Hawaiian Vacation To-Do List:

1 Bikini up! You’re in Oahu, and it’s time for fruit drinks with umbrellas in them!

2 Being obsessively organized doesn’t work during a Hawaiian vacation. Relax. Seriously.

3 Scan the resort for hot dudes. Huh. That hot jogger who ran by looks a lot like your ex, Jeremy—only fitter, harder and sexier.

4 Moonlit walks mean bumping into Hot Jogger Guy. Who is your ex.

5 Don’t panic. Instead, think with your libido! Also debate the merits of ex sex.

6 Ignore the consequences. Go for it.

7 Revel in the afterglow. Go for rounds two and three.

8 Ooh, kayaking!

9 Round four. Oops!

10 Definitely do not think about why you broke up in the first place. Or that you’re having wicked-hot nookie with the man you were here to forget...

Acknowledgments

I couldn’t have written Sex on the Beach (or its companion book, Mai Tai for Two), without the insight and assistance of my big sister. She has lived on Oahu (in fact she was born on Oahu) and kept me from making many a critical error regarding bird-watching details and foliage. Thanks, Dana! The drinks part I managed all on my own.

Thanks also go to my extraordinary editor, Deb Nemeth, who has the patience of a saint and always has something nice to say...even when she probably wants to be holding up whatever manuscript I just sent and asking me, “Seriously, what the heck?” Deb, you turned this from a pile of tropical-themed sludge into an actual book, and for that you have my undying gratitude!

Dear Reader,

Some vacations, we just can’t afford. That’s what daydreams are for! But what would you do if your best friend won a dream vacation for two and invited you along?

If you were Amanda, you’d have trouble prying yourself away from work. Like a lot of Cosmo girls, she has to work her fun in around a demanding career. She’s thrown herself into it even harder since she and her fiancé, Jeremy, broke up a year ago, and she really doesn’t have time to spare. Still, who could resist four free days at one of the swankiest resorts on Oahu?

The one thing Amanda really wants to get away from is all the reminders of her ex...but instead of finding a hot vacation fling, she finds Jeremy on the beach, and he’s determined to win her back. They broke up over whether to move from San Jose to Seattle, but now he’s willing to relocate his company if he has to. Amanda knows Jeremy is capable of making grand gestures, but she’s starting to realize it’s the little things that make a relationship strong, and Jeremy can’t seem to grasp that their real problem had nothing to do with which town they settled in.

Hot vacation flings? Probably a bad idea. Sex with the ex? Definitely a bad idea. Combining the two? Potentially disastrous, but they’re going to do it anyway. And where they’ll end up is anybody’s guess!

Enjoy their exploration while lounging on a sunny beach, sipping a frosty beverage from a coconut cup with an umbrella in it (or in the tub with a soda—that works, too!).

I love to hear from readers. You can find me online at www.delphinedryden.com, or on Twitter, @deldryden.

Aloha!

Delphine Dryden

Sex on the Beach

Delphine Dryden

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/Cosmo

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Acknowledgments

Dear Reader

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

About the Author

Submission Guidelines

Copyright

Chapter One

They are totally eye-fucking. They’re eye-fucking, and they don’t even realize it.

The limousine ride from the Honolulu International Airport to the north shore of Oahu should have been a pleasant trip. Plush leather, fresh flower leis, well-stocked minibar and hands-down the best scenery of all time. But Amanda had been fighting a headache since shortly after their plane took off after the stop at LAX. She’d lost the fight somewhere over the Pacific, and now instead of enjoying the lush tropical foliage and looking forward to the resort, she needed all her energy just to keep from barfing. Their current scenic route seemed to involve some drastic elevation changes as they traversed the island, which definitely wasn’t helping.

And then there was the eye-fucking. Not a problem in theory, and she was certainly used to seeing her friends Julie and Alan make oblivious unrequited googly eyes at each other. But this time it mattered, because she’d made her own plans for Alan during this Hawaiian dream vacation. Plans that didn’t involve Julie, since Julie continued to insist she had no romantic interest in the guy. After three years, Amanda had decided to take her best friend’s word for it, ocular sex notwithstanding. Alan might not know it yet, but if he’d hoped for a vacation hookup he was already in luck.

“Oh my God! Look at that bird!” Julie was kneeling on the limo’s side seat, all but hanging her head out the window. “Did you see it?”

“Sorry, missed it.” Short responses were key to the nonbarfing program.

“It was a tiny bright yellow ball of feathers. Greenish-yellow. I think it was a hummingbird. I’ve never seen one perched before. It almost looked like a little hibiscus bud!”

