“Let me get the sunscreen. You’ll never find it, I have tons of crap just rattling around in here.” Hand deep in the bag, Mandyfelt her cheeks heat. Damien’s eyes were shielded behind dark sunglasses, but he looked perplexed. Suspicious.
Palm closing around it, she pulled the tube of sunscreen out and slapped it into his hand. With a brilliant smile, she tried to distract him. “So, have you been to the buffet for dinner yet? It’s absolutely divine.”
Damien frowned, and even with the sunglasses shielding his expression, she could tell his gaze had landed on her stomach. Was he putting two and two together—her belly, the magazine... Mandy’s heart started racing, her palms sweating, her cheeks burning from more than the Caribbean sun.
“I haven’t made it to the buffet, but I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Lots of desserts?” His words were polite, casual, as he tossed the sunscreen from hand to hand.
Mandy realized with dawning horror just what his words implied. Oh, that was just lovely. Two and two in his head hadn’t equaled pregnancy. He thought she’d been hitting the dessert table too hard. And so what if she had? Allison was right—men didn’t noticeanything.
Except hard nipples.
“Turn around,” he said, clearly no idea he had offended her.
Bloody idiot.
She gave him her back. “Yes, the desserts are marvelous. You’re going to have to roll me onto the plane.”
A breeze kicked her hair across her lip, and she pried the strand off as she heard lotion squirt into Damien’s hand.
His chair squeaked as he scooted forward on it. “That’s good. You look better than when I first met you. I guess it was the flu, but you looked kind of thin. You seem healthier now.”
Was that his attempt at a retraction?
Mandy rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses. Then tensed when his hands landed on her shoulders, smooth and cool with lotion. Big hands, confident hands, that glided across her skinwith strong strokes, his thumbs skimming along behind his fingers.
Damien had leaned over closer—she could hear his breathing, smell toothpaste and the coconut scent of the sunscreen. “And people think I’m tense. Relax, Mandy.”
He had no idea what he was asking of her. If she relaxed, really and truly relaxed, she’d sink in to his touch, sigh and moan and revel in the feeling of a man’s strong but gentle hands caressing her.
It was hell being stoic all the time, and she wasn’t even doing a very good job of it. And Damien was so gorgeous and competent and broad-shouldered, with those delectable baby blues.
He skimmed her spine, sending a shiver rolling through her and setting her inner thighs burning with desire.
She groaned, a long, low sound of abandonment.
Damien knew he was pushing into dangerous territory. Hell, he’d jumped into a fucking volcano.
His plan to avoid Mandy had just failed. And then some.
After shutting himself in his hotel room for two straight days, working like a fiend, and intermittently wondering what Mandy was doing, and what she was wearing, he’d needed some fresh air. It had been a happy coincidence that ten steps on the beach and he’d found Mandy lying in a chaise lounge, reading a magazine.
Except he supposed it didn’t count as a coincidence at all since he had the funny feeling he would have paced up and down the beach until he’d found her.
Even so, he hadn’t meant to put his hands on her. That had been an impulse. A stupid one. A head-up-his-ass impulse.
But she had looked so good.
Every imagining he’d had of Mandy wearing a bikini hadn’t prepared him for the sight of her stretched out in an army green scrap of nothing bathing suit. He had always pictured Mandy as thin and fragile, probably because she’d had the flu when they first met.
But she wasn’t thin and bony and untouchable. She was curvy and lush and delicious, with full breasts straining the tiny triangles and making his mouth water. So he’d pressed an excuse on her to rub his hands all over her back and shoulders.
And she was groaning.
He felt like doing the same.
Instead, he said, “Do you want to go to the buffet together tonight? The room service is really slow, and I need to get out a little anyway.”
Her head fell forward. “I’d love to. I’m sure the older couple I’ve been shadowing would like some time alone. Though they did say I remind them of their daughter Annie, who’s off at university. The one they told me in the next breath is something of a screw-up.”
