He's the One (7 page)

Chapter Three

J
ames waited for Ella’s answer with an expectation that he didn’t want to feel. He
hadn’t come to Baja hoping for anything but a few days without expectation, grief,
or a page from the beeper he’d left at home. He certainly hadn’t expected his estranged
wife.

Who stood before him like a tempting, forbidden treat with her long, wild, blond curls
playing peek-a-boo with her torso and shoulders, her clear blue eyes full of the wanting
she wouldn’t admit to, and then there was her mouth. God, that mouth, with the full,
pouty lips that could give a grown man a wet dream, damp from her own nervous tongue.

His first response had been a resounding,
Yeah, baby
.

But then they’d gotten to the part of her story where he realized she hadn’t come
here for him at all. It’d been her work,
again
, the same work that had split them up. Thanks to the kind of characters she investigated—the
scum of the earth, basically—she’d been manhandled into this helpless, compromising
position, and that both terrified and infuriated him because one day she was going
to get herself killed.

And he’d have to bury her.

His heart clenched good and hard over that. When they’d been together, she’d had him
popping Tums like candy, and he couldn’t handle it. Now, with a few months of distance
beneath his belt, he figured he deserved a little revenge for his heart, which she’d
broken.

Make that decimated.

Oh yeah, definitely he had a little payback coming his way, and he was nothing if
not a man who made the best of his time. Well aware that the only thing protecting
her modesty was his chest against hers, he shifted back an inch.

Her towel hit the floor.

“
James
.”

Probably not his smartest idea, letting the towel fall, because with her standing
there wearing exactly nothing, virtually his captive, his every muscle shifted to
full alert status.

She tried to turn away, which was not easy restrained as she was. She bumped into
his fully clothed body, things shimmying and shaking, mostly her glorious breasts.
She had tan lines, which dissolved his bones right then and there. Her breasts gleamed
pale and beautiful, and between her legs she’d waxed or shaved, or whatever it was
a woman did to drive men right out of their minds.

She let out an infuriated sound and fought with the cuffs. It was sick of him, he
knew, but he was getting off on this.

“This is ridiculous,” she spat out.

No, what was ridiculous was what the feel of her bare ass to the front of his crotch
was doing to him. He spun her back around to face him. “Then you should be able to
say the words. And when you do, I’ll uncuff you and we’ll go on our merry way. Our
merry
single
way.”

She went very still. “Is that what you want?”

Christ, no
. “Just say it.”

She lifted her free hand, presumably to cover some part of herself or another, or
maybe to smack him, and he caught it, holding it out to her side.

“Say it.”

“
Fine
. I don’t want y—” As before, the words tripped on her tongue and she closed her eyes.

He realized he’d been holding his breath, but something surged through him now. It
felt like triumph, but also a bone-quivering relief.

His gut
had
told him the truth. She still wanted him.
Damn, Ella
. He didn’t know whether to kiss them both stupid or shake the hell out of her and
demand to know why she’d sent those divorce papers. “Finish it.”

She licked her lips. “I . . .”

Looking into her huge baby blues, he momentarily couldn’t see the body he wanted to
drop to his knees and worship but that didn’t matter. Her dazzling, lush curves had
imprinted themselves on his brain years ago. Had he thought he was merely exacting
a little revenge? Like hell. More like sinking his own ship here. But definitely,
he liked her tied up. Liked it that she couldn’t run, couldn’t go off to her dangerous
job, couldn’t do anything but face him.

Which she hadn’t had to do in too damn long.

“Okay, but you’d better listen,” she warned him.

“Because I’m only going to say this once.” She stared at a spot just over his shoulder.
“I. Don’t. Want. You. Anymore.” She shot him a shaky smile. “
There
.”

“Uh-huh.” She was gorgeous and smart and funny, and everything he’d once upon a time
wanted, but she was a horrible liar. And she
was
lying, he had no doubt, a particularly fascinating fact.

Also fascinating, against him her body was screaming the opposite. Her heart raced,
her nipples bore two hard points into his chest, while her skin radiated a heat that
had nothing to do with the warm evening. It caused a surge of excitement through his
own body that he hadn’t felt since . . . since he’d been with her.

“I said it,” she whispered into his silence, lifting her head slowly, which had her
out-of-control hair tickling his chin and throat in agonizing little butterfly kisses.
“So now you have to undo me.” Her nose just barely glanced along his throat, and all
of it combined, slamming home memories of the times they’d been together, when he’d
practically inhaled her every night.

They’d never been able to get enough of each other. “You lied.”

“Did not,” she said. Her eyes were still wide, dilated nearly black. Her breathing
was shallow, and he knew damn well that wasn’t fear.

