“Relax? This coming from the guy who’s constantly on his phone?”
“My dad decided to stick around the office while I’m here,” Leo answered, and I didn’t need any further explanation.
Leo’s dad started the private investigative and security firm after retiring from the military, with the expectation for his sons to join after their own military service was over. Though his dad had taken a step back so Leo could take a more active role in the firm, I doubted he’d ever completely retire. I’d known Leo’s dad for almost as long as I’d known Roxanna, and the guy was a workhorse.
“Is he okay with you being here?” I asked the question in a casual tone, but I worried over the answer.
“Of course. My parents love you. Even when you do crazy things like fly off to the Caribbean alone.”
“Plenty of people fly to the Caribbean alone,” I said.
His voice grew serious. “I don’t blame you for wanting to get away, Lex.”
Talking about the Buchanans was the last thing I wanted to do, especially with Leo. I set my book down. “I really would have been fine, but…it’s nice to have someone here to talk to.”
“I’m glad I came. I needed a vacation anyway,” he joked.
He probably did. Roxanna mentioned he spent a lot of time at the office. “How is it being home again?”
“I’m glad I’m back. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it after…” His voice trailed trialed off, and I looked over at him. The dog tags he wore on a chain around his neck shined in the sunlight.
“You must miss him.”
I had never questioned Leo’s decision to join the Army, not when every man in the Moss family had served since World War I. When Leo’s older brother, Jason, enlisted a month after Leo graduated high school, it was only a day later before Leo enlisted too. The night I found out he would leave for training soon, I told him how proud of him I was. Later, alone in my room, I’d cried. There were so many soldiers who didn’t make it home, and the idea of losing Leo that way haunted me every night while he was gone. Even after he broke up with me, I still worried. But Leo had come home alive; it was Jason who hadn’t.
“Yeah, I miss him. It’s just weird sometimes when I go to my parents’ for supper and his seat is empty. Even overseas, we were together.” Pain made his voice deeper.
I reached over the space between us and touched his chest, his skin warm beneath my fingers. “I’m sorry.”
He took my hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.” He changed the subject, but didn’t release my hand right away. “There’s a bonfire tonight, we should go.”
“A bonfire sounds fun.” I picked up the tote bag beside my chair, packed full of things like towels and tanning lotion, my cell phone and hand wipes. “I’m surprised my sisters haven’t called to check on me yet.”
Catherine had been sending me text messages every couple of hours. One of the twins was sick, and she was home, bored with daytime soaps and the cooking channel.
“You haven’t thrown up in a day, so I’m doing a pretty good job of keeping you out of trouble.” He winked at me, and I dropped the bag into his lap. He made an
oomph
sound. “You’re so abusive.”
“You deserve it.” I squeezed tanning lotion into my palm and rubbed it onto my leg.
“Need a hand with that?”
“I, uh…” Licking my lips, I stared down at the cheetah-print bottle. How dumb would it be to invite him to put his hands on me? It wasn’t a good idea. At all. I handed him the lotion. “Sure, thanks. My back.”
His eyes widened for the briefest of seconds before he sat up and took the lotion from me. I turned away from him and waited for his touch. It wasn’t until his fingertips caressed my shoulders and his thumbs brushed against my neck, I realized I’d been holding my breath. My skin tingled beneath his touch so I concentrated on something less dangerous, like the dragonfly buzzing around the potted flowers.
“So,” I said, hoping my voice wasn’t as jittery as the butterflies dancing in my stomach. “Dad mentioned you’ve been in to rent some equipment from him.”
“Helping my parents with some remodeling. She wanted her floors sanded and stained. Now she wants an open living space, so I’m knocking out a wall to open the dining room up to the living room.”
I imagined Leo with a sledge hammer, shirtless, sweat beading off his chest. “That sounds…hard.”
“It’s not that big of a job. Mom’s trying to keep Dad busy with projects at home so he doesn’t come into the office every day. He’s supposed to be retired.” His fingers kneaded my back before a thumb slipped beneath the strap of my bikini top.
“That’s, um, great.” I nibbled on my lower lip as his hands drifted lower, just under the clasp of my top.
“Do you like hot tubs?”
“What?” Now I had an image of him in a hot tub. “I mean, why do you ask?”
He chuckled. “Just wondering. Roxanna wants me to put one out on the back patio.”
“Oh.” I gripped the edge of the lounge chair as his hands rubbed lotion onto my lower back. “Hot tubs are good.”
I’d always wondered what hot tub sex would be like. Now, I wondered what hot tub sex would be like with Leo.
“I think that’s enough lotion.” I twisted on the chair to confiscate the bottle. “Thanks for…”
His face was so close to mine, his gaze magnetic. If I leaned in a couple of inches our lips would meet. His gaze was hot and searching, and when his lips parted, I gravitated closer.
“Lex,” he murmured, and I stopped thinking. Period.
“
Mm?
”
“No kissing, remember?” His question brought me to my senses, and I pushed him away.
“You’re such an ass sometimes, you know that?” I grumbled.
He laughed. “Unless you beg me to, remember?”
“That’s not going to happen.” I lay back onto the lounge chair and closed my eyes. “I saw you at my wedding.”
“Yeah?”
Of course he knew I’d seen him—his eyes were the last ones mine had met before I’d run out of the church. “You wore jeans and a t-shirt. To my wedding.”
“You didn’t go through with it.”
Peeking an eye open, I glanced over at him. His skin glistened under the sun. “Yes, but you wore jeans to my wedding.”
He shrugged. “It was a last minute decision to stop. I didn’t exactly have a suit picked out for the occasion.”
“So why’d you come, then?” His chest was obnoxious—I studied a palm tree instead.
“To object.”
I jerked my head to look at him. “You’re joking.”
