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The fire she’d seen earlier in the depths of his dark eyes sprang back to life. He caught her finger between his teeth and licked the tip.
Need pulsed through her. Before she could second-guess herself, Issy stood on tiptoe and replaced her finger with her lips.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f74ca5d9-f5bf-5232-9713-317443377330)
J.B. WAS IN trouble again.
That internal warning—the feeling in his gut when he was about to be blown out by an opposition D-man—was flashing. Still, he refused to back out of this woman’s kiss.
He’d only known Bella for a couple hours and she’d already managed to keep him off balance with those damn frustrating, damn intriguing contradictions. She definitely had an uptight streak, but instead of putting him off, it enticed him to dig deeper. To see if he could loosen her up.
Even her kiss was a contradiction. He sensed her inexperience, yet the way her tongue teased his lower lip was anything but innocent. She tasted of champagne and chocolate-dipped cherries with a hint of Caribbean spice. Sweet yet intoxicating. Slightly wicked.
J.B. took her up on the invitation she so blatantly offered and deepened the kiss. When his tongue touched hers, she sighed softly. He could feel her smiling. That made him smile, too.
A bump against his shoulder brought him back to reality.
“Oops. Sorry. Carry on.” A tipsy blonde waved a hand with hot-pink nails.
Bella stiffened in his arms and blushed as if suddenly realizing what they were doing.
“Perhaps we should take this somewhere a little more private,” he suggested.
“Oh.” She bit her lip.
Sensing she might bolt, J.B. gave her an easy out. “Or we could dance, like we planned.”
Bella brightened and reached for her champagne. “Dancing sounds good.”
J.B. grabbed his drink, drained the glass, then took hers and put both flutes on the table. “Sounds like they’re playing our song.”
She tilted her head, arching an eyebrow. “‘Thriller’ is our song?”
“For sure.” He lifted his hands, fingers curled into claws, and waggled his eyebrows like an old movie villain.
Bella fluttered her hand against her chest. “Hey-yelp. I’m so scay-urred.”
Her damsel-in-distress voice made him grin. “Come with me, my pretty, and I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
As the DJ called out instructions, J.B. and Bella joined in and laughed their way through the zombie steps.
After “Thriller” came the “Macarena.” J.B. rolled his eyes and tried to head back to the table. But when Bella started dancing in front of him—suggestively swaying those hips, invitation in her eyes—once again, he couldn’t resist.
“How come you know all the right moves?” he teased.
“One of the benefits of teaching preteen girls who like to work on dance routines during recess,” she replied primly.
“Is it appropriate for me to be grateful to those girls?”
“Why not?” She grinned. “I am.”
When the DJ played the next song, a group of older people whooped, then sat on the sand in a long chain. They started swaying from side to side, patting the sand in time to the music. Then they shimmied their shoulders forward and back. Soon a second line had formed.
“You can all do this one,” the DJ called out. “It’s a bit of ‘Oops Upside Your Head.’”
J.B. and Bella looked at each other, confused by the strange dance.
“Come on, it looks like fun.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him over to join the end of a line. She dropped to the sand, pulling him down with her. “Scootch up behind me.”
Maybe this weird dance wasn’t so bad, after all, he thought as she nestled between his legs. They knocked heads when he leaned forward while the rest of the line leaned back. She looked over her shoulder at him and they laughed together.
It didn’t take long to realize that as pleasurable as it was to have the curve of Bella’s butt pressed against him, his body saw it as foreplay. The song was barely half-over and he was rock hard. There was no way Bella couldn’t have noticed; when she shimmied backward she was practically lying in his lap.
Think cold. Ice. A big sheet of clean ice.
Another freaking shimmy. Think colder. Freezing his ass off doing chores on a winter morning on his parent’s farm up in Canada.
That did the trick. His brothers might love being tied to the farm and that spit of a small town, but the mere thought chilled J.B. to the bone.
Bella jumped up the moment the song ended and headed back to their table. Her champagne had gone warm and flat, but J.B. snagged rum punches from a passing waiter.
“That’s delicious,” she said. “Very refreshing.”
“Yeah, but don’t have too many or you’ll be dancing on the tables. The rum packs a punch, if you’re not used to it.”
Bella put down the glass with such force that the drink splashed onto her hand. She rubbed it off with a napkin as if it was acid, an accusation in her eyes.
Surely she didn’t think he was trying to get her drunk?
“I don’t think one glass will do you any harm,” he said lightly.
Uptight Bella was back. “I should probably go back to the room, anyway. It’s getting late.”
J.B. debated trying to convince her that it was still early, but figured he’d cut his losses. “I’ll walk you.”
“There’s no need. It’s safe here.”
“I know.”
A hint of a smile curved her lips. “Honestly, you don’t have to hang out with me any longer. Your duty’s done.”
“Maybe I’d like to.” He took off his loafers. “Let’s walk along the beach.”
Bella nodded. Instead of reaching for his hand as she had earlier, she removed her sandals and held them by the heel straps. She started off at a decent clip, heading toward the accommodation block on the far side of the property. But, even barefoot, it was hard to walk fast along the soft, shifting sand, so she soon slowed. Beside her, J.B. matched her pace.
Though lamps cast a golden glow along the promenade, down by the water’s edge their way was lit by the large, almost-full moon. The clear sky was filled with a mass of stars, the constellations showing up in brilliant relief.
The sounds of the party faded as they strolled farther along the beach. The silence between them wasn’t tense, but it wasn’t comfortable, either. J.B. wondered what he’d done to piss her off. Only one way to find out.
