Page 63 of Booked for Summer

‘No.’ His groin tightened as he stared into her beautiful eyes. Before there had been want, pure and simple. Now there was also like and respect. If he wasn’t careful, that would morph into feelings that would leave him exposed again, vulnerable. ‘Doesn’t stop me remembering. Or wishing for a repeat.’

Her breath hitched. And when her teeth sunk into her lower lip, he went from half hard to painfully pressing against his zipper. ‘I wish you were uglier.’

He let out a bark of laughter. ‘Back at you.’ Could he trust himself to sleep with her again andnotfall for her? His walls were higher now. And their end date was a certainty he could guard against. ‘Come back to the boat with me,’ he whispered, self-preservation flying out of the window.

He had an ache that needed to be soothed, a want that needed satisfying. A lust that could only be sated by her sweet, hot body.

ChapterTwenty-Two

Jade knew going back with him was a mistake. A great, big, hairy one with knobs and bells on the end of those knobs, plus a few whistles.

So why had she turned away from the Brant Point Lighthouse, which had looked so cute on the beach guarding the entrance of the harbour, and instead found herself walking hurriedly towards Liam’s frigging boat, her belly doing somersaults, her lady parts fired up and ready to go?

‘This is a mistake.’ She muttered the words out loud to make them real, yet still kept putting one foot in front of the other, her hand clasped tightly to his, as if she was afraid of letting go. Afraid of being sensible.

‘Probably,’ he agreed in that husky drawl that did not help her decision making. ‘A hot, sweaty, mind blowing one we’ll both feel better for making.’

Oh God. ‘I need that to be true.’

‘With the things I’ve been lying awake at night thinking of doing to you?’ He gave her a look weighted with heat, his jaw set with determination. ‘It’s a certainty.’

Was lust fog a thing? Because her brain was struggling to work. ‘I don’t mean the sex part, I know I’ll enjoy that.’

‘Enjoy?’ He halted, eyes pinning hers, smoky swirls of grey and flashes of white-hot flames. ‘If you onlyenjoyit, I’ve not done my job.’

Her knees started to buckle. ‘I mean the after-sex part.’ She gulped. ‘The part when you’re sober and my brain isn’t addled with Haven-induced lust.Willwe feel better? Or will we wish we’d stuck to ignoring ourI want sexhormones?’

His lids closed briefly before he lifted them again and touched her face, tracing the curve of her cheek with a gentleness at odds with the fire in his eyes. ‘I don’t want you to regret this.’

‘Me, neither.’

Her words hung like a heavy shadow over the idyllic setting; a rustic wooden wharf, his yacht bobbing gently at the end of it. Sun slowly setting in the sky, casting a beautiful romantic pink light over them. It was too easy to fall under its spell, and under the magnetic pull of the man in front of her.

‘What would make you regret it?’

She worried at her lower lip, brain cogs trying to engage. ‘If I feel cheap afterwards, like you push me out of bed, ignore me, or people find out and think I only slept with you to persuade you to keep the bookstore.’ She swallowed. ‘Or if I lose all sense of self-preservation and want to do it again. Maybe even start to fall for you.’

He nodded, eyes scanning the horizon behind her before settling back on hers. ‘I didn’t push you out of bed before. You left.’ He counted the points down on his fingers. ‘I can and have happily ignored everyone on this planet except my grandma, yet for some reason I can’t ignore you. Believe me, I’ve tried.’

Her heart flipped over. She liked that admission.

‘You shouldn’t waste your time caring what others think,’ he continued, another tap of his fingers. ‘Especially those prepared to think the worst of you. As for falling for me, you won’t.’

‘How can you be so sure? I mean, I know you can be a grouch but beneath that is a good guy trying to come out.’

He gave a little shake of his head, lips twitching. Then he sighed, jaw muscles snapping together. ‘Look, trust me, it won’t happen.’

It was a reminder there was a reason he kept himself aloof. He’d been hurt, by women, by his mother, by his classmates. ‘So what would make you regret this?’

‘Nothing.’

The certainty in his voice made her core tighten. She glanced over his shoulder to the yacht, listening for the voice to tell her not to go. Maybe it was drowned out by the endorphins screaming through her blood, because she couldn’t hear it. ‘Last one to the boat is a hairy nincompoop.’

She let out a bark of laughter at his confusion, but didn’t have time to enjoy it because suddenly she was racing across the rickety wooden planks of the wharf as fast as her legs could carry her.

Something about this felt better than the last time. Like they were more evenly matched. No longer the rich, almost too perfect guy and the clumsy blonde goof. Instead a man and a woman who had both been underestimated and were out to prove a point to the world.

The closer she got to the boat, the giddier she felt. And when she heard a growl behind her, a delicious shiver ran down her spine. ‘I’m not a nincompoop,’ he rasped, his heavy footsteps sounding closer and closer. ‘Whatever the fuck that is.’

---