her eyes were like embers, leaving burns on his skin with every look. Now she was staring at him. And this time she hadn’t turned away.
It was kinda lunatic to chase a woman he barely knew halfway around the world. But it wasn’t only him who felt this. She did too. For a while he’d wondered if he was turning into some psycho stalker sicko, thinking that he was her fated ‘one’ or some rubbish. But now he was here and now he was certain—that flush on her skin, that parted, pouty mouth told him what he needed to know. Her long, lean limbs and gutsy attitude called to him. Her expressive personality was the absolute contrast to his quiet one. He wanted her. She wanted him. It was just sexual attraction. Pheromones and hormones and instincts at their most basic. If they let it free, it would pass. Desire was a feeling just like any other. And all feelings passed.
“You came for me?” Her cheeks pinked even more. “That’s really flattering of you.” She drew a breath and forced a fake ‘customer-service’ smile. “But totally unnecessary.”
“It was necessary.”
“Why? What are you going to do now? Abduct me and take me back to Manhattan, to save me from… what?”
He smiled again as the tight feeling binding his chest for the last few months finally loosened. Now he’d seen her, now he knew. “Maybe I’m here to save myself.”
“From what?”
The most severe case of blue balls ever known to man. “Maybe I just need some time in the sun.” And she was the sun.
“On an island for honeymooning couples?”
“Maybe I picked this place because I know everyone will leave me alone here.”
“That was my plan,” she said pointedly.
“I know.” He gave in. “Maybe I was worried about you.”
“Why on earth were you worried about me?” She laughed, but it wasn’t genuine. “I have the best life ever.”
Yeah, right. All that traveling, she was running from someone or something. Most likely an ex-lover. Or family. Or both. Part of him didn’t want to know. It wasn’t his problem. He couldn’t let it be his problem, he had
enough of his own. But he had to admit he just wanted to know she was okay. And she was. Still smiling. Still strong. More gorgeous than ever.
A few years back he’d been trained to follow orders. To obey, unquestioningly. Now his work was all about asking questions. Many times he didn’t get answers or not the ones he wanted. But he still kept asking. It was the one thing he could do.
“You’re all independent and free and don’t need anyone, I get that,” he said roughly. “I live that myself. But don’t you want someone, sometimes?”
“That’s why you’re here? Because you have the hots for me?” She folded her arms across her chest, her eyes gleaming.
“Is that a bad thing?”
This attraction between them—almost a compulsion—was weird. He knew it. She knew it. But they were both lost in it.
“It’s a long way to travel for a quick fuck,” she said quietly.
“Is that what it’s going to be?” He grinned at her.
She blinked. “That’s all it ever is.”
That was revealing. “I don’t do quick.”
“Oh please, you have quick fuck written all over you,” she said in that tart way he relished. “You are not the kind to go all soppy and give a girl stuffed toys and chocolates and protestations of love. You see a woman you want and you screw her to within an inch of her life.”
She was right of course. Completely right. Damn it. He did like a good, hard, physical fuck. But when he did get the chance to be with Luisa, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be quick. He’d waited too long and he wanted her too much to squander it that way.
“Is that what you want me to do to you?” he asked quietly.