“Da-aaaamn, woman.” He sounded seriously impressed. “You’re a natural. You sure I can’t talk you into this? I mean, there ain’t no insurance coverage with this gig or anything, but I could get you some good, cold, hard cash.”
Sophie managed a laugh that hurt her aching head, and disconnected. That’s when she felt it, a disturbance in the force field. She’d felt it the other day, too, an odd tingle of awareness as she slowly turned and, yep, found Jacob standing on the dock only a few feet away, staring at her.
He was in board shorts and a T-shirt, snug across his shoulders, loose across his abs, looking like an ad for Hot Lake Living. If she hadn’t known better, she’d say he looked surprised as hell behind his dark lenses and stern but sexy mouth, but she did know better. Jacob Kincaid didn’t do surprised.
What he did do was stealth. She hadn’t even heard him coming. “How do you do that, walk on the dock without a sound?”
“‘I’ve been a very, very bad girl’?” he asked.
Shit on a stick! Her brain raced for something to say, anything. “Wow,” she said. “I didn’t peg you for having a drug problem.”
He arched a brow. “So you didn’t just also moan, ‘Please, sir, I need a spanking’?”
“Okay,” she said. “Fine, you caught me. I’m a porn star. I know, it’s a huge disappointment, right? Get in line behind my mother.”
He smiled.
“Hey,” she said. “I could totally be a porn star if I wanted to be!”
At that, he out-and-out laughed. And if she hadn’t been hungover as shit, hot and sweaty from the walk for food, and maybe still a little turned on from last night, she might’ve been able to find the humor in this. Instead, she narrowed her eyes. “Was there a reason you were eavesdropping on me?”
“Is it eavesdropping when you’re having public sex?”
“I wasn’t—” She cut herself off and took a deep breath. “I wasn’t having public sex!”
“Asking for a spanking, then. I especially liked the ‘please, sir’ part.” He shifted closer and then closer still, so that he blocked out the early-morning sun with his broad shoulders and she could see nothing but the dark of his eyes. “I’ll be happy to put you over my knee,” he said in a voice of pure sex. “If you asked real nice.”
“Bite me,” she said, even as her pulse raced.
“That too.”
“Argh!” She slapped a hand against his chest. “You’re annoying as hell—anyone ever tell you that?”
His lips twitched. “Not exactly the ‘thank you, sir, may I have another’ type, I see.”
“In your dreams.” Deciding to ignore his sexy ass, she boarded the boat and sat, digging into the hash browns. “Oh, my God,” she murmured, this time in sheer pleasure. So good.
He just stared at her. “Are you having sex with the hash browns now? Do you need a moment alone with them?”
She flipped him the bird.
He grinned and boarded, sitting next to her without asking.
“Is that all you men think about?” she asked. “Sex?”
“No.” He paused. “Maybe.”
Outwardly she rolled her eyes. Inwardly she quivered.
“Who were you on the phone with?” he asked.
“My sister’s got a friend who has a…lucrative business out of Vegas. She knows I need more work, so she told the guy I was looking. That was my audition.”
“Define lucrative business.”
“Phone sex.”
“No,” he immediately said.
She stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not taking the job. Although I have no idea why it would matter to you.”
She never even saw him coming. All she knew was that in the next heartbeat, he’d slid a big hand to the nape of her neck and pulled her in and kissed her.
His mouth didn’t feel stern now. It felt warm and giving, and she made an utterly involuntarily helpless little murmur and pressed against him, seeking more, seeking things she hadn’t even realized she wanted.
And then suddenly his mouth was gone.
She staggered back a step and stared up at him. “Wha…?”
“Do you know now?” he asked in a low, sexy voice. “Why it would matter to me?”
She bit her lower lip.
“Do you, Sophie?”
She closed her eyes and then opened them and pointed at him. “You are a big complication, you know that?”
“Ditto, babe.” Reaching out, he lightly tugged on a strand of her hair. “Thanks for sharing last night.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said. “I didn’t mean to drink that bottle at all.”
He smiled. “I meant you. Thanks for sharing some of you.”
“Oh,” she said brilliantly, both annoyed at him for making her talk about it and also oddly pleased and moved by him saying so.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said. “I like you. I like you a lot.”
If him saying thanks for sharing had stunned her, this just about paralyzed her. And then there was the way she reacted to his body, his touch, his voice. She offered him one of her two bags.
Sitting back, he opened his and peered inside, breaking into a smile. “Hash browns and pancakes,” he said reverently.
She took a deep breath. “For the hangover,” she managed, maybe a little more defensively then she’d have liked.
“My favorite,” he said. “Even if I don’t have a hangover.”