I’ll leave it then.” He turned to go, but she grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, suddenly dizzy from the walk and the alcohol. Things seemed to be spinning when all she wanted was for everything to hold still. “Hey, you okay?” he asked.
“I don’t want to go back in there,” she told him. Cash really shouldn’t care. He sighed, looked up at the sky as if that would offer him some way out of all this. She looked up, too. “That’s a beautiful sky.”
“Surfing’s going to kick ass tomorrow,” he said. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to the hotel.”
He took her by the elbow, mainly because she’d started walking in the opposite direction from the hotel and together they strolled the two blocks, taking the beach route instead of the road.
She followed his lead, kicked off her shoes once they hit the beach, and she liked the way the cool sand moved between her toes. Liked it so much that she just stopped and flexed her toes.
“Having fun?” he asked.
“This just feels nice. I haven’t gotten to the beach much this trip.”
“Except to yell at me.”
He took her arm and they began to move forward, the sound of the waves rushing toward shore in the background, the cool air blowing her hair back and her skirt around and everything felt so good. Heightened.
“Speaking of yelling, in the film, you were fighting with some guy. Something about dropping in.”
He laughed. “Saw me at my best, did you?”
“You were really pissed.”
“I guess you’d recognize that emotion,” he teased. “Dropping in’s when someone jumps into the wave you’re already riding. Screws the ride up majorly, and there’s nothing that ticks me off more than someone who can’t wait their turn.”
“Why did you make that new tape for me?” she asked. He looked at her for a second before he answered, the look that made her body tingle and her blood heat.
“Because it seemed important enough to you.”
“It was,” she said quietly.
“But you don’t think it’ll work.”
She couldn’t lie. “He’s not you, Cash. It’s hard to explain but, when I watched you on the video, you were flying. Does it feel like that?”
“Yeah, it does. You’re weightless, suspended between time and space and even though you’re balancing, your feet are moving out from under you. Like no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to be fully in control, and that’s pretty damned cool.”
He stared off toward the waves as he spoke, at the water crashing against the shore with a pounding, intense rhythm that seemed a lot like Cash himself. The sensations vibrated through her entire body.
She wanted to stay angry at him for ruining her film, but the way he sounded when he talked about surfing wouldn’t let her. It was the way she imagined she must sound when she talked about her passion for filmmaking.
“You love surfing,” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“Then I still don’t get it.”
“Why I won’t sign the release?” he asked, and she nodded. “My future depends on it. Same as yours. And don’t ask me to explain.”
“Fine. But I think you like being mysterious, just as the people at the surf shop said.”
“And I still think you need to relax a little more,” he informed her. “What, exactly, did the people at the surf shop tell you about me?”
“They said you were some kind of criminal or trust fund baby or something. And that all women were your type,” she repeated. They’d paused in front of the stretch of Oceanside hotel rooms and she stared at one door then another because everything looked a little fuzzy.
Cash grinned. “Not all women,” he said, but he didn’t deny the rest.
“I think you need to know that I don’t get involved with bad boys like you,” she told him. Even poked him in his big, broad chest a few times to bring her point home.
His hand closed around hers, held it. She liked the power in his grip, decided that she might want to feel those hands on other parts of her body, too.
“Well, that’s good, since I don’t get involved with good girls.”
“How do you know I’m a good girl?” she asked.
“Trust me. I know.” He caught her arm when she pitched forward. “Come on, now. Let’s get you to your room safe and in one piece.”
“I’m not inviting you inside,” she insisted, even as she fumbled in her bag for the key. And he was standing so close that suddenly, she didn’t want to be the damned good girl anymore.
“You don’t even seem to know which room is yours,” he said. “I think I should take you back to your friend at the bar.”
“Why? So you can prove to everyone how uptight I am?”
“Now that didn’t even make sense,” he said.
“And neither does this.” She planted her hands on his shoulders and lifted herself up on tiptoe so that she could kiss him. Really kiss him.
He grabbed her around the waist, held her against him and deepened the kiss. She didn’t want him to ever stop. And when the rough rasp of his tongue played with the soft, sensitive underside of hers, she moaned into his mouth and tightened her grip on his hair.
Eventually, he pulled away, she bit her bottom lip and tried to calm her breathing, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not when he was holding her so close to him.
“Are you still not inviting me in?” he asked.
She searched her bag again and came up empty. “I don’t have a key,” she announced. “All my keys are gone.”
“Does your friend have a copy?”
“We’re not sharing a room,” she murmured. “I guess I’d better go to the front desk and get a new key.”
“Are you sure this is your room?” he asked.
“Yes, this is it.”
He moved her aside and fiddled with the doorknob for half a second before the door opened. She stared between it and him. “You are a criminal, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Don’t ask things you don’t really want answers to,” he said. Then he picked her up, crushed his mouth against hers and took them both inside the room.
4
INSTINCT TOLD CASH to take Rina’s keys, the ones he’d swiped easily on the walk to the hotel, and leave. However, the current brains of the operation