“I have proof,” he said, and slid his fingers along her jaw until they sank into her
hair. Her eyes drifted shut again, slowly. She’d always loved when he’d played with
her hair.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“You can’t catch your breath.” He dipped his mouth to the spot beneath her ear, which
he knew was incredibly sensitive to his touch.

She shivered.

Now
he
was the one cheating and he didn’t care. He danced his other hand down her free arm,
then squeezed her hip before skimming up the bare skin along her ribs. He spread his
fingers wide, so they rested just beneath her breast as he let his gaze once again
fall over her. “God, El.” His entire body clenched, hard and throbbing. “How could
you have forgotten what it’s like between us?”

She drew her bottom lip between her teeth, and he wanted to do the same. He wanted
to gobble her up whole. “Your nipples are hard.” He glided his thumb along her highest
rib, just barely brushing the curve of her breast.

“Maybe I’m cold,” she said in that same shuddery voice that told him she was having
as much trouble controlling herself as he was.

“It’s ninety degrees in here.” He was sweating. She had a fine sheen to her skin,
as well. He wanted to lap it up. Wanted to lap
her
up. His thumb slid over her nipple, catching on the very tip.

Both of them caught their breath.

Her head fell back and thunked against the wall. He leaned in, mouth open, to nibble
at her throat, but that was instinctive, that was affection and heat, and he stopped
a breath away because this wasn’t supposed to be about any of that. Damn, he’d nearly
forgotten. He was trying to prove a point here. “Maybe you are cold,” he allowed with
some disbelief. “But there’s one reaction you always give me that has nothing to do
with being chilled.” With that, he glided his fingers down her belly, her muscles
quivering at his touch.

“Don’t even think about it,” she whispered.

“Oh, I’m thinking about it, Super Girl.”

“James,” she choked out as he stroked a finger over her mound, then into her petal-soft
folds.

“You’re wet.” His legs nearly buckled at the feel of her. “Is this for me, Ella?”

Letting out a half whimper, half sob, her free hand fisted in his shirt. Definitely
not a sound of distress, he noted, but of arousal, and he groaned as he sank into
that creamy heat.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “So I lied. So I want you. It’s only because I haven’t
had sex in too long and I ran out of batteries, so don’t flatter yourself.”

His gaze met hers as his thumb found her clit and lightly stroked.

Her eyes went opaque. Her fingers dug further into his chest, pulling out more than
a few hairs, which made him wince, but he kept up the torment. It was the least of
what she deserved.

“I’m going to go off like a rocket,” she gasped.

Yeah. And he wanted to see it, feel it. Cause it. Wanted to remind her exactly what
she was missing out on. Pride and brainless ego on his part? Maybe. He didn’t care.
He kept stroking her.

“James.” A few more chest hairs were lost. “
Stop
.”

Damn, the magic word. He stopped but left his hands on her.

She dropped her head to his chest and gulped for air. “I told you,” she said tightly,
head still down on his chest. “I told you what you wanted to hear. Now please, James,
get me free.”

He didn’t want to, but there was something in her voice that stopped him cold, and
he was deathly afraid it was tears. “Okay,” he said quietly, and stroked a hand over
her long, wild hair. She was trembling, and his heart wrenched. Christ, he was an
ass. “Okay,” he murmured again softly. “I’ll free you.” He just wished she meant only
the handcuffs, and not their marriage.

Or that he’d been the one bound, because one thing was damn sure, he didn’t want to
be free.

Chapter Four

E
lla turned from James and set her hot face to the wall. She felt him move away, even
out of the room, and she told herself she didn’t care.

Then, though he didn’t make a sound, she knew he was back. She didn’t look at him.

Couldn’t.

She still wanted him. She’d never stopped wanting him.

Neither was a crime, but thanks to his torturing of her for his own amusement, she
had so many emotions battering her, she didn’t know which one to start with. Furious,
aroused, and embarrassingly close to tears for reasons she didn’t understand, she
shifted to hug herself.

Only to discover she could use both arms.

James had released her.

Still facing the wall, she rubbed her wrist, gave herself a bolstering pep talk along
the lines of,
You can do this, you can face him and not let him see how much he’s destroyed you
, and slowly turned back.

She was alone.

Bending, she grabbed the towel and wrapped it around her torso. With her armor back
in place, she stared at herself in the mirror. Yikes. She needed an entire tube of
no-frizz and an hour with her makeup bag.

But first things first. She stepped out of the bathroom. The cottage was cozy but
small. Single bedroom, living room, and kitchen open to each other. It’d come casually
painted in beachy, muted colors of light blue and earth tones, and the little bit
of furniture they’d put in matched. They’d bought the place as a fantasy escape, but
their harsh reality had been that they’d rarely had the time to come.