Alan was already skimming through a bird-watching app on his phone, and a second later he held up a picture. “This one?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Oh, it was a honeycreeper, those are really rare. Cool!”

“We should start a list.”

They were both extremely excited about the bird, about the greenery, about the prospect of seeing the swanky beachside cottages where they’d be staying. Amanda wanted to share that excitement. She would share it. Just as soon as her ears popped, her sinuses drained, and the tension in her neck and shoulders relaxed to a mere firm grasp instead of the current death grip. Once all that happened, the whole trip would become like a miraculous dream. A dream in which her pasty blonde self had to wear a lot of sunscreen to avoid an epic burn, but a good one nevertheless.

Even with the headache, she couldn’t help marveling at her good fortune in being there at all. When Julie had first invited her, she’d thought she was being pranked.

“Four all-expenses-paid days in Hawaii? Seriously?” The best door prize she’d ever won at a company event was a copy of one of the senior partners’ books about management. Maybe it was different for the high muckety-mucks or the big earners, but she was a corporate research librarian, support staff for the consultants. Vital as she might be, she wasn’t in the running for big employee-appreciation freebies.

“Seriously,” Julie insisted for about the third time. Even over the iffy cell-phone reception and the ambient noise of whatever bar she was calling from, she sounded as if she couldn’t stop grinning.

“How can your company even afford that?”

“The CEO knows somebody.”

Boy, did he ever. They’d given away two of these trips, and the other lucky winner was Alan. Who hadn’t brought a plus-one. Thus, Amanda’s plan to despoil him.

It had just been so long since she’d had sex with a person. Her trusty vibrator was great, but she’d grown way too dependent on it in the year since her breakup with Jeremy. Her ex-fiancé might have been a jerk when it came to the issue of where to locate his company, but he’d never been lacking in the sack. Amanda had been sorely deprived, on top of the emotional impact. This vacation was the perfect time to close the door on that Chapter of her life, take decisive steps to move into the future. Alan was safe because she knew there was no danger of falling in love with him. It could be just for fun, no strings attached, and then they’d all get on with their lives.

She’d tried to date Alan before; Julie had fixed them up years ago, a few months before Amanda met Jeremy. She’d given him three dates before pulling the plug, because it was obvious to her that Alan had a thing for Julie, just as Julie did for Alan. Even if it apparently wasn’t obvious to Alan or to Julie. No, no, they were just good friends and colleagues and Alan was Julie’s “work husband” and blah blah blah unresolved sexual tension blah.

So she knew an actual relationship with the man was not in the cards. She’d known it then, she knew it now. Especially after being with Jeremy, knowing he was perfect for her, while he was Alan’s opposite in so many ways. Intense, ambitious, strung just a little too tightly at times, Jeremy had sounded like most of the guys in Silicon Valley at first, planning a start-up, developing a piece of software that could revolutionize whatever his particular niche of the industry was. But then he’d showed her the software in beta, and she’d realized he was on to something. A year later, his company was up and running and already profitable. Jeremy was impressive, and she’d been impressionable.

The only thing Alan and Jeremy had in common, other than software development, was the nerdy-handsome Clark Kent vibe. Another default mode for the guys of her acquaintance. At least neither of them affected hipster glasses.

“We’re almost there.”

Thank God.

It really was beautiful. And so green, especially compared to the already-yellowing hillsides of northern California. Every shade of green imaginable, from tender spring bud to deep evergreen, with bursts of vivid red, hot pink and sunset orange scattered throughout. Amanda hadn’t noted the particulars much, but the overall impression was amazing—a riot of growth and color.

She wasn’t good with riotous things in general. Everything in her life was where it was supposed to be, pretty much all the time. And she was sick of that. Sick of her new normal, the long weekly slog interrupted only by the occasional girls’ night out. Tired of caring more about her job than about her friends or her own life, because if she stopped doing her job for one second she might really think about her life and start crying again. Because of Jeremy, whom she shouldn’t miss, because he was a jerk, but did miss. Still. Every day. All the damn time.

It was time to be over him. A year was much longer than long enough. Amanda couldn’t wait anymore to feel over him, she needed to do something about it. A symbolic gesture, a break between her old life and the new. And a golden opportunity to take that first step into a new future had just been plunked into her lap, courtesy of her best friend.

Step one: Get rid of this headache.

Step two: Do some very unwise things.

Step three: Profit? Probably not. But hopefully after step two, I’ll be too satisfied to care.