“Whatever I said to upset you, I apologize. It wasn’t intentional. For sure, I don’t want to ruin a great evening.”
She didn’t say anything for several moments before she sighed. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m a little sensitive about people getting drunk.”
He tried not to wince. “A bad experience?”
“You could say.” Her short laugh had a raw edge to it. “My family has an unfortunate tendency to drink too much. As a result, I only have alcohol on rare occasions and then nothing strong.”
J.B. sensed a wealth of pain behind that bald explanation. “Your parents are alcoholics?”
“My whole family drinks heavily. Though, to be fair, so does a lot of the community in the small town I come from in North Carolina,” she clarified. “There aren’t many jobs and even they pay poorly. But alcohol is cheap and helps everyone make it from week to week.”
That explained a lot.
J.B.’s parents had never disappeared into a bottle, but plenty of their neighbors had. Then again, his parents had two sons who’d devoted their lives to keeping the farm afloat.
He pushed aside the familiar guilt twisting his gut because he’d hated that life and got out as soon as he could. It didn’t matter that his earnings now enabled his family to have a financial cushion. He’d always be the black sheep.
J.B. cleared his suddenly tight throat. “The farming community where I grew up has similar problems. A bad crop or a problem with the animals and life gets real tough.”
Bella stopped and looked at him in surprise.
He hitched a shoulder. “You thought I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth? Everyone was responsible for doing their part on the farm. And as a player, I’ve worked damn hard to earn every penny I have.”
She gave him a chagrined smile. “I never really thought about where you came from or how you got to be where you are.”
He tapped her chin with his finger. “See, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Really? And you don’t live up to the image you present?”
This time, he did grimace. “Busted. I’ve made more than my share of mistakes because I drank too much. But that doesn’t change the fact that I understand how difficult it is growing up with poverty on your doorstep.”
“In our house, poverty was in the front room, making itself comfortable on the couch.” Bella shook her head. “I’m sorry. This is hardly the topic for a Caribbean evening.”
Even though he was curious to learn more about Bella, he backed off. “No problem. Now I know not to give you alcohol unless you specifically ask for it.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You make me sound like a killjoy.”
“Nah. You forget, my job requires me to be in prime physical condition. I have more than my share of drink-free nights during the season. Especially now that I’m older. My body takes longer to recover at twenty-five than it used to.”
“Twenty-five?” she squeaked, her eyes widening.
“How old did you think I was?”
“I don’t know. My age, I guess. But I’m thirty.”
“Cool. I like older women. And you make a pretty hot cougar.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m hardly cougar material.”
J.B. let his gaze wander slowly, deliberately, down her body. Over those curves, down the length of those gorgeous legs to her dainty feet and back up again. Then he stepped closer. And closer. Until he stood toe-to-toe with her.
Bella held her ground, though he sensed that one wrong move would have her scampering like a scared rabbit. She tilted her head up until their eyes met, then ran her tongue over her lower lip.
He leaned down, just a little, and mimicked her action with his tongue. Once. Twice.
Her eyelids fluttered closed. She dropped her sandals in the sand.
His loafers joined them. Then he took her mouth completely.
He didn’t know how long they stood there locked in each other’s arms, lost in each other’s kisses, but the swirl of cool water around their ankles startled them. They jumped apart, laughing. Realizing the tide had caught their shoes, they retrieved them and headed up to the promenade, holding hands.
It didn’t take long to reach the building where Bella’s room was located. They continued up the stairs to the second floor.
Outside her door, she turned to him. “Would you like to come in for a nightcap?”
Her tentative question was yet another contradiction—her tone was an invitation, but he could read indecision in her eyes.
It would be so easy to give in. Hell, his aroused body was screaming at him to take advantage of what she was offering. If her kisses were this mind-blowing, there was no question the rest would be amazing. Yet she didn’t seem the type who’d be happy with a holiday fling, and he didn’t want anything more. Which meant the whole thing could blow up in his face big-time.
The memory of the crazy redhead who’d stalked him for a year almost made him shudder. He’d naively thought they were on the same page about the one-night stand.
“I’d love to.” The regret in his voice was genuine. “But I don’t think you’re ready to go there tonight.”
He was pleased that her disappointment mirrored his own.
“We both know if I cross that threshold, we won’t be sipping drinks on the balcony.” Gently stroking a wisp of hair from her cheek, he teased, “At least not until breakfast.”
“There was me thinking I’d get it brought to me in bed.”
J.B. laughed softly. Once again she’d surprised him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He ran a fingertip across her bottom lip, leaned down and gave her one quick, hard kiss, then pulled back with a heavy sigh. “Now go inside before I change my mind.”
“Thank you.” She smiled and turned to open her door. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Sure. How about breakfast at the beachside restaurant?”
“I’d like that.” She fluttered her fingers at him. “Good night. Sleep well.”
J.B. waited until the door closed behind her and then walked away. As he headed back along the beach to the bungalow, he noticed that the resort was quieter now. He passed several couples, arms wrapped around each other as they made their way to their rooms, and envied them.
He’d been right to leave Bella tonight, no question. But he couldn’t help feeling that doing the right thing sucked.
* * *
THE SNICK OF a key card in the door woke Issy, pulling her out of a very steamy dream starring J. B. Larocque.
She kept her eyes closed for several seconds, trying to hang on to the amazing feelings coursing through her, moaning softly with frustration as they faded. That J.B. featured in her dream was hardly surprising. Although she’d spent the past couple of days on the beach with Sapphie, the evenings had been spent alone with J.B. after her friend and Taylor had disappeared. Both nights had ended with hot, thrilling kisses that even now aroused her.