Or Ella hadn’t. In the past two years her job had cut into her personal time considerably,
something else James had hated.

But for the first time she’d had a career, not just a job, and Ella had loved feeling
needed.

With perfect twenty-twenty hindsight, she could admit she’d given her job more than
she’d given her marriage, and that shamed her to the core.

But James had never needed her. He’d loved her, passionately, of that she had no doubt,
but he’d never needed her. Not like she’d needed him.

Still, their relationship had deserved more. James had deserved more.

In one sweeping glance she could tell she was entirely alone. The west-facing wall
was all windows, open to the ocean. The sun had gone down, leaving the sky flaming
in purples and blues, and there, at the water’s edge, stood the shadow of a man.

James.

As she watched, he stripped out of his shirt and pants in economical movements, his
tanned, sleek, hard flesh nothing but a blur in the night as he lifted his arms and
dove into an oncoming wave. She lost sight of him after that.

It wasn’t the first time. She’d lost sight of him when he’d walked his damn fine ass
out of their house six months ago, which had nearly killed her.

But thoughts like that one only made her sad, and she didn’t have time for sad. She
needed to get home. Needed to get back home to Los Angeles, and then up to Santa Barbara
to get onto the
Valeska.

And yet she stood staring out at the ocean, at the occasional flash of James, swimming
as if the devil himself was on his heels. It used to be she’d go to him . . .

But his problems were no longer hers.
He
was no longer hers, and to prove it she turned away to grab her duffel, still on
the couch. She’d grab some clothes, get dressed, and go.

Any minute now.

With a sigh, she dropped her towel and grabbed the bikini off the floor, the one she’d
stripped out of a couple of hours ago, before hopping into her fated shower. She slipped
back into the wet scrap of material thinking the modesty was silly, considering James
had just seen her stretched out and captive for his perusal, but she figured it might
put them on more even ground.

Even ground was good, and she was a master of finding it. After living with well-meaning
but hard-to-please parents all her life, then a string of boyfriends who’d lasted
for less time than her string of meaningless jobs, she’d learned what she wanted.

And that was to be appreciated for being who she was. Whoever
that
woman turned out to be. She’d thought James had been the man to do it, but she’d
learned things didn’t always turn out how she wanted. That was life.

She stepped outside into the warm night. There were no city lights, no highway noises,
nothing marring the still, humid air but the sound of the waves pounding the shore
and the small sliver of the moon lighting her way. She walked the sand until the water
lapped at her toes. Every few seconds or so, as the waves shifted and moved, she could
still see James bodysurfing, working his long, lean muscles for all he was worth,
swimming out some nameless demon that she had a feeling might have a name after all.

Hers
.

He took a four-foot swell, diving into the arc of water with skill and precision.
He’d always swum like a fish, and standing there watching him, Ella was hit with a
wave of her own, filled not with water but yearning and memories that made her want
to sink to her knees and pound the sand in frustration.

She’d missed him, so damn much.

They’d met three years ago when she’d still been just a clerk at the insurance company.
Big surprise, she’d butted into a case that had gone bad, and had been mugged coming
out of her parking garage late one night.

James had been the responding officer.

And the rest was a sweet, sexy, shivery, heavenly blur as he’d insinuated himself
into her life until she couldn’t remember what she’d done without him.

She’d been forced to remember that very thing these past six months.

The water was nearly the same temperature as the air, and as she waded out, the black,
swirling depths and the dark night sky above her blended into one, like a comforting
blanket. When she could no longer touch the bottom, she began to swim.

As if sensing her coming, James turned. She couldn’t see his features but felt his
eyes search hers as he waited for her. “Still here?” he asked.

“I wanted to talk to you before I left.”

“Why?”

Why? She blinked at that, but he took the next swell, giving her time to think about
her answer. When he came close again, tossing back his wet hair, his face and shoulders
gleaming in the moon’s reflection, she tried a smile. “Maybe to thank you?”

Treading water, Ella remembered in vivid Technicolor how they used to thank each other
for things.
With sexual favors
. She’d always wanted the same one, his talented mouth on her body. He, however, had
been forever inventive with his own owed favors, and she’d never known what to expect—maybe
to find herself bent over the arm of the couch for him to take her from behind, or
on her knees before him . . . and then there’d been the time he’d requested a raunchy
striptease on their brand-new kitchen table, culminating in dinner, which, in fact,
had turned out to be her.

“You’d have been fine if I hadn’t shown up,” he said now, his eyes dark and glimmering
with the same memories. If that was so, she marveled at his ability to keep his cool,
because even in the water, she was beginning to sweat.

