He grabbed the bottle of Avoderm that he kept in the shower for Dodger and bent over to shampoo him. The greyhound obediently stood at attention while Greg worked the dirt out of his coat and tried to forget Lucky for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the dog wasn’t the only thing standing at attention. His cock was responding the way it did whenever Lucky was around, only now it was worse. All it took was thinking about her, and then even a cold shower couldn’t help.
He turned off the water and threw a towel over Dodger before he shook and splattered the mirrors with water. When Greg finished drying Dodger, the dog trotted off toward the kitchen, obviously expecting Lucky to feed him. How quickly she fit into their lives.
He toweled his hair, then left it half dry and peered into the mirror. Dark bristles stubbled his cheeks, but he didn’t want to take the time to shave. In the hamper he found some cutoffs that weren’t too raunchy and put them on. Zipping invited self-castration, but he managed. Then he pulled
on a T-
shirt and didn’t tuck it in, hoping it concealed his condition.
Lucky was in the kitchen, humming softly as she huddled
over the stove. “It’s beef Stroganoff and
crème
brulé
e,” she announced.
Christ! He’d been so busy lusting after her that it hadn’t dawned on him that she was an excellent cook. Greg glanced around the kitchen. No cookbook. A gourmet who surfed the Internet. Not your basic hooker profile. Go figure.
Tonight Lucky looked like a sexy version of the girl next door, not like a hooker. He’d spent plenty of time asking himself why he was resisting her and, for the life of him, couldn’t come up with one good reason. He remembered the way she’d felt beneath him, the way she’d responded to him. He wanted more, wanted everything. Tonight.
“Here you go.” The minute he sat down, Lucky served him.
She smiled across the table. It was difficult to believe she was the same hard-edged woman who’d gone for his cock that night in the tent. Of course, if she went for it now, he wouldn’t back off.
“Delicious,” he said, wolfing down a forkful. The last thing on his mind was eating, but she’d gone to so much trouble that he couldn’t disappoint her.
“Tell me about the rescue operation.”
She sat opposite him, her expression so earnest he stopped chewing for a moment, thinking how Jessica had never been interested in him. After a long day, she would want him to listen to her problems, most of which didn’t amount to anything. Lucky, on the other hand, had troubles up the wazoo, but she wasn’t dwelling on them.
“It was easy,” he said. “I gave Dodger the search command the way I showed you, and he found the boy.”
“Dodger, you’re so smart.” Lucky leaned over to pet the dog, and Greg noticed Dodger was sitting right next to her. So much for loyalty. “How does he do it? Does he follow a trail like a bloodhound?”
“No, because we don’t usually have the victim’s clothes to give him the scent. He patrols a given area until he picks up
a
human odor.”
“Do we smell that different from other animals?”
“Absolutely. Humans have the most distinct
ive smell of all the animals,”
Greg explained, and she looked so intrigued that he couldn’t help smiling. “We stink, and when we die, it’s even worse.”
“Really? What if the person had just died that second?” Lucky asked.
Greg wished she’d hurry up and finish her dinner. He enjoyed talking about his work, but right now he had other things on his mind. “The minute you die, the body begins to give off gases. A human nose can’t detect them for hours, but a dog can.”
“What about people Dodger knows? Could he pick me out of a crowd?”
“Remember when you were in jail? He found you in a few seconds, didn’t he? Dodger could probably smell you half a mile away.”
“What a great nose, Dodger.” Lucky gave him yet another pat, and the greyhound responded with two quick swipes of his tongue on her hand.
Something about the scene made him feel funny inside. Warm and mellow, yet tense. His home. His dog. He told himself to hold it right there, but the thought came anyway. His woman.
His feelings for her were too complex to analyze. From the first night, she’d gotten to him in a way that no woman ever had. It was like trying to put your finger on quicksilver. The minute he thought he had her figured out, she changed.
He watched her eat, dainty little bites, cooing to Dodger, who was lapping up the affection with a flavor straw. The throb in his cutoffs intensified and he shifted in his chair, his pulse accelerating. He sucked in a breath that seemed to vibrate through his whole body.
Lucky popped up and took her dishes to the sink. “Let’s go for a swim. I want to try out my new suit.”
“Swim?” he repeated, as if it were a foreign word.
