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  “Getting kind of entitled, aren’t you?” She tried to make her tone teasing, but her voice was hoarse, and she wasn’t sure how effective it was in dissembling.

  He gave her a little smile. “Maybe.”

  “I’m not big on other people making claims on my life.”

  “I know that. But what do you expect me to do. For the past two weeks, you’ve been like this beautiful, tantalizing question mark. How am I supposed to not want to know the answer to it?”

  She thought about that for a minute until a chill ran up her spine. Maybe her first instinct had been right and he was trying to write a story about her.

  She made herself think it through until she was convinced the idea was ridiculous. There was nothing—nothing—about her that would realistically make Cade think she could lead to one of his serial killer books. To even consider the possibility was making her life a lot more important than it really was.

  But even if he wasn’t after a book, there was a good chance that he was attracted primarily to the puzzle she held for him—the mystery of what made her who she was—rather than anything innate in herself.

  He didn’t have to be writing a book about her to still want questions answered, and those questions might be the main reason he was hanging out with her at all.

  The idea caused her heart to drop in something far more intense than disappointment.

  “Right now. Just then. You thought about something that really upset you.” He was searching her face with his amber-brown eyes as if he had the right to see into her heart. “What was it?”

  “I don’t want you to know.”

  He reached over to stroke her face with his knuckles. “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t tell people things like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s the way I am.”

  “It’s not the way you were born though. Why do you refuse to open up?”

  He was so gentle, so persuasive. She suddenly felt the urge to tell him. Maybe not everything, but something.

  She opened her mouth, and then she realized what was happening. She’d just realized the truth about him, and yet she was still falling for it like an idiot. She sucked in a sharp breath. “How much opening up have you done with me?” she demanded.

  His eyes widened at her change in tone. “What do you want to know that I haven’t told you?”

  She couldn’t tell if that was a stall question or a genuine inquiry. Either way, she replied, “What do you do for work?”

  He grew suddenly still, and she understood why. “I told you I was between jobs.”

  “That’s not an answer. Why kind of work do you do when you’re on the job?”

  He tightened his lips and didn’t answer.

  “Why do you expect me to open up when you refuse to yourself?”

  To her surprise, his expression transformed into a fond, little smile. “Because I care about you. I don’t care that much about my job.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh, even though she knew the words were a deflection.

  After a minute, however, she stopped laughing and gazed up at him. “So you don’t like writing anymore?”

  He made a face. “I don’t know. I just—” He broke off his automatic response, obviously realizing the implications of what she’d asked him. “Shit. How did you find out?”

  She gave a little shrug, embarrassed now, like she’d been silly to make a big deal about it, like his big career had anything at all to do with her. “I overheard something in the drugstore on Tuesday, and then I noticed your picture on one of your books this afternoon.”

  Letting out a breath, he lay back down on the towel, staring up at the sky. “So that’s why you were upset.”

  “I wasn’t upset.”

  He turned to look at her. “You weren’t?”

  “Why would I be upset? It just made me feel…”

  “Feel what?”

  “Strange. Having read your books and then finally knowing they were yours.” She couldn’t tell him how upsetting she’d found the idea that he was only interested in her for the mystery she might pose, but at least this was part of the truth she could share.

  “You don’t even like them.” He was staring up at the sky again, a resigned expression on his face.

  “I like the first one. I love the first one.”

  “That one hardly sold at all. It was mostly just a… just something my mother wanted me to do.”

  “She did? She asked you to write it?”

  “Yes. I guess it was enjoyable enough, but it wasn’t what I ever wanted to do.”

  “You wanted to write more serious books,” she murmured, understanding more about him now and not sure what to think about it.

  “Yes. I guess that’s it.”

  “That’s fine then. If that’s what you want to write, then why shouldn’t you enjoy it?”

  “It’s just not going the way I expected it to.”

  “What do you mean? Your books sell really well, don’t they?”

  “Not as well as they used to.” He sounded almost tired now, and she realized he didn’t like thinking about this subject. It was one of those things that people push out of their minds because they bother them so much.

  She knew all about this strategy. There was a ghost she always lived with, that she pretended didn’t exist.

  “I thought they were really big.” She was surprised by the news about his books since she never paid attention to best-seller lists, and she just assumed he was a big name since the jacket of his books made him sound that way.

  “The first true-crime book I wrote was. The second did all right. The third did not quite as well. And this last one is a flop.”

  She frowned. She didn’t know what to think about any of this, and she didn’t like the defeated apathy she could see in his expression. It wasn’t the way she was used to seeing him, and she wanted it to go away. “It seemed a lot like the others,” she said slowly. “I would have thought it would sell about the same.”

  He sighed. “That’s what I thought too.”

  She felt the strangest pull in her chest, and she suddenly realized it was sympathy. She hadn’t felt that way in so long—for anything except her animals—that she’d almost forgotten what it felt like. “It must have taken a lot of work to write it. It was… even more than the earlier ones. It should have done just as well.” She didn’t know exactly how to explain her impressions of his latest book, but she wanted to say something.

