Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle (5 page)

Luke suppressed the twitch of his lips at Claudia’s Little Miss Bossy Britches act. He nodded without saying a word. He’d never been known as
the muscle
before but it brought a whole new connotation to her dominatrix spiel. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at his easy capitulation but said nothing
before turning on her heel and leaving.

His gaze was drawn to the swagger of her butt in those terrible capris.

Who knew polyester could suddenly seem so enticing?

FOUR

The next
day they got the all-clear to start the clean-up and for five long days Claudia and the whole crew worked like Trojans to clear the mountains of debris whirled up, ripped to shreds and dumped back down again by the cyclone.

Five long days from sun up to sun down—picking up, chopping up, loading, dumping and starting all over again. Crashing exhausted into bed
each night with aches and pains and blisters galore. Waking early to do all again the next day.

Too busy to do any of the leisure things that could usually be indulged in at a beach resort. Too busy to relax on the beach or go surfing after shift end. Too busy for long, boozy chats late into the night. Too busy to take a day off and go out fishing in one of Jonah’s charter boats.

Too
damn busy for sure to psychoanalyse a very weird moment that should never have happened. Too busy to question it. Too busy to barely say a dozen words to each other.

But when she shut her eyes, all bets were off and Claudia spent a lot of time fantasising about just where that moment could have gone. If she
had
shifted against him, slid her arm around his neck. If he had kissed her, if he’d
pushed his hand under her shirt.

This was what happened when there were unfulfilled sexual fantasies. They just grew and grew in the deep, dark recesses of the imagination until a person could barely sleep from the wondering.

Maybe they should have
got it on
as he’d put it. Done it early, rid it from their systems. Hell, their parents would never have even known if they’d had some wild
pash one night down on the beach.

It probably would have been one of those awful, soggy, teeth-clashing kisses.
Probably
. And that would have been that.

Because she sure as hell was spending a lot of her supposed sleep time wondering about a wild pash with Luke now.

Too much bloody time
.

* * *

On the sixth day Claudia was busy inside, ostensibly going over the strategic
plan, plotting their progress, seeing what else had to be done/arranged and making some phone calls to local suppliers.

And it really had started out that way.

But from the reception desk she had a bird’s eye view of the pool. The pool that Luke had decided was on his to-do list today. She’d actually put it on Cyrus’s list but clearly they’d swapped. So there he was in a pair of boardies.
And nothing else.

He didn’t have that deep nutty tan any more. Although, he had toasted to a light delicious golden colour even in the short time he’d spent back under the north Queensland sun. His chest was as hairless as she remembered, just a sprinkling around his nipples and a fine trail that arrowed down from his belly button.

All the way down.

Her work largely forgotten, Claudia,
her handy clipboard clutched to her chest, watched Luke clear all the large debris that had been dumped in the previously sparkling water of the large resort pool that meandered its way all around the outside of the main building. He stood on the edge and pulled it all out with a large net. From leaf matter to building wreckage to about a zillion dead insects.

There was no sign of the mobile
phone he had practically glued to his hip the entire week. Taking phone calls from London at all hours of the day and night, downing tools while he dealt with whatever matter was deemed urgent enough by the person at the other end to interrupt his week off, then picking up again and getting on with it.

Nope, as he waded into the pool with the hand-held industrial vacuum cleaner the phone
was nowhere to be seen. Just Luke and his boardies and a pair of reef shoes to protect him from any glass hazards that could still be lying on the bottom of the pool, hidden by the slightly murky water.

With her occupational health and safety hat on, Claudia was pleased to see Luke being cautious. But that wasn’t what was causing her to openly ogle him.

No.

That would be the way
water droplets clung to his arms and chest, glistening distractedly. The midday sun shone down on him, sparkling in the droplets, and he was literally dazzling to her eyes.

Claudia swallowed as she watched his broad shoulders and powerful quads get to work, sweeping at the layer of silt and sand on the bottom of the pool.

‘Hey.’

Claudia almost jumped out of her skin as Avery’s voice
sounded right near her ear. ‘Do you have to creep around like that?’ she protested, pressing her hand to her pounding heart.

