drinks with pineapple wedges and cherries.
The bartender looked up when they slid onto stools facing the water, and a grin softened his craggy features. “Hey, Rick, long time no see. What you doin’ on this side of da island, bruddah?”
“Slumming.”
The man chuckled, leaned closer as he picked up the glasses. “You right about that,” he said in a discreet voice, giving Lindsey a quick wink before carrying the order to the customers sitting at the other end of the bar.
“Slumming?” Lindsey repeated.
Rick swiveled around to face her, his legs spread, effectively trapping her. “Not you. It’s a tourist thing.”
“I’m a tourist.”
He picked up a lock of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers in a surprisingly intimate gesture. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he murmured.
“I figured you’d have forgotten about me by the next day.”
He let go of her hair, met her gaze. “Why did you disappear without waking me up?”
Lindsey tensed, unprepared to explain herself, unwilling to admit that he’d frightened her by making her feel things she’d never dreamed possible. “I woke up late. I didn’t want to miss my plane, and I honestly didn’t think it mattered. You knew I was leaving.”
He studied her a minute, then shrugged. “I figured it was something like that.” He swiveled back around just as the bartender approached. “When did you start working here? I thought you were at the Hyatt.”
“I’m workin’ two jobs. Gotta pay da bills, bruddah.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Rick said, and the older man’s brown eyes glinted with amusement she didn’t quite understand. “This is Lindsey, Keoni.”
Keoni acknowledged her with a nod. “What can I get you?” he asked, and then said to Rick, “Beer for you, I know.”
Lindsey thought for a moment. “That sounds good.”
Rick’s brows went up. “No fancy drink?”
“They have a way of sneaking up on me,” she admitted.
Keoni had already moved away to grab mugs, but she saw him smile.
Rick turned back to face her, this time taking one of her hands and lightly pressing it between his slightly callused ones.
“I don’t want you drunk,” he murmured in a low voice meant only for her ears.
She started to laugh, thinking he was teasing, but his hazel eyes were serious. “I wasn’t drunk last time, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“No—” He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but Keoni slid their mugs in front of them. “Thanks.”
He might have stuck around, but a young couple came up from the beach and pulled out stools, and Lindsey watched Keoni amble toward them.
Rick stroked her palm with his thumb. The pad wasn’t smooth like that of a desk jockey. When they’d met he’d been an engineering student. She wondered if he’d finished school, or decided he’d rather hang out at the beach.
“I wish I’d known Keoni was working here,” he muttered. “Nice guy, but I was hoping for a bartender I wouldn’t know, so we’d be alone like you said.”
She slowly swung her gaze to his face.
His lips twitched. “To talk.”
“Of course.” She looked deeply into his eyes, entranced by the way the hazel had become a warm gold. Her breathing slipped slightly off-kilter, and as hard as she struggled to look away, she couldn’t.
“Screw it.” He leaned in and kissed her.
Not a quick one, either. He lingered, slanting his mouth over hers, his lips supple and coaxing. Startled, her senses swimming, she felt the tip of his tongue tease the corner of her mouth, and she parted her lips.
He slid his tongue inside, slow and hot and demanding, making her forget where they were. He moved his hand to her thigh, up high, where her shorts ended. His thumb slid just under the hem. Coming from somewhere in the haze she heard a woman’s faint laugh.
Lindsey froze, and realized with an element of shock that they were sitting at the bar in full view.
She broke away, not knowing where to look, what to do. She wanted to hide her face in her hands. Instead, she grabbed blindly for her mug and took a long cool sip of beer.
“Relax,” Rick said, his hand still resting on her thigh. “Lots of honeymooners around. No one even noticed.”
She kept her hands wrapped around the mug, and stared down at the amber brew. It wasn’t the kiss, exactly, that had her flustered. It was how quickly the fire inside her had ignited, how quickly the heat had surged through her veins and settled low in her belly. It seemed almost unnatural.
Good grief, it wasn’t as if she’d been living in a convent for the past six years. There had been other men she’d liked, a couple of them well enough to have become intimate with, but no one had ever made her feel as if nothing around her mattered, as if the only reason for her next breath was to feel his touch again. But wasn’t that exactly why she was here? She wanted to relive those eight hours, stretch them out to a week.
Rick reached for his beer. After taking a sip, he rested an elbow on the bar and just looked at her. “So where are you living these days?”
A giggle rose in her throat. After that kiss, the question struck her as ridiculously funny. “Chicago.” She cleared her throat. “No, New York, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I’m in the process of moving.”
His brows drew together in a frown that said he didn’t believe her.
She’d already lied to him about her name. It wasn’t a stretch to think she didn’t want him to know where she lived. “It’s the truth.”
A smile tugged at one side of his mouth, and his gaze fell to her lips.
Her heart thumped wildly.
Excellent. He was going to kiss her again.
2
LINDSEY, RICK REMINDED himself as he watched her nervously moisten her lips, not Jill. It was going to take some serious mental gear-shifting for her real name to sink in. If he hadn’t thought about her over the years, it might’ve been different. But that night on the beach had turned into more than a simple one-time hookup. Should’ve been nothing more, he knew. He’d had his share of them. Went with the lifestyle. In his sphere, chicks loved surfers. And if a guy was lucky enough to make money at it, the women seemed all the more willing.
“Were you transferred?” he asked, steeling himself against the fathomless depths of her blue
