Elle’s eyes clouded at his words. “Wait. What?”
“Tour’s over.”
She gave a quick shake of her head, as if trying to bring everything back into focus. He understood the urge. He was trying to make the two alternate universes before him merge together—the one where they were back against the wall, finishing what they’d started, and the one where he kept his distance from the woman who was far more than she said she was. He needed to get away from her. Now. Before he did something stupid.
“This can’t be it.”
“Oh, it can be.”
Her eyes narrowed. “There has to be more art.”
“Why do you say that?” And with such conviction. She hadn’t asked a question. It was a statement.
How did she know there was more art?
Slowly, he answered, “There are more pieces in the private areas, but you can’t see them. Hence the word private.” Hoping to figure out what she was fishing for, he didn’t give her any details.
She sputtered. Zane moved into her personal space again. His reception wasn’t nearly as gratifying this time as it had been before. Instead of melting into him, she stiffened, as if he was about to attack her.
“What are you after, Elle? Tell me. Maybe I can help you.”
She pushed against his chest, heat the only thing in her eyes now, although they were still dilated with the dregs of passion. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one regretting their encounter.
“If you know what’s good for you, Officer, you’ll stay away from me.”
He pushed closer. He told himself it was intimidation, but he was lying. Even as her warmth caressed his skin, a deep breath dragged the scent of her back into his body.
He was a masochist. That was the only explanation.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because your precious video camera now has evidence that you assaulted me.” She gestured with her chin toward the corner of the room and the eye of the camera staring back at them.
His lips curved into a sneering smile. He had to give her points for ingenuity and effort.
Leaning down, he brushed his lips against her ear and whispered, “We both know that’s a lie. That camera will show two people caught up in the passion of the moment. You can lie to yourself all you want, but those cameras never do. You wanted me to touch you, Elle.”
He pushed away, his neck bent over her and his lips dangerously close to hers. His brain was fighting with his libido when she did him a favor.
Reaching out with the flat of her hand, she slapped it across his face.
“Let’s see what your cameras say now,” she said over her shoulder as she stalked out.
Zane cupped his cheek. It stung, but wasn’t nearly the worst pain he’d experienced at the hands of a woman.
SHE FUMED. HER HAND THROBBED where she’d hit his rock-solid jaw. But she didn’t want to visit the onsite doctor. She’d have to explain, and that was something she refused to do. Mostly because she had no idea what had really happened.
One minute they’d been practically tearing each other’s clothes off, the next Zane had been back to the demanding hard-ass with the glint in his eye and smooth-talking words that rocked her to the core.
Because he’d been right.
If her shoe hadn’t fallen off, who knew what they’d be doing right now? No, that wasn’t true. They’d have been having sex. In the middle of a public place. And she wouldn’t have given a damn.
What was wrong with her?
A shiver racked her body at the thought. Damn the man. He was demanding and egotistical and difficult and passionate. She knew to the depths of her soul that if he ever did touch her again—if she let him touch her again—she’d be consumed by him.
He was an overachiever who put everything he was into whatever he did. The same intensity that drove her insane outside of the bedroom would no doubt be mind-blowing inside it. He’d be the kind of lover who would leave her a puddle of mindless goo. The way he looked at her, as if he knew every inch of her body and what to do with it… Heat began to pool in the center of her sex. She ignored it. Or tried to.
Wasn’t going to happen. That slap should protect her from herself.
She’d lived with men who exhibited that same intensity her entire life. The drive her father put into his job. The way he’d brought every case home with him, even if he hadn’t meant to. The way he’d gone to extremes to protect her from the sickening world he saw everyday. The way he’d expected perfection from her—and everyone else around him.
She couldn’t live up to the expectations. She wasn’t perfect. No one was. Not him, not her brothers. Not Zane.
And she had no doubt that he was cut from the same cloth, would require perfection from himself and beat himself up when he couldn’t deliver on such an impossible standard. She didn’t need that sort of upheaval in her life.
Right now, things were practically perfect. She made a decent living doing what she loved. She had freedom. No one she had to share her space or herself with. It was easier that way. Less messy. Less demanding.
Damn it. Why couldn’t she convince herself she wasn’t interested in him? Never, in her entire life, had she become so entangled with a man in such a short space of time. Had it only been yesterday morning when she’d been handcuffed to a chair inside that tiny room? It really had. And already Zane was occupying every spare second of her mind.
She needed a distraction before she did something very stupid and very regrettable.
Pulling out the folder that the front desk had given her upon checking in, Elle stared down at the turquoise paper and the list of activities that were scheduled for the week. She hadn’t bothered to look at it before, because she’d fully intended to be otherwise occupied. However, she really needed a distraction right now.
Well, there was a bonfire on the beach in about an hour. It might be…interesting. Definitely a diversion, if nothing else. And maybe if she was lucky, Zane wouldn’t be there. Because if he was… Balmy night, sparkling stars, flickering fire, tropical setting—it would be too easy to give in to the chemistry between them.