* * *

Jeremy still wasn’t sure why he’d called Amanda’s mother that fateful day a month ago. The mood struck him every few months, to keep in touch, to maintain even that peripheral connection. Although he got along fine with his own parents, he’d come to think of Sandy Perry as almost a second mom while he was with Amanda. Losing one should have meant losing the other, but he refused to accept that. So he called or emailed from time to time, and so did Sandy, and neither of them ever admitted that their agenda was less than honorable. He was not keeping tabs on Amanda, and her mother was not reporting behind her daughter’s back to the guy she still rooted for. Not at all. It was just keeping in touch. If a little information about Amanda slipped in on the side, well, that was only to be expected. They both knew her, after all. It only made sense she would come up in the conversation.

This time his call had crossed paths with an email from Sandy, and their talk had been more honest than usual. Amanda’s mother had never come right out and said, “Go to Hawaii and woo my daughter back with a surprise offensive.” But when he pulled up her email midway through the conversation, he saw that she’d included the specific dates of Amanda’s windfall vacation, and the name of the resort where she’d be staying. All couched in innocent language, of course. Wasn’t it amazing that Julie had won this trip and decided to share it with Amanda, and wasn’t it such a romantic spot?

“Sir, we can do the orchids and heliconias, but did you want to include some anthurium, as well? It’s one of our most popular choices. It really gives the arrangement that signature tropical look.”

The woman at the resort’s florist shop held up a picture-perfect example of the most sexual flower Jeremy had ever seen. A labial lily-shaped body in glossy deep red, with a creamy rounded spike poking out from its center. “Uh...”

She’d clearly been through this before. “I know. But you really should have at least a few. Maybe three? We also have them in a coral pink right now.”

Because they needed to look more like vaginas?

“I think the red will be fine. Sure, three.”

“Fantastic. It’ll be ready for you by nine in the morning. You said you wanted to pick the bouquet up, not have it delivered, right?”

Yes to picking the bouquet up. Yes to the exorbitant price. Yes to seeing Amanda again, even if she tossed the bouquet and kneed him in the balls before slamming the door in his face.

Dammit. Note to self: do not think about Amanda in conjunction with balls.

Fortunately the florist’s was only a stop on his afternoon jog. He’d already spent the morning in the gym, because being on vacation was no reason to change his habits of the past year. Every time he remembered Amanda and started to get hard, he worked out to take his mind off it. At least during the day. He still jacked off in the evenings, because he wasn’t a masochist and he thought about Amanda a lot.

It was a silver lining, Jeremy thought as he picked up his pace, heading out of the main hotel complex toward his beachside-cottage room. True, he had somehow lost the only woman he’d ever loved, and despite his business successes, the past year had been pretty hellish emotionally. He was spending a small fortune on what was almost certainly a futile bid to win her back, and he had no solution to the problem that had split them up in the first place—her job remained in San Jose, his company was putting down roots in Seattle since he’d moved it there nine months earlier, neither of them wanted to live in the other’s town, and none of that was likely to change.

But he was definitely in the best shape of his life.

* * *

The moment Amanda walked out of the resort’s incredibly well-appointed lobby, her headache started to ebb. One massive ear-pop, the sliding sensation of something loosening in her sinuses, and the keen ache faded to a barely perceptible throb. The attendant nausea waned to a minor background annoyance. The worst was over.

She knew it was coincidence, but it was almost as though exposure to such concentrated beauty vanquished the pain. The walk from the resort hotel’s swanky lobby was like entering Shangri-La, or stepping into Willy Wonka’s giant chocolate room. Amanda couldn’t help appreciating the tropical splendors and classy amenities despite the pain lingering behind her eyes and lurking at the base of her skull.

The semidetached cabin suite had a private lanai with a nearly clear view across a lawn and the beach down to the water, with only a few strategic hedges and coconut palms to add privacy and frame the image. Life inside a “Wish you were here” postcard would look like this, all pale golden sand and turquoise water in surfer-perfect waves, tanned bodies frolicking along the wide, deep strip of beach that curved along the sheltered bay. The view in the other direction was nearly as amazing; the room was gorgeous, a sleekly high-end display of modern design. Highly polished wood, fresh tropical flowers and a general air of expensiveness permeated the place. Amanda immediately wanted to stay there forever.

When she and Julie celebrated their room’s awesomeness, jumping up and down and squealing, Amanda began to feel like she was finally on vacation. Sadly, she also knew she’d have some work to do. The combination of stress, the headache and her usual ineptitude with small talk had resulted in a certain amount of bitchiness on the plane and in the limo on the way over. If she wanted to woo Alan, she was off to a terrible start.

But they had time. Not a lot, but enough. Amanda’s determination to take affirmative getting-over-Jeremy steps returned when she realized she was still seeing him in passing strangers. Like the hottie who jogged past their cottage’s lanai when they sat outside to enjoy the view.

