Evan didn’t think so, but he didn’t know. She seemed to carry a lot of guilt over the fact that her marriage had failed, regardless that it was not of her doing. Guilt could be a bitch of a motivator.
Kelsey followed him in for a quick dip in the waves before they collected their beach gear and headed for their ridiculously lavish suite. His parents certainly hadn’t spared any expense, probably a testament to how desperate they were to marry him off.
But it seemed nothing could stop the intrusion of reality. For the second day in a row, there was a frantic message from Evan’s legal assistant waiting on his BlackBerry.
He cursed when he saw the number, and Kelsey laughed. “Duty calls, even in paradise,” she said, patting him on the shoulder as she slipped past him into the bathroom…surely to shower all that sand from her glistening body. God, how he’d love to do it, he thought as he reluctantly called his assistant’s personal cell to see what the hell had blown up at the office. Given the four-hour time difference, everyone would be home by now.
Even as Delilah finished updating him and started jabbering in his ear about God knew what, his mind kept going back to the image of Kelsey standing naked under the spray, her hands all over her body as she rinsed away the banana-scented oil adhering the grains of beach sand to her skin. And him running his tongue along her tan lines. Jesus. His cock began to swell inside his swimming trunks. If she came out now… Shit. He needed to go check baseball scores or something, anything to get those pictures out of his head.
He wiped his fingers hard over his eyes. “Delilah, I have to go. You guys have a good week. Call me if anything else comes up.”
Plenty had come up here. Evan cut her off without waiting for a reply and drew a breath, resisting the urge to adjust himself because it would probably only make the situation worse to touch it. He sat hard on the bed and collapsed back on the mattress.
Not helping matters was his nearly undeniable suspicion Kelsey had masturbated right here in the bed next to him last night, thinking him asleep. He had been mindfucked on that one, a grown man not knowing what the hell to do with the enflamed, sober female next to him—turn over and help her out at the risk of embarrassing the hell out of his longtime friend, or let her finish, only to have to creep into the bathroom and take care of himself after she was asleep.
Like a dumbass, he’d chosen the latter. The thought of her fingertips slipping through her wet folds with gentle urgency, the memory of what it had felt like when he’d done the same, had his dick throbbing now like a smashed thumb. He wondered if it was him she fantasized about touching her as she came silently next to him. If she would’ve liked it if he had turned over and replaced her fingers with his own. If she’d have begged him to push his cock into her pussy, already wet and ready for him. If she would’ve cried his name into the darkness as she climaxed in his arms, no more need for silence.
Ten years ago there wouldn’t have been a question. The girl had carried her soul in her eyes. She only had to look at him back then and he knew she could be his for the taking. But the sweetness and innocence he’d loved in her as a friend had been the very things that kept him away.
He’d been a double major in political science and criminal justice, president of too many damn clubs and honor societies to remember, all to bulk up his law school apps. He’d been a social animal, but he hadn’t had time for anything more than superficial, shallow relationships with girls he knew were just passing through his life. He hadn’t wanted to get derailed by love. And Kelsey, he knew, would have damn well derailed him. One taste of her and he feared he would have wandered around lost in a euphoric fog.
He hadn’t been thinking fate would step in to keep her in his life all these years. But it had, and even worse, Kelsey’s gray eyes had cooled over that time. Nothing there gave him any indication whether she still felt anything for him, just one drunken confession he wasn’t entirely sure if he should believe or not. He was praying for something in there to reveal itself in the light of day, to let him know she really was susceptible to him.
Her giving in to a physical need and getting herself off within arm’s reach of him still wasn’t enough…too much was at risk. She was driving him crazy, just like she always had. Why did their timing always have to be so off? If she still wasn’t over Todd, he didn’t want to get caught up in that baggage no matter what he felt for her.
Their friendship was far too precious for him to throw caution to the wind and offer her everything, only for her to leave him when her ex-husband showed up at her door full of apologies and promises.
