But she also wasn’t an idiot.
“And what happens if I fuck you?” she asked, and it was her turn to sound a little lazy. “Do I get to build my resort in all this paradise?”
He laughed at that, out loud this time, and sure enough a set of birds pelted themselves out of the nearest tree, squawking all the way. “That would have to be some fuck. Are you sure you can live up to that standard?”
“Are you afraid you can’t?”
This time, his laughter was a dark flame all its own.
And she was running out of ways to burn. Lucinda was beginning to worry that the only logical next step was implosion.
“I don’t really do tit for tat,” Jason drawled, his hand still hot and pressed against her skin. “As tempting as it sounds, I don’t use my dick as currency. Which is a good thing for you, darlin’, because I don’t think you could afford me.”
She opened her mouth, but he shifted his thumb and pressed it against her lips, shutting her up.
But she could have stepped back. She could have slapped his hand away. Hell, she could have bit him.
All of those things would require she want him to let go of her, however. And Lucinda...didn’t.
“Here’s how this is going to go down,” Jason said, all rumble and dark promise. “I’m going to take you back to my house, which has food, electricity and a shower. My buddy already flew back to Fiji today. One way or another, you’re spending the night. How you want to spend it, and where, is up to you.”
“But the resort—”
He shook his head. “I don’t do strings, Lucinda. Or bargains. I’ll let you decide if you think getting a piece of that ass will soften me up or not. I can’t guarantee it either way.”
“What if that’s not good enough for me?”
And somehow she wasn’t surprised when all Jason did was shrug, then drop his hand. “It wouldn’t be the first time I used my hand. I know it won’t be the last. I’ll live.”
And then he turned and left her there as he headed back up toward the empty hotel.
“Am I supposed to follow you?” she called out after him. “Is this yet another test?”
He turned back, though he didn’t stop walking, and his smile was enough to make her heart stop, as wide as the arms he stretched out like he was taking over the whole damned world.
Or maybe just her.
The bastard.
“You need to do you, Scotland,” he told her, but there was that laughter in his voice again, as if he already knew what she’d choose. As if all of this was inevitable. “I already told you what I want. The question you need to ask yourself is what you want in return.”
BEFORE SHE’D SET foot on this island, Lucinda had known exactly what she wanted. It had been a clear path: find Jason Kaoki on his private island, convince him to build the resort of her dreams, ascend to a higher, better level of the life she’d always wanted. And in all those hours of travel, it had never occurred to her that things might go differently—because she was very, very good at getting what she wanted.
That was how she’d risen out of her dreamless, upsetting childhood in the first place.
Now she was running on a combination of fumes and surfing and Jason Kaoki’s dangerous hands all over her might-as-well-be naked body—and that straight, obvious path seemed a good deal less clear.
She ordered herself to get her head on straight, but after all that time tumbling around and around in the sea, she wasn’t sure what direction that was anymore. She followed Jason back up into the dim hotel lobby instead, hanging back as he went into the office and reemerged with a soft pile of dark black that it took her moments to realize were her own clothes.
And surely she should have been embarrassed by the fact that he was now holding her panties and bra in those hands of his... But she was all embarrassed out, it seemed. That was what happened when a person spent hours barely dressed in a string bikini, climbing on and jumping off a surfboard out in the water. She had precious few inhibitions left. Lucinda eyed the clothes in his hands. Then she lifted her gaze to the fire in his and let the flames simmer there between them for another breathless moment that felt a whole lot like forever.
At some point she would have to get used to all this...intensity, wouldn’t she?
Or it will kill you, a dour voice inside her chimed in.
Jason didn’t say a word. He came back around the counter and thrust her clothes into her arms. Though he didn’t explicitly tell her to follow him, Lucinda felt that was his clear intention when he moved toward the doors. She found herself hurrying along behind him, having to work overtime to keep up with his long, deep stride though she’d always considered herself a fast walker. He was just that tall. A saunter on him made her have to think about running.
And there was no reason that innocuous, innocent thought should have made her breath catch again, but it did.
He waited when they reached her bag as she bent down and shoved her armful of clothes into its main compartment. And when she straightened, he swept the bag up in one hand and headed back out into the sun. It struck Lucinda as a kind of thoughtless, matter-of-fact chivalry. As if he hardly knew he was doing it.
And it made her throat ache, because she was used to doing for herself in all matters, great and small. Her father had never carried a thing but his own drink. The many men she’d worked for had never offered any kind of courtesy without strings attached. There were no offhanded displays of chivalric impulses.
Lucinda had to frown ferociously to keep that same ache from flooding her eyes, thank you, sure that this was more evidence that she needed to sleep—and fast—before she became someone else entirely. Someone soft and feminine and fluttery who might actually weep over a man carrying her bag.
The very idea should have made her laugh.
It was surpassingly odd that she didn’t.
She followed him instead. Jason didn’t have any shoes on, but his bare feet were clearly used to the abuse of the old, cracked concrete outside, because he didn’t slow down when he hit it. And by the time Lucinda picked her careful way after him on her soft, complaining toes, he had already gone around the side of the building. He disappeared beneath an overhang she hadn’t noticed on her way in and drove back out again moments later in an open-topped Jeep.
He pulled up beside her, then looked at her like a cautionary tale brought to vivid life. He might as well have been waving a sign that read BEWARE STRANGE MAN IN CAR WHO WILL TURN YOU INSIDE OUT WITHOUT TRYING.
Lucinda assured herself it was no more than another Pacific breeze that trickled down the entire length of her back then, making her want to stiffen against it, then run for her life.
She