Amanda enjoyed the view very much indeed, even if the guy made her think of Jeremy. Not just Jeremy, though. He looked like a damn movie star from the back, but she couldn’t think which one. Shirtless, in only a pair of navy-and-white board shorts and running shoes, he looked a little pale for the tropical setting, but other than that, too perfect for real life. Broad shoulders, lean muscles shifting across his back as he ran. His short sandy hair was damp, possibly from sweat, and she was struck with a craving to know what it felt like. Soft or stiff, prickly or like thick wet velvet? Had he been swimming, was he wet all over?

God. He might not be all that wet, but now she sort of was.

She and Julie both stared in silent admiration as the guy crossed the patch of lawn and disappeared between the hibiscus-laden bushes that separated their cottage row from the next. When his toned back and delectable thighs were finally out of sight, the girls released a sigh in tandem.

“Whoa. Is it just me, or did he look familiar?”

Julie nodded. “Not just you. I didn’t see his face, but he still looked like James Bond. One of the awesome Bonds, too. He totally looked capable of kicking someone’s ass while making a tux look good. I wonder how long he’s staying. I didn’t see a wedding ring....”

That’s who he looked like. Daniel Craig. Not Jeremy at all.

“You took the time to look at his finger? Wow. I didn’t even think of that. I was mesmerized by the ass and his ability to carry off a crew cut. For me, a guy like that is completely theoretical, anyway, so why worry about whether he’s actually with someone? It could only hinder the fantasizing.” After all, even if she did plan to make a move on Alan, she was still perfectly free to look elsewhere.

“It matters. He’s a different person if he’s with somebody. And what if you fantasize now, then have to watch him mack on some other girl every night at dinner? Or some guy, or whatever. That shit gets painful. Better to be forewarned. But hey, why should he only be theoretical to you? You’re adorable. If he’s single you should go for it.”

Stranger danger. And even if the guy had looked a little like Jeremy, he also looked as though he could actually be dangerous. He was made of muscle. He could probably bench-press a mild-mannered software genius like her ex. Amanda wouldn’t stand a chance. Alan was a safe bet for a lot of reasons, and being a known quantity was a big one.

“I’m a stocky elf. You’re gorgeous, and you’ve seen all the James Bond movies. You’re like Adventure Girl. You should go after him yourself.” Thereby freeing up Alan’s time.

“Are you bailing out on the frisky vacation-hookup high jinks?”

Dear God no. “No, I’m still one hundred percent on board with that. I need to get laid like whoa. I’m going insane.”

“It hasn’t been that long.”

They had discussed their plans to pursue some sweet, sweet vacation sexytimes, but hadn’t gotten into specifics. Amanda certainly hadn’t declared her intentions toward Alan, and Julie had only a vague notion of finding somebody in a bar or on the beach. She’d seemed to take the whole thing lightly, so Amanda had matched that tone. She hadn’t admitted how desperate she was for contact, but she let it slip now.

“It has been ten months, ten days, and I lost track of the hours at daylight savings time, but it’s a lot of hours. It has been a long time.” Saying it out loud made it seem even longer. Hopelessly so. “I have run through way too many batteries. Jeremy may have been an asshole, but he’s a tough act to follow.”

Julie slipped into a horrified silence, then shrugged sheepishly before she finally responded. “You should definitely get up to some vacation naughtiness, then.”

It was dumb, because she knew there was nothing between Julie and Alan, but Amanda was still loath to get into too much detail about her intended naughtiness. “I plan to. I mean, I already have kind of a specific plan. Probably a really bad one, if history tells me anything, but at least it’s something. You should find somebody, too, though.”

“I’ll think about it. Right now I’m mostly thinking about getting my bikini on and finding a fancy umbrella drink before dinner. You in?”

She’d been looking forward to her first fancy umbrella drink since shortly after she’d told Julie she’d love to come on the trip. And she was looking forward to the alcohol-induced bravery even more. “Julie, honey, I’ve never been so in.”

Chapter Two

At five foot two and no bigger around than she had been in middle school, Amanda was a total lightweight. One surprisingly strong fancy drink in, and she floated through dinner on a cloud of blissful flirtation. She was almost through with the second rum-laced concoction by the time dessert rolled around, and the food had slowed things down enough that she started to wonder if she was giggling a little too much. Leaning a little too close. Being really obvious about hanging on Alan’s every word, even the ones that were probably sort of boring.

“So I told him it was a QA issue, and we weren’t going to call it ready for release until after we’d had a chance to respond to the report. No matter what marketing wanted us to do.”

“Wow. I had no idea software development involved so much drama. So who won, you or the marketing people?”

