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No contest, he thought as he killed the engine. It wasn’t a good idea for Lizzie to be swimming by herself. Not at Silver Gull with its dangerous rip undertow that could pull an unwary swimmer out to sea. He needed to keep an eye on her, keep her safe. He zipped himself into his wetsuit, grabbed a towel and headed towards the sand dunes that bordered the southern end of the beach.
As he’d thought, there wasn’t another soul there. Almost straight away he saw Lizzie on the sand halfway between where the gum trees grew down to the edge of the beach and where the small breaking waves swirled up onto the sand in lacy white foam. She was lying on her back on a bright pink towel, her lovely body covered only by a turquoise and white checked bikini. Her long slender limbs were stretched out in total relaxation, her pale hair loose and glinting like silver in the sunlight, an expression of bliss on her face.
Jesse clenched his fists by his sides and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. It would have been better if he’d kept on driving and gone to a different beach.
He could not deny there had been times since he’d met Lizzie that he had wondered how she looked under her clothes. But the reality of her in the skimpy bikini far surpassed any fantasy—her breasts high and round, her hips flaring gently, her body slender not skinny. She was perfect in every way. He couldn’t help but observe that she had certainly filled out since her teenage years.
He coughed to alert her to his presence, not wanting to be seen to stare at her for so long it could be perceived as untoward. Startled, she sat up quickly, looked up at him. She took off her sunglasses and then used her hand to shade her eyes, blinking to focus on him. ‘Jesse. You...you surprised me.’
He wasn’t sure whether it was shock or pleasure he saw in her eyes. ‘Catching some rays?’ he asked, trying to sound casual when all he could think about was how sexy she looked in that bikini. Of how, in fact, the design of a bikini didn’t so much cover up but draw attention.
‘I desperately need to get some colour,’ she said, stretching out her arms with unconscious grace. ‘Feeling the sun on my skin is heaven. There won’t be much beach time once the café opens.’
Already the smooth skin of her shoulders was tinged with gold. ‘Are you planning to swim?’ he asked.
She turned to look towards the water, calm, translucent, sparkling in the sunlight as far as the eye could see. ‘Just thinking about it now. The water looks so inviting.’
‘It will be very cold in.’
She indicated the beach bag to the left side of the towel. ‘I borrowed Sandy’s wetsuit.’
He gritted his teeth. ‘Might be an idea to put it on.’
‘I will soon. I’m enjoying—’
‘Put it on now, will you.’ His voice came out harsher than he had intended.
She frowned. ‘But—’
‘I can’t talk to you while you’re wearing that bikini.’ He spoke somewhere over her head, not trusting himself to look at her.
‘But it’s a modest bikini—’
‘It does nothing to hide what a beautiful body you have. That’s more than a guy who’s trying to be just friends can take.’
‘Oh,’ she said and blushed so the colour on her cheeks rivalled that of her towel.
He tossed her his navy striped towel. ‘Here. Cover up, will you.’
She caught the towel. ‘Sure. I didn’t think...’ She pulled his towel around her, twisting to tuck it into her bikini top between her breasts. Lucky towel. Then she went to get up from the sand.
Automatically, he offered her his hand to help her. For a long moment she just stared at it with an expression he couldn’t read. Then she put her narrow hand in his much larger one. He pulled her to her feet, unable to keep his eyes from how lovely she was.
She faced him, standing very still. She was tall, but he was taller and she had to look up to him, exposing her slender neck, her delicate throat where he could see a pulse throbbing. Their gazes locked. Her grey eyes seemed brighter, perhaps reflecting the blue of the sky and the sea. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
Jesse still held her hand and when she made no effort to free it he tightened his grip—now he had her so close he couldn’t bear to let her go. He noticed a few grains of sand sprinkled on her cheek, maybe from where she’d pushed her hair away from her face. Reluctant to let go of her hand, he used his other hand to gently wipe off the tiny grains from where they adhered to her smooth skin.
She closed her eyes with a flutter of long fair lashes and he could feel her tremble beneath his touch as his fingers then traced down her cheek towards her mouth. He traced the outline of her soft, lovely mouth with his fingers and now it was he who trembled with awareness and a stunned disbelief she wasn’t pushing him away.
