Deep Focus (15 page)

13

H
UNTER
STARED
AT
the water, wondering, even as he was enjoying every second with Melanie, if this had been a mistake. He wasn’t sure he could stay removed, casual about her. When she had looked him in the eye and said she would listen, he had believed her. For the first time in a good long while, he felt as if he’d met a woman who wanted to give to him just as much, if not more than she wanted to take.

It was utterly tempting and such a bad, awful, wrong idea.

Her head rested on his shoulder, and he felt protective of her. Totally, ridiculously enamored.

Was it a bad idea?

Yes. Because one or both of them would get hurt, and the last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt Melanie.

Her fingers snaked through his until they were holding hands, and he couldn’t help but kiss the top of her head again. His chest tightened. This wasn’t just sex. He was feeling things that were beyond just wanting to have a little bit of fun. He felt invested in her. He loved to see her smile, and he felt at ease around her. He wanted to find out what it would be like to see Melanie back home. Take her out to dinner, see a movie, go to the opening-day ball game in April.

Which was dating. After he’d just sworn he wasn’t going to get into another relationship. How messed up was he?

He needed to keep his damn mouth shut. He had been the one who’d insisted they agree to casual Cancún sex, and she had been on board with that. He couldn’t suddenly spring on her that maybe he wanted to see if they could extend their time together. Because what did that really mean anyway?

It was like bait and switch. He’d promised her no strings, and now he wanted something different. It wasn’t fair.

“Can we head back?” Melanie asked. “I know it’s ridiculous to say this, but I’m getting chilly.”

Relieved to have his thoughts interrupted he said, “That is ridiculous. Come on, little miss sunshine.” He stood and held out his hand to help her up.

“If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?” Melanie asked him as she rose to her full height.

That was a question he hadn’t really asked himself. “I don’t know. Key West? Somewhere warm and laid-back where I don’t have to wear a suit.”

“But you look so sexy in a suit.”

He liked that. “Do I? Thanks.” As they walked toward their room he asked, “What about you? Where would you live?”

“Somewhere warm.” She laughed. “I love Chicago, I really do. But my body can’t take it.”

“What can your body take?” he asked.

She caught the shift in tone. “I can think of a thing or two.”

“I can think of five or six.”

Yet Melanie was yawning repeatedly, and when they got into the room she stretched, sighed and disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out she was wearing her hair up, her face shiny and clean. Before he could blink or come on to her, she was out of her sundress and into pajamas.

Pajamas were dumb. They were a barrier between him and her, and that made him grumpy.

“Let’s just cuddle,” she said.

Cuddling was nice. If you were a panda. But he supposed he had to leave her the hell alone at some point.

She slipped into bed. “Ah. Cool sheets. The best thing ever.”

Not by a mile. Hunter stripped down to his underwear and climbed in beside her. She wriggled over and managed to adhere every inch of herself to every inch of him in a way that wasn’t sexual. It was a talent. He wouldn’t have even thought it was possible to be touching
everywhere
and not be having sex. Her head was on his shoulder, her fingers on his chest, stroking him so lightly it almost tickled.

It was nice. He had to admit it. He’d forgotten how relaxing it could be to share physical space with someone and hold them with zero agenda. Wrapping his arm around Melanie’s back, he kissed the messy topknot on her head.

As she affectionately kissed his chest and stroked his abs, as if it was second nature to her, as if they did this all the time, Hunter gradually relaxed, muscle by muscle, even as warning bells went off in his head. You didn’t do this with a casual lover. Probably not even with a friend with benefits. They were crossing a line they shouldn’t cross. Yet he liked it and didn’t want it to end.

His eyes started to drift closed. “Mmm, that feels good,” he told her, so she wouldn’t stop caressing him.

“You feel good. Good night, Hunter.”

“Night, Melanie.” He leaned over and turned the light off.

As they lay there in the dark, he realized that she had managed to achieve something rather extraordinary—she had both coaxed him out of a bad mood and gotten him to relax. Open up. All by just being herself. Smiling. Touching him.

He had let go, too.

