A_Little_Harmless_Fascination

by Melissa Schroeder

  "Sorry I woke you, I'll let you go."

  She wanted that. She needed that, seriously. Her brain wasn't working properly. Little sleep, and now her brain had been sex sizzled by the former agent. But he was Maura's brother, and the man looked completely lost there for a second. Maura had told her that he hadn't been doing that well, but Maura tended to overreact. Still, there was no reason to be a complete bitch.

  "Come on in. I'll make some coffee."

  He hesitated as his gaze traveled down her body. She looked down and felt heat flare in her cheeks. Dammit, she was wearing an old T-shirt that hit her mid-thigh and nothing else.

  She cleared her throat. "I'll get dressed. Come on."

  He smiled, and she felt her heart do a slow roll. "You don't have to get dressed on my account."

  Her cheeks got even hotter, but she ignored it. "Do you want some Kona or not?"

  He nodded. She stepped back and allowed him into her home. The moment he entered her space, she knew it was a mistake. Her house was just the right size for her. But with Conner in it, it seemed small, almost miniature. He was a big man, about six foot four. She was no featherweight, but then she figured the muscled god now surveying the area for intruders also had the kind of presence that was bigger than normal.

  "I'll get the coffee started. This way," she said with a nod of her head toward her kitchen. He followed her in.

  "Your part of the house isn't that much bigger than mine."

  She glanced at him, wondering at the tone. Shrugging, she grabbed the coffee canister and started measuring the grounds out, dumping them into the basket.

  "I don't need much space. I guess if I lived with someone, it would be different."

  He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "How so?"

  "I need space to write. I need privacy. If I was living with someone here, it might be disastrous. I’m sure there would be a death."

  He smiled, and again, she felt heat spike through her blood. Damn, the man was making her melt right there in her kitchen. She hoped it was just the lack of sleep. Until now, she had never even felt the urge to act on the attraction. Sure, she had fantasized. Any heterosexual woman in her right mind would. He was the stuff she wrote about in books. Confident, sexy, and she had a pretty good idea that he was a Dom. Those three things had her imagination working overtime, and for the first time, she went beyond thinking about what it would be like. This was not a good development with him being in Hawaii for a month.

  She turned on the coffee pot. "I'll be right back."

  He nodded, keeping his attention on her but saying nothing. Dammit, why did she like that? There was something different about him, something that was making her want to giggle like a freaking teenager. Maybe because he was looking at her differently than he ever had before.

  She scooted out of the kitchen and headed to her bedroom. God, it looked like a cyclone had hit her room. She must have been really lost the last couple of days working on the book. Clothes were all over the floor and draped over the chair. She sighed, opening the dresser drawer and pulling out a pair of faded cutoffs and a T-shirt. Dammit, she thought, and she opened her lingerie drawer and grabbed a bra and a pair of panties.

  Five minutes later, she was dressed, her teeth brushed, and she had her braids pulled back with a do-rag. With a deep breath, she walked out to join Conner again.

  He was looking out the front window, a mug of coffee in his hand. His expression told her he was thinking of more serious things than his crazy landlady's penchant for sleeping in shirts and nothing else. He looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. It had always been like that as long as she could remember. He had shown up at the University of Georgia that first day with Maura, acting like a bulldog, daring anyone to say anything mean to his sister.

  He had been the talk of the dorm. She hadn’t been lying about that. Girls had done everything to catch his attention, but his main focus had been Maura, and in that she had admired him. She wished she’d had someone looking out for her like Maura had all those years. Strong, dependable, sexy. Okay, she wouldn’t have wanted him for a brother...but a lover? Maybe. She had a feeling he had a real dominant streak and that was something she liked in a man.

  For the first time in months, she felt stirrings of attraction. He wasn’t her type. She liked a dominant man, but Conner was over the top. Plus, she was sure that a man like him would never be interested in a pierced and tattooed erotic romance author who ran on no schedule. Still, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the man. It was a shame that he’d chosen to wear jeans and a shirt today. She could just imagine what he looked like without a shirt. Hell, now that she thought about it, she wanted to see him like that. No shirt, a pair of board shirts, water dripping down his chiseled chest...

  “Are you going to keep staring at me, or are you going to get some coffee?” he asked. He hadn’t turned around, but he must have realized she had been staring at him for a while.

  “I was just thinking that Maura was really lucky to have you growing up.”

  He turned and looked at her. “I doubt she’s thinking that at the moment.”

  She shook her head. “You really can’t blame her. You scared her.”

  He shrugged, and she could see why Maura said she wanted to throw things at him sometimes. He said nothing and turned around to look out the window, sipping his coffee.

  “You might want to get some coffee, Jillian. You’re looking a bit peaked.”

  She chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Shaking herself out of her stupor, she headed to the kitchen. She needed to quit drooling over her new tenant because nothing was going to happen with him. It would be a mistake—a total idiotic act—to sleep with him. He was a man that could fulfill her needs, and she would lose her friend in the process. She didn’t have many women friends, but Maura was a constant in Jillian’s life.