“Yeah, maybe.” She managed to smile at him. “But I’m glad I didn’t have to find out.”

He treaded water effortlessly beside her, saying nothing. His manner bespoke quiet,
rock-solid confidence. It always had.

She, however, had to work at feeling confident on the best of days. “I know I was
unwise today,” she admitted, getting a little breathless from keeping herself afloat.
“Letting my guard down like I did.”

“Wasn’t the first time,” he said, not at all breathless.

“No, it wasn’t. But at least I didn’t get myself mugged in the parking lot, and then
splashed across the human interest section of the paper.”

One black eyebrow shot up. “Or locked in the meat freezer of a packing plant, and
then on the
front
page.”

That had been last year, and after his fury had worn off, he’d had the nerve to laugh
at her. “Or locked in a trunk,” she said softly.

Another episode, from eight months back, and he let out a sound that might have been
frustration or dark humor as he shook his head. “Good thing you had your Nextel on
you that time.”

“It’s a good thing I had
you
on the other end of my Nextel,” she corrected. “Come on, admit it, some of my more
colorful cases might have brought me trouble and grief, but you eventually always
found the humor in the situation. You think I’m cute.”

He shot her a baleful look and caught another wave.

She watched him vanish beneath the black, swirling water, then caught sight of his
strong, lean body riding the crest. When he came back, she reached out for him, setting
her hand on his rock-solid shoulder to hold herself up.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Nah. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t too cold.”

He snorted and slid his hands to her hips, still treading without effort, now supporting
both of them. “Still stubborn, I see.”

“And you still have to be right all the time.”

“Yeah.” He toyed with the bathing suit string low on her hips. He’d always loved this
particular suit, and as he tangled his fingers in the ties on either side, her brain
tangled with memories of what exactly those fingers could and had done to her. “I’m
thinking of switching departments,” she heard herself say. “Back to investigating
worker’s comp cases instead of fraud.”

Once again she felt his assessing stare, though he said nothing as he kept running
his fingers in and around and under the string on her hips in a way that seriously
hampered her thinking ability.

“Did you hear me?” Her breath was soughing in and out of her lungs now, and since
he was holding her, it wasn’t from the effort of remaining above water.

“I heard you.” He towed her closer to shore so she could stand. “Before you drown.
So did your own personal insurance company beg you to change jobs, or what?”

That sounded like amusement in his voice now, and she set her jaw in annoyance. “I
just thought you’d like to know.”

“What you do for a living is no longer my concern, as proven by the papers you sent
to me.”

She’d sent the divorce papers out of hurt, not that she’d tell him so. “I figured
you might be in a hurry to get rid of me.”

“Why would you figure that?”

“Because your brother told me you were dating again.” Just the thought left her cold.
Terrified. “He said you needed a date for some charity event.”

He sighed. “Cooper has a big mouth.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s protecting you. And anyway, what you do is your own concern
now, right?” she asked, tossing his words back at him.

“Ella—”

“It’s okay, James.” She shrugged in the water, the motion bringing her breasts in
direct contact with his broad, wet chest. Because that hit her with a jolt like an
electric shock, she began to turn away, wanting to hide the madness that overtook
her whenever she thought about him touching someone else, kissing someone else, loving
someone else.

It haunted her. He was a sexual man, demanding, earthy, rawly sensual, and she couldn’t
imagine he’d really gone six months without—

“Oh no, you don’t.” Grabbing her arms in his big hands, he whipped her around in the
water, frustration written all over his face. “I hate this,” he ground out. “Hate
the doubts, the anger, the fear—”

“James—”

“You’re standing there picturing me with someone else. I know it because I’m doing
the same thing and it’s killing me. Killing me, Ella.”

“I haven’t—”

“I haven’t, either, damn it. God, I hate this, hate all of it, especially the missing
you.” He gave her a little shake, then hauled her up against him. “So you know what?
The hell with that part, at least.”

And he covered her mouth with his.

She had exactly one coherent thought:
Yum
. Then her every brain cell checked out, replaced by pleasure cells, of which he hit
them all.

It amazed her. One second they were standing there in the ocean, the water pummeling
them, staring at each other with all the pent-up emotion and exhilaration that was
never far from the surface with them, and the next his mouth opened on hers, making
her whimper with a carnal need so powerful it shook her to the core, taking away all
rhyme and reason.

Then he pulled back and stared at her, water dripping into his face, eyes dark and
hot.

Her own heart was drumming so hard and heavy she could hear nothing but the blood
roaring through her ears.

“I can’t do this again, El,” he said. “But I can’t not, either.” And he came at her
again.