“All right,” she said, reaching for his hand and letting him help her out of her chair. “I’ll get in the water. But I am not putting my head under.”
“Unless the waves have other ideas,” he added with a wink.
He let go of her hand. Oddly enough, he didn’t want to. She had nice hands with slender fingers and short, unpainted nails. Those fingers would look good gliding over his chest and lower. He grinned at the image as it hit him. She’d probably flay him alive if she could read his thoughts, but even that might not be so bad. He took a few sideways steps toward the water as she untied the wrap skirt she wore over her one-piece bathing suit. One piece, modest, and plain green, but as far as he was concerned, it was sexier than any string bikini the wannabe starlets tried to wear.
“The waves are waiting,” he told her to hurry her along. In truth, if he didn’t wade waist-deep in cold water soon, he would give any curious tourists in sight something to gossip about.
“Impatient much?” she fired back.
She tossed her skirt and her flip-flops aside and trekked down to the wide, wet stretch of sand where the waves slid ashore with a rippling hiss. He hadn’t been this excited about swimming since he was a boy in his neighbor’s pool. A wave rushed across the sand toward him and he dashed toward it, meeting the next one with a wide smile. Sand and tiny rocks squished between his toes as he headed in deeper. Some pleasures were so simple, and yet so good.
When he was yards out into the waves, cold sea water pushing against his calves as the next wave rolled in, he turned to Tasha. Another simple pleasure, one he was determined to enjoy now that she’d let him in.
“What are you waiting for?” He laughed at the way she inched toward the water as if it were icy instead of just brisk.
“Don’t splash me,” she warned him, holding up a scolding finger. “And don’t rush me.”
He could just imagine what she looked like in front of a class of unruly kids, warning them to behave. If he’d been in her class, he would have fought for the position of teacher’s pet.
“I wouldn’t dream of splashing you,” he said. He held out his hands. “Now come on.”
He waited until she worked up the nerve to wade out as far as he’d gone. With every new wave that rolled out to her, brushing water farther up her untanned legs, she gasped and shivered. With each new hum and pant, his imagination went wild. If those were the sounds she made swishing out into the ocean, what kind of sounds would she make if he had her on her back in his bed?
“Fortune favors the brave,” he reminded her, pushing aside his inconvenient thoughts. For now.
“That explains so much about my life,” she laughed.
As soon as she reached him, he took her hand. She held on tight as he dragged her farther out, to the point where the waves broke.
“You’re in luck. Doesn’t look like the waves are all that big today,” he said.
“They’re big enough,” she replied, wincing and shivering as one broke only a few yards from them. “Oh!”
She squealed as the wave hit them, splashing cold, salty water across her middle and as high as her head.
“See, I told you I wouldn’t splash you,” he laughed. “That was the ocean, not me.”
“Still not fair,” she said, more than a little breathless.
“Neither is this.”
He grabbed her around the waist and dove toward the next wave as it broke. Tasha let out a scream that quickly turned to a laugh before they went under together. He was sure to keep his arm clamped around her as they sunk into the sway of the ocean. His sunglasses managed to stay on, but when they found their footing and stood, Tasha’s had been swept right off her head. She gasped and laughed, blinking and brushing her wet hair away from her face.
“Cheater!” She pushed him into the oncoming wave.
He rolled with it, managing to keep on his feet, but the gloves were off now. He slipped his sunglasses into the pocket of his swim trunks, and as soon as the next wave passed, he swept his arm through the water, splashing her with a victorious shout.
“No fair, no fair,” she laughed, holding up her arms to ward off his splashing, and peering into the water. “I lost my glasses.”
“The only way to find them is to go in after them,” he said and rushed her again.
This time he scooped her up in his arms, lifted her above the level of the waves, then dropped her in as another wave rolled past. Her giggling cry disappeared under the water, and he dove in after her.
