She gently bobbed in the buoyant surf three feet away, all her wild curly hair as flattened to her skull as that much texture and mass could be and looking more red than its usual ginger-orange soaking wet. She regarded him through narrowed water-spiked lashes, her pale eyes flashing fire. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Good question. But before he could muster an answer that would satisfy both of them, she demanded, “Omigawd, are you following me?”
“No, hey. I was with—”
“Because I already told you I appreciated the way you stepped in and bussed tables Friday night.”
“Yes, you did,” he murmured. “You even comped my tab, beer and all.”
“Yeah,” she agreed dryly. “I thought it showed a more immediate appreciation than cutting you a check for the requisite hours of minimum wage that I pay my bus-kids. And I am grateful—I should never have allowed Tiff to get so overworked. But that doesn’t mean you can follow me like some creepy stalker guy.”
“Really? A stalker? Conceited much?” He regarded her levelly. “I was with Jenny and Jake when she listened to your voice mail, and it brought us down to the beach to see you wave like you said you would when you went by.”
“Oh.”
Okay, embarrassing her wouldn’t win him any points. Besides, her cheeks held a faint wash of pink and the sun shone in her eyes, making the gray-blue irises look fathoms deep and highlighting the little striations of gold he’d forgotten she had around her pupils. He swam in close, but was careful not to touch. “I’m sorry about nudging you when I swam past. I can see how that might seem kinda stalkerish when you think you’re in the canal alone. But it wasn’t deliberate, angelita. I was trying to catch up and thought I was farther away than I was.” He wisely kept to himself that he had leaped at the opportunity to be where she was. That was a long way from stalking anyway.
“Okay, so maybe I jumped to conclusions,” she admitted with a self-deprecating twist of her lips. Her wry humor was one of the many Tasha things that grabbed him by the short hairs—and had done so since their very first encounter on that long-ago island. “I know it bothers Jenny that I swim by myself.”
“She says you can easily swim a mile and a half, and it scares her that you do it without a spotter.” He moved in closer yet, and this time didn’t sweat it when one of his legs momentarily tangled with hers as they trod water. He lowered his voice. “Think of me as your spotter.”
She snorted and started swimming again. He admired her form for a moment, then followed in her wake.
She swam steadily for a while, then began pausing every hundred feet or so, clearly searching for something. He knew she’d found it when she turned and commenced a serious push toward the beach. Moments later he found himself hanging back to watch in appreciation as she strode out of the surf, admiring the long, fit torso bisected by her colorful T-back bikini top. As for the bottoms...
Well.
Her butt constantly caught him by surprise. It was seriously nice, amazingly round, considering her near-total lack of hips.
His hands itched to shape both. Made uneasy by the urge, he shoved his fingers into the pockets of his shorts to keep from following her and doing just that. Since he needed his hands free for balance as he picked his way barefoot over the rocks and shells, however, that lasted about two seconds. But, man, what was he thinking?
Oh, not so much in regard to the lusting—he was a guy, and she was so damn desirable that he really had no choice but to lust. This compulsion to pursue her, though...that was a whole nother matter.
Hell, it was nuts, was what it was. His life’s work was taking down cartels, and no doubt sooner rather than later he’d be heading back to a new assignment in the dark world of the Latin American drug trade. So it wasn’t as if anything between them had a snowball’s chance of actually going anywhere.
For a moment, he remembered the exhaustion of always living on the edge rather than the compensating adrenaline rush. He did purely love that rush.
But sometimes constantly living a lie was just...tiring.
He shook off the traitorous thought. Hell, it was a momentary dissatisfaction; he’d felt it before, and it always went away as soon as he was back in the game. The point here was his persistent pursuit of Tasha. If he just wanted to scratch an itch with a desirable woman, then the smart thing would be starting fresh with someone he didn’t share a history with. His chemistry with Tasha was every bit as combustive as it had ever been, but she was pissed with him six ways from Sunday, and convincing her not to be would take a helluva lot of work. For minimal returns.
