Low Tide Bikini (A Pleasure Island Romance) (3 page)

He shuddered. He hated felines. The way the creatures hissed unnerved him. A dog’s growl he could handle. A cat’s hiss terrified him. Knowing every cat had the capacity to hiss was reason enough to fear them all.

With the beast close to her angelic face, Sam whispered, "Good girl." She nuzzled this demon called Princess and cooed before turning her attention back to him. Her eyes were no longer set to battle-mode. In fact, her eyelids sagged, giving her a weary and defeated appearance, which was worse, because it meant he’d wounded her somehow.

"She's not fond of strangers." Sam's voice softened. Her drawl was more pronounced and sweeter than before.
 

It was true what they said about an American woman's southern drawl being able to melt a man.
 

"I see that." He wondered if the cat's owner shared the same sentiment.

She turned away from him and stomped into the house with her wet shorts plastered to her perfect heart-shaped bum. She'd left the door wide open. He took that as an invitation and brushed his feet on the doormat. As he entered the narrow laundry area, he bumped a basket sitting on the washer. Folded lingerie fell to the floor. He knelt to pick up the items and put them back.
 

Bloody Hell
. Bras, panties, lacy black thongs. Images of Sam with her naughty bits barely covered by flimsy pieces of cloth raced through his mind.
 

He grew hard.
 

Down, Boy. Yeah. Like that's gonna work
. Who was he fooling? His willy had never attended obedience school.

Princess, the fuzzy monster, slashed his hand with her sharp claws. "Bugger.” He winced at the tiny bead of blood rising to the surface on his knuckle.
 

Sam crouched beside him without establishing eye contact, her face red, but stoic as she stared at the panties in his hand. “I’ll get this.”

Knee to knee, their faces inches apart, he admired her plush, moist mouth. Her top teeth pressed into the satin bed of her lower lip as she frantically tossed her knickers into the bin.
 

Sinful thoughts refused to leave his mind. He pushed himself to his feet. She remained kneeling before him.
 

Crikey. He now knew precisely what to call his willy—Rebel. It did the opposite of what he told it to do. His crotch aligned with her face, and Rebel decided to say hello. How did the lovely Sam respond? She let out a dreamy little sigh. Rebel began to pant and drool.
 

Brock’s current embarrassed state trumped the time his high school teacher caught him gawking at the Page Three titty queen he'd clipped from the paper and hidden in his math book.
 

Sam’s gaze was fixed on his zipper. He folded his hands in front of his fly and tried to channel his inner Beckham, hoping to gain back a few cool points with this woman before she labeled him a total pervert.
 

She stood and reached around him, placing the basket on the washer. Ribbons of her blonde hair swept over his forearm.
 

He clenched his fists and pictured Margaret Thatcher nude. That usually worked.
Nope. Not today
. Rebel was hard-headed in every sense of the term. And it didn't help that Sam smelled like summer rain and honeysuckle. No doubt her own nectar was delicious.
 

Princess ran between her ankles. Sam lost her grip on the basket. When she pitched forward to catch it, her body collided with his.

Instinctively, he grabbed her hips. She stilled, her breathing shallow. The laundry puddled about their feet.
 

"Leave it. I'll get it later," she murmured against his throat. When she pulled back, she looked up at him through lowered lashes, her lips slightly parted.
 

For the first time in his life, he wanted to give a cat a high five. It’d been far too long since he’d held a beautiful woman in his arms.
 

Save the Queen—Sam was thoroughly kissable
.

SAM WANTED TO jump his bones right then and there. Bad idea. Getting involved with a hunk never turned out well for her. But that didn’t stop her from fantasizing about straddling his concrete thighs as her fingers trekked across his chiseled chest.
 

It'd been five years since she'd had sex. She’d tried to convince herself she no longer craved such intimacy. But leaning against Brock with his package bursting at the seams had proved that theory wrong. Way wrong.

Her eyes searched his.
 

Is he feeling what I’m feeling?
 