When she came up, pink from the cold, wet from the ocean, and shining with lighthearted silliness, she launched herself at him. He dodged her, jumping through another wave. Whatever inhibitions she’d had on the shore were gone now. She splashed as much as he did, jumped through the swelling waves like a pro, and chased him through the water as though they were kids. Spence dove away from her half the time and let her catch him the rest. He picked her up and tossed her into the waves over and over just so that he could feel the gentle weight of her body in his arms, so that he could feel the heat of her body against his, if only for a second. He’d never lacked for female company when he’d wanted it, but this went far beyond any slick set-up or high-profile date. This was fun. This was how two people were supposed to be together.
“If I can’t find my sunglasses, you own me another pair,” Tasha teased him, breathless and sagging a little after they’d worn themselves out playing. She slicked her hair back and searched through the clear, cold water, keeping right by his side.
He brushed close to her, leaning against her to search through the water, testing to see if she would run away or stay close. She swayed against to him.
“If we can’t find them, I’ll buy you all the pink, plastic dollar store sunglasses you want.” He elbowed her.
She laughed and nudged him right back. Definitely progress. If only he could figure out where he wanted to go with it all next.
“I did not get those sunglasses at the dollar store,” she insisted. “Although I should have. It’s a known fact that the cheaper the sunglasses, the harder it is to lose them, and the more money you spend, the faster they disappear or break.”
“Then I’ll keep mine right where they are,” he chuckled.
She stood straighter, twisting to look at him, water flicking off the ends of her short hair. Mischief lit her eyes like the sun.
“I think that because you lost my sunglasses, you should give me yours.”
She surged into him, reaching for the pocket of his trunks. Her hands swept dangerously close to a part of him that wasn’t too cold for a reaction. He laughed and made a show of dodging her and batting her away, but the reality was that if she caught him now, she might have strong thoughts about what she found. What those thoughts might be had yet to be determined.
“Come back here,” she giggled, chasing after him.
A bigger than average wave rolled against them. She used that distraction to jump against him, wrapping one arm around his shoulder and grabbing at his trunks with her other hand. The move brought them into intimate contact. He caught her around the waist, his lips moving dangerously close to hers. He needed to kiss her. He needed to press her hips against his so she could feel how much he wanted her. He dipped his head closer to hers.
“Spencer!” A call came from the beach. “Spencer Ellis!”
Heart dropping to his feet, Spence twisted to see who had called his name. There, on the beach where the sand was still dry, stood a man in a Hawaiian shirt with a professional camera. Even from the water, Spence could hear the rapid-fire “click-click-click” as photos were snapped. The camera had a telephoto lens. And here he was with Tasha wrapped around him.
“This is an invasion of privacy,” he shouted to the paparazzo. As kindly as he could, he peeled Tasha’s arm from around his neck and set her firmly on her feet. “Sorry,” he muttered to her before heading into shore.
“Who’s the woman, Spencer?” the paparazzo asked between snaps. “She your new
lover? What’s her name?”
“Her name is none of your business,” Spence replied, slogging through the shallows where the waves raced up the sand. “I’m on vacation. I’d appreciate it if you’d honor that.”
“Are you sleeping with her?” the paparazzo kept at it. “She your little bit of summer fun?” the man backpedaled as Spence came out of the water, but he didn’t let up. “Are we going to hear about a paternity suit in a couple of months? Or is that a working girl? Hey chickie, how much do you charge?”
“What the hell?” Tasha shouted as she came out of the water.
She started to charge the man, but Spence held her back.
“He’s trying to get a rise out of you, out of me,” he explained, working hard to keep his face bland and neutral. “They get paid twice as much if they can get a shot of you acting out, and they’ll say anything to get that shot.”
“I’ll show him about acting out,” Tasha growled.
The paparazzo raised his camera and took a few more snaps before turning and running, stumbling across the loose sand, then heaving himself up onto the sidewalk.