Her lips parted just enough for her to breathe out a slow sigh and open her eyes. Jesse saw in them both wariness and desire. ‘Jesse, I...’ Whatever she might have been about to say faltered to nothing. She swayed towards him.
He dropped his hand and used it to take her other hand and pull her closer to him, so close he could feel the heat from her sun-warmed body. He pressed his mouth to hers in a soft questioning kiss—she gave him the answer he wanted with the pressure of her lips back on his. As he deepened the kiss he felt the same fierce surge of possessive hunger he’d felt the first time he’d kissed her. Had kissed her, then been parted from her through a stupid misunderstanding before he’d had the chance to think about what that flare of attraction between them could mean.
Six months between kisses and she tasted the same. Felt the same. And he wanted her just as much—more. She kissed him back with a fierce intensity that sent a surge of excitement pulsing through him. He dropped his hands so he could lock his arms around her. With a little murmur she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him close. The towel slid to the sand between them. ‘Leave it,’ he growled against her mouth then slanted and deepened the angle of his kiss.
The longing for her he’d been holding back overwhelmed him. All this platonic friendship stuff was bulldust as far as he was concerned. He’d wanted her from the time she’d first swept him up with her warmth and laughter, set him the challenge of that cool exterior and the promise of passion beneath. He slid his hands up her slender waist, skimmed her small, firm breasts as her heart thudded under his hand and she gasped under his mouth.
* * *
There were master chefs, master sommeliers, master chocolatiers—but Jesse was truly a master kisser, Lizzie mused, her thoughts barely coherent through a fizz of excitement. Delicious shivers of pleasure tingled across her skin as Jesse worked seductive magic with his lips and tongue. The scrape of the stubble on his chin was an exciting contrast to the softness of his mouth; the hard strength of his body to the tenderness of his hands on her bare skin. The last man to kiss her had been Jesse six months ago. The way he kissed her now was everything she’d remembered, everything that had excited her that night on the balcony and awoken needs she’d tried to deny.
She’d been daydreaming about him when she’d been lying on the beach—and then suddenly he’d been there, as if conjured up from her fantasies. She was so dazed that before she knew it she was in his arms, with no time to worry about whether it was right, wrong or ill-advised. Another public kiss with Jesse? Her craving to be close to him was so strong the possibility of being caught again, being teased again, had scarcely registered.
Jesse looked so hot in that wetsuit, the tight black fabric moulding his broad chest, flat belly, muscular limbs. Unshaven, his black hair carelessly tousled as if he’d just run his hand through it in his hurry to get to the beach, he’d never looked more should-be-on-billboards handsome. When he’d taken her hand to help her up from the sand, she’d known where it would lead. Known and felt dizzy with anticipation.
Now she kissed him back, lost in the overwhelming pleasure of being with Jesse again. She’d found it impossible to clamp down on her attraction to him—no matter how many times she’d told herself Jesse wasn’t right for her. She might be able to deny herself that Belgian chocolate—but not this.
Desire bloomed in the tightening of her nipples, the ache to be closer, and she tightened her arms around his neck, breathing in the intoxicating scent of his skin. Wanting him. Craving more than kisses. She had never been kissed the way Jesse kissed. Jesse the master kisser would be Jesse the master lover and she shivered in sensual anticipation of the discovery.
What was she thinking? She stilled in his embrace.
She could not let herself want Jesse this much. Too many other women wanted Jesse. It would only lead to heartbreak, to agony. He couldn’t give her what she needed.
She broke the kiss and drew away, pushing against his chest, her breath ragged. He murmured a protest and gathered her back into his arms but he let her go when she continued to maintain her resistance. His expression, passion fading to bewilderment and—yes—hurt wrenched at her heart. She hated that she was the cause of that.
What had just happened was purely physical, she reminded herself. Oh, she wanted Jesse all right. And the more she’d got to like him, the more she’d wanted him. But she needed to be cherished, loved for herself, not be the latest in a line of conquests. She wanted to love and be loved—but she also wanted to trust.
How hard would it be to trust a player again?
‘Jesse, I can’t do this. I won’t do this.’ Her voice came out wobblier than she would have liked. But Jesse got the message.
He choked out just the one word. ‘Why?’
