Page 17 of Nothing Stays in Vegas

Dropping the remains of the sign into a pile on the ground, Cal held her against him, supporting her with one arm. For a beat, their eyes met and locked. The close proximity lost its chaste intent and Lara drew back, blushing. “Dette would’ve killed me if I’d lost her precious sign. Thank you.”

Cal let her glide down to the floor, his hand lingering a second at the waist of her shorts before skimming around to her hip and finally away from her body. “You got pulled off the dock for it. I couldn’t very well let something you wanted so much go.”

She took a step back, giving him the space to pull his shirt over his head. Water ran off the soggy fabric in a steady stream onto the floor. He balled it in his fist, looking for a place to set it down. Not that the water from the shirt was going to do more damage than the water dripping from his pants, but he wasn’t quite ready to strip out of those.

Lara stepped over to him and took the shirt out of his hands, opening it to hang the sopping garment on the paddle end of an oar mounted against the wall beside them. “Well, thank you for jumping in after me…and for the sign,” she said, trying to jam her hands into the soaked pockets of her shorts before giving up and dropping them to her sides.

Her gaze tracked slowly down his body, making every inch of skin between his shoulders and thighs burn with need. His cock thickened again beneath the cold, clingy fabric of his pants. “Lara—”

Her arms crossed over her chest and she began to shake.

“You’re freezing.” Cal walked over to the cabinet and pulled out a towel. “We should dry off.” He opened one and wrapped it around Lara’s shoulders, rubbing up and down over her arms.

“I feel like a drowned rat.” She was shivering beneath his hands.

Cal crooked one finger under her chin and tilted her face to his. “You don’t look like one. You’re beautiful.”

Her gaze shifted away, as if she was embarrassed by the compliment.

Cal narrowed his eyes, something about her response was wrong—she was sincere, he could see it, feel it, and yet…

“We should get back to the house,” she said quietly, without conviction. Her gaze shifted uneasily around the room and then reluctantly settled back on him.

“We should,” he agreed.

Neither moved, neither spoke. Neither of them was going anywhere.

The silence hung between them as they watched each other.

Cal was so close it hurt not to touch him. Not to reach out and brush the tight points of his nipples with her palms. Not to give in and pull loose the drawstring that secured the pants hanging dangerously low on his trim hips. Not to lose her fingers in that shock of wild hair.

That hair. Even as nervous as he made her, Lara couldn’t help but smile.

Cal’s chin pulled back, his brow furrowed. “What are you laughing at?”

“Your hair. It looks the same now—straight out of the ocean—as it did at breakfast this morning.”

He rolled his eyes and, with a good natured chuckle, rubbed his hands back and forth over the thick spikes—just as she imagined he did getting out of the shower. “That bad? You don’t even want to know what happens when I try to get it to lay flat.”

“No, you look nice. I mean, it works.”

Cal stared at her for a second, the laughter in his eyes dissipating. “Lara, why are you fighting this? What’s between us is good, really good. I can’t understand what was going on in Vegas, or why you don’t want to talk to me about it, but Vegas was nothing. Things started for us when all we had were words, and from that alone I wanted you.”

She tried to look away, but he pressed his palm against her cheek, gently forcing her to meet his gaze as he continued. “You and I have a connection that’s making me want to tear the clothes off your body. I can’t stop thinking about you. All I want is to touch you, to talk to you, to joke and laugh with you…I just want you.”

Lara blinked, opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. What could she say? That every word out of his mouth made her want to wrap her legs around him? That all she could think about was having Cal’s hands on her, his mouth, his body? And it wasn’t lust alone—everything would be so much easier if it was.

No, she’d been falling for him since before they met when she read his first lame joke over the email. For weeks she’d been laughing at his sense of humor, marveling at his take on life. She couldn’t get enough of him, be it his most mundane thought or his deepest revelation.

The fact that she cared about him as much as she did was the very reason she couldn’t give in. A relationship started now would be based on lies and deceit. And he deserved better than that. They both did. And then there was Dette. She’d wanted so badly to settle down, needed the security this marriage would give her. She needed to know that she would be taken care of, loved. Once she had that security, she’d finally be able to stop pushing for the constant reassurances, testing for proof of commitment. Lara couldn’t take it away from her.

The right thing to do was so clear in her head. Walk away. It was the rest of her mutinous body that couldn’t abide by the judgment. And being this close to him wasn’t helping her cause.

She took a step back from Cal and the heat rising off his bare chest. “I don’t want to lie to you, but I can’t tell you the truth about Vegas.”

Cal took a step closer. “What are you so scared of?”

Another step away, her throat was dry, her mind racing. She was scared of the look of determination in his eyes. She was scared of hurting him, of giving in and being the woman who betrayed him. She was scared that if she kept pushing him away, eventually he’d stop coming back—that no matter what she did, she’d be doing the wrong thing. “Letting everyone down.”

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