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As he stretched again, he let out a low, rough sound from deep in his throat.
Oh yeah. She could. Definitely. “Um... Does Alexi know you’re here?” An idea stirred, formed. “Never mind,” she said. “Just sit.” Gently, she pressed him into a chair, her hands burning from just touching his broad, exhausted shoulders, her mind racing with the possibilities. “I’ll go get you a room.”
“Sounds good.”
She hoped he still felt that way in a few moments, because no matter whose brother he was, there wasn’t a room to be had.
Which brought her to her plan. Her crazy plan.
Her how-to-get-un-virginal plan.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_a936ac7f-61b6-5766-b8b0-63ea22e07523)
SO BONE-WEARY he could hardly climb the stairs, Zach shouldered his duffel bag and headed toward the room Hannah had just given him.
Hannah.
It’d been ten years since he’d set sight on her, a very long time given she’d been fourteen when he’d left. Fourteen and gangly and awkward, terribly self-conscious in a way that to his own nineteen years had seemed...well, very young.
Still, whenever he’d thought of Avila, a small part of him had always wondered if she’d kept that sweet smile, if she still had freckles dancing across her nose, if she’d ever grown into her long, skinny legs.
If he wasn’t so tired, he might have acknowledged that he now had the answers to those burning questions.
Yes, she still had that sweet, contagious smile, the one that made her green eyes shine like jade.
Yes, she still had a scattering of freckles dancing across her nose.
And most definitely yes, she’d grown into those long, long legs—legs that now could be registered as a lethal weapon, for she’d nearly stopped him in his tracks when he’d stumbled across her in the kitchen.
If he hadn’t been about to fall asleep on his feet, he might have been able to fully appreciate those unexpected, and delightful, changes.
He might have even enjoyed the dеcor of the lodge, knowing his sister and her friends were far more talented than he could have imagined. He might have wondered who Hannah had kicked out of the clearly full lodge in order to give him a place to crash.
But his mind had gone fuzzy, and amazing as it seemed for a man who hadn’t been with a woman for far too long, he couldn’t even think about it.
He needed sleep.
Beyond that, he probably needed some good food, too, and some serious brain rest, but if he didn’t take care of the sleep first, he was going to fall down on the spot.
Again, his job’s fault. Portraying someone else for an entire year on the undercover sting, then living on the edge for that long, always on guard and never being able to relax, was incredibly hard on the body.
Oh yes, and being shot.
That hadn’t helped, either.
He’d assumed he’d fully recuperate, but suddenly he had his doubts, and it scared him.
His job was his life. He hadn’t set out for it to be so, but he’d always wanted to be the best, and to do that, sacrifices had been made. His personal life, for one. He’d been so busy being a cop, being a good cop, he’d lost a part of himself. Strange how he’d been perfectly happy that way, until he couldn’t do his job.
Now, that life seemed...empty. No, that wasn’t right.
Maybe it was just exhaustion.
On the second-floor landing he came to a small sitting area. There was a fireplace, and several couches were nicely arranged for easy gathering.
Seated there was an older couple sharing a pot of tea. Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz, they were all too happy to tell him, when he made the mistake of pausing one second too long and they introduced themselves.
Mr. Schwartz gave him a sly smile. “You’re here to pick up babes, I bet. Saw a bunch on the beach today.”
Mrs. Schwartz turned on him. “You said you didn’t notice!”
“Only helping out the young man, dear.”
“Did he ask you for help? No!” Mrs. Schwartz took her husband’s cup of tea right out of his hands and placed it on the tray in front of them. “Always butting in, you are. I’m sure this nice young man doesn’t need any help finding a woman to keep his bed warm at night, especially from you. Isn’t that right?”
She looked at Zach questioningly, and under different circumstances, such as when he wasn’t literally ready to fall on his face, he might have laughed. “I’m just here to rest,” he said, earning a smirk from the older man.
“Well, just ‘rest’ on the east end,” Mr. Schwartz suggested. “That beach is a hot spot. A regular babe magnet.”
Mrs. Schwartz smacked her husband.
“Uh...thanks.” Zach backed away just in time to see the older man lay the charm on his wife, who cackled her surrender and kissed him.
Shaking his head at the mysteries of a relationship that old, yet still together no matter how rocky, Zach kept walking. His room was at the very far end, down a hallway and away from any activity.
A Good Thing.
He let himself in. Without bothering to turn on the lights, he dropped his bag to the floor and kicked off his shoes. Hannah had told him there was one bedroom, a bathroom and a small sitting room. All he needed at the moment was the bed, so that’s where he headed.
The bedroom windows were open to the night air and moon. He’d showered in his condo in Los Angeles before he’d started the drive, so he simply pulled off his shirt, kicked off his jeans, sighed deeply, and slid under the covers.
Before his head settled on the pillow—which held an oddly arousing scent of some sort of flower he couldn’t quite place—he was fast and deeply asleep.
* * *
HANNAH COULDN’T CONCENTRATE on work, and was it any wonder? Zach was here. Here.
It had to be Fate.