Alan looked at her, eyebrows lifted. “Hey, I know it’s not as exciting as being a librarian, but...”

“No, I’m interested.” She felt him slipping away, and a mild panic overtook her. “It sounds like one of those political-intrigue shows. Like maybe somebody was about to murder somebody with a keyboard then take over the company for evil, or...something.”

“It’s cool, I know it’s not that thrilling if you’re not one of the people involved. Anyway, I shouldn’t be talking shop. Sorry about that. Sorry, Jules.”

Amanda had committed an act of accidental sarcasm, apparently. It was hardly the first time. She’d always sucked at flirting because she could never find the right balance. Always too self-conscious to just have fun with it, and the sarcastic voice was her default when she was nervous. Tonight was no different, but the liquor helped her ignore that and go full steam ahead. Never mind that in her experience she was almost always the Titanic in this scenario. Jeremy was the only one who’d ever made this easy for her.

They’d nearly finished dessert by the time she worked up the nerve for another attempt. Sliding her foot out of her flip-flop, she edged it forward under cover of the table until her toes encountered something firm, warm...another foot. Bingo.

Flush with success, she didn’t grasp the significance of the puzzled expression on Julie’s face, and only realized her mistake when her friend jerked her feet up, clutching her knees to her chest and peering sideways under the table.

“I think something just crawled over my foot!”

Alan ducked under to look, too. “I don’t see anything. Was it a bug or something?”

“I don’t know. Not a bug, something bigger. Gah!”

People at the neighboring tables were looking their way, a general groundswell of consternation beginning to surge from the epicenter that was Amanda’s hotly blushing face.

“No, Jules. No, that was...uh, that was me. Sorry. Sorry, everyone.”

The crowd’s attention slipped away, but Julie’s was suddenly focused on Amanda.

“The fuck?”

“I was...stretching?” No effect. “Just, you know, making fists with my toes. Like a reflexology thing. Trying to relax. Still kind of have a headache.” If she threw enough options out there, one of them was bound to help eventually. Apparently it was the headache bit.

“Oh, honey. Why didn’t you tell me? I thought it went away hours ago. And here we were eating seafood in front of you.”

Which would have been a problem, when the headache was still in full force. Now that it was just slinking around in the background, food and smells were no longer the enemy. “I’m fine. Really. It’s much better than it was. Sorry I startled you.” By accidentally playing footsie with you instead of Alan. God, what has my life become?

“You know the best place to make toe-fists?” Alan asked. “The beach. And fortunately for you...voila!” He gestured to his right, toward the expanse of sand and ocean next to the open-air restaurant. And then he smiled in a quite charming way, reminding Amanda just how cute he was.

Once the bill was settled, Julie and Alan dragged her out to the beach, the three amigos walking with linked arms, kicking up sand, laughing too loud. Alan’s body was warm against her shoulder, his T-shirt wicking away the light sheen of humidity on her skin. He was slimmer than her taste, but not in a scrawny way. He had a nice laugh and beautiful eyes. That charming smile. There were fruity umbrella drinks, moonlight on the water, the sand between their toes and the scent of exotic flowers in the air. There was a lot of romantic material handy, basically, and she could work with it. She would work with it.

Then it happened again. A random stranger by the water’s edge turned toward them and, even in the moonlight, Amanda thought she saw Jeremy’s face. Was she doomed to see him everywhere she went, even when she knew he was thousands of miles away? Even when she was finally, possibly, just maybe, about to get naked with somebody for the first time in almost a year?

Fuck.

The stranger stopped in his tracks, mouth falling open in surprise for a moment before he snapped it shut. He started to cross his arms over his chest, then stopped himself and put his hands in his pockets instead.

He didn’t just look like Jeremy. He was Jeremy. Here. In Hawaii. On her vacation.

The world shifted under her feet, the surprise and the alcohol combining to knock her awry. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“Oh my God! He’s the mystery jogger!” Julie and Alan had stopped beside her, and now Julie’s words brought Amanda back to reality.

Alan sucked in a breath, a reverse hiss of awkwardness. “Whoa. This can’t be a coincidence.”

Amanda stepped away from him, feeling a chilly draft against the side of her body that he’d been keeping warm. She was suddenly disgusted with herself, with the idea that she’d been planning to use him for sex. With her own desperation, because one look at Jeremy was enough to prove that she wasn’t over him. Not even close. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

Jeremy waved, clearly not willing to cross the final distance over the sand. Maybe he just didn’t want to encounter her friends. He had probably been planning to approach her when she was alone, maybe to send a note or something. It was clear he hadn’t expected to see her there on the beach at that particular moment.

