she’d loved him. In his entire life, his grandmother had been the only woman who ever had.
Kennedy was a princess, but not the annoying self-centered kind. It had taken him one family function with her brother and father both present to realize the men in her life had given her confidence, made her feel secure in herself and her place.
And that confidence looked good on her, even if it was occasionally intimidating.
She was barely five feet, but it was hard to remember that when she looked at you out of those whiskey-colored eyes, so warm and bright. He liked whiskey, especially on her.
Kennedy directed the group of people milling about. They reminded him of a colorful school of fish, darting here and there without any real direction. But he had no doubt she would bring order.
She instructed the production crew where to store their gear and what bunks they’d be occupying for the next few weeks. Without so much as a cheat sheet. Kennedy knew exactly who was who, where they belonged and kept all the shit straight in her head.
It was impressive.
And why she’d be so damn successful.
At first he’d been very vocal about his reluctance to hire Kennedy. She was young, still in college, and they’d been a fledgling company with enough things working against them. He’d wanted to hire someone with experience and contacts that could help get Trident Diving and Salvage established.
And then he’d met her. And his protests had doubled, not because he thought she couldn’t do the job—it had taken him five minutes to know that she could—but because he’d needed to put as much distance between them as possible for his sanity.
So he’d pushed in every way he could imagine, placing walls and anger and animosity between them, hoping they’d be insurmountable obstacles.
But somehow Kennedy always seemed to scale them.
About twenty minutes after they’d shoved off, the chaos abated. She stood on the now quiet deck, her feet spread wide to compensate for the motion of the ship. Asher had the perfect view of her ass and the tight denim shorts that cupped the curve of it. He wanted to run his palm up the bare skin of her thigh, slipping his fingers beneath the hem.
Biting back a curse, he watched her shoulders rise and fall on a heavy sigh. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides for several seconds before she unfurled them.
“Did you enjoy the show?” she finally asked, turning just enough to look at him across the slope of her shoulder.
He grinned. It shouldn’t matter that she’d known he was there, watching. But it did.
“Always entertaining to watch you work, cupcake.”
Her mouth tightened, and something dangerous flashed through her golden eyes before she got control of it again.
Turning deliberately, she faced him, letting her gaze slip across his body, taking in his negligent pose for several seconds before crossing the deck to him.
She stopped a couple of feet away, just out of reach. Smart woman.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Kennedy speared him with a level gaze. “The crew would like to start tonight. Just a few test shots.”
“Won’t it be dark?”
Her lips twitched, drawing his attention. Part of him wanted to push until that ghost of a smile went full-blown, but he didn’t. Because her smile was deadly.
“Did you notice all the crates? I’m pretty sure a few of them contained lighting equipment.”
“S-Smart-ass.” Asher ground his teeth together, forcing his mouth closed.
And there it was, what he’d been dreading from the moment Kennedy had backed him into a corner.
He waited for her to react, but she didn’t. Instead, she shrugged. “They just want to get you on camera, no pressure and nothing important.”
No pressure. That was a rich joke. This entire project was nothing but pressure. A situation he wasn’t trained for and had zero experience handling. Hell, even thinking about it made his tongue swell, choking him—or at least if felt that way. It would get so much worse once the camera was in front of him, that blank eye staring, judging, recording every one of his failures for eternity.
And with Kennedy watching...all the ingredients for a full-blown disaster.
Her eyes ran up and down his body again. With one sweeping glance she ignited every nerve ending, making them all throb relentlessly.
He didn’t want to want this woman. And, yet, he couldn’t seem to stop his physical reactions to her—all of them.
“I’ll have wardrobe come to your room in about an hour. You might want to take a shower.”
Asher forced out a wicked grin. He chose his words carefully, deliberately. “You telling me I’m dirty, angel?”
She popped out a hip, balling a fist on it and glaring at him with irritation.
“Just so we’re on the same page, are you planning on cooperating or making this whole experience a pain in my ass?”
He lifted a single eyebrow.
“Yeah, I know the question is stupid, but I had to ask.” She let out a heavy sigh, closing her eyes for a few seconds. Suddenly, he could read all the little signs of exhaustion written into her face—the miniscule lines crinkling the corners of her mouth, the faint smudges of blue beneath her eyes, her drooping shoulders—and he wanted to fix it for her.
Shit.
“I have no intention of making your life difficult.”
She laughed, the sound far from humorous. “We both know that isn’t true, Ash. You delight in making my life difficult.”
“Not this time.”
“Yeah.” She shook her head, the soft cloud of honey-blond hair swirling around her shoulders. He wanted to take a handful of it and run it through his fingers to see if it was as silky as it looked.
He wanted to walk away from her and the weakness she caused deep inside him. That’s what he’d been doing for the past two years. Hell, that’s what he’d done his entire life. But today there was nowhere left to go. They were stuck together on this ship, and Kennedy was about to become his shadow.
His body throbbed at the idea of her being so close. Nope, not good. He couldn’t want her. He couldn’t touch her. She was Jackson’s little sister, forbidden fruit.
Asher had no doubt what his friend’s reaction would be if he ever touched Kennedy. Jackson was protective of his little sister, rightly so. He’d seen his friend put a fist through the face of a guy who had the misfortune of making a rather racy comment about Kennedy within Jackson’s hearing. Poor bastard hadn’t realized what had hit him until he was ass-down on the floor.
Jackson was family, but there was no question in Asher’s mind who he would choose if forced
