Damn, he liked her spunk. “I’ll just bet you do,” he said, giving her a huge smile he didn’t have to fake.
“As I was saying, Jackson,” she emphasized with a saccharin-sweet grin, “a girl should always look her best. She never knows when she might meet a handsome stranger at a beach bar who can rescue her from her lunch date.”
“Drink date.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Semantics.”
Gesturing for the bartender, she ordered herself a Blue Hawaiian, or as she called it, “That big blue thingy I keep seeing.” How adorably tourist.
“Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of me. How would it look if Lucie left Reid to cavort around the island with another man the week of her wedding?” He didn’t bother mentioning he planned on leaving her after they shared their drinks and he came clean about his impulsive fibbing streak.
“Sadly, you’re right. But next week, while Reid and Lucie are enjoying their honeymoon on a Mediterranean cruise, I’ll still be here and incredibly available.”
Jax’s gut twisted at the images of a sexy Vanessa being fawned over by every man within a square mile. His brain told him it was none of his damn business how she spent her vacation, and logically speaking, he knew it was right. Unfortunately, he’d always been a man who followed his gut.
Her Blue Hawaiian arrived, and she didn’t waste any time sampling it. Lifting the large bowled glass, she sipped the electric blue liquid, made a sound of approval that tightened his groin, then licked the sugar on her lips she’d lifted from the rim.
Clearing his throat to disguise a groan, he ordered a second Heineken and then killed his first. By now, the idea of her spending time with random locals was on its way to giving him an ulcer. His other half—the side he fully acknowledged was more caveman than gentleman—was trying to claw his way free.
Tamping down his irrational shit, he thanked the bartender for the new beer and kept things light. “You know, as your personal host, I feel I’d be shirking my responsibilities if I allowed a bunch of jerks to circle you like sharks around chum.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a look of disbelief, “did you just refer to me as fish guts?”
“You are a lawyer.” Wink. Drink.
She laughed in the same way his buddy Corey did when they got into a good-natured pissing match about who was the better fighter. “Okay, Maris, I’m giving you fair warning.” She gestured back and forth between them. “When this is over with, I have every intention of finding some hot Hawaiian hunk to entertain me for a few days. And should you interfere in any way, shape, or form, I’ll be forced to hurt you.”
Chuckling, he removed his shades, set them on the bar, and leveled her with patronizing amusement. “You hurt me? That’s adorable; truly it is.” She opened her mouth to fire back, but he didn’t give her the chance. “I will say I’m glad you’ve decided to have fun with a local boy while you’re here, though.”
Her mouth closed and a small furrow creased her brow. He loved it when strategy worked.
Crossing his forearms on the bar, he slowly leaned toward her. Her exotic citrusy scent filled his lungs, the smell so intoxicating he resented the need to exhale. Trying to ignore the pang of desire, he lowered his voice and layered on the suggestive tone. “I’m local. Think I might be the man for the job?”
Staring up at him, her jaw slackened, opening her mouth a bit. Testing the waters, he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and let it drag itself free. Her eyes dropped and fixated, darkening with interest.
And Bingo was his name-o.
“I think that’s a yes, princess.” He allowed himself the satisfaction of a half smile before bringing his beer up for a victory sip.
Snapping out of her temporary trance, she let out an indignant huff. “Please. You have heat stroke if you think I’d even let you apply for the job.”
Laughing at her indignation, Jackson pried his eyes from Vanessa’s long enough to sign his tab. Points for him. It was a damn hard thing to accomplish. She was so different from the women he’d been around the last decade. Island girls typically had happy-go-lucky, easy-going, go-with-the-flow personalities. But she was full of opposites. Fire and ice. Both the calm and the storm.
And her eyes were the purest shade of green. They weren’t brownish green or hazel green. She turned her head in his direction, rewarding him with the very things that mesmerized him, even if it was in the form of a glare. He looked for the telltale, barely visible rim revealing them as counterfeits…and found none.
