“Okay,” she said, “I’ll bite. What would you say to me?”
He tucked a stray curl whipping across her face behind her ear, then slowly trailed his finger down the long column of her throat as his eyes followed. “I’d tell you how I think seeing the curves of your silhouette against a Hawaiian sunset would be absolutely breathtaking.”
She reached up and pulled his hand away, but when he met her gaze she must have forgotten her purpose and their hands stayed clasped together between them. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles just once and spoke again. “I’d tell you you’re the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met, and I’m dying to discover what’s underneath that sexy confidence you wear so well.”
He lowered their hands and gently released hers. He waited for a verbal backlash, a scoff, anything that would prove he was seeing something that wasn’t really there. But she did none of those things. Simply sat there, stone still, her chest the only thing moving as she took in shallow breaths of the ocean air.
He’d affected her.
A burst of adrenaline kicked in from the small victory. Holding back a smile, he broke eye contact to give her a short reprieve, which she used right away to take several big sips of her cocktail while he drank his beer.
“So, V, tell me about yourself.”
“Your sister calls me Nessie. Most people do.”
“I know your ancestors hail from Scotland, what with that hair and last name and all, but you don’t look like an elusive aquatic dinosaur hiding in a loch to me. I’ll stick with V.”
“Strange,” she said in the sarcastic tone he was growing accustomed to from her. “Lucie never mentioned how incredibly annoying you are.”
She’s back, ladies and gentlemen.
“That’s a shame because it’s one of my finer qualities.” As he’d hoped, the ridiculous comment cracked a smile over her stoic face. “Back to the original topic, though: what’s your story?”
She fiddled with the bright blue paper umbrella hanging on the rim of her drink. “Nothing exciting. Just a big city girl who went to college in Nevada and became a lawyer.”
“You any good?”
“They don’t call me the Red Viper in the courtroom for nothing, sweetie.”
“I’ll just bet they don’t.”
“So now I spend all my time putting the bad guys away in big cages.” She pinned him with the look he was beginning to recognize as one that preceded any sort of dig on his person. “You know, kind of like you.”
Bingo. He’d have her figured out in no time. “I’m a bad guy in a big cage, huh?”
“You are a cage fighter, are you not?”
He smiled. “So what accounts for the ‘bad’ part?”
She finished her drink, dropped her sunglasses in place as she stood, and somehow managed to seem as though she looked down on him and not the other way around. “That has yet to be seen, Mr. Maris, but I have no doubt whatsoever that it’s the absolute truth. Thanks for the drink.”
The mixed comment of his bad nature and her speaking the truth was flippant at best, but because of his recent deception, it hit home a little too hard. That’s why, as she dismissed him for the fourth time in half as many hours, hips swaying like palm fronds in the breeze, he blurted out yet another thing that did absolutely nothing to correct the situation.
“Come swimming with me.”
She didn’t even pause in her steps. “Another time maybe.”
“Now’s as good a time as any, V.”
“Later, Jackson,” she said with a dismissive wave over her shoulder.
Yeah right. She didn’t intend on doing anything with him later.
Yet.
…
“Would you be interested in a deal, Counselor?”
Vanessa halted mid-retreat and bit the corner of her lip. A deal? Vaguely feeling like a mouse sniffing cheese in a trap, she turned and crossed her arms. Narrowing her eyes, she studied him, trying to figure out his angle, but he was impossible to read. Leaning back, elbows resting on the bar behind him, his face boasted that damn smile that melted her insides while he looked for all the world like he hadn’t a care. That was all she had to go on, and it told her absolute jack shit.
“What kind of deal?”
“If you come for a swim with me, I promise to not overact during the times we need to be a couple.”
She raised her chin and squared her shoulders. “And if I don’t?”
His smile morphed into a wicked grin. “I hope you enjoy public displays of affection.”
Desperate to keep her face from breaking into the smile it wanted to let through, she sucked her cheeks in just enough to bite down on them. The worst part was knowing that if it weren’t for her damn pride, Jackson would be charming the bikini bottoms off her right about now. Figuratively speaking, of course. She normally wasn’t such a sourpuss, but the whole situation—starting with the airport—had rubbed her the wrong way, and she was too stubborn to let it go just yet.