Damn, he looked good. She’d never seen him with a buzz cut before, and was surprised by how well it flattered him, gave him an almost military edge. Although that might have also been the muscles, which were also new and a surprise. Jesus, what were they feeding them in Seattle? How was she ever going to resist that? She’d had a hard enough time thinking straight around the old Jeremy, the one who was starting to develop a soft belly because he spent all his time in front of the computer. She’d found him hot enough back then, and got giddy from the attention he gave her. Now that he looked like a Daniel Craig body double, she was doomed. Doomed.

Because he hadn’t come all the way to Hawaii just to clear the air. He wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t want her to reconsider, would he? Maybe he thought she would magically want to move to Seattle now that she’d had time to regret her decision. Because that had been the only solution he’d been able to accept to their location problem, and that was why they weren’t married right now. Why she hadn’t seen him in ten months. Fuck.

“So...are you gonna go talk to him?” Julie asked. “Or do we all just stand here looking at each other across the sand? Awkwardly? Like we’re doing right now...”

“Fuck. I just wanted a damn vacation.” Amanda was pleading, but she wasn’t sure with whom. Herself, maybe? Jeremy, who had taken a hesitant step toward their uncomfortable little group? “And maybe some action. Was that really too much to ask? Really?”

“Oh, he’s coming over here. Please go talk to him.”

“Fuck.” As much as she dreaded talking to Jeremy, she didn’t want her friends to be part of the conversation. He’d stopped again, so it was apparently up to her to close the distance. Probably that symbolized some deeper truth about their relationship, but her brain was too muddled to decide on a meaning.

She had to go talk to him. Even with no idea what might ensue, she had to. So she went.

What the fuck are you doing here?

Are you out of your damn mind?

Who the hell does something like this?

Amanda’s mind was full of things she might say, possible approaches to her problem. What came out when she and Jeremy were finally face-to-face was, “Hi.”

“I can explain.”

“Okay...” Should she really even be listening to an explanation? Shouldn’t she just kick him to the curb? The breakup itself hadn’t been so egregious, mostly cold and full of sickening disappointment followed by intense sadness. But him showing up uninvited to her vacation was way over the top, getting into creepy-stalker territory. Damn, he looks good.

“Wow. All right. I had a whole thing planned out for tomorrow morning but I guess I can wing it.”

“That’d be great, if it’s not too much trouble. Wouldn’t want to put you out or anything.”

“No, it’s not—”

“Far be it from me to deviate once again from whatever script you had in mind for me.” She wasn’t sure where the rush of indignation came from after so much time, but she didn’t care. It felt good. She should have unleashed all this months ago instead of retreating into herself.

“I didn’t. There was no script.”

“On my vacation. What the fuck are you doing here?” Oh, there it is. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

She reined herself back in, startled but oddly satisfied to have actually said, for once, the stuff she’d thought up to say beforehand. The only thing she left out was, Who the hell does something like this? It was obvious; Jeremy did.

“I think I am a little out of my mind, yeah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the sand, scuffing a circle with one toe. No, not a circle. A question mark. “It all seemed like a much better idea before I actually got here.”

“How could this possibly seem like a good idea?” She knew how, though. Movies. Television. Novels, even the nonromantic kind. The hero swooped in with one big final gesture and rescued the heroine from a lifetime of loneliness. Their problems magically worked out, with a few minutes to spare at the end for a heartwarming final scene. “That was a rhetorical question.”

“Good, because I don’t have an answer.”

“I do. The grand gesture. The big finale where I realize how foolish I was to give up on love, then you sweep me off my feet and all is right with the world. Well, fuck that. This is not my finale, Jeremy. And all is most definitely not right with the fucking world. How did you even know...oh. God. Mom, right? Man, she’s lucky she’s a few thousand miles away right now.”

Her mother’s championship of Jeremy continued to baffle her. Of all people, Sandy ought to understand what it meant to Amanda to have a home base, to put down roots and not want to transplant herself. But to send him here on a fool’s errand was so many steps beyond too far, she didn’t even know if she could put her outrage into words. Unless the words were total betrayal.

“It’s not her fault,” he insisted. “I bought the ticket. It was my decision. I just...dammit. I wanted to make things right. Not—”

“We’ve talked about this.”

“Not make things like they were, I’m not saying that. I know that isn’t possible or even advisable. But the way things ended, it wasn’t okay. I can’t make myself be okay with it. Something was missing, some piece I still don’t quite understand, and until I get it I can’t move on. I’m not saying any of this very well. I practiced so many times and now it’s all shot to shit.” He breathed out heavily, an audible puff of discontent, and his newly sculpted shoulders rose with tension. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Really? Because I’ve felt this way for months. I guess I’m just used to it now.”