He wouldn’t be there. He’d been working all day. Had been forced to give her the tour of the plantation—and she knew without being told that art was nowhere close to his hobby. While he’d stood patiently as she’d studied each piece, she could feel the tension that had coiled through his body.
If she had been anyone else, she probably wouldn’t have noticed. But while half of her brain had been studying art, the other half had been zeroed in on him. She couldn’t help but be aware of him. The scent of him, the heat of him, how he’d come close and then backed away. She’d wanted him to brush up against her just so she could feel his skin on hers for a second.
And then she’d realized how childish the thought was. She’d never been shy about sex before in her life. Whenever she’d wanted a man, she’d told him so. If he was interested, they got naked. If he wasn’t, she moved on to someone who was. It wasn’t difficult and it wasn’t complicated. She hadn’t played these kinds of games in years, didn’t have the time or patience for them.
Elle wondered if things were different—if she wasn’t planning on recovering something from his employer—would she have jumped Zane by now? Possibly. Hell, probably. But things weren’t different. They were complicated and she didn’t do complicated. She did quick, easy and painless.
And something told her nothing about getting involved with Zane would be painless. He was complicated and moody and closed off and uptight and…everything she shouldn’t want and apparently did.
So she’d go to the bonfire. Maybe the romantic setting would spark something with one of the other single men on the island. Maybe an anonymous fling with someone who wasn’t trying to wheedle his way into her brain and get her to admit to committing a crime would be just what she needed.
And maybe pigs would fly.
6
ZANE WATCHED FROM THE shadows. He could joi
n the lively group of people clustered around the large fire the ground staff had laid and lit, but he wouldn’t.
The minute he’d seen Elle on the screen, exiting her room, he’d jumped out of his chair to follow her. The black-and-white picture hadn’t done her outfit justice, fading the vibrant colors and muting their impact.
She wore a sarong skirt in a wild print of reds, golds, blues and greens. It wasn’t long and flowing like he was used to, but cropped shorter, about two inches above her knee. The slit at the front played peekaboo with whatever she was wearing beneath. And for the safety of the men around her, he hoped it was a chastity belt because he couldn’t trust his reaction if one of them attempted to touch what he desperately wanted but couldn’t have.
It was an optical illusion meant to play with a man’s mind. The top of the opening halfway up her thighs never crept high enough to reveal anything. But each time the motion of her scissoring legs stretched the fabric and teased against that slit, he held his breath, hoping it would go higher and praying that it wouldn’t.
She had some flowy top on that he didn’t pay much attention to other than to notice it was solid red. He supposed she’d call it something like crimson or magenta or some other fancy word for plain old red. Chunky jewelry ringed her neck and right wrist, some big stones in beige and brown polished to a shine.
Her flat sandals slapped against the pavement of the path. There wasn’t much to them, either, just thin leather straps that connected to the sole and wrapped repeatedly around her foot and up the lower part of her calf. His mind immediately flashed to a vision of her naked, those leather thongs crisscrossed down her palms and wrists, tying her to his bed.
Damn. Not at all professional.
It had taken him a few minutes to realize that she’d dressed deliberately. For the past two days, she hadn’t put much effort into looking sexy. Most of the time he took it for granted that their guests had come to the island for one thing and one thing only. Privacy and the opportunity for a romantic setting and hot steamy tropical nights. That’s what they specialized in.
After that first night, he’d assumed Elle had other things on her agenda. Hell, he knew it.
Tonight, though, she was apparently joining the ranks of the hedonists.
Jealousy and a protective, possessive bent he didn’t like twisted deep inside. Zane frowned. It had never concerned him before that their female guests regularly went into rooms with strangers and closed the doors so no one else could see. They’d never once had an incident. They didn’t run extensive background checks on their guests—not like the one his friend was running on Elle. But they did some basic searches, knew none of their guests had criminal records or were wanted by their respective authorities.
The thought of Elle disappearing behind some closed door with a horny stranger made his fingers clench into fists and his teeth grind.
And maybe that was why he currently stood in the shadows of the trees that edged the beach. Or maybe it was just his training finally overruling his hormones. Either way, he watched as Elle laughed and flirted, drank and talked. She was beautiful, not that she hadn’t been every other time he’d seen her. Even soaking wet, her hair bedraggled and dripping, the woman had been breathtaking. Fiery. That was what it was. She attacked everything in her life full force, no excuses, no apologies, no equivocations.
It was unusual. Refreshing. He’d come from a life that was nothing but lies. He’d had to keep the truth from Felicity for months about what he really did when they’d first started dating. Once he’d told her, he’d had to keep the nature of his assignments a secret. And while he hadn’t outright lied to her about them, he hadn’t exactly told her the truth, either. The CIA operated on a need-to-know basis, and she hadn’t qualified.
What would it be like to be able to say every damn thought that popped into his head?
Terrifying. Some things were meant to be private. Elle didn’t seem to see the world that way.
Elle settled by the fire on one of the logs the crew had set out. Some couples crowded closer to the bonfire, jostling each other to get marshmallows on sticks into the flames. Heckling burst through the air as someone’s gooey treat caught fire and charred an unappetizing black before falling into the flames with a sizzling plop.