A vision of her as she’d been in the midst of an orgasm in the Bahamas blasted through his mind, and he had to bite back a groan. Okay, not so minimal. But still...
He laughed at himself and picked up his pace to catch up. Because, face it, he knew damn well he was gonna go for it. Hell, Jake and Jenny knew he was gonna go for it after the way he’d yanked his shirt off over his head in the wake of Jenny’s no spotter remark and thrust it, his wallet, Tevas and cell phone at her with a muttered “She’s got one.”
He caught up with Tasha at the boardwalk and gave her a boost over the railing with a hand to that siren butt. It was sweetly firm through the saltwater-and-sun-faded spandex and cotton.
Without so much as a glance behind her, she slapped him away. “Hands off the goods, bud.”
He grinned, because, damn, he loved her take-no-shit attitude. He had from the beginning. “Just trying to be helpful.”
“Yeah, well, help your own self up. And then keep on going until you reach town.” She moved toward the far railing.
“Okay.” Before she could clamber over the other side, he swung himself onto the boardwalk and took the giant step necessary to snag her wrist. Pulling her back around to face him, he looked down at her non-encouraging expression. “But before I do—” He bent his head and kissed her.
The shock of discovery that hit him every time his mouth connected with hers constantly seemed brand-new. Yet at the same time it felt as if her taste, her textures, had been imprinted on his brain at birth. Like her personality, Tasha was both sweet and tart, and the need to just lick her up was so damn imperative that a rusty groan sounded deep in his chest. Moving to bracket her between his body and the railing at her back, he raised both hands to frame her face as he stepped in closer.
He loved the softness of her lips, especially that plush upper one. Loved, too, the helpless way she kissed him back. She might not want to want him, but she was every bit as powerless to resist the electricity they generated as he. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she pressed her water-stippled body to his, her skin cool from the water and her little suit damply chilly. But the incendiary inferno of her mouth was all he truly zoned in on.
He pulled his mouth from hers with a final gentle suck and bent his knees to get a taste of the fragile skin beneath the angle of her jaw, licking the salty droplets that dripped from the ringlets beginning to reclaim their shape. Dragging openmouthed kisses down her throat, her chest, he arrived at the swells of her breasts rising out of the cups of her bikini top. After several long moments enjoying the pliant give of her pale cleavage, he lifted his head. Had to clench his jaw to disentangle himself from her.
He stepped back. “That should get me back to town,” he murmured, running a knuckle down her cheek. Dropping his hand to his side, he met her slumberous gaze. “Maybe you could remember this the next time you do the auto-push-away.” Then he turned toward town and started walking.
The instant his head cleared he wanted to smack himself for not shutting the hell up after his kiss-getting-him-back-to-town remark. Because he knew the way Tasha’s mind worked. If he had just walked away, then she might have given the ain’t-going-away reality of their sexual chemistry some genuine consideration. But he’d had to go rub her nose in her response—and now it would be an icy day in hell before she admitted to anything, let alone her own enthusiastic participation.
Well, damned if he intended to stew over it. He had better things to do with his time.
Unfortunately, he blanked on what those things might be because his head was reeling, swamped with memories of his short time with Tasha on Andros Island, memories he had long ago determinedly and deliberately bricked up in a far, dark corner of his mind. The walls had started exhibiting cracks the minute he learned she lived here and now had well and truly imploded. He felt as if he’d been bombarded by percussion bombs.
Then he remembered the call he’d made to his SAC’s office.
He’d been so fucking worried about her that night when he couldn’t get back to the fancy little beach hut they’d shared, afraid she would think he’d abandoned her, that he hadn’t cared enough to send people for her to make sure she was safe. His concern had rapidly turned to furious betrayal when Paulson informed him she’d left only moments after him.
Except she hadn’t. And ever since talking with Tash on the veranda the other day, he’d been wondering just how the hell his team had missed the fact that she had been arrested by the Bahamians. They’d clearly talked to them enough to learn of the bust—but they missed the arrest attached to it? What kind of intel was that?