Avery frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Claudia muttered, quickly turning back to the desk.

But it was too late. Avery turned to see what had been holding Claudia’s attention. And found it.

Or him, as the case may be.

She grinned. ‘Well, well,
well,’ she teased. ‘Were you perving on that gorgeous hunk of man flesh, Miss Claude?’

Claudia refused to look up and give anything away. ‘Just checking he was wearing the appropriate shoes. That’s an accident waiting to happen,’ she fobbed.

Avery grinned again. ‘Uh-huh.’

Claudia glanced at her friend sharply. ‘I was.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Claudia shoved her hand on her hip. ‘What
the hell is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded.

Avery shrugged in that gorgeous retro Hollywood movie star way of hers. ‘Nothing. I think it’s great that you can’t take your eyes off Captain Sexypants.’

Claudia blinked. Only Avery would come up with such a fanciful nickname. ‘Captain
Sexypants
?’ Of all the... ‘Just because you are all loved up, Avery Shaw, does not mean the rest of
the world is similarly interested.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Avery got that dreamy look in her eyes again—the one that had been an almost permanent fixture on her face since she and Jonah had become an item—and Claudia rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the paperwork in front of her.

‘You can tell me, you know, Claude. We’ve been friends a long time—you know you can talk to me.’

Claudia glanced up as Avery turned serious, her American accent more pronounced when edged with worry. The thing was she knew she could. Or she used to be able to anyway. But then the resort got dumped on her as a sole responsibility and, even though Avery had been there by her side throughout it all, the onus still fell directly on Claudia’s shoulders. Trying to keep it altogether, make it all work,
had forced Claudia into an almost permanent state of seriousness, with no time for frivolous girly chatter.

And then Avery had hooked up with Jonah and how could Claudia possibly dump her problems on her friend’s shoulders? Avery was happy—she didn’t want to bother her with trivial stuff.

The days of their girlhood confidences had been well and truly squashed by her very adult responsibilities.

So now she wasn’t sure how she could say, well, actually, Avery, Luke sleep-groped me a few days back and I’m so sexually frustrated I think I might die from it or at the very least jump the next guy who walks through the door.

How could she even voice that, think of her own petty desires, when the world around her had gone to hell and there were so much more important things to deal
with?

And it was just as well she didn’t as Jonah chose that moment to walk through the door and Avery’s face lit up as if he were dipped in chocolate and rolled in sugar.

‘I know, Avery,’ Claudia said, and smiled at her best friend in the whole world. ‘I know. I just have a lot on my plate.’

Avery gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘You need a break.’

Claudia nodded. ‘Later.’ She
tapped a pen against the resort plans in front of her. ‘After.’

But then Jonah’s, ‘Where are those refreshments, woman?’ boomed across the foyer and Avery said, ‘I’m just going to organise some drinks for the workers.’

Claudia nodded absently. ‘’Kay. See you later.’

Claudia watched as Avery took off in Jonah’s direction and smiled as Jonah swept her up and pressed a very indecent
kiss on Avery’s mouth. She looked away.

Outside. To the pool.

Luke was boosting himself up on the side, his back to her. Water sluiced off his hair and down over his shoulders and the perfectly delineated muscles of his back. For a man who had an office job, he was in excellent shape. In one smooth movement he’d twisted and sat on the coping of the pool. The broad expanse of his chest
was exposed to her view now and Claudia drank it in. Firm pecs, flat abs and that distinct trail of hair that arrowed from his belly button down...

Before she could follow it all the way to its destination, Luke turned again and pushed up through powerful quads into a standing position.

Her gaze was drawn to those legs. Lightly haired, his calves firm without being bulky. And then there
were his boardies. His
very wet boardies
that clung in all the wrong places, outlining the hardness of quads beneath but also the part of his anatomy she’d felt up close and personal only days before.

Claudia’s mouth suddenly felt as dry as day-old toast.

He chose that moment to look up and suddenly she was looking straight into his eyes. Eyes that, despite distance and the barrier of
glass, seemed to pierce right to her centre. Their gazes locked and held and Claudia’s heart banged around in her chest. Her breath hitched. Her mouth went from dry to arid.