“You don’t wear contacts,” he stated.
A feathery eyebrow hitched up her forehead. “You say that like you’re surprised.”
“I am. Usually color like that only comes from cosmetic lenses. I’ve never seen authentic eyes the shade of yours before.” A small sigh accompanied a roll of said beautiful eyes. Amused at her assumption, he added, “That wasn’t a line.”
“You’ve been throwing innuendos at me since the airport, Jackson. Why wouldn’t I think that was a line?”
He dropped one arm from the counter and turned his entire body toward her. She was taller than most women—he guessed somewhere around five-nine, five-ten—but at six-four he still had a huge advantage. Especially since she was sitting and he wasn’t.
Letting his gaze slowly trail over every exposed inch, he made her wait, not saying a word until he’d thoroughly soaked up every detail. Alabaster skin and smooth curves on a willowy frame. Breasts that filled out her bikini top to perfection with tight nipples pushing against…and this train of thought was nothing but a hard-on wreck waiting to happen. His cargo shorts were in serious danger of taking on a new shape.
Dragging his eyes back up, he met the emerald pools and told her the God’s honest truth. “I don’t use lines. I use compliments. And telling a woman something she already knows isn’t a compliment. You have to tell her true things she doesn’t know.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll bite. What would you say to me?”
He tucked a stray curl whipping across her face behind her ear, then slowly trailed his finger down the long column of her throat as his eyes followed. “I’d tell you how I think seeing the curves of your silhouette against a Hawaiian sunset would be absolutely breathtaking.”
She reached up and pulled his hand away, but when he met her gaze she must have forgotten her purpose and their hands stayed clasped together between them. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles just once and spoke again. “I’d tell you you’re the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met, and I’m dying to discover what’s underneath that sexy confidence you wear so well.”
He lowered their hands and gently released hers. He waited for a verbal backlash, a scoff, anything that would prove he was seeing something that wasn’t really there. But she did none of those things. Simply sat there, stone still, her chest the only thing moving as she took in shallow breaths of the ocean air.
He’d affected her.
A burst of adrenaline kicked in from the small victory. Holding back a smile, he broke eye contact to give her a short reprieve, which she used right away to take several big sips of her cocktail while he drank his beer.
“So, V, tell me about yourself.”
“Your sister calls me Nessie. Most people do.”
“I know your ancestors hail from Scotland, what with that hair and last name and all, but you don’t look like an elusive aquatic dinosaur hiding in a loch to me. I’ll stick with V.”
“Strange,” she said in the sarcastic tone he was growing accustomed to from her. “Lucie never mentioned how incredibly annoying you are.”
She’s back, ladies and gentlemen.
“That’s a shame because it’s one of my finer qualities.” As he’d hoped, the ridiculous comment cracked a smile over her stoic face. “Back to the original topic, though: what’s your story?”
She fiddled with the bright blue paper umbrella hanging on the rim of her drink. “Nothing exciting. Just a big city girl who went to c
ollege in Nevada and became a lawyer.”
“You any good?”
“They don’t call me the Red Viper in the courtroom for nothing, sweetie.”
“I’ll just bet they don’t.”
“So now I spend all my time putting the bad guys away in big cages.” She pinned him with the look he was beginning to recognize as one that preceded any sort of dig on his person. “You know, kind of like you.”
Bingo. He’d have her figured out in no time. “I’m a bad guy in a big cage, huh?”
“You are a cage fighter, are you not?”
He smiled. “So what accounts for the ‘bad’ part?”
She finished her drink, dropped her sunglasses in place as she stood, and somehow managed to seem as though she looked down on him and not the other way around. “That has yet to be seen, Mr. Maris, but I have no doubt whatsoever that it’s the absolute truth. Thanks for the drink.”