Kelsey wiped the steam from the mirror with her towel and stared at her reflection. Her skin was flushed from the heat of her shower…or the wild sexual heat she’d been in ever since Evan showed up at her door to sweep her away to paradise.
“You’re in a mess,” she informed herself quietly, as if she didn’t already know. The very mess she’d anticipated. Sighing, she grabbed her hairdryer, flipped her hair over and began to blow it dry.
She didn’t want any more nights like last night and the one before. Upon first arrival Evan had offered to take the sofa in the living room, but she’d felt wretched about that, being this was his trip—his should-be honeymoon, she reminded herself. She’d offered to take it herself, and he flat refused. So lying next to him in what seemed like acres of bed, yearning for him yet unable to touch him, had twisted a dagger through her heart. She wanted to be in his arms, those strong, lean-muscled arms…and it was the very place she didn’t need to go.
But damn, how her fantasies had evolved. In college they’d been filled with mushy romance and gentleness. Now, lying there eyeing the strong contours of his body next to her, all she could think about was him crawling over her, kneeing apart her thighs and pounding into her aching pussy like he owned it. Whispering in her ear things that were feverish and forbidden in between groans and wet, devouring kisses.
The images were so vivid given his nearness that she could almost feel him inside her. Which led to her own fingers seeking out the damp longing between her legs and trying to soothe that emptiness, if only superficially. Only he would be able to eradicate it for her altogether. She almost wished he would catch her in the naughty act. Almost.
Oh, God. She wondered what he would do if she worked up the nerve to just walk out of the bathroom naked and jump him. Drag him to bed. Have her way with him.
Stop! This was Evan. Best man at her wedding, as her mother had so graciously pointed out. How wrong was that?
Sighing, she switched off her hairdryer and quickly dressed. She knew he would be waiting to shower, so she didn’t take any time to straighten her hair. The Hawaiian humidity would have its way with it anyway, tossing it into wild curls no matter what measures she took to prevent it.
She’d go easy on the drinks tonight for sure. One more drunken fantasy as vivid as the dream she’d had at his house that night and she’d be lost. Just thinking about it made the roots of her hair tingle, and in her dream he’d done nothing but touch her…and look at her like she was the most beautiful, precious sight on earth.
That, she thought, had been the sweetest thing of all.
“Truth or dare!” Kelsey laughed hysterically, drawing glances from other patrons in the bar off the opulent lobby. She knew her and Evan’s reminiscing was overriding the quiet, laid-back buzz of conversation around them, but she didn’t care.
Evan laughed with her and signaled the waitress to bring them more margaritas. One more, he’d laughingly warned her a few minutes ago, and they were done. “We were the terror of many a party, playing a stupid grade-school game.”
“That fight we staged,” she recalled out loud. “We had rumors flying all night. One of them was that you’d knocked me up.”
“I remember that! My girlfriend dumped me over it, and it was just a joke.”
Kelsey hadn’t liked that girl anyway, but she was able to bite down on the sentiment for the sake of not pissing him off. Most of his girlf
riends she’d been able to tolerate, even if she was envious beyond belief of them. They’d been beautiful and smart and nice to her—most of them, anyway—so what was not to like? No airhead bimbos for him. She’d only wanted to be where they were.
She and Courtney had never really made it beyond the obligatory our-men-are-best-friends-so-we-have-to-like-each-other relationship. They’d gone shopping together once, but their tastes were so vastly different it had been a futile attempt. Todd wouldn’t tell Kelsey how long the affair had been going on, but it made her stomach hurt to think that it might have already been going strong that day.
Evan never talked about her.
“You wanna play?” he asked, a spark of mischief lighting his eyes. It broke through the somberness that was threatening to drag her down.
“Truth or dare? Are you serious?”
“Why not?” He reached over and lightly pinched her bare arm. She shivered.
“Aren’t we a little too old for that?”
“Weren’t we then? You’re only as old as you act. Come on. Truth or dare?”
She grinned. “Truth.” She wasn’t much of a dare person. He knew that, damn him.