  She poured her coffee then took a sip, hoping the caffeine would jolt her head out of the gutter.

  “So, what do you plan to do with me?”

  The steamy liquid caught in her throat and she began coughing. When she finally caught her breath, she looked over at him. He was smiling at her and sipping his coffee. Now she knew he was messing with her.

  Jillian picked up a napkin and wiped her mouth. “Do with you?”

  “Today. You said you would show me around. You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

  “No. I promised Maura I would keep my eye on you.”

  His smile widened. “That’s interesting.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I thought we could drive around, maybe pick up some lunch?”

  “That sounds like a plan.” Then he surprised her by winking at her. “For now.”

  He turned and walked out of the kitchen leaving her completely aroused and thoroughly confused.

  Chapter Two

  Conner watched Jillian as she turned onto Kamehameha Highway. It was hard not to be a little distracted by her. She had always been fascinating, but now she was in her element. Hawaii seemed to agree with her in a way the mainland never would.

  He still felt a little bad about waking her up. Worse, he didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t realized what time it was. Hell, all he had to do was look outside. He had even been outside to go down and knock on her door and hadn’t noticed the sun. He’d traveled enough to think of these things, but lately details had been escaping him.

  “Have you talked to Maura today?”

  He shook his head. “I have a feeling I will soon. She’s being a little overprotective.”

  She laughed as she rolled to a stop behind a tour van. “Yeah, I have no idea where she got that from.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She snorted and put the jeep in gear as the light turned green. “You were a bit...overbearing in college.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I was in my sophomore year, and Maura was
my third roommate. But you knew that, right?”

  He nodded, wishing he could see her eyes, but she had covered them with a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. Normally, they would make the woman wearing them look masculine, but on Jillian they just made her sexier.

  “You were the first of my roomates’ relatives to check me out.”

  For a second, he thought of the night before, the way she had looked with those snug jeans, barely-there T-shirt, and the way she had been dressed that morning. He was damned sure she hadn’t been wearing panties under that shirt.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you did a background check on me.”

  “Did you tell Maura?” he asked, feeling more than a little embarrassed.

  She laughed. “Do you think that Maura would have kept quiet if I had?”

  He had to smile at that and the sound of her laugh. She rarely tried to hide her joy, and sometimes it was a bit contagious.

  “No, I doubt that. There is one thing Maura has never been, and that’s quiet.”

  “Tell me about it. She’s a loud one. But then, I think that’s why you complement each other. She lives life out loud, and you go about it very quietly. Believe me, with my family, I know how bad it can be having too much of one kind of personality.”

  Jillian had been right. He did snoop, so he knew about her family. Born to a white, upper-middle class mother and an African-American superstar baseball player father, she had spent the first ten years of her life away from the crazy Bentley family of Atlanta. When her parents had died in a car crash, she’d had nowhere else to go except to that crazy Bentley family. And even though she was no longer rooming with his sister, he had kept tabs on her. He didn’t know why, but for some reason he felt a need to make sure she was doing okay. Probably because she had taken care of Maura. Moving to Hawaii had been exactly what he’d expected of her. From what Conner could tell, she’d had little to no contact with her family since her grandmother had died three years ago.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “That you snooped? Naw. I probably would have done the same for a younger sibling. And, well, Maura was...kind of naive.”

  “Kind of?” he asked.

  “Really. I worried about her. But, she hasn’t changed much.”

  She hadn’t. Maura and he were more than ten years apart in age. It hadn’t been easy taking on the task of raising her while chasing an FBI career. When she’d graduated from high school a year early, it had been a blessing and a curse. A year younger and years behind her peers in social development, she had been a lamb among wolves, but she’d had Jillian. Who, despite what some people would think about her appearance, was dependable.

  “She was lucky to have you as a roommate.”

  She slid him a look out of the corner of her eye. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking because of the glasses, but the side of her mouth kicked up.

  “That was sweet of you. Just for that, I’ll take you all the way down into Pearl City for some Italian food.”

  “Not Hawaiian?”

  She shook her head. “We’ll do that later. Today, and always when I finish a book, I head on down to Bravo’s. It is sort of a superstition for me to follow.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It sounds better than good; it sounds like a feast coming on. I just realized I forgot to eat lunch and dinner yesterday. It will be nice to linger around a restaurant and get the latest gossip on one of my best friends.”

  “There isn’t much to tell.”

  She glanced at him. “Really? What’s going on with that Zeke guy?”

  “They don’t like each other.” He shrugged.

  “Uh, you really have been working too much if you haven’t noticed that they are either hooking up or preparing to.”

  He had worried about that but thought it was only his imagination. His best friend and his sister were opposites in every way. But knowing Jillian had picked up on it meant that it was more than just a weird feeling he had. He really didn’t want to contemplate it, but he didn’t have a choice. Working with the two of them made it his business. If things went badly, it could affect the company. Mainly because he would have to kill his best friend and business partner for hurting his sister.

