How could she answer that? How could she ever begin to list everything she had to be thankful for because of him? It would be impossible even to try, so she just shook her head and smiled. “For surprising me,” she said.
And way back at the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but hope it would only be the first of a lot of surprises he had in store for her this evening.
Chapter Eight
The Copa Playa Bar and Nightclub was as excessive and showy a tourist attraction as anything Lou had seen since arriving on Sonora. There were flashing strobe lights that changed her dress from red to purple to orange, glittering mirror balls that threw fractured bits of shimmering light everywhere, and a dance floor that seemed to shift and undulate more than the people crowding onto it. The people themselves put on something of a show, too, dressed in everything from the standard tropical wear of Hawaiian shirts and jeans to outfits too skimpy to even be swimwear. The festive atmosphere that was already so common on Sonora was made even more so by the idea of democracy sweeping across the island, and the Sonoran nationals were going out of their way to celebrate.
Mason had suggested he and Lou end the evening helping them, dancing off what was left of their dinner at La Mer before returning to their hotel. Instead of dancing, though, Lou sat at a table and rattled her swizzle stick around in her drink and watched Mason. For all his insistence they should have a good time, his mood had faltered some since they left the restaurant. Now he was gazing down into his drink as if it held the answers to all the secrets of the universe. As if he could feel her studying him, he snapped his head up to meet her gaze. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he lifted his drink to his lips for a sip and gritted his teeth. Lou knew the feeling. For all its expensive paraphernalia, the Copa Playa Bar and Nightclub poured pretty cheap liquor.
“Having a good time?” he asked. He had to shout to be heard, but his tone of voice made Lou feel like he wasn’t really having one of those himself.
“Terrific,” she yelled back over the horns of the salsa music blaring from the speaker behind her. “The time of my life.”
“What?” he asked, putting a hand up to his ear.
“Terrific,” she echoed a little more loudly. “But I’d be having more fun if we were dancing.”
He shook his head. “I’m not big on dancing.”
“Then why did you suggest we come here?”
Mason shrugged. “I figured you’d enjoy it.”
“How can I enjoy it if I’m not even dancing?”
“Why does anyone enjoy going to a nightclub?”
“Because they can dance,” she told him.
“Then go ahead and dance,” he said. “I’m not stopping you.”
As if he’d been waiting for such a cue, a young man stepped up on the other side of Lou and tapped her on the shoulder. When she looked up, it was into a pair of laughing green eyes below a thatch of unruly, sandy-colored hair. The guy was probably younger than she was, and he was smiling as if he’d been turned loose on the world for the first time.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked, offering no indication he even saw Mason seated across from her.
Lou’s initial instinct was to decline, but then she reconsidered. Hey, Mason had just told her to dance. She risked a glance in his direction and saw him scowling at her. She grinned.
“I’d love to dance,” she said in response to the invitation. “My big brother here won’t mind, will you, bro?”
Before big bro had a chance to say anything, Lou was up and out of her chair, heading to the dance floor hand in hand with her new escort. He tugged her gently through the throngs of writhing bodies and then spun her deftly around once before assuming the stance of a truly expert dancer.
“My name’s Billy,” he introduced himself, still smiling.
“I’m Halouise,” she replied, smiling back.
“Nice to meet you.”
Billy clearly had no other motive than to trip the light fantastic, and he was indeed a very good dancer. The two of them swayed and gyrated to a number of lively reggae tunes and sambas that followed one after another. By the time the disc jockey chose a mellower number, a decidedly American tune, they were both laughing and giddy and ready to slow down. Lou stepped into the circle of Billy’s arms easily, but just as they took their first few steps, a large hand clapped over his shoulder next to Lou’s, and they both looked up to find Mason impeding their effort.
“Mind if I cut in?” he asked. Though there wasn’t an ounce of inquisitiveness in the question. It was clearly a statement that brooked no argument.
Billy had the decency to look regretful of the interruption but was obviously too much of a gentleman to decline an older brother the opportunity to dance with his sister. “Of course not,” he told Mason as he stepped aside. To Lou, he added, “Maybe we can pick up where we left off later?”
“I don’t think so,” Mason answered for her. “Mom and Dad would never forgive me if I let little Halouise stay out too late. She just catches her death of cold when she’s out in the night air, don’t you, Halouise?”
Lou made a face at him but told Billy, “Thanks, but I don’t think so. We really should be getting back to the hotel soon.”
Billy smiled wistfully. “My loss,” he said as he disappeared into the crowd.
“Your gain,” Mason muttered in his direction after Billy was gone. “You get to live.”
Lou threw him a withering look. “Mason,” she began.
But she was quickly cut off. Not by any verbal argument she might have expected from him, but by the sheer physical presence of him when he pulled her body flush against his. Suddenly Mason surrounded her, and she was nearly overcome by the feel of him…everywhere. His arms were wrapped possessively around her waist, pulling her close, her breasts were crushed against his chest, her legs were tangled with his. Even in her high heels, she had to look up to see his face, and the expression clouding it was less than reassuring—he looked like a predator, pure and simple.
