Playing the Playboy (11 page)

The muscles of her back were still tight, but the throbbing catch was gone. So she decided to do some stretches to see if she could work out the lingering tension.

The stretches helped, and gradually she could do even more. She had her legs spread and was bending over, planting her hands on the floor, when she was conscious of someone else in the room.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, recognizing Andrew in the doorway. “Can’t you knock?”

“The door was open.”

“The door was cracked. Knocking is still polite.”

He knocked on the open door.

She sighed and slowly pulled herself up to a standing position. “What did you need?”

“I was just seeing how you were doing. Since you’re doing yoga, I assume you’re feeling better.”

“I’m just stretching my back,” she told him, feeling ridiculously self-conscious. She wished he hadn’t caught her with her ass in the air. They’d been on friendly terms for the last few days—since Andrew had gone out of his way to be accommodating and keep her entertained, and they’d resolutely avoided any talk about the inn.

She couldn’t help but think about what Hector had said a few nights ago. She wondered if it was true. “And, yes, I’m feeling better.”

“Good.”

He kept looking at her and didn’t move out of the doorway.

His hair was rumpled, and there was that barely suppressed smile on his mouth. She’d never seen anyone quite so irresistible. She wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to do other things to him. None of which were acceptable, given the circumstances. So she just said, “Do you mind getting out of the way?”

***

Andrew wished he hadn’t seen Laurel bent over that way, her long legs and lush ass on tempting display. She was incredibly flexible. Incredibly gorgeous.

He’d been doing pretty well for the last several days keeping his lust under control, but now it was in overdrive again.

He was relieved Laurel was feeling better. In some ways, it had helped that she’d been in so much pain—it kept him from fantasizing about her in bed with him in any number of creative positions. Weakness was so uncharacteristic of her, however, that he was glad to see her looking more like herself.

He felt like he’d been on the phone for the last four days, trying to figure out any possible way to satisfy his uncle and not leave Laurel homeless and destitute. So far, he couldn’t think of any option that she wouldn’t immediately reject that his uncle would also accept.

He was running out of time.

Now, unfortunately, he also had to deal with his unruly body, which was still thinking about Laurel in the yoga position.

He had a feeling it was going to be a frustrating day.

He was right. He had another futile conversation with his uncle, who finally told him that, if he didn’t decide on a course of action soon, he was going to send someone else out to take charge of the situation.

Andrew hated the idea of failing his uncle on the first real responsibility he was given, but he couldn’t stand the thought of gaining possession of the inn at Laurel’s expense.

She’d told him the inn meant everything to her, and he knew that was true. There must be some way of figuring this out.

In the middle of the afternoon, he got frustrated with just spinning his wheels, so he gave up and went to see what Laurel was doing.

She wasn’t in the room she’d been staying in this week. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the garden. He finally found her heading out through the lobby with the dogs trailing behind her.

He had to jog to catch up with her. “You must be feeling better,” he said when he fell in step beside her. The dogs ran over to greet him, and he reached out to stroke each of them in turn.

“I am,” she said with a smile. “My back’s a lot better, and the poor dogs really needed a walk.”

He frowned. “Why didn’t you say something? I would have been happy to take them.”

“Why would you take my dogs for a walk?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She shrugged. She was wearing a broad brimmed straw hat and a little black knit sundress that flared out and fluttered around her long legs. “So I guess you’re coming on the walk with us?”

“Is that all right?”

“Sure. We’re just going to the beach again.”

He assumed, from her expression, that she was accepting his company, not because she felt genuine warmth for him, but because she wanted to pretend she didn’t care about him one way or the other. But she didn’t hate him anymore. He was sure of that.

They walked in companionable silence until they turned off on the path that led to the beach. Andrew smiled when the dogs barked ecstatically and started galloping around, sniffing and snorting at their favorite spots.

“How did you get the dogs?”

“They were abandoned as puppies. Just left on the side of the road. I found them.”

“So you kept them all?”

“They must have been from the same litter, and they were used to each other. How would I have decided which one to keep? They were all so sweet. They needed me.”

He recognized a tenderness on her face he didn’t often see. He liked the look of it. “Did you know anything about dogs?”

“There were a lot of dogs in my hometown—mostly hunting dogs that were caged up outside and ignored most of the time. I never had a dog myself. But I read up on how to train them. I think I did a pretty good job.”

“You did,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I can’t believe you trained them so well just by reading.”

“You can do a lot of things if you research them well enough. I like to do things well, if I’m going to do them at all. Theo, come!” At her sharp call, Theo reluctantly stopped chasing a bird and loped back over toward the others.

“Well, you did well by the dogs,” Andrew said, genuinely impressed and charmed by the way she glanced away from him as if she were embarrassed by the compliment. “Did your husband like them?”

“He didn’t really care one way or the other. He was happy for me to keep them.”

Since she’d answered the question so easily, he dared another one. “Did you two live separate lives like that a lot?”

She didn’t appear to resent the question. “Maybe. I guess you could say that. We got along really well. He was busy with work most of the time, and he traveled a lot. I was busy with the inn, so I never traveled with him.”

“Why did you marry him?”

She slanted him a speaking look.

“I didn’t mean the question to be insulting. You just don’t appear to have had a traditional marriage. I was curious. Did you even like him?”

“Yes. I loved him.”

