For a short while she wouldn’t feel guilty about being so incredibly attracted to him. She would take Sienna’s advice and finally take her “edge off.” And what better person to do it with than a man who was so utterly male? She and Cameron were spontaneous combustion just waiting to explode, just as Sienna claimed.
Besides, it was about time someone taught Cameron a lesson in humility. Not everything in life got played by his terms, his wants and his desires. People weren’t like corporations; he couldn’t just come in and take over their lives because they caught his eye for the moment.
A smile touched the corners of her lips. For the second time in his life Cameron Cody was about to get outdone by a Steele. The first time her family had effectively shown him that family devotion was worth a lot more than his money. Now, with single-minded determination, she intended to show him that there were some things you just couldn’t control. He was about to discover that all his management theories couldn’t be applied to a personal relationship, not even a short-term one.
Whether Cameron realized it, he had met his match.
Chapter 6
It was high noon.
For Vanessa, the path leading from Cheyenne’s home down to the beach had never seemed so long. She had changed from the sundress she’d been wearing earlier to a pair of shorts and matching top that were meant to capture Cameron’s full attention, not that she didn’t think she’d had it earlier when he had been standing on her doorstep.
She had seen the way his eyes had roamed over her. She had felt the heat in the gaze that had touched different parts of her body. At the time she’d been so taken aback by his proposal she had dismissed the intensity of his look.
In the future, when it came to him she wouldn’t dismiss anything. She would keep her eyes and ears open, and, more than anything, she would keep her heart intact. She would not make the same mistake with him that she had with Harlan.
As soon as her bare feet touched the heated sand, another kind of heat quickly spread through her. Cameron had laid out a towel on the beach a safe distance from the water, and he had brought the basket she’d given him yesterday. But what caught her eye was the man himself.
He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of khaki shorts. Probably he had on his swimming trunks under the shorts, just like she was wearing her two-piece bathing suit under her outfit.
Regardless of the smell of the ocean water, she discovered the closer she got to him that his scent enveloped her. He was standing, looking out over the ocean with his back to her, but not for one minute did she think he wasn’t aware of her approach. Her gaze traveled over him, appreciating the corded muscles of his back.
When she got within five feet of him, he slowly turned and her gaze automatically latched on to the bare, muscular contours of his chest and the sparse dark hairs covering it. Bringing her gaze back to his face, she watched the corners of his lips tilt in a slow, devastatingly handsome smile, the impact of which she could feel all the way to her womb. It was an intense tug that made her inner muscles clench.
“Thanks for coming,” he said in a low, sexy voice that made her heart begin thumping and made goose bumps rise on her arm. “I’m going to make sure you don’t regret your decision.”
She came to a stop beside him. “We’ll see, Cameron, but first we need to talk, to get a few things straight up-front. I want to make sure we understand each other completely.”
He nodded. “All right. And after we talk I suggest we eat since it’s lunchtime. Do you want to sit here to talk or do you want to walk along the beach?”
The thought of the two of them strolling along the beach together set up a romantic picture in her mind, and she didn’t want to think romance. “We can sit and talk right here.”
He nodded before taking her hand to assist her down on the huge towel. The moment their hands touched, she felt an electric current charge through her body and knew he felt it, as well. He sat down beside her. When one of his bare legs brushed against hers, her heartbeat quickened. The sexual chemistry between them was overpowering. Even if she had had on layers and layers of clothing, she still would have felt his touch. Every fiber of her body was attuned to him, but she was determined to dispel some of that high-voltage sexual tension that gripped them, made her forget about talking and want only to lie on this towel with him, naked, instead.