“Mason?” she tried again. But her voice had lost all of its vehemence, and what she had intended to be a threat came out sounding like a plea instead.
Mason loved the breathy restlessness of Lou’s voice when he pulled her close but didn’t reply to the question she never quite asked. Instead, he pressed one hand intimately over the small of her back. Then he ran his open palm slowly over the fabric of the little red dress that had been taunting him all night, up along the length of her spine until he came into contact with the bare flesh between her shoulder blades. His fingers inched up to her nape, along the slender column of her throat, then settled in her hair to tuck her head into the hollow below his chin. He felt as much as heard her sigh in contentment, and he smiled that her feelings seemed to reflect his own.
Holding Lou like this was something calm in a night full of turbulence. Ever since seeing her at her door in that dress that screamed out her womanhood, Mason had been more than a little agitated. Everything about her tonight was different. As he’d sat across from her at the restaurant, watching her sip her wine and taste her food, he’d become entranced by the crimson ring of lipstick on her glass and the way her tongue flicked out to touch the corner of her mouth from time to time. God help him, all he’d wanted to do was sweep away their dinner dishes with a forceful hand and make wild, passionate love to her right there on the table. His fingers clenched tight at the memory, a gesture that only brought her body into closer contact with his. It wasn’t true he didn’t like to dance. The reason he had turned Lou down before had been the same reason he wished he’d stayed seated now. Being this close to her just played havoc with his senses.
He didn’t want to respond to her sexually, but he did. He couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, or how or why, but sometime during this trip—or maybe even before it, he wasn’t sure anymore—Mason had started wanting Lou. Wanting her like he’d never wanted any woman he had ever known. And there had been times when he’d wan
ted a woman a lot. Then, as he’d watched her dancing with another man, he’d realized something else. Not only did he want Lou a lot, over and over again, but he wanted to make sure no one else had her.
Now, with her body pressed against his, he was inundated with memories of that night in the jungle when they had both been overcome with whatever it was that resulted in their heated embrace. He wanted more than anything to relive that, but he tried to talk himself out of it. Lou was practically a kid, he reminded himself, only a few years out of school. She trusted him. He was supposed to be her protector, her friend, her counselor. But Lou was also a full-grown woman, he reminded himself. A woman who wanted him, too. He could still be her protector, friend, and counselor, but he could be her lover, too.
No way. It was too weird to think about. But wasn’t it something he’d been thinking about ever since they came to Sonora? Wasn’t making love to Lou what had been on his mind that morning she came to check on him wearing her lacy lingerie? Wasn’t making love to Lou what he’d been obsessed with all evening? Wasn’t it what was on his mind at this very minute? Almost as if it were an involuntary action, Mason moved his hands over Lou’s back, telling himself his gesture was only an experiment. He just wanted to see how she would react. Just wanted to see how far things would go before one of them put a stop to it. He only hoped she had as much willpower as he was sure he had himself.
He started at her shoulder blades, then quickly swept his open palms across the bare skin exposed above the zipper of her dress. All the while, he told himself he was only imagining the accelerated heartbeat he felt mingling with his own. He settled his hands at her waist momentarily, then sent them to wander off in separate directions. While one dipped down to cup her fanny, the other crept up to linger below the swell of her breast. He knew this time he wasn’t imagining the pounding of the pulse he felt below his thumb, and he wondered what she was thinking about. Hoping to raise a response from her, he pressed his fingers into the soft swell of her bottom and pushed her more intimately against him.
She gasped, and her fingers clenched into fists before she opened her hands to flatten her palms against his back again. Then slowly, she began to do a little exploring of her own. Before Mason knew what was happening, she was touching him as intimately as he was her, moving her body against his in a way that only aroused him much more. When he felt her lips pressing little butterfly kisses along his neck and jaw, he nearly lost control. And that was the last thing he wanted to have happen. At least not on the dance floor with the rest of the world looking on. When he lost control, he wanted it to be in the privacy of a hotel room.
“Lou,” he rasped out, trying to keep his voice steady.
“What?” she whispered hotly against his throat.
“We have to get out of here.”
“Why?”
Because if we don’t, I’ll take you right here on the dance floor and really give these folks something to remember about their night out. “Because it’s getting late,” he told her instead.
Lou could only shake her head in silent denial. Why did he keep doing this to her? Why did he keep getting her all worked up only to reject her? Couldn’t he see what he was doing to her when he drove her to this point and pulled back again? Well, this was the last time it would happen, she decided. She’d had enough of his body language saying one thing while his verbal language said something else.
Pushing herself away from him with as much force as she could, she said, “What if I’m not ready to go?”
His eyebrows arrowed down in clear irritation. “What do you mean not ready? It’s after midnight.”
“Which means the night is still young,” she assured him with what she hoped was a flippant toss of her head.
“Lou, it’s late,” he insisted.
She frowned. “Quit treating me like a child, Mason. If I want to stay, I’ll stay.”
“You will not stay,” he warned her.
“I will, too, stay.”
“You will not.”
“I will, too.”
“Will not.”
“Will, too.”
“Lou—”
“Mason—”
They stood toe to toe, glaring at each other for long moments until Lou finally took the initiative. Drawing in a deep breath, she said, “You can’t make me leave.”