A large, warm palm pressed against her bare lower back, just below the hem of her t-shirt. His pinky slipped into the waistband of her shorts mere inches from her crack.

Whoa
. Her buns clenched.
 

He whispered, “Don't move. Give me a moment." Unexpected tenderness edged his raspy voice.

At the sound of his exquisite British command, her heartbeat raced to presto.
 

They sustained their romantic, living-statue pose a few moments. She breathed in the faint scent of his cologne. Sensuous, masculine notes harmonized perfectly with cinnamon undertones.
 

He buried his face in her hair. “Honeysuckle. One of my favorites.”
 

He shook his head as if shaking off a dizzy spell. “Nine times nine is eighty-one, eight times eight is sixty-four..." His voice escalated in pitch, like a cello string tightened to the brink of snapping.

A nervous laugh bubbled out of her. She reined in her laughter and whispered, “Seven times seven is forty-nine."
 

He cocked his head and released a lethal smile that made her knees buckle.
 

“I’ve got you.” His other arm wrapped around her waist.
 

Basking in the sunlight of his smile and enfolded in his protective embrace, the tightness in her neck and shoulder muscles loosened. She sighed.

"You keep doing that and I'll have to start back at twelve." He winked and gave her a little squeeze.

What am I doing? Push away from the drug, you addict.
 

Sexy men should come with a surgeon general warning tattooed on their forehead that reads: Intimacy with this man could be harmful to your self-esteem, bank account, and overall health. Sexy men with British accents should have an additional warning that reads: Women prone to heart palpitations should plug their ears with cotton before coming within ten feet of this man.
 

She refused to become a fresh statistic among the heartbroken. She did an about-face, marched herself into the living room, and called over her shoulder, "I'll be in here when you're ready."
 

She glanced back, surprised by his hopeful expression. "Oh, I meant—”

"I'm ready." He growled.

She knew exactly what
he
meant. "
I
meant to talk. You wanted to talk, right?"

“Right, we can talk." He scrubbed a hand over his face and hobbled forward like a bur pierced the bottom of his foot.

Upon lowering himself onto the sofa, he promptly put a pillow on his lap. "A moment longer, please." He held his breath.

Wrinkles across his forehead rivaled a Shar Pei’s. He flashed her some serious sad-puppy-eyes. "Would you mind covering?" Lifting his hands chest-level, he shook them like fragile branches in a windstorm.

She glanced down at her wet t-shirt and hardened nipples in plain view.
“
Oh my.” She'd been so busy looking at
him
, she'd momentarily forgotten how she must look.
 

With a quick snap, she palmed her breasts.

"That's making it worse..." His brows rose and pushed another horizontal crease into his hairline.

“Oh, right." She flung her hands to her sides.
Breasts exposed.
 

Their eyes locked again. He whimpered.

She glanced across the living room and spotted a lime green hoodie on the back of her favorite chair. With an embarrassingly girlie squeal, she lunged for it. Her flip-flop snagged the leg of the coffee table, causing her to stagger and fall backward into his lap.
 

One hot pink flip-flop sailed toward the ceiling fan, ricocheted off a rotating blade, and zoomed toward her face.
 

Brock reached out and caught the flying object with one hand.
 

With eyes closed, she willed herself to shrink so small she could disappear between the cracks in the floorboard. Didn’t work. She remained a big-fat idiot sprawled across his lap. "I'm so sorry."

He cleared his throat. "It's fine...could you...shift?"

His hardness poked her in the rear, she exclaimed, “Oh my God!"

He said, “As much as I love hearing you say that...I’m dying here.”
 

She jumped to her feet.

He dropped her flip-flop on the floor, and she wiggled her toes back into place.
 

"I'm mortified.” Her hot face stung worse than a blister-inducing-sunburn.
 

"That makes two of us,” he said, his eyes downcast.

With tremendous caution, she stepped toward the overstuffed chair, grabbed the hoodie, and slipped it on. She flopped down onto the cushions and averted her gaze. The silence between them made her self-conscious, but all coherent words had vacated her mouth.
 

