Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(36)

“I’m sorry I left.” He slipped his hand around her neck, tunneling under the hat. “For a whole bunch of reasons, I’m sorry I left.”

Her expression changed, the spark of anger disappearing from her eyes. “Now that, Mal Harris, was a genuine apology.”

He punctuated it with another salty, slow kiss. “We are going to be alone for a few days,” he reminded her. “So…there’s always another chance.”

She let out a slow, low exhale. “Mmm. Road-trip sex?”

“Fun road-trip sex.”

She eyed him, still on the brink of going either way. Any second she would nod or throw herself back and tell him to drop dead. “We’d need…rules.”

A zing of something like hope fired through him, a sensation so utterly foreign he couldn’t even grab it before it was gone again. “Rules? Like a few mission regs?”

“Yes.” She lifted her hand to start ticking them off, one finger at a time. “No unnecessary physical contact, just, you know, the deed. No flirting. No intimate conversations. No kissing at unexpected moments or holding hands in the car or whispering promises in the dark. And…” She was on her other hand now and getting closer. “For the love of God, Malcolm Harris, do not make me like you.”

“What if I like you?”

“Absolutely not, no.” She shook her head. “You cannot like me. And this only happens on foreign soil. The minute we land back here, it’s over.”

“I can live with those regs.”

She tipped her head a bit, as if he’d agreed too quickly. “Am I missing something?”

“You sure about the foreign-soil part?” He dragged his thumb down to circle the sweet spot in the hollow of her throat. “Because tonight…”

“Foreign soil only,” she finally said. “And that thing you’re doing with your finger on my…that?” She pointed to where he touched her, and moved her finger in an accusatory circle. “Against the unnecessary-physical-contact rule.”

He wanted to tell her it was very necessary, but didn’t want to push his luck. “How about this?” He stepped back and held out his hand for a shake. “We have a deal?”

She took his hand. “Sex with no strings, no commitments, no messy explanations, no feelings, no emotions, and no…hope.”

He nodded and shook again. “Hopeless sex. Got it. Deal.”

“Deal.”

She stepped away. “On foreign soil.”

“In foreign beds.”

“No hope.”

He nodded. “Utterly hopeless.”

“Okay, then. Good night, Mal.”

“Good night, Fran—”

She held her finger up in his face. “It’s Chessie. Just Chessie.”

For now. “G’night, Chessie.”

Satisfied, she gave a little nod and glided across the sand with a little too much speed, her red scarf flouncing like a flag of victory in the wind.


“Francesca,” he said softly.

“I heard that,” she called back.

Damn it. He’d already broken a rule. He liked her.





Chapter Eleven





“Cuba.” Chessie leaned over and looked out the fogged-up window of the plane, peering down to the island below. “Land of the world’s coolest cars.”

Mal gave a dry laugh. “If you like vintage clunkers made before 1959.”

“I love them.” She sat back from the window, aware, as she had been throughout the flights they’d taken to get here, the pressure of a sizable arm and thigh as he adjusted his body for comfort in the tight coach seating. They’d fallen into an easy rhythm of conversation, reading, quiet, and more talk during the long day that started at dawn.

And always, the undercurrent of…sex. A joke, a touch, a tease, a look. And at every turn, Mal reminded her of the deal, keeping the power turned up on the electricity between them. As much as she rolled her eyes and tried to spar with him, she was definitely up for some of that hopeless sex on her first mission in the field.

“Computers and cars,” he mused. “Not to sound sexist, but those aren’t typical hobbies for a woman.”

She shot him a look. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I said I didn’t mean it in a sexist way,” he insisted. “It’s actually kind of hot.”

She looked skyward as if to ask, Why me, Lord? Then, “Computers aren’t a hobby for me, Mal, they’re my job.”

“It’s unusual, is all I’m saying.”

She thought about it, but couldn’t remember a time when technology or engines didn’t interest her much more than dolls and dresses. “I guess it was the overload of testosterone around me. Someone was always working on a car in the driveway.”

“You have a sister, though, don’t you?” he asked.

“One, Nicki, the shrink. And my cousin Vivi, who, along with her twin brother, Zach, were raised with us after their mother died in Italy.”

“Plus three brothers. Damn, that’s a lotta kids,” he mused.

“Well, we had three parents, if you count Nino, who lived with us since I was a baby. But, yes, a great big Italian family with noisy dinners and heated arguments and hands…” She glanced at her own, making a gesture. “Hands flying. What about you?”