“It only encourages them,” Spence told her. He wanted to chase after the man, rip his camera apart, and pound his face into the concrete. Instead he said, “I’d rather not give him what he needs to cash in.”
“It’s barbaric.” Tasha continued to fume by his side.
Farther down the beach, tourists and locals had stopped what they were doing to watch the scene. Some wore expressions of shock, but thankfully, most of them looked as horrified as Tasha. At least he might win a few local sympathizers. They might protect his privacy after witnessing it being crushed. That happened too. That was the good news.
“I think I’m going to head up to the house,” he said, suddenly gloomy.
Tasha huffed in indignation and disappointment. “We were having fun. I haven’t had fun in…in way too long.”
Spence tried to send her a bolstering smile. He failed. Instead, he marched over to their little camp and started packing up. “We can have fun at the house. Besides, do you really want to stay out here in the sun without a decent pair of sunglasses.”
Her shoulders dropped and she slicked her hair back. “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day?” she asked, bitter and sing-song.
“Something like that.” He nodded in grim reply.
It burned him up that what had promised to be a pleasant afternoon had been ruined. Too many things about this vacation—for him and for Tasha—were about things being ruined. The worst of it was that now the paparazzi knew he was there.
Chapter Six
Tasha had resigned herself to sharing her dream vacation with a big-time movie star, but she hadn’t planned on spending it with a caged tiger.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit down and relax?” she asked him a couple days after the incident on the beach as he paced by her reading spot in the den for the dozenth time.
It had started raining late in the evening of their day on the beach and hadn’t let up as they entered the weekend. She’d seen it as a sign to get lost in the pile of books she’d brought with her. Apparently, Spence saw it as a sign to brood. She curled up on the overstuffed sofa in front of one of Sand Dollar Point’s fireplaces. Spence built a small fire, then spent about five minutes on the other sofa reading a script. After that, he got up to tinker with something in the kitchen, then thumped around upstairs for about half an hour, then came back to the living room to interrupt Tasha.
“I’ve tried reading the scripts Yvonne keeps sending me. Nothing is really jumping out at me,” he explained, flopping to sit on the other sofa. He didn’t sit still though. “It’s all the same thing, action heroes and flawed cop-politician-investigators. I would give anything for a seedy pimp.”
“Oh?” she snorted.
“Yeah,” he insisted. “Or a washed up loser or a dorky teacher.”
Her giggles dried up as the truth dropped like a rock in her gut. “Yeah, I guess a dorky teacher would make a change.” She opened her book, intending to ignore him.
“That wasn’t a dig,” he insisted. “You teachers have the most important job of all.”
So everyone told her, but when she was inadvertently lumped in as part of a joke….
“I just don’t think I could stand to read another clichéd alpha hero role, let alone spend months playing one,” he pushed on, probably with no idea how hard he’d hit her nerve. “Every script I read hammers another nail in the coffin of who I’m supposed to be.”
“Who are you supposed to be, Spencer Ellis?”
He met her challenge with a raised eyebrow. “The hero. Strong, in charge, sexy.”
Her lips twitched back to a smile. “Well, you’ve got one of those going for you.”
“Do I?” He took her bait, stretching his arms across the back of the sofa and putting on the kind of look that would melt any woman at fifty paces.
“Yeah.” She struggled to keep a calm façade as her heart thumped against her ribs. “The way you lifted me and threw me into the waves the other day? The jar of mayonnaise you wrestled open yesterday? You’re definitely strong.”
He laughed out loud. It was the reaction she’d been hoping for…and dreading. He turned her on like a lamp in a dark room. There was no way it could end well, not for a dorky teacher.
She cleared her throat and forced herself to drop all the crazy, sexy ideas poking at her brain. “All right, if you don’t want to read another dull script, why don’t you try reading a book instead.”
He gave a noncommittal hum, one of his legs bobbing up and down. “I didn’t bring any, just scripts. Actor problems.”
