Bungalow Nights(8)

“I get it. It’s okay.”

“Nah.” A sheepish grin quirked his lips. “It’s not.”

It was the grin. That sheepish grin. Her skin flushed hot all over again as she felt her pulse start to pound at the tender skin of her wrists and at those sensitive hollows behind her knees. She could only stare at him and the lingering rueful smile on his face.

Vance didn’t seem to notice. “What can I do to make it up to you?” He reached out and casually touched her hand.

He shouldn’t do that, she thought, unable to move. Something was going on here, a situation she didn’t have control over, and she’d never wanted to believe this kind of thing would happen. You couldn’t choose? Without your permission this...this fever overcame you, or rather, reached out to you, or rather, exploded all around you...and you were at its mercy. Layla began to tremble.

His long fingers curled over hers. The edge of his cast pressed into her skin but she barely registered it over the hot-cold shiver that shot toward her elbow. “Vance...”

“I’m sorry,” he was saying, his voice light. “I’m a bad man.”

And then her hand slipped from his to press his cheek. Why? Because he wasn’t a bad man, that was certain. There was a slight bristle against her palm, gritty, masculine, and the sensation pinballed more tingles to her toes and then to the top of her head. She didn’t move. She just held her soft flesh against the hard plane of his cheek.

Their gazes met.

She didn’t try to read anything into his because his expression had shut down and she wished she didn’t feel this way. Knowing what was going on in Vance’s mind didn’t seem like any kind of win for Layla. “Hey...” she finally said. Her voice was so hoarse she had to stop and lubricate her throat. “Um.”

“Yeah?”

Her hand slid away from his face. She saw his cheek muscle jump. “I have an idea.” She swallowed again. “A good idea.”

“Oh?”

She stood, jolting upward so fast she swayed a little. He reached to steady her, but didn’t make contact. Good. “We’re here for the month. My father wanted that. But we don’t have to...to...be in each other’s pockets.”

His gaze was so blue it should have steadied her.

But it was only more heat, not a cool, calm blue at all anymore. “Layla—”

“We’ll live in the same house, but there’s plenty of room. We’ll go our separate ways. Live, uh, totally separate lives.”

Now he touched her. The back of his fingers skimmed the flesh of her forearm. She felt it to the marrow. “No,” he said. “We can’t do that. If we’ve come this far, we’ve got to do it right. Because I made another promise, too.”

* * *

VANCE CURSED HIMSELF for the wary look on Layla’s face. What the hell was wrong with him? He knew damn well her father wouldn’t approve of him messing up the agenda he’d laid out with this man-woman complication. The colonel had still considered his daughter a little girl, and Vance should be seeing her as the same.

Except she’d been sitting so close a few minutes before, her womanly hip against the denim of his jeans, her pretty face smiling at him, so that when she’d said “cupcakes” his baser self had reared its prurient head and, well...

Checked out her cupcakes.

He didn’t allow his gaze to stray in that direction again, but his memory worked just fine and yes, she had very nice cupcakes.

As if she could read his mind, she shuffled back a step, and he swung his feet off the lounge and onto the planks of the deck. “Let me explain—”

“Not necessary,” Layla interjected. “Really. I think my ships-in-the-night plan is a good one.”

Vance stifled a sigh. It was all his fault. He should have made an effort to get laid between leaving Afghanistan and moving into the beach house, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to him. Six months had passed since he’d opened Blythe’s Dear John letter, and it had served as an effective sexual appetite suppressant until yesterday. Until he’d caught sight of a certain soft-eyed brunette who just happened to make his mouth water.

“You should hear me out,” he said, keeping his expression harmless and his voice mild.

Layla was already edging toward the house. She touched the handle of the sliding-glass door. “Not—”

Addison slid it open from the inside. “There you are!” she said, stepping onto the deck and effectively pushing Layla toward Vance again. Addy had a yogurt cup in one hand, a spoon sunk inside like the business end of a butter churn. “Our host was looking for you earlier, knocking on my door in the dead of the night.”

“The sun was up,” Vance said, and tried signaling her with his eyes. Go away, Addy.

The message went unheeded. She crossed straight to Vance’s lounge chair and, much as Layla had done minutes before, plopped herself beside him. He could barely remember Addy as a kid, but she was a curvy fairy now, with a fluff of platinum hair ringing her small head and tip-tilted green eyes. Her mouth seemed always ready for a mischievous smile.

Vance gave her a second look. If his libido was reawakened, how about Addy? She smelled like strawberry soap, was sexy in a handle-with-care kind of way, and he’d made no pledges to her papa. Maybe she’d consider a summertime fling....

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Frowning, her green eyes crossed. “Is there something on my nose?”

“Just a sprinkle of freckles,” Vance said, shaking his head. “They’re cute.” But they did nothing for him, he realized, damn his perverse horny urges. Punishing him for his misspent youth, he supposed, through an uninvited and inconvenient fixation on Layla.

As if on cue, the brunette cleared her throat. “I’m glad to have a chance to talk to you, Addy. I have some free time on my hands and I was thinking I could spend some of it helping you with your research.”

Addy halted her spoon midtwirl and looked up. “You’re interested in the silent film era?”

“Uh...I could be.”

Vance decided Layla was more nervous than he thought warranted. He hadn’t been that out of line. One little cupcake comment that he’d followed with a lighthearted apology shouldn’t send her screaming for the books. He narrowed his eyes and saw her throw him a quick nervous glance, her face coloring.

She cleared her throat again. “Tell me some more about what you’re investigating.”

With her spoon, Addy gestured around the cove. “This place was magic in the heyday before the talkies. All the palm trees and tropical vegetation? Trucked in. Coastal California hillsides are normally sage scrub and manzanita. Thanks to the creek running through here, though, everything from the banana plants to hibiscus bushes took hold. Et voilà, a South Seas atoll for pirate stories, a rainforest for cannibal movies and, in one particularly famous case, Cleopatra’s ancient Egypt.”

Obviously Addy was enthused by her subject. Using her spoon again, she pointed down the beach. “There’s a small room attached to the art gallery beside Captain Crow’s that’s an archive for business papers and memorabilia from Sunrise Pictures—the company that operated out of the cove. I’m the first scholar given access to all of it.”

“Fascinating.” Layla darted another glance at Vance, then her tongue came out to touch that top-heavy upper lip.

Off-limits, he reminded himself. And you’re way past your days of reckless rule-breaking. Even if the rules are of your very own making.

Layla smoothed the skirt of her dress with her palms. “Well, if you could use me, I’m free after my morning baking’s done.” Again, she slid him a look.

Huh, Vance thought, not knowing what to make of the strange vibe he was getting from her. It wasn’t just wary, it was...

“While I’m here, I’d like to keep myself very busy,” she continued. “Very, very busy.” This time she studiously avoided his gaze.

And then he finally got it.

Hell, he thought, surprised by his own thickheadedness. He could probably blame that on Blythe, too—it was only natural to distrust his instincts when it came to women after receiving that letter from her ending with “and I hope this won’t cause any unpleasantness between us.”

But now he couldn’t ignore what his gut was telling him. The lust bug that had bitten him so bad? Looked like it had sunk its teeth into Layla, too. This hot-for-you thing went both ways.

Dammit.

“So what do you say, Addy?” Layla asked. “Can you use my help?”

The other woman shrugged. “If you want, but are you sure you’ll have time with what you and Vance have on the calendar?”

Layla’s blank look said what he didn’t have to. Addy groaned. “Vance hasn’t told you about that yet.” She turned to him. “I’m not normally so stupid, you know. It’s Baxter.”