  His eyes met hers. He didn’t say anything, but she could tell he’d heard what she said, that it meant something to him.

  She opened her mouth to say something else but didn’t get the chance.

  He closed the gap between their mouths and kissed her very gently. She smiled against his lips and tangled her fingers into his soft hair.

  There was more in the kiss than she’d experienced before, but she wasn’t sure what the difference was. It wasn’t just pleasure and excitement. It was some sort of real connection. She could feel it in her heart as she opened to his tongue.

  “Holly,” he murmured when he finally pulled away.

  “Hmm.” She was pressing little kisses around his mouth.

  “Do you think you might change your mind?”

  “About what?”

  “About sex.” His hands were busy as he kissed her again, pulling the towel away from her skin to reveal her bikini.

  She was suddenly breathless because part of her wanted to change her mind, and she’d assumed she would never, ever do it. “I told you from the beginning. We can do other things, if you want, but I don’t do intercourse.”

  “Why not?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.” His tone sounded serious now, and he lifted his head to gaze down at her. His skin was damp with perspiration and slightly flushed.

  “That’s because you want to have sex.” She smiled at him to try to dispel the anxiety she was feeling. />
  “I do want to have sex. Don’t you want to too?”

  She did. Her body was already aroused, the way it had been every time Cade had touched her. “I enjoy doing this,” she said. “What’s wrong with just enjoying this much, without expecting it to end in a certain way?”

  He gave her a little smile. “Well, I think my body is designed to expect it to end in a certain way.”

  She giggled and took his face in her hands. “We don’t have to do this. I told you from the beginning, I don’t set out to be a tease. You’re the one who keeps coming back.”

  “How can I resist?” he asked. “You’re like some impossible quest, completely consuming and completely unreachable. It makes me want you more.”

  “Well, that’s not my fault. If you’re having a hard time, then you only have yourself to blame. I was honest with you from the beginning.”

  “Guilty as charged.” With another smile, he kissed her again, and she responded to it since she could feel in his body that he wasn’t really annoyed with her. He might be physically frustrated, but his mind was fully engaged, and part of him was enjoying this as much as she was.

  Maybe he wanted to challenge himself as much as she did.

  They kissed for a few minutes, and then he pulled away from her mouth, staring down at her face and then her breasts. Very gently he pulled the fabric away to bare them, staring at her naked chest with a hungry expression.

  Even his gaze made her hot. Everything about him made her want him. She was never like this, so she didn’t know how to handle it. She shifted position slightly, hoping to ease the ache between her legs.

  He smiled as if he could tell how she was feeling, and he kissed his way down her neck. She arched her neck against his lips, loving the feel of them, loving the feel of the lowering sun on her skin and the breeze on parts of her body that rarely felt it.

  He kept kissing a trail down until he’d reached her breast. He nuzzled gently and then flicked her nipple with his tongue.

  She gasped raggedly as the jolt of pleasure shot through her.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he murmured, something underlying his teasing tone, almost a taunt.

  She was too distracted to work it out. Her body was tense and pulsing. “Yes.”

  He flicked her nipple again, in exactly the same way, and her whole body arched up the way her neck had earlier. She was breathing raggedly and clutching at the skin on the back of his neck. “You definitely enjoyed that,” he said thickly, changing positions so he was propped above her more fully.

  He closed his lips around her nipple and sucked, and she let out a helpless moan as the pleasure was too much, too intense.

  “And that too,” he murmured.

  He was playing with her, she suddenly realized. Teasing her. Proving something about how her body was designed, just like his.

  It was another sort of challenge, and she immediately accepted it. “I am enjoying it. But not as much as you think.”

  He glanced up at her face, something hot and excited and smug in his expression. He twitched his eyebrows. “We’ll see.”

  She could stop him, she realized. Anytime. But that would be a defeat. So she let him kiss and caress her breasts until she was shaking helplessly and crying out loudly in need.

  She was almost embarrassed by her condition, a kind of self-consciousness she wasn’t used to feeling. It was something about how out of control she felt. It scared her, but she also wanted more.

  She was clutching at the towel beneath her as he suckled and teased until finally her body simply wouldn’t stay still. She parted her thighs and threw one of her legs around his hips, desperately trying to quench the need.

  He raised his head and devoured her with his eyes. But his tone was still lilting and controlled as he said, “Now remember, we’re just enjoying the moment without trying to get somewhere.”

  The words and teasing tone surprised her into a laugh, and he used her distraction to readjust again, moving one of his hands down between her thighs. “Can I touch you here?” he murmured.

  She nodded, mostly because there was no way she could refuse. She wanted to feel him there desperately.

  He slipped his hand inside her bikini bottom and slowly caressed her open with his fingers, his eyes never leaving her face.

