by Janice Lynn
“Not really, but last night’s was spectacular on many counts.”
“But not so spectacular that we actually had sex.”
Was she upset that the striptease she couldn’t remember had been a dud? Pride. Had to be wounded pride.
“Make no mistake, Amelia, if you hadn’t fallen asleep, I would have made love to you until you couldn’t see straight.” His gaze bored into hers, pinning her to the bed. “Until you couldn’t do anything except whimper my name in ecstasy.”
She’d have liked him to have made love to her like that. Over and over until her eyes rolled back in her head and she arched off the bed and…
“You have no idea how frustrated I was when I realized you weren’t faking.”
His all-too-real exasperation got to her and her spirits lifted a tad. They may not have had sex, but not from a lack of Cole having wanted to. Good.
“Most men don’t want women to be faking in bed,” she said, giving what she hoped was a sexy look of challenge. Something that might have been more effective if her hair wasn’t wild about her head, and who knew what her smudged slept-in makeup looked like?
“Tell me about it.” He snorted, taking measure of how she’d begun to relax. “Now what, Amelia? You didn’t answer me. Do I need to buy a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and ply you with whiskey to convince you to spend the day with me?”
Whether she’d meant to or not, she couldn’t keep the smile from her face. Despite the way things had ended the night before, Cole wanted to spend the day with her. In bed?
“You’d better tell me what you want to convince me to do before I answer.”
Good point. One Cole would think had a simple answer. But nothing about his relationship with this woman was simple and hadn’t been from the moment they’d met.
Last night, she’d begged him to make love to her, to kiss her all over. Hell, he’d been on his way, his hands on her bare waist with her lying back on the bed. He’d been trailing kisses over her abdomen, tasting the salty goodness of her skin, working his way lower.
Then she’d snored.
Snored.
Even with as frustrated as he’d felt, he’d laughed out loud.
“Amelia?” he’d asked, moving to her side, trying to rouse her.
“Cole?” she’d muttered, rolling to her side and curling against him without ever opening her eyes.
“I’m here, babe.” He’d wrapped his arms around her, knowing he wouldn’t be making love to her. Not tonight. But soon.
Her face had nuzzled against him. “I waited for you, Cole. I waited and waited and you left. Please don’t leave me again. I couldn’t bear it.”
Her sleepy request had pricked him, made him feel protective of her sleepy vulnerability, made him horribly guilty for past mistakes.
“I promise, Amelia. I won’t leave you.” He hadn’t wanted to leave her that first time, but another promise, to Clara, had demanded he do just that.
He had held her all night, waking several times amazed to find her really with him, curled against his body spoon fashion.
Not the way he’d planned to spend his first night in bed with Amelia, but not bad. Holding her, waking to her chocolate eyes was quite nice.
The fact that her eyes begged him to push her back on the mattress and take the decision of how they’d spend the day out of her hands, to not give her a choice so she wouldn’t have to feel guilty for her actions stole that nice feeling, though.
She didn’t want to take responsibility for what happened between them.
Not last night. Not today. Possibly never.
Which meant nothing could happen between them.
Hell.
He wasn’t a nice guy. It shouldn’t matter what her reasons were. She wanted him, was giving him a come-hither look, was visually asking him to make love to her right at this moment.
He wanted to make love to her. Which made his rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling in frustration all the more crazy.
“I thought we could go sightseeing.”
He didn’t have to look to know she wore a surprised expression. She was stunned. He was feeling a little stunned, too. She’d been flirting with him, waiting for him to take advantage of the fact they were in bed together, practically naked, and that he could easily seduce her.
Her vulnerability when she’d asked him not to leave her flashed through his mind again. Amelia was too important to jump the gun. Yes, he wanted her, but he wanted her to want him just as much, for her to be willing to admit that she wanted him rather than feel guilty about their lovemaking. This time there could be no guilt, no bad blood between them. They’d make love because it was what they both wanted, no recriminations.
“There’s an animal park not far from here,” he rushed on, needing to step away from his making-love thoughts. “We could take a taxi over, spend the morning there, grab some lunch, then wander through Little India, check out the shops and eat dinner at whatever restaurant takes our fancy.”
Mouth slightly slack, she stared at him as if she didn’t know whether to hit him or kiss him. She did neither. She flopped back on the mattress, stared up at the ceiling along with him. The two of them must look a sight, both scantily clad, lying on their backs, staring up at a pristine white ceiling, frustration emanating from their bodies.
“Okay,” she said slowly, not sounding sure of her voice. “I’ll go to an animal park with you, and I’ve always wanted to check out Little India, so that would be good, too.” Her lower lip pouted just a tad. “Maybe you won’t put me to sleep again.”
Did she have any idea how beautiful she was? How much he wanted to make love to her at this exact moment? But what was happening between them was too fragile to cloud the issues with sex. What issues he didn’t want to cloud he wasn’t sure, just that he’d made the right choice, however difficult, in delaying their mutual gratification.
It was simply a delay.
“If you go to sleep again,” he threatened in his most menacing tone, “I’ll toss you to the tigers and return to the ship alone.”