The mixed comment of his bad nature and her speaking the truth was flippant at best, but because of his recent deception, it hit home a little too hard. That’s why, as she dismissed him for the fourth time in half as many hours, hips swaying like palm fronds in the breeze, he blurted out yet another thing that did absolutely nothing to correct the situation.
“Come swimming with me.”
She didn’t even pause in her steps. “Another time maybe.”
“Now’s as good a time as any, V.”
“Later, Jackson,” she said with a dismissive wave over her shoulder.
Yeah right. She didn’t intend on doing anything with him later.
Yet.
…
“Would you be interested in a deal, Counselor?”
Vanessa halted mid-retreat and bit the corner of her lip. A deal? Vaguely feeling like a mouse sniffing cheese in a trap, she turned and crossed her arms. Narrowing her eyes, she studied him, trying to figure out his angle, but he was impossible to read. Leaning back, elbows resting on the bar behind him, his face boasted that damn smile that melted her insides while he looked for all the world like he hadn’t a care. That was all she had to go on, and it told her absolute jack shit.
“What kind of deal?”
“If you come for a swim with me, I promise to not overact during the times we need to be a couple.”
She raised her chin and squared her shoulders. “And if I don’t?”
His smile morphed into a wicked grin. “I hope you enjoy public displays of affection.”
Desperate to keep her face from breaking into the smile it wanted to let through, she sucked her cheeks in just enough to bite down on them. The worst part was knowing that if it weren’t for her damn pride, Jackson would be charming the bikini bottoms off her right about now. Figuratively speaking, of course. She normally wasn’t such a sourpuss, but the whole situation—starting with the airport—had rubbed her the wrong way, and she was too stubborn to let it go just yet.
“Whaddaya say, V? Quaint couple or obnoxious newlyweds?”
“You can’t be serious.” Oh, he was serious all right. As a death sentence. She could read at least that much about him. Trying another tack, she said, “You’re not even in your suit.”
“Last I checked, the ocean didn’t have a dress code.” Starting at the top, he began unbuttoning his shirt, exposing several inches of gloriously tanned skin with each flick of his fingers. He kicked off his sandals, shrugged out of his shirt, and dropped it on the stool without ever taking his eyes from her. “Come swimming with me.”
Good Lord, he was stunning. Vanessa had dated plenty of guys, and some of them were in impeccable shape, but not one of them held a candle to the man standing in front of her. He looked like a bronzed god, all muscled and toned.
Broad shoulders framed a defined chest with dark, flat nipples she’d like to flick her tongue over. His torso, completely smooth and hair-free, lent complete access to the visual treat that were the hills and valleys of his abs. And those obliques that arrowed in a V to taper down to his— Oh, damn, snap out of it, Nessie.
“I could just thwart your attempts at affection, you know.” Holy shit, she couldn’t stop! A swim actually sounded amazing. Water had never looked so inviting. But for the life of her, she couldn’t accept the invitation without eliminating all the possible outs first.
“You could. But then people would get the impression Reid and Lucie were on the rocks before they even get hitched.” He winked. “What else you got?”
Nothing, that’s what. A big. Fat. Nothing. And if something deep inside her started jumping for joy, it was only because she wanted to wade into the Pacific waves. Not because she wanted to have fun with her best friend’s older brother.
“Fine, I’ll play it your way. I was planning on swimming later anyway, so all I’m doing is moving up my own plans.”
Untying the knot at her hip, she removed her sarong and crossed the few feet to where he stood. She tossed it over his head and kept walking past him toward the edge of the water, making sure that her hips swayed like a supermodel on a Paris catwalk. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the very thing she’d hoped for: Jackson, clutching her sarong and staring after her with an awestruck look on his face. She didn’t bother hiding her smug satisfaction when she called back, “Now who’s not ready for a swim?” and then dismissed him as she waded into the waves lapping at the beach.
