She couldn’t stop herself from meeting his stare.
“You are not a coward,” he said quietly. As in many things he said, it was a proclamation. He stepped toward her, and her heart leapt.
“Come here,” he murmured.
Her feet moved as if of their own volition. His arms surrounded her. Her cheek pressed against the thick fabric of the cotton coveralls and his hard chest beneath them. The thought struck her that the sensation of the cloth against her cheek was familiar—his scent was—but then the dreaded emotion rose higher in her throat, and she turned all her resources into tamping it down.
She made a strangled sound and shuddered in humiliation. His arms tightened around her, the sensation divine and awful at once. She contained her misery, but just barely. Maybe
it was the fact that she hadn’t told him about what was really bothering her—about who she’d found her boyfriend with—that she managed to not break down. Or maybe it was that he felt so amazing next to her that was distracting her so much. He opened his hand at her back and made a soothing motion against her spine, his fingers curving around her waist. His body felt so solid . . . so good. She’d never been pressed against someone so hard. He seemed like the most solid of things in a world spinning off its axis. His hand cupped her hip. Her thoughts fractured and shot off in a million directions when she felt his body stir. Hers replied in kind.
“Emma?” he asked tensely.
She leaned her head back and met his stare. His hand rose to cup her face, his thumb feathering her jaw. He felt it, too. It was right there in his eyes. The shared knowledge of their mutual need seemed to throb in the air between them like some kind of naked, shared heart.
“Yes,” she whispered her answer, parting her lips.
And his mouth was covering hers.
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PARADISE RULES
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Lana Rodriguez’s eyelids narrowed suspiciously as she watched the buxom blonde in the minuscule bikini follow their surf instructor to a back room. She thought she recognized the expression of sly excitement on the young woman’s face. Undoubtedly a man with their instructor’s looks—the annoyingly potent, flashing grin and abundant, gleaming muscles—had female tourists throwing themselves at him with the consistency of a perfect Oahu day. Irritation bubbled up to the surface, an irritation that went far beyond her presence in Waikiki and taking a stupid surfing lesson.
Lana slammed the skin suit back into place, causing a brisk clang of the hanger against the metal rack. Her personal assistant and longtime friend’s face fell at the evidence of her pique.
“Jeez, you weren’t kidding when you said you hated Waikiki, were you?” Melanie pulled her skin suit’s top down over her bathing suit. “You really didn’t have to come, Lana. And you certainly didn’t have to agree to take these surf lessons with me. I’ve taken vacations by myself before, you know.”
Regret immediately lanced through Lana’s flash of temper. Melanie was in the midst of a soul-scarring divorce that had already gone on for two years more than it should have. Sure, Melanie might have gone on a few vacations by herself before she married that sleazeball David Mason. Still, there was no way in hell Lana was going to allow her friend to be alone when she was still raw and hurting from her soon-to-be ex-husband’s latest underhanded courtroom maneuver to get full custody of their fouryear-old daughter, Shawna.
She gave Melanie an apologetic grin. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to go diva on you.”
Melanie laughed. “Girl, if you ever showed a hint of the diva gene, I’d have abandoned you years ago.”
“Your shirt is too loose, hon.” Lana chose a shirt that read Jason Koa Surf Schools, Waikiki over the left breast and handed it to Melanie before she picked one for herself. The tight long-sleeved shirt would partially protect them from the shearing Waikiki surf and the friction burn of surfboard against bare skin . . . as well as ensure that a woman’s bikini top would stay in place.
Melanie shrugged out of the top and took the one that Lana handed her. “Why do you hate Waikiki so much?”
“Too touristy.”
Melanie eyed her. “You seem really tense. And on the plane—jeez, Lana, I thought a few times you were going to have a panic attack like you used to have before you went onstage, back when you were still a kid.”
Lana waved her hand impatiently. “Flying to Hawaii is worse than flying to Europe. I should have asked my doctor for something to help me sleep.”
For the whole damn trip, she added to herself.
“Are you afraid people will recognize you? You could be anybody under that hat and ginormous pair of sunglasses.” Melanie’s blue eyes dropped doubtfully over her friend’s figure. “’Course . . . there’s not much I can do about disguising your body when you’re wearing a bikini. The boring, baggy clothes I usually buy for you just won’t work in Waikiki. Even the homeless people wear swimsuits.”
Lana was only half listening. Her gaze had wandered back to the corridor where their surfer-dude instructor had disappeared with the blonde on his tail.
“I’m not worried about being recognized. People don’t care about the blues in Waikiki,” she said grimly.
“There are blues and jazz lovers everywhere, Lana, and you know it.”