“Oh.” She looked around at the people, moving around them now as though they didn’t exist, no more interesting than the pylons that divided the boardwalk from the sand.
“You sound shocked.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever aroused either emotion in a man before. So, yes, I am a bit shocked. Maybe as shocked as you are.”
“Not possible. I’m sure you make men feel like this all the time.”
He looked at her, his dark eyes intense, his jaw shifting as he tightened it, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I … I doubt it.”
He stepped closer, the hand on her arm gliding up to her shoulder, around to the back of her neck, his thumb moving over her skin, fingers sifting through her hair.
“I don’t. Not for a moment. You really are beautiful.”
“Ethan, I thought we decided that … it’s a bad idea.” She hated that. Why was it a bad idea? Ethan felt good. And warm, so warm. Everything had been frozen over for so long, dead and dry. Ethan was like the sun.
She wanted to bathe in his warmth, in the promise of new things that seemed to come every time he touched her.
But it was a bad idea. They’d decided that. She’d agreed.
She moved closer to him, her heart pounding. His hand was still on her neck, massaging her, spreading heat and fire through her.
She didn’t want to move away. Didn’t want to break her connection with him. It was her life. And she had to live it.
She wanted a little bit of Ethan in it. For as long as she could have it. Because he made her angry and happy and he turned her on. He made her feel, when for so long she’d simply been existing. He made her aware of things—needs, desires she’d never been mindful of before.
It was like finding a new dimension to life. And that was more than just the beach and sand and ice cream. It was deeper, it made everything seem as if it had broader scope, more depth.
She didn’t want to run from that. She wanted to dive into it head-first.
She stood up on her toes and leaned in, brushing his mouth with hers, her entire body trembling as she increased the pressure of the kiss, as the shock of his flesh on hers fired through her, charging her like a bolt of electricity.
It didn’t satisfy her. Not even close. She felt like he was water and she had been lost in the desert. She felt insatiable. She touched her tongue to the seam of his lips, explored the shape of his mouth, tasted his skin.
They hadn’t kissed enough last night. He’d done the touching, he’d done the pleasuring. But she wanted more than that. She wanted it all.
A short groan vibrated in his chest, and he locked his arm around her waist, pulling her to him, holding her against his hard, well-muscled body. She arched into him, could feel the heavy weight of his erection against her stomach.
And that was when she realized they were standing on the boardwalk, in broad daylight.
She pulled away from him, blinking hard. Pushing shaking fingers through her hair, she looked around, trying to see if they’d caught everyone’s attention. No, there were one or two people in line for ice cream who hadn’t noticed them. Great.
“I … for someone who was trained not to draw the wrong kind of attention, I seem to be doing a pretty bad job at … not drawing the wrong kind of attention.”
“You kissed me,” he said.
“Not … not your attention. People are staring,” she hissed, lowering her face and walking back toward the hotel.
“Isn’t that the idea? We are supposed to be an engaged couple.”
“That wasn’t the idea … just now. For me I mean.”
“I see, then what was it?”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “If you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t ask.”
“I didn’t say I was a gentleman.”
“No. I guess you didn’t.”
“You’re right.” He sighed. “This is a bad idea.”
A bolt of panic hit her in the chest. “Not the whole deal, just the kissing, right? Because I need this, Ethan. I need my house. I can’t lose it.”
He frowned and reached his hand out, brushing his thumb over her cheek. “Your cheeks are pink. You need sunblock.”
“Please tell me you don’t mean the whole deal,” she repeated.
“I think it’s all a bad idea, Noelle. But I’m not backing out of it. We have a deal, and we’ll stick to that. But it’s a business deal, don’t forget that.”
“I … I won’t.” Of course, if she really felt like it was a business deal her heart probably wouldn’t be beating so erratically, and her lips wouldn’t still be stinging from the kiss. “We should probably go.”
They were still standing in the middle of the crowded boardwalk, but even with so many people everywhere, she felt as if they were the only two people on the planet. At least, the only two who mattered. She wasn’t sure what that meant, or why he could make her so mad, and then make her want him, then make her nearly melt inside with the things that he said, all in the space of a few moments.
“Yeah, I’ve got some work to do this evening,” Ethan replied.
“Oh. Good.” That meant they wouldn’t have time to spend together and maybe she could figure out what was happening inside her. Newfound feelings, along with life-changing revelations, needed to be examined after all. “I mean … I’ll have a chance to play around with that song I started working on last night.”
A spark crackled between them. The shared memory of what had interrupted her songwriting. His lips on her throat, his hands on her breasts …
“You should wear this.” He reached into the pocket of his shorts, took out a small velvet box and handed it to her without opening it. She curled her fingers around it, holding it firmly closed like there was a great hairy spider inside, instead of what she knew was a giant heirloom engagement ring. Actually, at that moment, the ring seemed scarier than a spider.
“You going to open it?”
“Later,” she said. Not now. Not on the boardwalk with people all around. Not while she felt scrubbed raw from everything that had happened over the past week.
He nodded once. “We’ll fly back to the States tomorrow. Things will settle down. Get back to normal.”
She nodded in agreement and tightened her hold on the box. She didn’t ask him what he meant by normal, because she was starting to wonder whether she’d ever experienced normal. This wasn’t normal. Kissing a man in public, then screaming at him, then having