After several uncomfortable moments, Brock mumbled, "Twelve times twelve..." His husky voice quivered around vowels.
 

She closed her eyes and absorbed that cream-inducing British accent of his. Folding her lips inward, she attempted to swallow a grin.

Princess hopped into her lap and hissed at Brock. "Princess, stop that."
 

Brock’s mossy-green eyes rounded.

Was he afraid of cats? Surely not. Maybe he was allergic to them and didn’t want to say so.
 

The hair along Princess’s spine spiked into a mohawk.
 

Brock shuddered and rubbed his palms on his knees. "Your pussy doesn't like me very much, does she?"

Sam couldn’t believe he just asked that. She reared back—dumbfounded.

With no indication he realized what he’d said was downright inappropriate, he shared a death-stare with Princess.

A strange, squeaky “huh?” puffed out of Sam’s mouth like a cough.

He looked at her, his expression innocently wide-eyed.

Crap
. The man awaited a proper response.

“She...I...she doesn't like men."
 

Jeez, Sam. Your pussy doesn't like men
?
 

Obviously, that statement was far from true. She clamped her legs together so he wouldn’t hear her ovaries purr.

"Does the same hold true for her owner?"

She couldn’t wrap her brain around his line of questioning. He had to know what that choice word he’d used so casually meant in America. He
was
from planet Earth, wasn’t he?
 

His attention returned to Princess, and he bounced his legs.

Petting Princess’s back in long, steady strokes with one hand, while gently rubbing a thumb over her tummy with the other, Sam snuggled her close. The tension in her little body dissipated and a gentle purr commenced. As Princess grew calm, so did Brock, somewhat. He leaned back and now only jiggled one leg, as he gave Sam an are-you-going-to-answer-my-question look.

Oh yeah. Did she dislike men?
 

Her life would be a lot simpler if that were true.

"Yes. Afraid so.” Then, for some unknown reason, she blurted, "I'm gay."
 

Loud and proud. And a complete lie.
 

Gay? Where the hell did that come from?

Being in the presence of a sexy man turned her into a moron, but this? This was on a whole new level.
 

His face lit up with a big, cheesy, toothpaste-commercial smile, dimples as big as thumbprints pressed into raw cookie dough. "Happy girl, are you?"

"Yes. Happily gay, gay, gay....” As if repeating it would somehow make it more believable? Seriously? What had possessed her to say such a thing? Maybe subconsciously she thought it might stop him from looking... well, the way he was currently looking at her.
 

His eyes twinkled like a mischievous boy’s. "I find that hard to believe." He squinted.
 

What? Was he summoning super-powers to detect whether she was lying or not? She felt emotionally lassoed and squirmed in her seat.

He wasn't buying the whole gay thing. She'd have to do something to prove her preference or come clean. She'd figure it out later. For now, it'd buy her some time and help establish that she was unavailable, off limits, not worth flirting with, or looking at with desire, or wasting any of that red hot mojo on. He had mojo in spades. She'd give it up on the first date with a guy like him, if she weren't, well,
gay
.

She needed to pull herself together. After all, she didn’t know anything about this guy.

She cleared her throat and sat up straight. "Okay. So. You’re the new owner. I had no warning the Marshalls were getting rid of this place."

He put one arm over the back of the sofa and widened the space between his knees. She struggled to
not
look at his crotch. Her eyes kept drifting south, but every time she caught a glimpse of his silver belt buckle, she forced her eyes back up to his face. She was convinced his zipper was made of eyeball magnets, but she somehow resisted the pull.

The curl at the corners of his lips told her he enjoyed watching her yoyo-eyes move up and down his body. With an ankle propped on his no longer jiggling knee, he said, "I'm not sure what the Marshalls told you, but there wasn’t a great deal of planning involved. They came to Cardiff to visit their daughter Tara, who happens to be married to my brother Graeme. Tara’s recently had a baby, a healthy baby girl. Her name’s Laura. I’m an uncle."