“Hey.” She reached out and punched his arm, then re-crossed her arms over her chest.
“Of course,” he continued, unfazed, “that snore of yours might scare the stripes off them.”
“I thought you said my snore was cute and little?” she shot back, without moving from where she lay, staring straight up. Her voice held a teasing quality that he could quite easily get addicted to.
He leaned over, but made no play to touch her, just moved into her line of vision, studying the way her hair lay about her head in tangles, how her makeup smudged beneath her eyes, how her lips pouted with the need to be kissed. A thousand sunsets couldn’t compare to her beauty. “I called it sexy and little, but I might have exaggerated.”
“You think?” She giggled and something shifted inside him and he wondered if he was too late, if perhaps issues were already so cloudy that eventually a storm would hit no matter how carefully he proceeded.
“I don’t even want to think of all the ways I humiliated myself last night,” she continued.
“Then don’t. Last night doesn’t matter. Today’s a new day.”
“You’re right. It is a new day. Let’s get started.” With that, she darted from the bed, presenting him with the most delectable view of her bottom in tiny royal blue silk panties as she disappeared into the bathroom.
Later that day and for the dozenth time, Amelia wondered what was she doing and, just as she’d done each time, she shoved the thought aside.
She had the right to be with Cole. He was single. She was single. They were healthy, consenting adults going into this with their eyes wide open. The past didn’t matter.
She didn’t really buy her mental pep talk, but she deceived herself that she did. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to justify how her hand rested in Cole’s as it had done most of the day. Neither would she be able to justify how they’d talked, laughed, enjoyed each other’s company. Like lover
s.
For crying out loud, she’d let him feed her bites of his lunch. The scrumptious pieces of fish they’d bought from a street vendor had practically melted in her mouth.
Just as she was melting in Cole’s hands like butter in a hot frying pan and she was enjoying every sizzle.
“Come on,” he urged, pulling her into a shop doorway.
She’d been too lost in her thoughts to pay attention to where they were, but looking around the luxurious, tranquil setting she knew.
His eyes sparkled with a happiness she hadn’t seen in…years. Happiness like that they’d once always shared. Together. Because being together had made her happy and, looking back, she realized that being together had made Cole happy, too. He’d always smiled for her. A real, deep-down-from-the-heart smile.
No one’s smile had ever lit up her world the way the man grinning at her did. In that moment just how much she’d missed him hit her. Oh, Cole.
“No one can come to Asia without getting a massage.”
“Oh?” She arched a brow, intrigued by him having brought her there. “Is that in the travel guide?”
“Word for word. I memorized it when you went back to your room this morning to shower.” He winked, talked to the Malaysian woman who greeted them, then handed Amelia over to her care. “Go with her. You’ll be glad you did.”
A massage was tempting, but not as tempting as the man whose hand she already missed. She hesitated only a moment. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you going to get a massage, too?”
His lips curved at the corners. “You think I need relaxing?”
“Actually, you look more relaxed than I recall seeing you in years.”
His gaze tangled with hers, cocooning her in blue warmth. “Don’t let the outside fool you. I’m so wound up on the inside I could snap in two.”
Figuring he was referring to sexual tension, she grimaced, took a deep breath and told him the truth. “I really am sorry I fell asleep. I wanted to make love to you, Cole.”
He studied her a moment then shook his head, surprising her yet again. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m not sorry. We needed today, just you and me, spending time together, remembering what was good between us.”
Yeah, maybe they had. But inebriated sex would have been easy to explain to her conscience. Tonight, when they made love, she wouldn’t have anything to blame except the attraction between them. A terrifying thought.
Time for another mental shove. Clearing her thoughts, she lifted her chin in a play of deviance. “I’ll only have a massage if you have one, too.”
He laughed. “You’re going to twist my arm?”
“If that’s what it takes,” she insisted, but knew the smile on her face disarmed her threat.
“Fine,” he agreed, sounding more amused than anything. “We’ll get a massage together.”
He turned back to the woman who worked there, told her what he wanted, and she nodded her dark head.
A massage together? As in both of them on the table? How did that work? Instantly visions of her naked body lying on top of his flashed through her mind. Um, yes, that could work very nicely.
Cole took her hand and led her through a maze of exotic scents and colors, following the Malaysian woman into a room just for the two of them.
Twenty minutes later, Amelia was in heaven.
She lay on a massage table of sorts, a masseur rubbing and kneading every muscle in her body.
“I heard that moan,” Cole said from opposite her, the head of his table a mere meter from hers with them lying in a straight line, feet outward. “You like?”
“I like,” she admitted, wondering at herself for lying naked except the sheet covering her in a room with Cole also naked except for the thin cotton sheet covering his delectable backside. Not that she’d looked. Much. A young girl worked on him, sculpting his muscles between her nimble fingers in an almost exact mimic of how the young Chinese man rubbed Amelia.
They lay in silence except for the mood music playing in the background and the sounds of their breathing. Sweet incense burned in the four corners of the room. Peace, tranquility, happiness and love, they’d been told.
