One Kiss In... Hawaii. Jill Monroe

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СКАЧАТЬ gaping neckline of her top, and gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I’m sorry about back there.”

      “I’m not.”

      He shook his head. “That was inappropriate.”

      “Wait,” she said. “I want to be clear. Do you feel that way because somebody saw us, or because it’s me you were making out with?”

      He cringed at the term. “Both.”

      She made a low growling sound. “You do not get to say that. Not after that kiss last night, or for that matter, after what you whispered to me earlier.”

      “I know. I know. I’m sorry for all of it.”

      “First, I’m pretty sure you’re speeding,” she said, and he checked. She was right.

      He eased his foot off the accelerator, even more irritated now. The highway was starting to wind, and he had no business being distracted from his driving. Having Mia sitting beside him was dangerous enough.

      “Second, you’re here in Hawaii, not at work. You’ve already shown your hand. You can’t run hot and cold on me. It’s not fair.”

      He smirked at that. She was inarguably right. Her impeccable logic was part of what made her a good lawyer. “I didn’t think I should jump your bones without taking you out on a date first.”

      Mia chuckled. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” She sighed. “For God’s sake, I hope today qualifies as a date.”

      He cocked a brow at her. “This is an interesting new side to you.”

      She laid a hand on his thigh, close to his crotch. “Back at you.”

      He hissed in a breath. If she was waiting for a comeback, she’d be disappointed. She hadn’t actually put her hand where he’d like it, but his body reacted anyway. “Um, for the sake of our well-being, I think you might want to keep all your body parts on your side of the car while I’m driving.”

      “So, pull over.” She chuckled again, sounding completely satisfied with herself as she tucked her hand into her lap, wiggled around—more to drive him crazy, he suspected, than to get comfortable—and laid her head back against the headrest. “I’m ready for a swim.”

      “So am I,” he muttered, and steered them off onto a turnout. “So am I.”

      She quickly straightened, her lips parting in surprise, her eyebrows arching above her sunglasses as she stared at him through the dark lenses. Good. She thought he’d called her bluff.

      Ignoring her and trying to quash a smile, he consulted the GPS.

      “Are we lost?” she asked.

      “Nope. I think there’s a beach nearby where it’s not too rocky to swim.” He turned on the GPS’s audio, and they listened to the voice pronounce the odd-sounding Hawaiian street names. “Did you get that?” he asked.

      Mia started laughing. “If you’re counting on me, we’re never going to get back to Waikiki.”

      Her cheeks and nose were pink, and although he’d applied sunscreen earlier, he figured he probably had gotten too much sun himself. He reached over to the glove box, his arm grazing her breasts in the tight confines of the car. Hearing her sharp intake of breath, he smiled to himself.

      “Here.” He tossed her the tube. “You can use some on your face and shoulders.”

      She squirted the white cream onto her palm, then removed her glasses and slathered the sunscreen on her face, shoulders and arms. Looking over at him, the sun shining in her face, her green eyes so beautiful, they sparkled like emeralds, robbing him of oxygen. “You, too,” she said, her gaze lowering to his mouth and lingering. “Take off your sunglasses.”

      She waited for him to do as she asked, then squeezed more sunscreen into her palm. Using her fingertips, she smoothed the cream across his chin, dabbed it over his cheeks and down to the tip of his nose.

      “Thanks.” He rubbed in the leftover white spot on her chin.

      “I’m not done with you,” she said in a throaty voice that got to him in a not so surprising way. “Look down.”

      He frowned, automatically glanced at his fly, then smiled to himself when she applied the sunscreen to his exposed nape. When she was finished, he asked, “Done with me now?”

      “Not even a little.”

      He looked up. Their unguarded eyes met. Something so primal stirred inside him that he didn’t know what to do.

      She was wrong about one thing. He hadn’t shown his entire hand. He hadn’t told her the firm wanted her back, and that he’d been ordered to do anything to make that happen.

      But he’d been wrong, as well. Wrong not to tell her up front. He knew what he had to do. He didn’t like it, and didn’t much like himself for agreeing to do it. But his feelings changed nothing. The firm needed her.

6

      THEY STOPPED BRIEFLY at Sandy Beach, aptly named because the rocks were fewer and a long stretch of white sand left plenty of room for sunbathers, picnickers and children building sandcastles. The problem was there were too many people for David’s taste, and even if there weren’t, the waves were too big for a pleasant swim or any other water activity that interested him.

      A few people rode surfboards and kept safely to the left of the swimmers and kids using boogie boards. He and Mia mutually decided to move on.

      Makapuu was the next beach, different than Sandy in that it was a bay surrounded by rocky cliffs that kept it somewhat hidden. Again, the main drawback was the number of people, mostly bodysurfers testing their skills against the powerful waves, or the spectators sunning themselves.

      “Let’s stop for a while,” Mia suggested just as he was about to pull onto the highway again.

      Although David preferred going elsewhere, he cut the engine. “No swimming here. The way the waves break in the middle of the bay makes it too dangerous. That’s why there are only bodysurfers in the water.”

      “I do want to swim, but I’d like to have a better look at the bay and those two islands out there. Wish we had binoculars.”

      He squinted at the pair of barren islands not too far from the coast. “Not much to see. One of them is called Rabbit Island. No rabbits left, though. It’s a seabird sanctuary now.”

      She grinned at him. “You’re just a fountain of information. Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

      “Not much,” he muttered, as he watched her get out of the car, the hem of her shorts riding up high enough that he caught a glimpse of her peach-colored swimsuit. Grudgingly he climbed out behind her. “I’m thirsty. Supposedly there’s a small town about ten minutes from here.”

      She smiled over her shoulder at him. “I just want a quick peek. I doubt I’ll ever make it out here again.”

      He СКАЧАТЬ