She wondered if that was meant to be flattering. If his mental disarray was somehow supposed to indicate the depths of his passion for her, a love so strong that denying it was tantamount to madness. “And all the exercise isn’t helping?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. That.” He shrugged, looking sheepish. The gesture wasn’t as large as it might have been, because his shoulders were already so close to his ears. His jock posture had disintegrated back into programmer-slouch, making him look more like the Jeremy she remembered. A sexy gargoyle. “It’s not a big deal.”

The breeze shifted and Amanda wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly aware of the drop in temperature. She was sobering up. “We should continue this indoors. Or at least let me put on something warmer.”

Her mistake, she realized as soon as the words left her mouth. The correct response to all of this craziness was to send the man packing, not invite him to hang around while she slipped into something more comfortable. Even if, as in this case, comfort had everything to do with temperature and nothing to do with seduction.

“I’ve missed you. You look really good.”

“You knew where to find me. I wasn’t the one who moved. And you look...good too.”

The way he looked didn’t matter, of course, but it would certainly give her something pleasant to gawk at while they were having what was sure to be a disastrous series of conversations. The prospect of eye candy wasn’t enough to keep her headache from switching back on.

She stepped off in the direction of her room, and after a few strides heard the faint crunching of Jeremy’s footsteps in the sand. As they passed the beach blanket dance party, she spotted Alan and Julie together near the edge of the crowd. Moving in tandem, laughing about something. They looked like a couple, but then that was nothing new.

She’d just drawn level with the last tiki torch when Jeremy snapped his fingers, cursing. He ran back to the tide line for his shoes, barely saving them from being washed away, and caught up to her at the edge of the greenery that marked the pathway to the cottages. The sprint hadn’t even winded him.

Apparently he’d used the time to think up something else to say.

“Did you have a good flight over?”

“Are we making small talk now?” Small talk wasn’t safe. The very fact that they could chat like that was an anomaly, something neither of them tended to do with anyone else. The first time she’d met Jeremy they’d ended up small-talking their way into an extended make-out session. It had all felt so natural, so easy. Like kissing was just another way to converse.

“Well, I kind of blew my chance to lead with the large talk.”

“Why don’t you just say what you were planning to say? Since you apparently rehearsed it and everything.”

“I don’t have the flowers.”

She shrugged. “If you were relying on vegetation to make the difference, you must not have thought much of your speech.”

Jeremy reached to one side, plucking a broad leaf from a hibiscus branch that snapped back with a rustle as the stem released. He presented his botanical prize to her with a wry flourish.

“For the lady.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“But I do. Aren’t we lucky? Okay, here’s the speech. I came here because it’s neutral territory. Because I was an idiot to leave when I did without insisting that we talk this through, and I thought maybe here we could do that without the distractions of work and wedding plans and family and every other damn thing. I didn’t tell you I was coming because I knew you wouldn’t agree to it. I’ve spent the last year accomplishing even more than I thought I could, but it’s all kind of meaningless because all I do is think about how I want to share it with you. I still love you, I still want to be with you. We are both really smart, and I know we can figure this out if we try. Please just give me these few days to try. And that is what I came here to say.”

Amanda twirled the leaf between her thumb and forefinger, trying to focus on the texture and the sharp, green smell rather than the way her heart was pounding, her stomach buzzing with emotions she couldn’t begin to identify. The row of cottages rose up before them like a sanctuary, a miraculous diversion from all the junk she was obviously in store for over the course of the trip.

“That’s my room over there. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

As if she needed reminding.

Chapter Three

Not one word. He’d said his spiel, poured his heart out in his own carefully measured way, and Amanda hadn’t responded at all except to say she’d be right back.

It could have been worse. She could have told him off some more, shoved the stupid leaf up his nose, kicked some sand on him and called hotel security about the scary leaf-nosed beach-stalker guy. Of course, she might also be in her room packing at that very moment, but he still felt confident enough to hope.

She looked so good, so good. He’d forgotten, like he always did, how deeply adorable she was. How her expressions sometimes punched him right in the gut, as if the two of them were connected in some weird cosmic way, so he was feeling whatever she felt. Soul mates or star twins or some idiotic thing like that. Mostly, it was all he could do not to grab her and kiss her. Make her understand the strength of his emotion by the time-honored methods of tonsil hockey and groping. Amanda made him stupid and he liked it, every dopey, eager, grunting-caveman second of it. He’d forgotten about that, too, but now he recalled how he inevitably became such a goofy, drooling puppy around her.

