“What makes you think I don’t like you?” He put down his sandwich, and picked up her hand. His thumb stroked down her fingers, and she felt it all the way to her toes.
Uh oh. A bit too much progress.
She snatched her hand back, knowing when she was being sidetracked. Even if she was enjoying being sidetracked. “Now you’re adding misdirecting the witness to badgering.”
“I thought you were the prosecutor?” he countered, the lopsided smile doing funny things to her insides.
Yup definitely misdirection.
She needed to get this cross-examination back on track before he misdirected her right into a kiss. “Okay, misdirecting the prosecutor then.”
“You know, you’re the cutest prosecutor I’ve ever come up against.”
Leaning forward, she tipped up his sunglasses, assessed the gleam of amusement and something hotter in his eyes and then dropped them back on his nose.
“That’s an underhanded tactic and you know it,” she all but purred.
“Didn’t you know, all’s fair in love and fantasy prosecutions?”
She did now. A lot of good it did her. Her mind scrambled to engage having been somewhat misdirected by the fireball of lust spreading up her torso. “Just answer me one question.”
He’d picked up her hand and began nibbling her fingertips. Misdirecting her even more. “Hmmm?”
“Why did you really ask to go to the beach with me? Was it to avoid going to the pub?”
“I agreed to go to the beach with you so I would stop thinking about jumping you again. I needed a distraction.”
“Surely going to the pub would have been a better distraction,” she said, her voice more breathless than she wanted it to be. “Seeing as I wouldn’t even be there.”
“And miss seeing you in a bikini? And quite possibly wet? I love my family. I don’t love them that much.”
“I don’t have a bikini. I was going to swim in my underwear.”
“And get another citation?” He sounded outraged. But she wasn’t convinced, because the grin only got more wicked. “Boy, am I glad I didn’t let you come here alone.”
“But surely there’s nothing wrong with swimming in your underwear in broad daylight? Especially as you really can’t tell this bra and panties isn’t a bikini.”
“I don’t think we should risk it, you’re already into me for two hundred bucks.”
“What do you suggest we do then?” she asked. “It’s way too hot to just sit here in the sun.” And getting hotter by the second.
“How about we go back to the barge and investigate exactly how mu
ch that bra and panties looks like a bikini when wet. If we find them innocent we can come back in a couple of hours.”
She swallowed the next bite of her sandwich, with difficulty, past the lump of lust in her throat. “Are you saying you want to cross-examine my underwear, counselor?”
“Any objections?” he said, the grin positively devilish now.
Endorphins careered round her body at a rate of knots. “I suppose not,” she said. “As long as you promise to be thorough.”
He balled up the sandwich paper and dumped it in the cooler. Grasping her hand, he stood up, then dragged her close, to plant a kiss on her lips. “When it comes to cross-examining hostile underwear…” His mouth curved and her breath gushed out in a staggered gasp. “I think you’ll find I’m extremely thorough.”
*
It had taken them nearly twenty minutes to find a parking space in the crowded roads near the beach. It took them less than ten to find the car and race back to the marina.
He took her hand as they headed through the security gate to the dock. The barge was cool inside, the air conditioner unit working overtime. But her flesh felt hot and sticky nonetheless. They’d hardly spoken on the ride back.