“All right. You were on a pre-law track with me in college. But you didn’t go on to law school. You once told me you lost interest, yet you work for an attorney. So what’s the story?”
Well, that was quick enough that he’d been stewing over it for a while, she decided. For a moment, she chewed a fingernail, gaze cast downward to the tabletop. She could feel him watching her. His hands were in her field of vision, resting there on the table, and she momentarily got caught up in studying them, imagining all the naughty things they could do to her. Beautiful, beautiful hands, strong and long-fingered. She’d felt their touch many times, but never in the way she fantasized about the most.
He’s waiting, dummy! Did you ever have a thought that didn’t involve getting him naked?
She snapped back to attention, looking at him and schooling her expression. “I was…talked out of pursuing a law degree.” Given a flat-out no was more like it.
A line appeared between his black brows. “It’s never too late.”
“Right. And how do you propose I support myself for three years while I go to school? It could be done, but it would involve sacrifices I’m not willing to make right now. Like moving back home to my parents and listening to them ask me every day when I’m going to forget this nonsense and go back to being ‘a good wife’ to Todd.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged off the gnawing regret that plagued her whenever she thought about it. “I wanted to do family law. Just from what I’ve seen working for Jack, I don’t think I could ever do criminal—too much grit and violence and pain. I really admire you for facing the dark side like that. I just want to fight for people who are in my situation and worse. People with kids. I know I could make it, if I had the chance.”
“I know you could, too. And you’re right, I think it would be perfect for you. What I do…yeah, sometimes it is hard to leave it all at the office when I go home at night. Still, there’s nothing like giving someone a chance to get on the stand and face down the person who hurt them.” He was twirling his empty margarita glass, his gaze fixed and intent on some distant point. “To see their strength shining through. It’s really incredible.”
“I only have to watch you do the job to know you feel that way. And I have no one to blame but myself for letting Todd hold me back.”
“I’m sure you made what you thought was the best decision at the time. You should really keep thinking about a way to do it, though, Kels. Yes, it’s three years of sacrifice, and you’ll start to think you must be a masochist for putting yourself through it. But it’ll go by before you know it. I know my dear friend Jack probably isn’t paying you near what you’re worth.”
“I can make it on what I earn,” she protested. “He’s good to me. He did my divorce pro bono. Todd and I didn’t have much to fight over, really. We sold the house, but we didn’t have much equity. I took my stuff and he took his.”
“At least Jack helped you out on that. He’d deserve a beat-down otherwise. Anyway, what you’re doing, it’s good experience. You could still do so much more, though.”
She was touched he seemed so passionate about her future, but his green eyes were burning too intently at her. “Okay, enough of that,” she declared. “Evan Ross, truth or dare?”
The wicked grin that spread across his face was maddening. “Dare.”
Oh, he would. She had him go up to a hot blonde who’d been eyeing him ever since their arrival and act like he could only speak Italian. It probably wasn’t a good idea to put him in proximity with a woman dripping diamonds and sex appeal, but it was all she could think of. What made it doubly hilarious was the slinky blonde’s obvious desperation to communicate with him.
“I think you could’ve nailed her despite the language barrier,” Kelsey laughed after he returned to their table.
“I kept waiting for you to come to my rescue, but you didn’t, so now you must pay.” He pointed at her. “Truth or dare? And stop being a weenie, because you never take dares.”
“You never take truths. And I guess I just like revealing things to you.” She shifted in her seat as his expression slackened into one she’d have called desire if it had been on anyone else. It sent a surge of boldness through her blood. “All right, then. Both,” she declared, and he grinned.
“Well, well. Okay. First you have to tell me something about you there’s no way I could know. Shock me.”
“Like…shocking how?”
“That’s up to you.” But his low, sexy tone of voice told her just exactly the kind of shocking he meant. It sent warm currents to all the right places even as she felt the blood rising in her face.