There was a frankness to his gaze and in that instant she knew,
she just knew
, he’d been aware of her interest all along. A part of her wanted to hide behind the desk, hide from the directness in his gaze, but he chose
that moment to sweep a flat palm up his belly to his chest and her eyes helplessly followed.

She couldn’t look away.

He motioned to her then, inviting her to join him and, God help her, she wanted to.
Really freaking bad.

But the phone rang, dragging her back from the edge, and she leapt on it as if it were the last life buoy left on a sinking ship, picking it up and brandishing
it at him, barely stopping herself from kissing it.

He looked at her long and hard for a moment before shrugging and nodding and she turned away gratefully, catching her breath as she greeted the caller, her usual chipper phone manner lost in the mental images of a half-naked Luke.

Captain Sexypants indeed.

* * *

Later that evening, with the bulk of the clean-up finally completed,
Claudia threw an impromptu luau down on the beach for all the volunteers. Back before the resort was blown to hell, every Saturday night was luau night. It was one of their most popular themed events amongst their largely family clientele as well as Crescent Cove locals.

This wasn’t going to be anywhere near as fancy as that. There wouldn’t be drums and ukuleles to hula to and there wouldn’t
be the usual feast but then, there wouldn’t be two hundred people either. There was only a dozen to cater for and, given that there was enough raw material to make a bonfire big enough to be seen from space, all they really needed was some fresh seafood and some cold drinks.

Jonah had been tasked with taking one of his boats out and catching some fish, which he’d done most admirably. Tony,
their chef, who was still with them after all these years, had cooked the fish along with an amazing rice-in-coconut-milk concoction and piping-hot fresh bread. Avery had dug out the leis and a CD of Hawaiian music.

And even if partying was the last thing Claudia and her aching body felt like, she put on her uniform, plastered a smile on her face and was the chipper Claude that everyone knew
and loved because these people had helped out and worked like dogs, out of the goodness of their hearts, and she owed them.

But it felt good to sit down on one of the logs that ringed the fire and just listen to the chatter and the swish of the ocean. To not do anything. It felt like the first time she’d sat and done nothing for over a week.

She buried her toes in the cool sand and let
the bliss take over. Hull, Jonah’s hulking great hound, had collapsed on the sand beside her.

She tipped her head from side to side to stretch out aching neck muscles. She rubbed at the left side with her hand and winced as her index finger twinged. She looked down at her hands. They were in bad shape from a week of hard labour—some old blisters on her palms in various stages of healing,
her fingers rough and dry from pulling out a zillion splinters.

She’d kill for a day at one of those fancy spas.

Iron out the kinks with a massage. Get a pedicure. Sit in a sauna and soak half the day. Maybe one of those full-body scrubs.

Nearby laughter pulled her out of her fantasy and Claudia smiled as she watched Cyrus and Isis perform a rather good hula. Jonah in his boardies
and Avery in a tangerine bikini with a matching sarong low on her hips danced a much closer, sexier number in the shadows further away, lost in each other.

A pang of jealousy bit Claudia hard in the chest.

‘They look good together.’

Claudia looked up, all the way up, to find Luke looking down at her. He was in boardies as well—dry this time,
thank goodness
—and his chest was covered
with a form-fitting T-shirt. She resolutely ignored the wetter, less dressed image of him that floated in her mind’s eye but his eyebrow kicked up and he looked at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

‘Yes, they do,’ she said and hoped like hell the words didn’t sound as squeaky as they’d felt leaving her throat.

She was relieved when he broke eye contact, handing her a frosty
bottle of beer. She took it gratefully as he stepped over the log and lowered his butt, plonking down beside her.

Claudia shifted to make some room for him.

Or put some space between them, anyway.

She looked back at the fire, which had settled from a blazing inferno to a dull roar, as they both took some swallows of their beers, neither saying anything for a few moments. Until Luke
mentioned the elephant sitting next to them at the fire.

‘I was hoping you’d join me in the pool today. Just like old times.’ Luke had been acutely aware of her eyes on him today and his blood had flowed thick and sludgy through his veins as her gaze had continued to linger.