“Sure. The ocean’s right out your door. Don’t you make the most of it?”
She looked so happy and full of life that he couldn’t say no.
He kept remembering her childlike voice saying: Shuddup. “Meet you at the beach,” he said, trying to inject a note of enthusiasm into his voice.
“Aren’t you going to put on your suit?”
“
Nah,” Greg replied as he turned away from her and shucked his T-shirt, tossing it over a chair. “Hurry up.”
Sex on the beach was out of the question, he decided, following the footpath between the rocks that littered the shore, leaving nothing but a thin ribbon of sand along the water’s edge
.
Okay, a quick dip, then they could spend the night in his bed.
He kicked off his shoes and walked into the welcoming warmth of the tropical surf in his cutoffs, inhaling the bracing scent of the sea. Protected from the ocean by an arc of lava rock, the water in the cove barely moved, its waves lulling and I seductive against his skin. Above a crescent moon, sharp as a rapier, gilded the dark water with threads of light.
Lucky picked her way along the trail, Dodger at her heels. The moonlight played across her bare skin and emphasized the stark black suit. The halter top covered her breasts all right, making them seem even fuller, then it nipped in at her waist, playing up its smallness and showing off the provocative flare of her hips. The effect was simple, conservative. Breathtaking.
Until she turned her back to k
ick off her sandals. The damn
suit didn’t
have
a back. A swatch of black fabric covered her cute little ass. But that was it.
“Come here,” he said, standing in water up to his waist.
15
H
is eyes drifted over her alluring body as the warm water lapped around her thighs, but his gaze kept coming back to her lips. She couldn’t seem to look away from him either. The magnetism she generated was almost a tangible thing. He imagined making love to her in the water, a whirlpool of stars overhead.
Lucky came closer, moving the water aside with her arms. Her eyes glinted in the moonlight, the irises wide and banded by hoops of silvery-green. Waiting in slightly deeper water, he studied her mouth, its full lower lip irresistible. Even now he could feel the imprint of those lips on his skin.
She stopped an arm’s length away with a mischievous smile. Desire coursed through him, hot and deep and astonishingly primitive. He reached out to haul her into his arms but she jackknifed into the water, clean
ly splitting the surface. She lu
rched upward like a water sprite, gracefully rotating her arms in a circular motion and kicking her feet in perfect time.
“The butterfly?”
Surprised, he had no choice but to swim after her, thinking
that she must have been on a swim team or something. A quantum leap from the dog paddle, the butterfly was rarely used except by competitive swimmers. Greg had always been a strong swimmer, his job requiring hours in the water weighted down by an air tank, so he pulled up beside her with a few powerful strokes.
“Amazing,” she said as she stopped and treaded water. “I just have no idea what I can do. My brain said ‘butterfly’ and I did it. I wonder what else I can do.”
He had some pretty good ideas about what else she could do, but he didn’t verbalize them. “Why are you so surprised? You jumped in the tank with the shark.”
“That was only walking around. This is different.” There was that adorable smile again. “I wonder what else I know.” Before he could offer one really interesting suggestion, she flipped over and backstroked toward the shore where Dodger was waiting, impatiently patrolling the rocky beach. In the shallower water she stopped and stood up, tossing her short hair back and flinging a cobweblike skein of water that shimmered in the moonlight.
With her hair short and slicked back, Lucky looked young, vulnerable, and light years away from the woman he’d found in the car. Greg swam up beside her and stood, letting the water sluice off him, unable to ignore the hot undertow of desire. He’d had all the fun he could stand.
“Lucky,” he said, putting his hand on her arm and gripping her waist to counter the surge of the ocean.
“Don’t,” she warned, but she didn’t try to pull away.
“Don’t what?” He couldn’t resist teasing her. She was so cute, so proud of her short hair, so enthusiastic about life despite all that had happened to her.
“You’re thinking about kissing me. I can tell.”
He grinned. “Trust me, sweetheart, kissing wasn’t what I was thinking about, but it’s a start.”
Her eyes widened, her gaze traveling across the broad planes of his chest and trailing down to his waist, where the dark
water concealed the erection b
eneath his cutoffs. Two could
play this game, he decided. He examined every inch of her face from those wide, expressive
eyes to the delicate slope of
her cheek to the lower lip he always found so provocative. Then his eyes dropped to her shoulders following the wide straps of her sheer suit to the lush fulln
ess of her breasts. And
the taut nipples beneath the wet fabric.