* * *
Jesse gulped in deep breaths of salt-tangy air to try and get back his equilibrium. He was convinced that Lizzie had enjoyed being with him as much as he’d enjoyed being with her. He could see her aroused nipples through the fabric of her bikini top. She was flushed, her eyes dilated, her mouth swollen from his kisses. She had never looked lovelier.
But she turned away from him. Bent down and picked up his towel where it lay rumpled on the sand at her feet. With hands that weren’t steady she draped it around her shoulders but it covered less than it revealed. He wanted her so much it hurt.
She twisted the corner of the towel until it was scrunched into a knot, untwisted it and twisted it again before she looked back up at him. ‘Because all those reasons that make it a bad idea for us to get together are still there,’ she said.
Somewhere in the realm of good sense he knew that. Hell, he had his reasons too. Desire this strong could lead to pain as wrenching as Camilla had inflicted on him. But his body didn’t want to listen to his brain. He wanted Lizzie and he wanted her now. If not now this afternoon, this evening, tonight—and hang the consequences.
‘It was...a mistake. We have to forget it happened. This...this shouldn’t ch-change anything between us,’ she stammered.
He cleared his throat. ‘How can it not change things between us?’
She looked up at him, her eyes huge in the oval of her face. ‘Jesse, I want you so much I’m aching for you.’ Her voice caught and she took in a deep breath but it did nothing to steady it. ‘If...if things were different there’s nothing more I’d want than to make love with you right now.’
He made a disbelieving grunt in response.
‘Oh, not on the beach. But back in my apartment. In a hotel room. At your place. Somewhere private where we could explore each other, please each other, satisfy our curiosity about each other. Even...even if that was all we ever had.’
He groaned and when he spoke his voice was edged with anger. ‘Do you realise what you’re doing talking to me like that? Don’t be a—’
‘A tease? Believe me, I’m not teasing.’ She swallowed hard. ‘In the six months since I last saw you, even though I thought you’d gone off with another woman, I dreamed of you. I kept waking up from dreams of you. Wanting you. Aching for you. Reaching for you, to find only an empty bed.’
‘Then why—?’
‘Because desire isn’t enough.’ She took in another of those deep breaths that made her breasts swell over her bikini top in such a tantalising way. ‘I’m sometimes accused of being blunt but I have to be honest with you,’ she said.
He swallowed a curse word. Whenever anyone used that ‘honest’ phrase he knew he was about to hear something he didn’t want to hear. Lizzie’s expression didn’t give him cause to think otherwise.
‘Fire away,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘I’ve told you, right now there’s no room in my life for a man.’ She was having trouble meeting his eyes. Not a good sign. ‘But if I do start to date again, I want it to be someone...someone serious, dependable, reliable. Not—’
‘Not someone like me,’ he finished for her, his voice brusque.
She bit her lip. ‘That didn’t come out well, did it?’ she said with a quiver to her voice. ‘It’s not that you’re not gorgeous. You are. In fact you’re too gorgeous.’
‘I don’t know how being told I’m gorgeous sounds like an insult, but I get the gist of it.’
Her eyes widened. ‘I didn’t want that to sound like an insult. I wouldn’t want to hurt you for the world.’
I wouldn’t want to hurt you for the world. Jesse felt uncomfortably aware that he had used something like that phrase more than once when kindly breaking up with a woman. But those words directed at him did not feel good. They made him feel scorned like he’d felt when Camilla had rejected him—though she hadn’t been as kind about it as Lizzie was being.
‘No offence taken,’ he said gruffly.
‘I...I’m not very good at this,’ she said, looking down at the ground, scuffing the sand with her bare foot.
Amazing that while she was thrusting the knife deep into his gut and then twisting it, he felt sorry for her having to deliver the message. In the interests of being honest.
‘No one is good at it,’ he said.
‘I do want to try to explain. Because...because I’ve come to really like you.’
Like. It was a runner-up word. A consolation prize word. A loser word. How could he have exposed himself again to this?
‘Continue,’ he said gruffly.
‘My ex was a good-looking guy with the charisma to go with it. I was always having to look over my shoulder to see what woman was pursuing him, what woman he was encouraging.’
‘He was a player, right?’ He practically spat out that word he was getting sick of hearing applied to him.
She nodded. ‘I never want to endure a relationship with someone like that again. I can’t live with that feeling that I’m not the only woman in my man’s life. To be always suspicious of girls he works with, girls he encounters anywhere. I want to come first, last and in between with a man. Not...not always feeling humiliated and rejected.’