The guy she’d been talking with stood up, walked across to the bar set up several feet away and returned with two drinks. He handed her another one of those frothy pink concoctions she’d been drinking last night. She sipped and smiled before the guy sat back down. As far as Zane was concerned, he looked smarmy. A businessman trying very hard not to look like one. He’d shed the suit Zane instinctively knew he lived in when he was at home. But the closest he could get to relaxing was a pair of khaki shorts, a crease ironed down the side that he knew the man hadn’t put there himself, and a dark green Izod shirt. The gold-and-diamond watch on the yuppie’s wrist had to cost five thousand dollars, easy.
And his loafers were clearly Italian leather. Who wore Italian leather to the beach?
This guy was not the type he’d expected Elle to go for. There was a bad boy across the fire pit who kept eyeing her. He was shirtless, with a tattoo covering one shoulder, worn jeans and a light in his eye that said he knew how to live life to the fullest. Now, that was who he’d expected Elle to go for—someone dangerous and just as daring as she was.
Although, he was glad that so far she had ignored bad boy’s pointed looks of interest.
Zane scooted closer to Elle and the yuppie. He wasn’t spying… He was doing reconnaissance. There was a difference.
“Do you have any plans for tomorrow? I was thinking about the ballroom classes. I’ve always wanted to learn the tango.” Even the guy’s voice sounded false, his laughter too forced.
“Hmm.” Elle sipped at her drink, a smile curving her lips. “I’m actually planning on going out into the jungle to paint. Marcy, the director, managed to get me some paints and canvas from the mainland. They aren’t mine, but they’ll do in a pinch.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”
“Sure, but I should have known I’d want to paint when I saw the beauty of the island in that magazine ad.”
“You saw it, too? That’s the reason I came here. It looked so…perfect.”
Elle laughed, the low-throated sound jolting through Zane. “Exactly.”
“So do you know where you’re going to paint? Maybe I can come with you. Watch. I’ve always wanted to watch an artist at work.”
God, what a terrible line. If the guy knew anything about art, Zane would eat the bullets out of the gun currently locked in the safe back in his bungalow. Zane might not know much, but at least he didn’t pretend an enthusiasm he hadn’t felt until Elle had stormed into his life.
“Sorry, no. No one sees my stuff until it’s done. Personal rule of mine.”
“Oh.” If Zane’s teeth hadn’t been squeezed together so tightly, he might have smiled at the crushed expression on the other man’s face.
“I heard one of the staff talking to a couple about a waterfall back a little ways into the jungle. I might end up there. Or I might end up somewhere else. I think I’ll just start walking and see where the path leads me.”
Elle went to take another sip of her drink, only to find that the glass was empty. With one of those tinkling laughs, she gave the guy an almost sheepish grin. “Looks like I need another drink. It was very nice to meet you, Stewart.”
Zane found himself lifting a single eyebrow in the dark where no one could see it. The brush-off. And not a very subtle one. Elle pushed up from the log and sauntered across the gathering, toward the bar. Stewie frowned, but then followed her back into the fray. Zane watched as he shifted his focus to another woman and began chatting. This one looked a little more receptive to his advances, not that Zane cared if Stew ended up with company tonight.
Dismissing him out of hand, Zane turned his attention back to Elle. Her back was against the bar, one hand holding a fresh drink and th
e other arm stretched out across the wooden lip of the counter. Her knee was bent, one sandal pressed tight against the side of the bar.
Her eyes ran across the crowd. From his vantage point on the other side of the clearing, hidden by the shadows, Zane couldn’t tell if she was searching for someone in particular or just looking.
He considered going to her, but before he could move, bad boy was beside her.
Elle smiled up at the guy. Zane couldn’t see her eyes clearly enough to tell whether the smile was real. A few seconds later, when Elle shifted her body closer to the man, Zane realized it didn’t matter.
He watched as Elle stood on tiptoe, arched her body away from the bar and into the man’s space. She lifted her chin, moving closer so that he could lean down and whisper something into her ear.
She laughed. The sound didn’t make it to Zane, caught by the wall of ambient noise from the other people between them, but he saw. She pressed her palm against his chest—his bare chest. Zane half expected her to push the man away; instead, she seemed to use his body to steady her own off-balance posture.
Dropping back down onto her heels, Elle took a step away from him. Setting her half-empty glass onto the bar behind her, she turned to leave, throwing a quick glance back at the man as she walked away.
The man stood there for several seconds, watching her go. He turned to speak to several people he’d been talking to earlier, and ninety seconds later, bad boy was following her.
And Zane was following them both.
ELLE WALKED THROUGH THE silent halls. Everyone was either out on the beach or at the bar or holed up inside one of the rooms, enjoying the sensual setting and tropical heat.
She was heading back to her room. Alone.
There was no question she could have had a companion…if she’d been interested in anyone but Zane occupying her bed.
All night, she’d felt his eyes on her. How many times had she scanned the people around her, looking for him? She could feel him, caressing her skin as he’d watched. Or maybe that was just her overheated imagination.
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