He glanced up, meeting gr
een eyes staring at him with a
look charged with emotion. He had the unsettling feeling her mind was not on making love. Remembering all she’d been through today, he ran his fingers
into the cluster of wet curls
framing her face, wanting to say
something comforting but not
finding the words.
“
Oh, Greg.” Lucky turned her head to the side and brushed her lips across his wrist in a fleeting hint of a kiss that was as soft and as warm as the nig
ht air. And unexpectedly tender.
His fingers sifted through her hair and found the bald patch at the back of her head. The ha
ir was beginning to grow back
now, short and prickly. He traced the spot with the tip of his finger while he drew
her closer with his other hand.
“Greg, I need to explain something.”
“We’re way past talking, sweetheart.”
Parting her lips, she raised her head, inviting his kiss. He reveled in the warmth of her mouth, his tongue tracing the moist interior. Her arms curled around his neck, her fingers finding the sensitive spot at the nape and caressing it, fueling the aching need building in him by the second. His tongue grew more insistent, conducting a mating dance with hers.
The water was warm, the tropical night even warmer, but her body was hot. Its heat enveloped him, coiling around his belly and thighs, unfurling rapidly where her chest was pillowed against his torso. He wanted to see those breasts again, touch them, brand every luscious inch with his mouth.
For now he satisfied himself with running his hands over her bare back, roving lower and lower and lower until he was just below her waist where the back of the suit began. In a
heartbeat, his hand was under the fabric and splayed across her cute bottom. Her lower lip trembled as she drew in a startled breath.
But she didn’t pull away. Not at all. Her legs tangled with his, encouraging him to take her weight as they rode the gentle surge of the ocean, the water swirling seductively around them.
The blood throbbed in his veins and his breathing was harsh as he pulled her closer, his hands still on her bare skin, angling her body so it was flush against his erection. Lucky shuddered, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Greg moved against her, his jutting hardness teasing the softness between her thighs. The sensation was so arousing that he couldn’t help groaning out loud. When was the last time he’d wanted a woman this much?
Her hips snug against his, her lips on his, he inched his hand between their bodies and cupped her breast. Soft and pliant, its plumpness eluded the breadth of his fingers, the tightly spiraled nipple an erotic bead in the heart of his palm. His pulse skyrocketed and his cock swelled with anticipation. Christ! What this woman could do to him without half trying!
He lifted his hand, aroused by the weight of her breast as he stroked the nipple with his thumb. “Still want to talk?” he managed to ask.
Her answer was a sigh of pleasure that filled him with masculine pride. He had her now. No, make that
again,
Greg thought, remembering the other night. This time he intended to sheathe the iron heat of his sex as deep inside her as he could. And stay there.
The slow undulating waltz of the sea caused them to sway slightly, drifting with the current, the sand shifting beneath his feet. He clutched her tighter, supporting her weight, savoring the dark, sultry embrace of the night. And the woman.
Unexpectedly Lucky dropped her arms and let go of his legs. She sank back in the water, then righted herself mumbling,
“
I— I can’t do this. I’m a new person now.”
“What in hell does that mean?”
She gazed at him, her eyes reflecting desire and a tremendous strength of will. “Whatever I was in the past doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve been given an opportunity to start over. This time I’m not going to be a whore.”
Trying to conceal his frustration, he silently began to count, intending to go to twenty but getting only as far as seven. “I’d hardly call this being a whore.”
“What would you call it?”
That got him. Greg had no idea how to respond. He was royally pissed at himself, at her. Still, she had a point. He did think she was easy, and he wanted her just the way she’d been the other night. Beneath him, wearing nothing but goose bumps. “You want me. I want you. It’s simple.”
“I don’t want this.” She took two steps backward. “I’m going to be a better person.”
“No?” He pointed to her chest where her nipples raised the wet fabric. “Every time you’re near me, your body sends you a message. Right?”