He grinned. “Maybe. Maybe not. But even I knew you shouldn’t marry that douche.”
I couldn’t tell if he joked or not.
Object?
My mind raced with the possibility of it. “You know, people shouldn’t wait until the last minute to object. That only happens in the movies.”
“In real life, things don’t happen the way you plan them to.”
“Don’t I know it,” I muttered.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re glad I’m here,” he said.
“And I think you have a big head,” I tossed back.
“And I think you’re flirting with me.” He grinned.
“I am not.” A lie. He was always teasing me, and it was hard not to get sucked in.
“You’re so cute when you’re riled up.” He waggled his eyebrows dramatically. “Want to skinny dip?”
“What? No.”
Um, yes.
He shot me one of his boyish smiles, and my insides turned to jelly. “Come on. There’s no one around. Live a little.”
My eyes darted around the private patio, as if someone might pop out of the foliage surrounding the villa.
No one would see us.
My heart raced.
Naked. With Leo. In a pool.
Just like a scene from a naughty romance novel. My cheeks flushed.
His hands went to the waistband of his swim trunks, a devilish smile on his gorgeous lips. My eyes bulged.
“No!” I exclaimed and winced at the panic in my voice. I didn’t trust myself with a naked Leo.
Holy wow
. “You’re just teasing. Knock it off.”
Except, I didn’t want him to stop his teasing. The blood in my body rushed through my veins, and I was thoroughly electrified. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the sound of his voice, the contours of his chest. This was pure physical attraction.
Yeah. That was it.
The dirty, sweaty, sexy kind.
Being on this island makes me loopy. For Leo.
I needed to keep it together, and he didn’t make it easy for me.
“When did you get so boring, Princess?” His hands dropped from his waistband, and I nearly sighed in disappointment. “You’ve been skinny dipping with me before.”
Of course I remembered—I’d lost my virginity to him that night
.
I couldn’t believe he’d brought it up.
“Fine, I’ll swim. But no skinny dipping.”
“That bikini you have on barely covers anything I haven’t seen before.” His hot gaze skimmed my bare stomach.
I threw my book at him. He laughed, catching it to his chest. Before I could react, he reached over and yanked me from my lounge chair and right into his lap. He gazed down into my eyes with an intensity that made everything fade to the background. The rushing in my ears drowned out the trickling of the fountain near the pool and the breeze rustling through the palm trees.
Breathless, I said, “You annoy the hell out of me.”
“You love it.” A playful smile teased his lips. “Lexie?”
“Yes?” I sucked in a breath.
“We’re going swimming,” he said.
I expelled a sigh and almost yanked his head down to kiss me, but he stood with me in his arms and took off running to the pool.
“Leo!” I didn’t get another word out before he jumped off the patio and into the water. When we broke the surface, I still had my arms around his neck, clinging. I blinked against the water dripping down my face. “You are such a beast, you know that?”
“You looked like you wanted to get wet.” His breath was hot against my ear, and I shivered. He had no idea how right he was…or did he?
Maybe what I wanted was written all over my face. Maybe he knew just how hard I struggled against the ache of need building up inside of me. And if he did, if he were toying with me, it wasn’t fair. At all.
Two can play at this game.
With a wicked grin, I wrapped my legs around him, the bulge of his penis pressed against the wet, filmy bikini between my legs. I leaned my head back just enough to look up into his eyes. If I didn’t watch it, I’d get lost in them. “I did. Want to get wet, I mean.”
The confident smile wavered, and his lips parted. He leaned in close, and I stopped his advance by pressing my finger to his lips.
“Leo,” I whispered, batting my eyelashes.
“Yes?”
“No kissing, remember?” I bit back a smile.
He groaned, but smiled, even if a bit reluctantly. “I’ll remember this, Princess.”
I laughed and dropped my legs from around his waist to stand in the pool. “Yes, well, you kind of deserved that.”
He captured a lock of my hair, smoothing it behind my ear. “Maybe a little.”
A tropical rain had settled over the island¸ and we were stuck inside. Without Leo dragging me around the island, I had nothing to keep my mind busy. Sleeping in Leo’s arms was like eating too many chocolate dipped strawberries. Strawberries were great, but too much chocolate would give me sugar zits on my chin. And it didn’t matter that I
knew
this to be true. I wanted those damn chocolate dipped strawberries. My level of sexual frustration was through the roof, and now Mother Nature had us crammed like sardines in this tiny villa. This
honeymoon
villa. Meant for intimacy and sex…and more sex.
Ugh!
His lingering touches, his smoldering gaze, drove me insane. Like yesterday, after I’d stepped out of the shower only to find him shaving at the sink and he’d leveled me with a gaze that made me aware how easy it would be to drop my towel. It had taken all my control to keep walking.
After all of these years, he’d decided he wanted me again, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about wanting
him
. Last night, when I was supposed to be as deeply asleep as he was, the warm breeze carried his whisper soft breaths to me through the dark where they brushed against my skin like a loving caress. He slept like a baby, while I tossed and turned. I spent most nights staring up at the canopy, my senses alert to the very essence of him, just a hand’s width away. If I wanted, all I’d have to do was roll toward him and kiss his lips. And I wanted to, badly.
Again, I had awoken this morning in his arms, every part of my body tingling with awareness, with his warmth. I was tired of fighting the attraction. I wanted to tear his clothes off and make love to him. The need was so unbearable, my body screamed—I wanted to scream.
A warm, moist breeze lifted the thin, ivory fabric draped around the bed. The rain fell in thick drops on the other side of the patio door. The sun hadn’t made an appearance in a day, and right now the haziness of the rain and grey sky matched my mood. Leo was in the other room on the phone, and his voice drifted in to me, making me warm all over.