The warm water felt heavenly, and the sand squished between her wriggling toes. Her long curls whipped around her face in the salty ocean breeze. Just as she tucked the sides behind her ears, a pair of muscled arms grabbed her from behind and yanked her off her feet. She squealed in protest and tried to squirm free, but her annoying assailant refused to listen to her pleas for release. Probably because she couldn’t stop herself from laughing as he splashed into deeper waters.
“Jackson, come on, put me down!”
“Not on your life, MacGregor. You’re a cruel woman teasing me like that, and you need to be punished.” Then he unceremoniously tossed her into an ebbing wave.
She sank under the surface, but then quickly pushed up from the bottom. As she sprang to her feet, the salty water streamed into her mouth and she spit it out, pushing the hair out of her face and taking in big gulps of air. It didn’t take her long to find the giant of a man standing a couple feet away, laughing his ever-loving ass off.
Narrowing her eyes, she sank back under the water, grabbed his ankles, and yanked them toward her as hard as she could before breaking through the top of the water…just in time to see the end of his backward fall. The ensuing splash drenched her again, but it didn’t wash away her smile as he resurfaced and used his hands to squeegee his face.
His look of surprise morphed into the evil grin of a predator homing in on his prey. Lowering his arms out to his sides, he flexed his fingers like he was preparing to draw his guns at high noon or ready himself for an epic takedown. Since he wasn’t wearing a hip holster with his cargo shorts, she assumed it to be the latter.
She started to back up, one slow step at a time. But every time she stepped back, he stepped forward. “Jackson, I only returned the favor. We’re even now.” Another step back. Another step forward. “Come on, what’s fair is fair, right?” Another step. A quick glance to gauge the distance to the safety of the bar. Damn it. Too far. And he knew it.
Mischief danced in his eyes, and the devil drew up the corners of his lips. The low rumble of his laughter made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
“Jackson?”
“Run, little rabbit,” he said. “Run.”
Vanessa whispered a curse and spun around to make a break for the beach. An attempt that proved to be as futile as they’d both known it would be.
No sooner had she made it five feet than he growled and swept her up, hoisting her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Jackson Maris, you put me down right this instant!”
She watched the beach get farther and farther away as he plodded through the foaming waves, carrying her
into deeper water yet again. “Are you listening to me?” Frustrated that he didn’t have the decency to answer her, she did the first thing that came to mind…she slapped his ass as hard as she could.
He stilled, his muscles tensing underneath her, making her instantly regret her action. “Did you just spank me?”
“Umm…”
With an effortless heft, he rearranged her in one fluid motion until he was cradling her in his arms so he could look her in the face. She kept her arms around his neck, since the chance of him suddenly dropping her was pretty high.
“That’s the first time anyone’s dared try that,” he said, sounding amused.
She didn’t doubt it. The image of this big, strong man getting spanked in any capacity was ludicrous enough to make her laugh, but she bit the inside of one cheek to hold it in. “Then you could probably use a little discipline.”
“You think so, huh?” She nodded. He looked up at the clear sky as though giving it some thought, then shook his head. “I disagree. However…” Bending his head close to hers, he leveled her with a look that warmed her in places it shouldn’t. And when he spoke, his words were coated in carnal promises. “I can give you spankings that’ll have you begging for more.”
Her breath caught in her throat as she lost herself to the picture in her mind. Tingling started from deep in her belly and spread to her extremities. He leaned in, so close they shared the same air. Oh, God, he was going to kiss her, and for the life of her, she couldn’t remember why it was a bad idea. Her fingers clenched behind his neck in anticipation.
The moment before their lips touched, he paused and said, “I’d be happy to show you what I mean later. But you’ll have to ask me nicely.”
Jackson couldn’t have shocked her any less if he’d slapped her in the face.
He drew back with that shit-eating grin he wore so well. He’d known exactly what he was doing. She’d bet he never even intended on kissing her. The heat of desire previously curling through her body now burned in her veins, boiling her blood in preparation for battle.
“Oh, you are so—”