“I can’t believe we’ve been naked in the same room twice and haven’t slept together yet.”
“I’ll just bet.” Amelia laughed at Cole’s bemused comment. “Must be some kind of record for a man like you.”
“Must be,” he agreed, but only halfheartedly, his words slightly muffled from where he lay facedown on his massage table. “I’m not as active as you think.”
Amelia laughed. “Don’t tell me that, Cole. I heard about all the nurses you went through after you and Clara broke up.”
“I was trying to forget.” His admission was low, self-derisive, as if he had lots of regrets.
“My sister?”
His answer came out clearer than before. “You.”
She lifted her head, saw that his was also raised, looking at her. She stared straight into his eyes, was pretty sure she was drowning in their blue depths. “Did it work?”
After a few moments, he said, “I’m here, aren’t I?”
There was no justification for the satisfaction that filled her. None whatsoever. But satisfaction did fill her.
Cole had sought her because he’d wanted her. Other women hadn’t done, hadn’t satisfied him. Would she be able to?
“I’m not as experienced as you,” she admitted. Lowering her head back into the face rest, she wondered how they could carry on a conversation with the two people giving them massages listening in. Maybe it was the anonymity of being halfway around the world. Maybe it was because the masseuse and masseur were foreign and it was easy to pretend they couldn’t understand English, despite knowing that most everyone in Singapore spoke the language.
“I’m not some Casanova.” He sounded a little irked. “I’ve been selective about who I’ve become involved with. There haven’t been that many women in my life.”
Closing her eyes, she tried to give herself over to the warm oils being massaged into her flesh. This was supposed to be relaxing. This was relaxing. Only the conversation made her feel tense, worried her. Why was she being so open with him? Why was she telling him the things she was?
“It’s not that I’m a virgin.” For instance, that was one of those things she really shouldn’t have said out loud. She really hadn’t needed to divulge that tidbit. “But a woman doesn’t want to think she doesn’t have enough experience to satisfy her man either.”
“Are you calling me your man?” he asked slowly.
Heat burned her face, but to deny his question would be foolish. They’d slept together the night before. Literally slept together. Today they’d held hands, indulged in conversation and prolonged foreplay through long looks that revealed too much. Tonight, they’d make love.
“Is that okay?” She squeezed her eyes shut, holding her breath as she waited for his response. Praying he’d say the right thing.
“Yes, Amelia, that’s more than okay.” He lay there a moment then declared, “I’m going to buy a bale of whatever they’re burning. Peace, tranquility, happiness and love.”
“Do what?” Still smiling, Amelia craned her neck to glance at him. He lay with his chin propped up on his hands, watching her. The young woman kneaded his calf muscles.
He smiled at her. “Obviously, whatever we’re breathing has made you mellow since you’re talking out of your head.”
She returned his smile. “Right or wrong, I do know what I’m saying.”
More wrong than right, she knew, but wrong sure did feel right in regard to the man lying a few feet from her.
“I hope so, Amelia. I really hope so.”
After that, they were silent for the remainder of their massages. No matter how wonderful the therapeutic oils and massage, she couldn’t bring herself to completely relax. Not when her mind raced with events to come and not knowing quite how she would d
eal with the aftermath of those events.
Then again, how did one prepare for heartbreak?
And one was coming on as surely as she was a Stockton.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AMELIA went to her room after she and Cole arrived back at the hotel. Suzie hadn’t been there and it didn’t look as if her bed had been slept in any more than Amelia’s had. The damp towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door said her friend had returned and changed for the evening already, though.
Amelia showered, changed into a strapless dress she’d bought from a shop that afternoon and carefully put on makeup and styled her hair. She’d forgone a bra, her mostly flat chest not requiring much anyway, and slipped on a pair of barely there red silk panties that rested high on her hips.
“You look amazing,” Cole greeted her when she opened her hotel room door following his knock.
“Thanks.” She smiled, running her gaze over him. “You look pretty great yourself.”
He did. At the same shop she’d bought her dress, she’d found a pirate shirt and teased him into buying it. She hadn’t really expected him to wear the swirls of white material, but he was and he looked fabulous. All he was missing was a gold hoop in his ear and a sword. The shirt’s material accentuated the width of his shoulders, the girth of his chest, the narrowness of his waist. Women would be lining up to walk the plank. She’d be at the front of the line.
“Let’s just stay in.”
Cole’s suggestion echoed what was running through her mind. She might have grasped hold of his shirt and tugged him into her room if another hotel room door hadn’t opened. Tracy stepped out into the hallway wearing a dynamite red dress.
“Hey,” she called, immediately spotting them. “You two look great. We missed you today at the MRW tour out to the bird sanctuary and downtown.”
“We decided to check out the city on our own.”
Smiling, Tracy nodded at their clothes. “Looks like you found some good shops.”
“A few.”
Another door opened and Peyton stepped into the hallway, a blonde Amelia didn’t recognize hanging on his arm. He invited them to a nearby bar. “We’re all meeting at eight for drinking, dancing and lots of bad karaoke.”