A wicked grin spread across her lips. “You could read one of mine. They’re romance novels, so….” She left the sentence hanging.
Warning sirens went off in her head. She was going to make a fool of herself if she kept trying to flirt.
Although her feeble attempt at flirting seemed to have an effect. A short one, at least. Spence smiled, a spark shining in his eyes, but only for a second. In no time, he was back to fidgeting and worrying his fingers across the tiniest fray in the sofa’s fabric.
She would be a fool to try to flirt with him, but she couldn’t let him fret himself into knots, not when he looked so tempting doing it.
“I know it’s raining,” she said, “but we could go into town, maybe take a day trip up to Portland? I like their museum and they’ve got some great restaurants.”
“No,” Spence answered too quickly, unable to meet her eyes.
Tasha lowered her book. “It’s that guy from the beach, isn’t it? You’re afraid to go out.” She wasn’t sure if she could tease him about this or if it was serious. She opted for teasing. “One guy with a camera, and now you’re afraid to go out and enjoy yourself?”
Spence winced and met her eyes with a shifty, sideways look, but he didn’t say anything.
“Okay, I might not really understand these things,” she said, slipping her bookmark between the pages and setting her book aside. She swung her legs off of the side of the sofa and faced Spence directly. “But how much damage can one guy with a camera really do?”
“Do you read the tabloids?” he asked with a grim note to his voice.
“No, I don’t. And neither do most sensible people.”
He arched an eyebrow at her, playfulness gone. “He took a picture of us together. I don’t care about me, but I worry about you. Anything could happen with that.”
She shrugged. “Sure. Anything could happen. Maybe that picture will get printed somewhere, they’ll say ‘who is the mystery woman with Spencer Ellis,’ a few people will care but not many. We aren’t actually dating or anything, and when they stop seeing pics of the two of us, everyone will forget about it and move on.”
A twinge of disappointment at the thought—at the truth—lodged in Tasha’s chest. Still, it was so much easier to deal with other people’s problems than your own. It was much easier t
o give advice that seemed simple to follow than to get it. Judging by the wary look Spence gave her, things didn’t run that smoothly in his world. Oh well. Offering unsolicited advice was far less likely to end up with her looking like a fool than trying to come on to him.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he admitted when the silence between them had gone on too long.
“One picture isn’t going to hurt me,” she insisted. He looked doubtful. She wasn’t about to let her rare cheerful mood be dented by pictures that were taken and forgotten two days ago. “If you don’t want to go out,” she said, slipping to the edge of the sofa, “then let’s do something. Let’s play a game or do a puzzle. I saw a bunch of them in the cabinet over there. It’s perfect puzzle weather.” And puzzles were not flirty. Puzzles were boring. They were what a teacher should be doing on her summer vacation.
“I haven’t done a puzzle in ages,” he said, standing. His smile was back, and some of the weight seemed to lift from his shoulders. He held a hand out to her.
She took it and let him help her off the sofa. His grip was strong and warm. She swayed toward him as she started toward the cabinet in the corner. Intentionally or not, he bumped her as they both tried to go in the same direction at the same time.
“Careful,” he said, more like that restless tiger purring than anything else. His hand slid to her waist.
The resolve not to flirt she’d been determined to build up shifted like sand beneath her feet. He smelled just as good when he hadn’t been out in the heat and the sun as when he did. Whether it was some sort of cologne or his soap or if he just smelled that delicious and spicy all the time, Tasha wasn’t sure, but part of her wanted to find out. A particular part of her.
He let her walk in front of him toward the game cabinet. She was tempted to ask him to go first, and then to ask him to reach for something on the bottom shelf so she could get a good look at his assets when he bent over. It struck her that there were other ways they could occupy their time and provide an outlet for all Spence’s cooped up energy besides puzzles. Ways that involved going upstairs. Or maybe the sofa. A table? She may have been a dorky teacher, but some men liked that.
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