Every time he thought about it, he got a little bit angrier. Somebody on the ground that night had really dropped the ball. Their job was to gather all the facts on a mission, particularly if it was one that had turned out to be as FUBAR—fucked up beyond all recognition—as that night.
Someone had failed to do their job, and Tasha was the one who’d paid for it. So Friday morning he’d called SAC Paulson to find out who the hell had headed that detail. When it turned out that the special agent in charge was on vacation, he’d requested a copy of the report. He planned to go over it with a fine-tooth comb to find out who had let Tasha fall through the cracks.
It was possible it was a bureaucratic mistake, that some secretary somewhere had passed on bad information or read an agent’s piss-poor handwriting and interpreted the data incorrectly. It happened. Except that didn’t explain how they’d missed the fact that she’d sat in a fucking jail cell for two nights.
Either way, Luc wanted to both check the report and speak to Paulson when he got back to the office. If he was lucky, the report would be in his mailbox when he got back to the apartment. He sure as hell hoped so.
He needed something to focus on besides gun-shy Tasha Riordan and her wickedly addictive lips.
CHAPTER TEN
GOOD THING THIS is a short day. Tasha chopped veggies in Bella T’s kitchen and watched Jeremy build pizzas. But she was hard-pressed to get her mind off that kiss. Damn Luc Bradshaw! Something had to be done about him—he had a way of sucking her into his agendas far too easily.
First order was to quit thinking about him. After watching Jeremy an additional few minutes, she gave him an approving nod. “You’re doing a great job.”
He shot her a pleased smile. “You think so?”
“Definitely. You’re a fast learner—and you’re neat. I really like that. I have a problem with messy kitchens—they make my teeth tight.”
“Yeah, I don’t like them, either. I hate having to dig through stuff to find the things I need.”
She liked that he was growing more comfortable with her. It showed in the way he occasionally offered opinions now. Before, his conversation had been mostly about the things that needed doing and how he could improve on the way he did them.
But when Peyton waltzed into the kitchen hauling her tub of dirty crockery and glasses, he went abruptly silent, his easy smile erased like a mystic writing pad whose top sheet had been ripped upward to clear the slate. Tasha watched him as he covertly observed the pretty teen through lowered lashes while the girl deftly emptied dirty dishes into the washing machine.
And smiling ruefully, she was positive it wasn’t to make sure Peyton loaded it to his satisfaction. It looked as if she wasn’t the only one with romantic longings.
Her shoulders stiffened. Where the hell had that come from? She didn’t long for Luc Bradshaw—and God knew all this sexual awareness between them didn’t constitute a freaking romance.
But since he’d come to town she’d found herself bombarded out of the blue more than once by memories of the way it had been during those few short days they had spent together before everything went wrong. And she couldn’t lie—she did kind of yearn for that.
“Well, get over it,” she muttered beneath her breath. Noticing that Tiff was trying to simultaneously deliver orders to tables, take new ones and stay ahead of the kids lining up to pay, she went out to give her employee a hand by taking over the cash register.
She finished ringing up seven cheerleaders—you had to love teenagers and their separate checks—and was deliberating whether to crack another roll of quarters for the till when a man cleared his throat. She looked up and saw Axel Nordrum.
And smiled because, at last, here was a man who didn’t pose a problem. She’d known him since the first grade.
Axel was tall, blond and good-looking. But rather than breeze by on his trifecta in the gene pool, he tended to be self-effacing, a little bit shy and a lot sweet. He was just a really nice guy.
And he’d had a crush on her for a long time. Somehow, though, it was low-key enough to be flattering without pressuring her to reciprocate. “Hey, Axel. I haven’t seen you in a while. Been out of town on another trip?” He traveled quite a bit for his engineering job.
“Yeah, I’ve been up in the Aleutians doing some fieldwork.”