She set her jaw like a mule ready to plant one in his chops and gave a little shake of the head that shimmied her breasts seductively, making him even more furious. “I can be strong. I don’t have to revert to my old ways. Besides
your… p
hysical disorder—”
“What?” He advanced on her, fully intending to haul her into his arms and kiss her until she came to her senses.
She stumbled onto the rocky shore, the surf foaming around her ankles, and Dodger trotted up to meet her. “You know, the other night—”
“I didn’t see you complaining,” he shot back as it dawned on him what she thought.
“No,” she conceded, “but you couldn’t perform. It wasn’t the—the real thing.”
He stomped up to her, splashing as he went. “You want the real thing, huh?” He grabbed her hand, shoving it over his bulging crotch. “What’s this? Soda pop?”
“Oh, my,” she whispered.
Her fingers coiled around him, then tightened, and he struggled to maintain control. He hadn’t gone off since he was a ho
rn
y teenager, but he was damn close now. A low growl built deep in his throat, and it was all he could do not to moan out loud.
She yanked her hand away. “Not many people get a second chance at life. This time I’m going to be a better person.” Lucky turned then and headed up the trail, Dodger at her heels.
C
ody sat in Greg’s office the morning after Sarah had convinced him to contact the producers of the popular television program
Missing!
He resented the way Lucky had wormed her way into Sarah’s heart, but unquestionably she had. His wife had taken Lucky on as a cause just as she had the Nene— the endangered Hawaiian goose—several years ago. And once Sarah made up her mind, there was nothing anyone could do to stop her.
He’d gone along with Sarah’s suggestion, not only because he wanted to please her, trying as usual to make up for the past, but also because it gave him another excuse to see his brother. The blonde had obviously sucked Greg in with whatever stunt she’d pulled during the session with the hypnotherapist. Cody cursed himself for contacting the doctor in the first place. He’d known Lucky wasn’t revealing her true name.
“Where’s Lucky?” Cody asked, glancing around the room and seeing only Rachel hunkered over her computer as usual.
“She’s in the pool with the shark,” Greg answered, his tone almost civil, and Cody couldn’t help thinking that he looked exhausted.
“Rudy, huh? I read about him in the
Tattler.”
“Yeah
…
well, don’t believe everything you read.” Greg rocked back in his chair and Cody braced himself for some cutting remark, but it didn’t come. “So what are you doing to ID Lucky now?”
It dawned on Cody that Lucky must not have explained
Sarah’s plans. He took a few minutes, drawing out the story so he could spend more time with Greg, and told him about Garth Bradford and the TV program.
“Garth Bradford agreed to take Lucky’s case?”
“Yep. You know how convincing Sarah can be. It took he
r
one minute to persuade him. Bradford will appear before Judge Nagata next Thursday and waive time. Looks like you’ll have Lucky around for at least another month or so. Think you can handle her, or do you want me to make other arrangements?” Greg’s shrug said “Who cares,” but Cody had more than a sneaking suspicion his brother cared very much.
“
I can handle her,” Greg responded quietly.
“I spoke personally with the producer of
Missing!
and he sounded really interested. I sent him the police report and the picture I took of Lucky when they brought her into the hospital, I’m betting they go for it. A woman with amnesia found wearing a shoe belonging to a woman who had mysteriously died a year earlier. Then the whole Pol
e’s ghost angle. It’s a one-in-
a-million story.”
“Lucky can’t go there to fil
m. It would violate the terms of
her bail.”
“Haven’t you seen the program?” Cody asked, and Greg shook his head. “Lucky won’t have to do a thing. Actors recreate the incident with the usual dramatic crap that Hollywood comes up with, then at the end of the program they show pictures of the missing person
and give a toll-free number for
tips. They’ve found hundreds of missing people.”
“I see,” Greg commented, as if they were discussing the weather.
The more Greg displayed his indifference, the more Cod
y
became convinced that it was all an act. Great! He hadn’t faller for Lucky, had he? Didn’t he ever learn?
Almost as if Greg had read Cody’s mind, he retreated int
o
belligerent silence. Cody understood. Greg had been deepl
y
wounded when Cody and Jessi
ca had betrayed him. Despair fo
rced him to lash out, to be cruel.
“I’ve sent Lucky’s prints to the states that don’t have computerized print records. It’ll take time, but we should find out something if the TV program doesn’t turn up someone who can ID Lucky.”