The near year of celibacy probably didn’t help with that. That bright red bikini, either. He pried his mind away from the tantalizing notion of peeling away those vivid scraps of nylon, untying the bright floral scarf that Amanda wore as a skirt, and just...damn. Just going to town, which he knew wasn’t going to happen. Not the way she’d reacted to seeing him. Not the way he’d fumbled the speech.

I blew it before I even got on the plane. Sure, now he realized that. But it was too late, he was already here and he’d already talked to her, so there was no way out but through.

When she emerged from the room, the bikini-and-scarf-skirt combo was absent, replaced by a pair of yoga pants, a T-shirt and a hoodie. Armor, Jeremy realized. Fair enough.

“We could go over to the bar in the lobby,” he suggested. “I think it’s still open.”

Amanda rubbed the bridge of her nose, drawing his attention to the fact that she’d also taken off her makeup. He liked that look on her, the unguarded clarity of her eyes and the dusting of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. “Yeah, fine, as long as they have coffee and more dessert there.”

“More dessert?”

“Don’t judge me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

In the split second before she turned to start toward the main building, he saw it. The crinkle at the corner of her mouth and eye, the barest hint of a smile. All his reason to hope, right there on her face in one fleeting instant.

The night air was full of life, the constant susurration of the tide and the influx of heady aromas on every breath of wind. Even the colors seemed brighter than back home. Cool, moonlit blues were broken by flashes of scarlet petals in the foliage, torchlit ambers flickering along the pathways. Despite the humid coolness, the general impression was sultry. Ludicrously tropical, flagrantly sensual.

The lobby seemed a little too bright and crisp after the walk, lacking in nuance. Jeremy steered Amanda toward a choice, dimly lit booth in the almost empty lounge area. A waitress appeared before he could backtrack to the bar to order, and at first he thought they were screwed because she said the kitchen was closed. Then a few words and a look of deep, girlie understanding passed between Amanda and the waitress, and suddenly a room-service menu was procured and some sort of confection ordered that involved chocolate ganache and macadamia nuts.

“And probably enough calories to feed a small country for a month,” Amanda said once the order was in progress. “But it’s a vacation, so fuck it.”

She pressed the bridge of her nose again, and Jeremy recognized her headache grimace. He’d taken the seat next to her in the booth, and it was automatic to reach out and palm the back of her neck, press the spots at the base of her skull where he knew some of the pain lived.

Her groan struck him hard, not just the sound but the way the breath caught in the back of her throat as the tension seeped from the tightly strung muscles under his hand. His touch had magical headache-curing properties, she’d explained more than once, some combination of the size of his hand and the heat and pressure that she’d never been able to duplicate. It made him feel useful and important, knowing he could help.

“Did you already take your stuff?”

Words broke the spell, and Amanda tightened up again. “Yes, when I was changing. I should be fine in a few minutes.”

If she’d caught it early enough. If it was just tension, eyestrain and sinuses, and not an actual migraine. “I’ll stop if you want me to. I wasn’t trying to start anything up, it was just habit.”

After a few seconds, she shrugged, wincing at the movement. “No, it’s fine. Um, thanks, I guess.”

“Well...put your head down. And try exhaling.”

She folded her arms on the table, lowering her head to her wrists with a sigh. Too tired to argue, it seemed. Which also explained the coffee and even the chocolate, which might trigger headaches for some but had always been curative for Amanda. Assuming she’d eaten enough protein at dinner, otherwise the sweets would make her throw up. He hoped that wasn’t on the agenda for tonight.

“I probably ought to be telling you to go perform a sex act on yourself right now,” she muttered a short while later, “but that feels too good. Damn you.”

It took superhuman willpower not to mention the other thing he used to do to help with her headaches. Volunteering to get her off for the endorphin hit was absolutely not allowable under these circumstances, and he knew that. No matter how willing he was to be selfless in that regard. Nothing orgasm-related was ever completely selfless, and his dick reminded him of that in clear terms that made him very glad he was sitting down and wearing loose shorts.

Down, boy. That isn’t what we’re here for.

He was having trouble remembering what he was there for. Touching Amanda—even if it was just on the neck—had turned everything physical, visceral. All he wanted now was to wrap her in his arms, hold her against his body. To sink into her, soul deep. He wanted to get that place of connection where words no longer applied.

Words were what he needed, though. They were the only way to reach that other, better place. He hadn’t planned anything beyond his initial speech, though, a horrible and uncharacteristic lack of preparation on his part. Maybe if he just started talking, eventually he’d say the right thing. Looking around for inspiration, his gaze lit on a row of giant banners on the opposite side of the lobby, larger-than-life photos advertising all the ways guests could spend more money and call it adventure.

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