For some reason, hearing her say that so matter-of-factly bothered Andrew. It was a ridiculous, unworthy reaction, but he felt almost jealous. Not because she shouldn’t have loved her dead husband, but because he’d never really thought she had. “Sorry,” he murmured.

“It’s fine. I know people think I married him for the money, but I really fell for him.”

“So it was a good marriage?”

She shrugged, looking a little awkward. “It was as good as any marriage. He wasn’t perfect. Neither was I. It…it took work.”

“What took work?”

“He was more controlling than I thought he would be. I don’t like to be controlled.”

He could tell she was telling the truth, since it seemed so hard for her to say. “Did you never think about leaving him?”

“He wasn’t a bad husband. Just not what I thought. But I was committed, and I don’t give up on my commitments. I’m not stupid about love. People think love just hits them like magic, but that’s really just the pheromones.” Her lips turned down in a sneer. “Real love takes work. It takes effort. He never hurt me, so I wasn’t going to give up on the marriage just because it was hard.”

“I didn’t mean to imply you should have,” Andrew said, thinking about her words and how different she was from anyone he’d met before. “And I agree that love takes work.” He was silent for a moment, thinking about the relationships he’d seen, good and bad. “But it still seems like you’re missing something.”

“Missing what?” She seemed to really want to know.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Risk. Trust. Giving yourself to someone else. It’s not just about working. It’s about putting yourself in someone else’s hands. Being vulnerable.”

She was silent, walking, staring ahead of her rather than at him.

He thought maybe he’d offended her, maybe she’d thought he was insulting her marriage. He hadn’t intended to.

When she didn’t say anything, he tried to break the tension. “And the pheromones are nothing to sneer at.”

She laughed, as if the amusement had surprised her.

They reached the beach and the dogs barked ecstatically, hurling themselves into the waves. Laurel and Andrew walked along the rocky beach, watching the dogs and occasionally chatting.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her face glowed in the warm sunlight, and she kept smiling at him, the feeling lighting up her face. Her dark hair was loose under her hat and it blew around her face and shoulders. Her skirt blew around her legs, sometimes high enough to expose her luscious thighs.

When a particularly strong burst of wind blew her hat off her head, they both went after it.

Andrew moved faster than Laurel, and he caught her hat when it blew against a large volcanic-red boulder farther down the beach.

Laurel reached him, her face alight with laughter. “I’m impressed with the speed with which you dashed to the rescue of my hat.”

“If I recall correctly, I dashed to your rescue the first day we met too.”

She blinked, as if in surprise.

“You had a flat tire,” he prompted with a smile.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I liked rescuing you then. I’ll be happy to dash to the rescue any time you need it.” His words had been teasing, but as he gazed down at her, a wave of deep desire overwhelmed him.

He wanted to rescue her, from anything that might threaten her.

He wanted…her.

She stopped, her lips parting slightly as she recognized his shift of mood. “Andrew?” she breathed.

He smothered a groan and reached out for her, taking her face in both hands and pulling her into a kiss.

He might have taken her by surprise, but she responded immediately, pressing into his embrace and sliding a hand up into his hair. Her mouth opened to the advance of his tongue as the kiss deepened more quickly than he’d expected.

She was soft, yielding, and passionate, and she smelled like the sea air. His body hummed in pleasure as his tongue tangled with hers, and he slipped his hand down to her bottom to press her more snugly against him.

She made a husky sound of pleasure in her throat that turned him on even more.

He didn’t make any conscious moves, but he couldn’t stop kissing her. Soon he had her pressed up against the boulder, and both of his hands had slid down to her bare thighs, stroking up under her skirt to the flimsy fabric of her panties.

She jerked her mouth away from his, but it wasn’t because she wanted to pull away. She gasped, “Andrew,” and clawed at his back, as if she wanted him even closer.

He lowered his head to mouth her throat and grunted when she wrapped one leg around his hips, bringing his arousal into alignment with hers. She was just as eager as he was, wanted him just as much as he wanted her, and that knowledge did dangerous things to his body and his heart.

He cupped her bottom and pressed her against his groin rhythmically, catching her mouth with his once more and sinking into another hungry kiss. Suddenly remembering she’d been injured, he dragged his mouth away and rasped, “How’s your back?”

She gave an exhale that sounded like laughter. “It’s fine. Don’t stop.”

He didn’t stop, couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to. He needed her desperately, and he couldn’t seem to get enough.

She writhed against him, rubbing herself shamelessly against the bulge in his pants. And her motion was so deliciously apt that he felt a flare of panic as the momentum of the pleasure surged forward. “Wait,” he gasped, afraid he was going to come just from this.

Laurel whimpered, grinding against him eagerly. “Andrew, please. I want you.”

“I want you too, but we don’t have a condom,” he managed to say, the fear of embarrassing himself dampening his ardor enough to realize another reality. “We better stop for now.”

She went limp then, dropping her leg back to the ground. She stared at him hazily, as if she couldn’t get her mind to work.

Andrew knew exactly how she felt. His arousal was tight and throbbing, and Laurel was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen—flushed, rumpled, and breathless.

“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “We definitely shouldn’t do that.”

“Not now. We can reconsider when we get back to the inn.”

“No,” she said, rubbing her face and straightening her clothes. “It would have been a mistake.”

“It wouldn’t have to be a mistake,” he objected, trying to sound easy and casual when he felt anything but. He was about to say something else when he heard a barking he didn’t recognize.