Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)(84)
“Rules are rules.” Emerson leaned in close—real close. Close enough that Carl could see the seriousness in her eyes, and if that didn’t work, she hoped he’d be too distracted by her coconut shells to argue.
And wasn’t that a man for you, one well-calculated breath and his eyes glazed over, his mouth snapped shut, and he stopped yammering. “You got to get laid before you can do a body shot, Carl.”
“Not much point in body shots if I can’t salt her up first,” Carl grumbled, but he took the lei anyway, dropping his twenty on the table before hobbling off.
One down, fifty to go, she thought, taking in the still-growing crowd.
“With rules like that, I’m glad I came.” A cocky but oh-so-sexy chuckle came from beside her and she froze, then closed her eyes. It didn’t help. She could still feel the weight of an intense, masculine, and very amused gaze, as her whole body instantly heated and—
Oh boy, hummed.
Because it wasn’t just any low, husky chuckle. It was the same panty-melting chuckle from her past that had spurred her every teen fantasy. In her more recent past, say, oh, five months ago, it had whispered wicked promises in her ear.
Promises that took an entire night to fulfill and five months to forget. Not that she’d forgotten. Far from it. But she’d tried.
Never one to run from her past, or anything for that matter, Emerson opened her eyes and—sweet baby Jesus, the wry amusement and combustible heat in those dark blue pools made her knees go weak. And that pissed Emerson off—more than the wet grass skirt that was bleeding green dye down her legs.
Emerson didn’t do weak, not even for a guy who looked like Captain America, GI Joe, and an underwear model all wrapped up in a big, bad-assed army-of-one package.
Oh, Dax Baudouin wasn’t just insanely handsome. Handsome she could handle. He was also dark, inside and out, and dangerous in that mysterious way that tempted her even when she knew better. His body was massive—everywhere—and today it was soaked. All the way through.
Like he hadn’t bothered to get naked before showering.
His white button-up was wet around the collar and down his chest, the material translucent, clinging to his hard-cut upper body and hinting at the impressive collection of tattoos that were hidden beneath.
Great, now she was thinking about him naked. In her shower. His smirk said he knew it. Just what she needed, a little game of I’ve seen you naked to make her already humiliating day that much more humiliating.
Clearly, karma was bitch slapping her for her one transgression.
Then again, Dax Baudouin was one hell of a transgression to have, but she had known that the second she’d agreed to go back to his hotel room. He was her first and only one-night stand, a no-panties-allowed kind of affair that blew her mind. It blew some other parts too, but she didn’t want to think about that here. Not with her goal of her Greek restaurant just in arm’s reach.
“Dax,” she said, forcing what she hoped was a professional and unaffected smile. He smiled back. It started as an amused twinkle in his eyes then spread to his face and—
She was a goner.
That was all it took, a single flash of those perfect teeth and her body started humming. There was no other word for what happened to her whenever he so much as shot a dimple her way. It was as if he jump-started her entire body—brought it to life.
His gaze took a long trip down her body and back up, the corners of that smile turning up farther, and Emerson could practically hear the gears turning in his head, trying to come up with the perfect smart-ass remark about her attire.
“Now back to those rules,” he said.
“Yeah, no.”
He laughed softly. “No? To getting laid or the drink?”
“No to both the lei and the drink.” To be as clear as possible, she added, “And no, you can’t mow my grass, put a lime in my coconut, or any other unoriginal comment you were going to say.”
“I’m very original.” He leaned forward, resting his hands on the table, which did amazing things to his biceps. “Creative, even.”
Didn’t she know it. “Shouldn’t you be off in some war-torn country defending mankind from the supervillains of the world?”
“Someone else is handling that today,” he said as though it would be just another day at the office. Emerson snorted.
As a Force Recon marine, Dax was a weapon of mass destruction in a sea of already lethal weapons, handpicked and trained by Uncle Sam to fight the battles that very few soldiers were equipped to fight. He’d been to some terrible places, seen the worst parts of human nature, Emerson was sure, yet he kept going back, his need to serve stronger than his fear of death. On the rare occasion when he wasn’t on supersecret missions or hiding out in caves, he lived in San Diego, a good nine hours south of St. Helena, which was why she’d agreed to the one-night stand to begin with.
And okay, she’d just watched her best friend, Shay, marry Dax’s older brother Jonah in an incredibly romantic ceremony overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, and all the talk of forever and partnership and a kissy-boo future had gotten to her. Not that she wanted a kissy-boo future, but sometimes she thought about what that would be like. To not have to fight every battle alone.
Then she’d seen Dax at the bar looking bigger than life in his dress blues—and as out of place in all of that happiness as she was, and before she knew what was happening they were . . . bonding. Over Jack and Johnny Walker. In a momentary lapse in judgment, she found herself in his room, her bridesmaid dress around her waist like a Hula-Hoop, staring down her one secret fantasy, who offered her something she desperately needed.