  “Oh, no. Don’t get that look.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your ‘I am the big brother in charge’ look. Maura is an adult and thankfully, no longer a virgin.”

  He grimaced when she said it, and she laughed. “I would rather not think about it.”

  “Sorry, but true. I bet you’re thinking you shouldn’t be here, that you should have stayed on the mainland to protect your sister from Zeke.”

  “No. Okay. Maybe. Part of the problem is that I work with them.”

  “I got a piece of information for you, Conner. I think you’d have more work protecting Zeke. You know how Maura is when she wants something, and I have a feeling she wants your best friend. Let it go, relax and enjoy Hawaii.”

  “I don’t do vacations.”

  “You do now,” she said with a laugh as she eased onto an elevated highway. “Now let me tell you about H-3, which is what we’re on right now. Did you know that it’s the most expensive highway in the US?”

  “No, really?” he asked with a sarcastic edge to his tone.

  “If you’re going to be a jackass, I’m not telling you one of the main reasons they built it.”

  He glanced out the window at the tall mountains, the seemingly endless green of the rain forests. Fog clung to the tops of the mountains, so unlike what he’d expected of Hawaii. He had been here for a short time when hunting for Dee a couple of years before, but he hadn’t done any sightseeing. When he thought of Hawaii, the first things that came to mind were beaches, Elvis, and Mai Tais.

  This was different. Jillian had settled here, in the shadow of the mountains and some of the most beautiful scenery he had ever seen.

  He glanced at her and saw that she was no longer smiling. He wanted her smiling, wanted her happy. So, he decided to give in.

  “Tell me. I promise to behave.”

  She gave him a dazzling smile. “It was built to move troops from Kaneohe to Pearl Harbor. Before it, there wasn’t a road that led straight there. Most of them went around the mountains, and all of them took the troops well out of their way.”

  And knowing she was on a roll, he sat back and listened to the sweet sound of her southern accent telling him about the road and the surrounding parts of the island. The cool moist air was brushing over his skin, and he felt his body relax as he drifted off to sleep.

  * * * *

  Jillian smiled as she read over her email on her phone. Her editor had the book and would look over it one more time, and then they could send it off to be formatted.

  Conner was snoring softly beside her in the passenger seat. She was sure when he woke up, he would not be too happy about it. Somewhere between the stadium and Bravo’s, he’d passed out. She was sure he was tired. The trip, along with the months of hard work while opening his DC office, had worn him out. It was one of the reasons he had ended up in the ER. The other was that he was wound up so tight.

  Her phone vibrated in her hand, and Maura’s picture came up. Jillian slipped out of the car and answered.

  “Hey, girl, what are you calling me for?” she asked.

  “I wanted to check on my brother,” Maura said easily. “How’s he doing?”

  “Considering I was up until two working on edits and he woke me up at nine, pretty good.”

  Maura laughed. “I’m amazed his arms are still attached.”

  “He didn’t change the time on his watch.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “And he didn’t realize it was the morning and not the afternoon?”

  Jillian sighed. “Don’t use that tone, Maura. He’s fine. You know how it is when you show up here jetlagged. Add in the fact he has yet to catch up after the stint in the hospital, and he’s exhausted.”<
br />
  “But Conner doesn’t do that. He can go days without sleep.” Her voice was filled with concern. She knew Maura well enough to know that she would worry herself sick for no reason.

  “Maura, let it go. Remember, Conner’s edging his way up to forty. He’s getting older, and running around on adrenaline takes a toll on an older body. When guys get older, you have to let them have some down time.”

  “So nice to hear you care, Jillian,” he said from behind her.

  She closed her eyes and realized that she had been so concerned about soothing her friend's worries that she hadn't heard him get out of the car.

  "Was that Conner?" Maura asked.

  "Yes." She opened her eyes and turned around. He was leaning against the back of her jeep, watching her. She couldn’t tell if he was mad or not.

  "I take it that's Maura?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Let me talk to her."

  Without thinking, she gave over the phone. And as soon as she did, she was annoyed. He didn't ask, he commanded, and that irritated the living hell out of her. But since he already had it and was soothing Maura's worries now, Jillian figured the point was moot.

  "I told you, I'll be fine."

  He was quiet as he listened. "Zeke's friend is there already?" He frowned. "That was fast."

  He grew quiet again, but since he was concentrating on the conversation, she was free to study him. She’d done so a lot when she was in college. For a man who had a busy FBI career, he had always found the time to visit his sister. And he had always included her when they went out. It was hard for a twenty-something not to be impressed. He was quiet, dominating, and gorgeous. Now, though, she was older. She should be able to appreciate how attractive he was without drooling, but her brain was already refusing to work.

  "According to Jillian, this is the best Italian on the island." Quiet again. "Yes, Bravo's." He glanced at her and smiled. "She didn't kill me even though I woke her up, and she's feeding me, so I think I'm okay."