Jesse clenched his fists by his sides. He wasn’t that guy. How could she be so wrong about him?A nagging inner voice gave him the answer. Because that’s the way you appear. He’d done such a good job of acting the player to cover up his fears and pain that he’d given Lizzie the wrong impression of him.
It was true, over the years he’d been flattered by all that female attention. But he didn’t want it now. He didn’t want people taking bets on his marital status. Most of all he didn’t want Lizzie so unfairly lumping him in a category of cheats and heartbreakers.
‘What makes you think I’m like your ex-husband? You’re implying that he cheated on you—I’ve never cheated or been unfaithful to a girlfriend. Never.’
‘I...I believe you,’ she said but her eyes told a different story. She’d stuck him in the same category as her ex and nothing he’d done—or the reputation he had acquired—had changed her mind.
He was not the guy she thought he was. He had to prove that to her.
‘What happened at the wedding to cause you to think I’d gone off with another woman was a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘So what makes you think I live up to my reputation?’
Her smile was shaky. ‘Women adore you. Not just young attractive women who want to date you. Older women dote on you. Ex-girlfriends like Evie want you still in their life. Even children are fans. Amy was beside herself with excitement when I told her on the phone last night that Uncle Jesse would be here when she got back from France. You were such a hit with her at the wedding when you danced her right around the room.’
He frowned. ‘And that’s a bad thing? Would you prefer I was the kind of guy women loathed? Feared even?’
‘Of course not.’ She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. ‘I’m not getting this across at all well, am I? Fact is, it’s not all about you; it’s—’
He put up his hand. ‘Whoa. If you’re going to say “it’s not you; it’s me” forget it, I don’t want to hear that old cliché.’
‘What I’m trying to tell you is that I...I’m a jealous person.’ She looked down at her feet for a moment as if she was ashamed of her words before she faced him again. ‘A jealous woman and a chick-magnet guy are not a good combination, as I found out in my marriage. It wasn’t just his infidelity that ended it; my jealousy and suspicion made it impossible for us to live with each other.’
‘In my book, infidelity is unforgivable.’ He clenched his jaw.
She looked across him and out to sea as if gathering her words before she faced him again. ‘There...there can be shades of grey...’
He shook his head. ‘Fidelity is non-negotiable. No cheating, end of story. If either party cheats—the relationship is over. For good.’
Did she believe him? Or had she heard too many lies from that ex-husband to believe an honest guy?
Her brow furrowed. ‘That stance is not...not what I would have expected of you.’
‘You’ve been listening to gossips.’ He snorted in disgust. ‘What would they know about my private life? You think I don’t know about betrayal? You think I haven’t been hurt?’
‘I...I only know what I’ve heard.’ She bit down on her lower lip, her face a picture of misery.
‘I thought I’d found the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. Turned out she was a cheat and a liar. But I don’t lie or cheat. Never have. Never will.’
‘I’m sorry, Jesse, if I got it wrong. But I can’t take risks when it comes to men. For my sake and for my daughter’s.’ Only then came that familiar tilt to her chin. ‘No matter how much I might want that man.’
He glanced down at the small scars on her hands and forearms. Scars she’d got in the kitchen, she’d told him, from burning oil and scalding steam and knives that had slipped. Now he realised she had scars on the inside too. Her ex-husband—and maybe before that her father—had chipped away at her trust, at her belief that she could inspire lasting love and fidelity. That she deserved to be cherished and honoured.
Whoa. He wasn’t thinking the L word here. Just the crazy attraction. Then the friendship. And the other L word. He realised how much in these last few days he had grown to like and admire Lizzie. In this context, ‘like’ was not a loser word. It was a feeling that built on that instant physical attraction to something that packed a powerful punch.
Lizzie was right—the reasons they both had for keeping the other at friend status were still there. He didn’t want to put his heart on the line again and he didn’t want to risk wounding her with further scars.
He ached to take her in his arms again but had no intention of doing so. It wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t need a man like him in her life.
‘I’d like to give you a big hug but...but I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ he said, trying to sound offhand but failing dismally, betrayed by the hitch in his voice.
Warm colour flushed her cheeks. ‘I agree. And...and no more kissing. I can’t deal with how it makes me feel.’