He really should be terrified by what that meant, but instead he just felt...pleased.

It didn’t even annoy him when the dolphins kept waking him up with their nocturnal shenanigans. They were definitely party animals. Hell, maybe dolphins never slept. He was no marine biologist. He had no clue how Melanie was sleeping through it, but given how even and steady her breath was, she seemed to be doing just fine.

Until finally she said, “If they don’t shut up in the next sixty seconds, I’m going to strangle them with my necklace.”

Hunter laughed. “I didn’t even know you were awake.”

With a sigh, she opened her eyes. “No one could possibly sleep through Splish and Splash out there. What are they doing?”

“I have no idea, but whoever had the brilliant idea to stick them outside the hotel rooms should be fired.”

“Agreed. Maybe if we turn on the TV it will drown them out?”

“Worth a shot.” Hunter groped around in the dark for the remote and found it on the nightstand. He hit Power and immediately a bright image appeared on the screen, making him squint.

Then squint again.

“Uh...”

It was porn. A very naked man and a very naked woman were getting it on, and the English subtitles at the bottom made it clear they were both enjoying it.

Melanie started laughing. “This needs subtitles? Oh, my God.”

“That’s what she said.” Hunter changed the channel, but every single one was in Spanish. “Do you speak Spanish?”

“No.”

“Me, either.” He returned the remote to the nightstand. “Want to go out on the veranda? If we have to suffer the dolphins, at least there’s a warm breeze and a hammock outside.”

“Sure.”

They climbed out of bed. Melanie glanced at him. “Are you going to get dressed?”

“I don’t see why. The dolphins aren’t.” He was already being forced out of bed. He wasn’t shoving himself back into shorts. “Besides, I have underwear on.”

Melanie gave him a dubious look. “They don’t cover a whole lot.”

Then she shocked him by reaching out and sliding a hand across his ass.

“Hey, now,” he said as he opened the door to the veranda. “I think that rather suggestive TV show inspired you.”

She rolled her eyes, but even in the moonlight he could see her cheeks turn pink. Melanie was easy to tease.

She was also easy to hold. Hunter got in the hammock and pulled her into his arms. The fit was as perfect as it had been on the bed. “Ah. This is better. We can hear the ocean.”

Hunter glanced over to study Melanie’s cute nose, her plump, soft lips and her pink cheeks. She looked healthy, alive. Maybe it was the sun earlier that day; maybe it was being on vacation. But she looked as though she was glowing.

“Don’t move,” he said, climbing out of the hammock and popping back into the room. He returned a moment later with his cell phone in hand and fiddled with it, finding the camera button. He wanted a picture of her like this. No filter.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking your picture.” He expected her to protest, but she didn’t. He held the phone up and steadied his hand, making sure the screen displayed mostly her face. “You look beautiful.” Happy. She looked happy. He felt insanely proud of that fact. Not that it was his doing, per se. But he wasn’t making her unhappy, like Ian had. That was a victory in his estimation. That it mattered so much to him was unnerving.

“Thanks. I feel very peaceful.” She sighed and rubbed a little against him. “Take one of us so I can remember this moment when I’m stressed back home dodging snow plows.”

“I can do that.” He hit the camera button again and positioned his arm so they were both on screen. What he saw made his heart damn near skip a beat. They looked...together. Like a couple. Easy and comfortable with each other.

He hit the button several times, wanting to capture the intimacy of their embrace. Melanie didn’t smile with her teeth, but just gave the camera a sweet smile. Then he turned and glanced at her while he hit the button again. He wanted to look at them later. See her. See him with her. Hunter kissed her.

They didn’t speak, just held each other, the weightlessness of the hammock soothing, the distant lull of the ocean making Hunter’s eyes drift closed.

* * *

H
UNTER
WENT
TO
the ruins with Melanie. She knew he really didn’t want to, but he never said a word. After two days of lying on the beach and splashing in the ocean together, she was more relaxed than she could have imagined possible, and she was enjoying their day poking around the crumbling ruins. Hunter was sitting on the edge of a cliff, his feet dangling over the side, his head turned up toward the sun, eyes closed.