“Well, good timing coming back. You’re just in time to catch a little Indian summer while it’s still around. I can’t believe it’s going to be October first on Wednesday.”
“No fooling. Where did September go?”
She gave a rueful shrug. “Beats me, but I doubt this weather is going to last much longer.”
“Hey, we’ve been known to have it last into October.” His smile was slow and rueful. “Although, okay, I’ll admit not often.” He shifted in place, and faint color swept his cheekbones. “I ate a lot of fish up in Alaska and spent the last couple of weeks fantasizing about steak.” He cleared his throat. “I, uh, wondered if you’d like to go into Silverdale with me one of these nights and have a nice dinner.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“I’m just talking about a meal between friends,” he assured her.
Her refusal had been knee-jerk, and her first thought—much to her disgust—had been that accepting his invitation would be disloyal to Luc. Which was crazy.
To make amends, she shot him her biggest and best smile. “You know what? That would be nice. The trick, of course, is figuring out which night. Let me check my schedule and ask my new cook if he feels comfortable being left on his own or if I should close early. Can I give you a call when I hammer out the details?”
“You bet.” He grinned at her and dug his wallet out of his back pocket. A second later he thrust out a business card. “Here—both my office and my cell numbers are on it. Thanks, Tash. I look forward to it.”
She did, too. But she had a feeling maybe not in quite the same way.
* * *
AT ONE MINUTE past closing that night, she banged through the door of her apartment and headed straight for her bedroom. She pulled the fastener from her hair, quickly unbraided its unruly length and shook it out. Leaving it down, she kicked out of her work clothes and changed into an old favorite, her comfy gold-embroidered, faded turquoise nightshirt. She was on her way to the kitchen when a commanding knock sounded on her door.
Her mind shot straighter than an arrow to its target as pictures of Luc exploded across her mental screen. Visuals of his muscular shoulders, hair-furred chest. Of his big gentle hands and stupid kisses.
No! She was tired of being emotionally jerked around by him, and after stalking over to the door, she reached out and yanked it open, ready to rip him a new one.
She had to adjust her sights significantly downward. “Jenny!” She gawked
at her petite BFF, who stood clutching a bag in her arms. “What are you doing here?” She stepped back and waved her in. “That is, good to see ya. But what brings you?”
“Girls’ night in, just you and me.” She reached into the paper bag and withdrew a cylindrical object wrapped in butcher paper. She tossed it to Tasha, and then her hand immediately dived back into the bag.
Tasha snatched the offering out of the air. It was warm through its white paper wrapper, and she brought it up to her nose and inhaled the aromas of French rolls, pork, cilantro and marinated veggies. “Yum, Vietnamese sandwiches.”
“Yep. I stopped by Saigon Boat.” Jenny gave her a little one-sided smile. “Thought you might appreciate a break from Italian food.”
“Good idea. It smells wonderful.” She tilted her head toward the slider. “You wanna take them out on the deck?”
“Nah. I’m in the mood for a glass of red and your comfy couch. I call dibs on the chaise end!”
“Damn. You always were better at that dibs thing than me.” She set her sandwich on the table next to the non-chaise end of the couch and walked around the breakfast bar to fish a wineglass and an old Starbucks insulated cup out of the cupboard. She poured Jenny’s wine, then reached in the fridge for a Coke for herself. After emptying it into the cup, she grabbed a couple of ice cubes from the freezer, plopped them in and carried both beverages over to the couch.
They ate in silence, the only conversation Tasha’s moaned “I love these things” before she took another bite and Jenny’s wry “I know, right?”
Then they sat back, replete. Tasha rolled her head against the back of the couch to look at her friend. “You want some more wine?”
Jenny shook her head. “No. Thanks. I’m stuffed.”
“Good. I don’t think I have the energy to get up and get it anyway.”
“You don’t have to move a muscle.” Jenny turned her head to look at her, as well. “You just sit there and tell me what the deal is with you and Luc.”
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