Now all she had to do was get him to want to sleep with her. Maybe not a problem for most women, but Hannah knew it would be a task. Never in her life had she been able to make a man want to sleep with her, so she had no idea what made her think she could do it now, but she was up for the challenge.
She had to be. The timing was right, she could feel it. It would help if she knew exactly how to do it, but if she knew what she was doing, then she wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
Seduce him. That’s all.
Zach didn’t have to know all her problems. That she scared men off more quickly than she could blink. That she wanted, needed, to know what she was missing. No, he could remain oblivious.
It was all perfect, Zach was perfect. Yes, he’d been a wild rebel in his day, but he’d turned out okay. He was a cop, for God’s sake. She knew beneath his tough exterior that he was kind. Sensitive.
And as for the passionate part, one look in his eyes and her knees had trembled. That was passion, right? She was fairly certain.
Just do it. The slogan worked for running shoes and it would work here. Which was why she’d taken such drastic measures. She’d actually put him in her room for the night.
Oh, and one minor detail—she hadn’t told him. How else to get him into her bed? How she’d gotten the nerve, she’d never know, but the wheels were in motion now. Zach was in her room, her bed, hopefully exhausted enough to not question it.
To combat the nerves, and to give herself some time to relax, she threw herself into work. She decided to take the late evening shift at the icecream and gift shop, and if she was distracted, it was no wonder.
There was a man in her bed.
“Hey, Boss,” Karrie called out when she walked in.
Karrie was one of their four part-time employees. She had green hair, green eye shadow and matching green fingernails. She had a silver tongue stud and a pierced eyebrow. And she was absolutely great with the guests.
“I came to help with the crowd,” Hannah told her, moving behind the counter.
Karrie looked around her at the nearly empty shop—there was only one young couple in a booth sharing pie—tucked her tongue in her cheek and nodded gamely. “Yeah, I’m pretty overwhelmed here.”
Hannah ignored her and used the excuse of being there to devour a triple-decker chocolate cone.
“Ah, you’ve got man trouble.” Karrie, all of nineteen, nodded again, as if she knew all about such things.
“I do not have man trouble. This...” Hannah gestured to her nearly eaten cone. “This has nothing to do with a man.” Not much anyway. She helped herself to another scoop.
“Whatever you say, boss.”
“It really doesn’t.”
“Uh-huh.” Karrie calmly sponged down the counter. “Is he at least cute?”
Gorgeous. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That means yes.”
Hannah stopped eating and looked at Karrie with renewed interest. Desperate times, desperate measures, she thought. “Do you...know a lot about men?”
That got a good laugh. “I know about as much as it’s possible to know about an alien species.”
“So...you know how to...” Oh, this was ridiculous. Embarrassing. Stupid. “Never mind.”
“You can’t stop there! Do I know how to...what? Snag a guy?”
“No. Um, seduce one.”
Karrie grinned. “That’s simple.”
“It is?”
“Sure. All men are really just one big walking hormone. If they even so much as sense they’re going to get lucky, your job is as good as done.”
It had never worked that way for Hannah before, but then again, maybe she’d never made a man feel lucky. “It can’t be that simple.”
At the giggle behind her, Hannah turned around. The young couple sharing pie were listening with avid curiosity. They were in their midtwenties and were both so pretty they could have walked right out of the pages of Cosmopolitan.
“It’s really that simple,” the young woman said to Hannah.
The young man blushed from chin to roots, and that had his girlfriend giggling again. “Honest.”
Hannah shook her head. “Maybe for you. But I’ve never turned a man into a...hormone before.”
“No, it isn’t about beauty,” the young woman insisted. “It’s about how you make them feel.”
“I can’t believe it’s that simple.”
Karrie looked at her pityingly. “Trust me, it is. Look, flash some skin. Then kiss him, anywhere. Mouth, neck, ear, you pick.”
“Then what?”
“Then flash some more skin. It’s as good as done, guarantee it.”
Hannah turned to the young woman. “Really?”
She nodded emphatically while her boyfriend blushed all the more.
Hmm. It was worth a shot. She grabbed a tablet from the counter and started writing.
Step one: flash skin.
Step two: kiss him. Anywhere.
Step three: more skin.
Sounded easy.
Contemplating her strategy, Hannah spent the rest of the shift working on their stock, even getting her replacement order ready for the following week. She scrubbed the floors. She dusted. Dusted, for God’s sake.
But she drew the line at cleaning the bathroom. It was Tara’s turn. If she failed at this unsingle thing, it would be her turn soon enough.
Flash skin. Kiss. More skin.
How difficult was that? From beneath her nerves came something else, something more base. Her insides tingled, heated. The shock wasn’t her excitement, but that she felt it at all. For years she’d made sure she was too busy for this romance stuff, mostly to save her pride, but also out of a fear of the unknown. She’d stifled and ignored her own sexuality.
She couldn’t any longer. Fact was, Zach Thomas had turned out pretty darned amazing. And he was in her bed, maybe not waiting for her exactly, but he was there nevertheless.
Studying her notes, she went back to the lodge and climbed the stairs. Anticipation raced through her as each footstep brought her closer.
Men are all one big walking hormone.
She could only hope that was true, though the mental image of that nearly made her laugh out loud.