She clearly wasn’t the only one who had needed this vacation. Hunter seemed more and more open and at ease with her. He had talked about his mother, who sounded like a pistol, and about how he would like to get a dog. Music, movies, sports... They had covered the basic ground when getting to know someone, and as she stared at him, the majestic ocean turquoise blue behind him, she realized that if she went home and never saw him again, there would be a hole in her heart.

Maybe they could be friends, or maybe only lovers or maybe something more, but what she had learned this week was that she no longer wanted to play it safe. In shielding her heart, she had only managed to hurt it. So if she wanted a real shot at happiness with a man, she needed to stop standing back from the edge. She needed to dangle over the edge like Hunter’s feet were right now.

So she went and sat down next to him. “Hey, stranger.”

He opened one eye. “Hey, sexypants.”

That made her laugh. “Melly Sexypants is almost a better stage name than Melly Ambrosia.”

“No one would take you seriously if that was your name,” he deadpanned.

His hand snaked over and landed on her knee, massaging her skin below her sundress.

“Do we have to go home?” she asked.

“I’m down with running away if you are.”

Melanie figured now was the time. Throw it out there. Otherwise what would happen? If she waited one more night, then suddenly they’d be on the plane, and the whole damn thing would be awkward. It would be too late. They would go their separate ways, him establishing his place in the security firm and her dealing with the fallout of her dead relationship with Ian.

“Unfortunately, I like to eat and have a roof over my head.”

“That is somewhat important,” he agreed.

God, she was losing her nerve. “But I was thinking...maybe when we get back home, we can see each other again. You know, let go for real. Live in the moment.”

Her heart thumped unnaturally fast in her chest as she waited for him to answer.

Hunter’s expression was shuttered. “We talked about this. I thought we decided it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Even as her heart sank, she forged ahead, not ready to back down until she spoke all her feelings honestly. “Did we? We agreed it was a vacation fling. We didn’t talk about why we could or couldn’t see each other back in Chicago.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Why would you hurt me?” she asked, honestly curious. “You didn’t hurt Danielle. She hurt you.”

“I don’t know that I’m
enough
for you.”

“Let me decide that. Let’s just hang out and see what happens.”

“Sex, that’s what will happen.” He turned to her, and his eyes were intense, his jaw shut. “And we’ll spend all our time together, and then I’m going to end up falling for you.”

“I would like that,” she said simply. “Because I’ve already fallen for you.”

There was a pause. “What about Ian?”

“What about him?” This had absolutely nothing to do with Ian, other than the fact that he was an example of how she wasn’t taking enough risks when it came to men. She needed to leap, stop playing it safe and settling.

“You work for him.”

It wasn’t a question, and Melanie nodded. “Yes. Are you afraid I’m going to get back together with him?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded grumpy. “See, that’s what you would have to deal with. Me not being able to articulate my feelings.”

She kissed his shoulder. “You’ve been a friend to me. I don’t want you to disappear as suddenly from my life as you appeared. You can share or not share whatever you want with me.”

Melanie searched his face when he didn’t respond.

“You want to know my feelings? I want you to quit your job. I want you to march into that office and tell Bainbridge to suck it. He shouldn’t be allowed to do what he did to you and not think there are consequences.”

She appreciated his indignation on her behalf, but he was forgetting something. “The only person who is punished if I quit is me. Ian will just hire a replacement.”

“I doubt it’s that simple.”

“It is.” Her throat felt tight at the thought. “I do what hundreds of people are qualified to do. It doesn’t make any sense to quit without another position in place.”

“So find another position.”

Melanie frowned. “Why does it matter?”

“I want you to be valued, respected.” He leaned over and kissed her softly. “I don’t understand how Bainbridge didn’t see how amazing you are.”

Her heart softened. “Funny. I’ve been thinking the same thing about your ex-girlfriend all week.”

“I get it, though. I’m sorry. I can’t expect you to quit your job out of pure righteousness. But I do think you’d be happier if you found something new.”