Mason had no idea what she was up to, but he’d had enough. All he wanted was to get back to the hotel with Lou so they could investigate the strange attraction that had been growing since their arrival on Sonora. The way things were going now, he’d only be doing that in his dreams. Then again, why should tonight be any different? Hell, he was beginning to look forward to his dreams about her. Where else were the two of them ever going to be able to do what they both obviously wanted do to? He ran a hand restlessly through his hair and glared back at her.
“I can’t make you leave?” he asked in a deceptively quiet voice. “Is that a dare, Lou? That sounds like a dare to me.”
“Mason—”
Before she could say anything more, he grabbed her wrist and tugged with just enough force to bring her body against his again. Then he hooked one arm around her waist and hefted her up over his shoulder, ignoring the cheers and jeers of the audience they’d garnered among the dancers, and refusing to acknowledge her halfhearted protests. Wrapping his arm firmly around her legs at the knees and clapping his other hand soundly over her fanny, he carried her to the coat-check room and retrieved her purse for her. Then he waved goodbye to the bartenders and bouncers and disappeared into the night.
****
“I can’t believe you did that to me,” Lou said when they were back in her hotel room. They’d ordered a nightcap from room service and now stood out on the balcony overlooking the ocean, drinks in hand. The moonlight sparkled on the dark Caribbean like a handful of diamonds had been cast down upon it from the heavens. From a distance, she could hear the lively strains of the salsa band that had serenaded them on the beach so many nights before. But the peaceful night did little to make her feel better.
“Of all the ridiculous, childish things you’ve ever done—”
“Hey, when you behave like a child, you get treated like a child,” Mason told her.
“I wasn’t behaving like a child.”
“You dared me. You know better than to do that.”
“All I said was that I wasn’t ready to leave yet,” she reminded him. “Maybe I wanted to stay and dance for a little while longer. Is that a crime?”
“So dance,” he told her.
“What?”
“Dance,” he repeated gruffly. “You want to dance so badly, then dance.”
Lou sipped her drink and gazed out at the ocean. “There’s no one to dance with,” she said softly.
Mason set his drink on the balcony railing and took a step away, opening his arms in invitation.
“I’ll dance with you,” he said.
Her heartbeat kicked up the funny rhythm it had pounded out earlier when he held her, and her breathing became a little shallower. She knew what would happen if she went into his arms. She would start thinking about how wonderful it felt to be close to him, and then he would start touching her again in that frustratingly intimate way. Then she’d start kissing him and making a fool of herself again.
“I don’t want to,” she said.
“Come on,” he cajoled. “Dance with me.”
As if to punctuate his invitation, the salsa band in the distance began a slow number meant to bring lovers close, and Lou was helpless to refuse him. She promised herself this time she wouldn’t let it go any further than a dance. Then, reluctantly, she set down her drink and went into Mason’s embrace—and immediately regretted her action. What was it about him that made all rational thought flee her brain whenever she was close to him? It was as if he exuded some magical aura that enchanted her, as if he held some power over her that she was helpless to resist. Is that what love did to people? Completely scramble their brains
?
She had taken off her high heels as soon as they’d entered the room, so now Mason stood nearly a foot taller than she was. As she nestled her cheek against his chest, she heard him murmur something that sounded like, “Now that’s more like it.” Several silent moments followed as their bodies swayed gently to the distant strains of mellow music.
Finally, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, Lou murmured, “Mason?”
“Hmm?” he murmured back.
“Why were you so mad at me tonight?”
Lou’s question startled Mason, but he didn’t stop dancing. “I wasn’t mad at you, Lou,” he said softly. Since, really, he was mad at himself. “Why would you think that?”
He felt her shrug. “I don’t know. You just kept looking at me like I’d done something to annoy you.”
Mason drew a deep breath. How could he tell her that sometimes when he looked at her she did annoy him? But not because she was making him mad. Because she stirred feelings in him that he wasn’t sure he should be having.
So he only told her, “Lou, no one’s ever made me feel as good as I feel when I’m with you.”
She lifted her head from his chest and smiled up at him. “Really?” she asked.
How could he lie to her? “Really.”
Something in her expression unraveled him, and all he wanted was to be closer to Lou. So he lifted his hands to frame her face and bent his head to take her lips with his. It was a kiss that started off gently, chastely, with none of the urgency or hunger he had experienced that night in the jungle. For a long time he only cupped her jaws with his palms, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, rubbing his lips softly over hers. There was something hypnotic about kissing her this way, something that made his heart hum and his blood zing. It was an odd sensation, one he’d never experienced before. As if for the first time in his life, everything was exactly as it was supposed to be.
When Lou spread her palms open on his chest, Mason felt a shimmer of heat race through his body, setting little fires everywhere it went. His heartbeat lunged in an irregular rhythm, and his breathing became ragged. He dropped his hands to her waist and deepened the kiss. As his tongue darted out to taste her lower lip, Lou opened her mouth in invitation. So he tasted her as deeply as he could. As her tongue tangled with his, they both trembled, a reaction he’d never had with another woman.
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 12