Lifting her gaze to his, she took a breath and inhaled half the margarita the waitress had just set in front of her. Evan laughed at her, one corner of his mouth turned up.
She winced as the icy slush burned down her throat, vanishing into the warmth that flowed through her veins. It was enough to loosen her inhibitions, her tongue. She ran her gaze hungrily over Evan, gorgeous specimen that he was. Good God. She’d love to loosen her tongue over him. The heat was pooling in places that had her squirming. It was like a magnet tugging her between her legs and in her breasts, pulling her straight toward him, toward the inevitable. Leaning over the table, she propped her chin in her hand.
“I’ve never had a vaginal orgasm.” And that’s something I would love very much for you to help me out with, she added silently. At least she hoped it was silent.
Evan’s head snapped back as if her words had physically smacked him in the face. His eyebrows were practically in his hairline, his green eyes enormous. But his surprise was gone as quickly as it had manifested, and he leaned toward her, so that their noses were only a few inches apart. “Really.”
“Did I do good? Is that the kind of shocking you had in mind?”
“That’s it, pretty much, but a damn shame, is what that is.” He gaped at her for a moment. “Are you drunk?”
“No. I’m fine, really. Why?”
“I just never… I mean, I expected you to turn me down cold on that one. You hardly talk like that unless… Look, you have me stuttering now.”
She laughed, reveling in the sense of accomplishment. She’d made Evan Ross stutter.
But he was going on. She’d dug her hole, now she had to wallow in it. “Never?”
“I just don’t think I can do it,” she told him with exaggerated eyelash-fluttering coquettishness. “Lots of women can’t, though.” She knew she was going to want to kick herself in the morning when she remembered this conversation.
“Oh, I bet you can,” he said with a knowingness that curled her toes in shoes that didn’t allow for much toe curling. Lisa would definitely call them medieval torture devices. “And now for your dare.”
Her breath stilled. His gaze flickered down to her lip
s, and she parted them involuntarily. God, if he ever kissed her…she didn’t know if she would be able to handle it. Once at a frat party he and some long-forgotten girlfriend had found a dark corner and made out just across the room from her. Seeing it had been as fun as a kick in the gut, but she hadn’t been able to tear her gaze away from the slow, tender insistence of his mouth and the restless wandering of his hands on the girl’s body. They’d finally gone up to his room. Kelsey had gone back to her dorm and cried herself to sleep. She bet those lips were just on the soft side of firm. She bet those hands would know just where to go to have her as limp and panting as that girl had been.
“Get in the pool with me.”
Her brows drew together. “Okaaay. Well, that’s not too…” She trailed off when she thought of the time. “Ah. It’s closed by now.”
“Closed and dark. But I think we need to cool off after that revelation, don’t you?”
“We do have the Pacific Ocean in its entirety for that, right in our backyard. I thought you were a law-and-order guy.”
“I’m on vacation. And I have an irrational fear of getting eaten alive by sharks in the inky blackness. Didn’t you see Open Water? It’s the bane of my existence.”
“I didn’t mean we were going miles offshore.”
“It doesn’t matter! They come inshore at night to feed.”
“That would have been a most excellent dare for you. ‘Hey, Ev, swim out a hundred yards or so and give that great white a nibble of your crunchy Italian goodness.’” She laughed as he rubbed the corner of his eye with his middle finger. “Just kidding.” Despite her feigned lightheartedness, her blood was pounding feverishly through her veins. “Okay. Let’s go do it.”
Chapter Five
When they left the bar, she turned toward the elevator, thinking they would go up and change into their swimsuits. But Evan grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of the door that led to the pool area.It was dark out there. No fence. Apparently security at such a reputable establishment didn’t expect to have their patrons engage in acts of mischief. When Kelsey, in a moment of terrible uncertainty, noticed that the adjacent octagonal-shaped building that housed the hot tub was wide open, she tapped Evan on the shoulder and pointed at it. At least they would be somewhat hidden there, and someone had left the hot tub on. She could hear it. Evan grabbed her again and tugged her toward it.