  Her lips parted as he touched her in a way almost nobody else had touched her.

  It felt so good that she tossed her head, trying to process all the sensations. But soon he lowered his head again and took one of her breasts in his mouth.

  It was simply too much. There was no way to process it. No way to just enjoy the feelings for what they were. Her body was taking her somewhere with them, whether she wanted it to or not.

  She was still aware of the fact that she could stop him. She knew him well enough by now to be sure he would pull away if she told him too. But she didn’t want him to pull away. She wanted even more.

  She arched and gasped and clutched at the towel as he worked her over with his hands and mouth.

  She wasn’t prepared for the orgasm when it caught her, and she cried out loudly, uninhibitedly as the pleasure rushed through her.

  She was panting desperately as Cade finally raised his head, his fingers still sunk inside her. He looked hot and aroused and tense and incredibly pleased with himself. “Was that just enjoying the moment?” he asked.

  “Of course it was,” she said, smiling to hide her confusion. “What did you think?”

  “It seemed like you might have gotten somewhere.” He was clearly trying to suppress a smile.

  He was so clever and so strong and so funny and so observant. She suddenly wanted to give him something—answer the strength of the feelings she had for him right now.

  She laughed softly and reached to pull him back up into a kiss. “It was just that moment I was enjoying. Maybe you should enjoy the moment too.”

  She felt him jerk in arms, just a small sign that proved how much he wanted her. “I’m ready for whatever enjoyment of the moment you can offer.”

  Ten

  Cade wondered if it was possible for his entire body to explode. It certainly felt like it might.

  He was used to having sex—usually a lot of rushed urgency and occasional awkwardness leading to a satisfying release. It was a point of pride that the women he slept with enjoyed the encounter as much as he did, so he always did his best to make sure they were satisfied too. But Holly had nailed him exactly right—so to speak—when she said he was all about getting to the destination rather than enjoying the trip.

  For the past week, he’d finally discovered what she meant by the delicious moment on the cusp—the feeling of wanting but not actually having. It was a heady feeling and one he’d ever expected to enjoy, much less prolong as much as they’d been doing.

  But there came a time when the wanting was simply too much. He either had to get there or stop wanting. And seeing Holly fall over the edge, in a way that had obviously thrilled and astonished her, had cut the last thread holding him back.

  So he almost groaned in relief when Holly said she was going to give him something too. He wasn’t fool enough to expect intercourse—she seemed entirely set against that for some reason—but at least maybe it would be more than torturous foreplay.

  She pushed him over onto his back, and he adjusted his hips to get more comfortable. The towel was still mostly clean, but the sand beneath it was uneven and shifting. He’d never really been into sex outside before. It always seemed more logistically complicated than hot to him. But he couldn’t fail to recognize the beauty of the evening, the darkening blue of the sky, the salty fragrance of the bay, the almost disorienting openness of endless stretches of sand, water, and air.

  Some stray sand in places it shouldn’t be wasn’t likely to get in the way of his pleasure. Certainly not now, as Holly rose up above him, completely naked with firm flesh and golden skin.

  He gazed at her wordlessly, wondering what his life had come t
o in the past two weeks that he was experiencing this, her.

  Without conscious thought, he reached up to cover her breasts with his hands, feeling the soft weight of them, the texture of the skin.

  She smiled and took his hands by the wrists, lowering them back to the towel beside him. “You’ve got to learn to relax,” she murmured, a fond, throaty timbre to her voice.

  His erection was throbbing painfully, and the blood felt like it might burst out of his veins, but he managed to give her a wry smile. “I wouldn’t say this is the time for relaxing.”

  She brushed her palms gently across his chest, teasing the skin, the coarse hair, and his nipples with the lightest of sensations. He sucked in air through his teeth and raised his hands to her body again.

  Once more, she removed them. “I thought you were going to enjoy the moment.”

  “I like to participate in this kind of moment.”

  “You are participating. You just don’t have to control it.” Her expression changed into something almost wary. “Do you?”

  It was a real question. She genuinely wanted to know. And Cade knew his response would shape the rest of this encounter.

  He was used to doing, making things happen, manipulating events until they turned out the way he wanted—so all his instincts were screaming at him to take control of their lovemaking. But he somehow knew that wasn’t the response she was looking for here.

  And he wanted to give her what she wanted, if he possibly could.

  “I don’t have to control it,” he said.

  Her expression and posture relaxed, almost imperceptibly. “Good,” she murmured, her eyes becoming languid and sensual again. “Then just enjoy the moment.”

  He kept his arms at his side and tried to relax as she moved her hands back to his chest. Her light touch drove him crazy, and he had trouble not shifting his legs, but he breathed deeply and managed to keep himself still.

  She leaned her head down to kiss his jaw, then his throat, then his shoulder. When she trailed her lips lower, he started to get excited and couldn’t suppress a jerk.