But that was only because Amelia had ended the affair before he’d had his fill of her. It was like leaving pit road with less than a full tank of gas or only two new tires. You’d have to come back sooner or later.
“I’ll loan you my spray.” She unbuttoned her cover-up. Each released button jacked his tachometer up another notch. By the time she shrugged off the concealing shirt his heart was racing and close to redlining.
Have mercy. Her chocolate-brown halter tankini didn’t show much skin, but that top offered up her br**sts like an all-you-can-eat buffet. He couldn’t wait to take a bite.
She stepped out of her sandals and bent to place them neatly beneath a lounge chair. His libido burned rubber in his gut at the sight of her butt in the brief bottoms. He clenched his fists on the need to cup her curves, ease the fabric down and slide into her slick heat from behind.
“I wish the food was here,” she said as she straightened. “You could test it and tell me if your taste buds are altered.”
He wanted to eat, all right, but food wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
“Don’t you nursing types know you’re not supposed to eat right before you swim?” His voice sounded hoarse. Eager to get his hands on her, he closed the distance between them. “Food’s coming later. C’mon. Let’s get wet together.”
An irritated gurgle rumbled in her throat. She parked her hands on her hips, revealing a tempting sliver of pale skin between her top and bottom. “Do those ridiculous lines actually work for you?”
Yes, they did. Extremely well. Usually women giggled themselves silly over his good-ole-boy wit. But not Amelia.
Why was she playing hard to get? Despite what she’d said earlier, he didn’t believe she only slept with guys offering the picket fence and the gold ring, because she’d slept with him before. Not that they’d done much actual sleeping that night. That could explain why he’d been comatose when she’d slipped out on him without a goodbye other than that cold note.
Did she like the chase? Had she dumped him so he’d have to pursue her again? Because there was no doubting she wanted him. She studied him the way a rookie does his first ride—with quick, shallow breaths, hungry eyes and twitchy fingers.
What game was she playing? Not one for which he had the rule book, that’s for damn sure.
“You look good in that suit. Bet you look even better out of it.”
She reached for him. Finally. Hallelujah.
But instead of twining herself around him she planted her palms on his chest and shoved. Toby wobbled and fought for balance. He caught Amelia’s wrist and held on. If he was going in, she was coming with him.
The cool water closed over his head, muffling her shriek. For a second, the sudden movement disoriented him, but the silky tangle of her legs with his and his feet hitting the tile bottom centered him. He held her close and stared into her surprise-widened eyes through the clear water.
Tightening his arms around her, he pulled her close and kissed her. A hard press of his lips against hers. Nothing openmouthed or as hot as he wanted, because he didn’t want to drown. At least not before he’d made Amelia Lambert pay for making him want her and walking away.
Four
Y ou don’t drown your patients, nitwit.And you don’t kiss them.
Amelia broke the surface, gasping for air and wondering where in the devil she’d left her common sense. Toby Haynes had once more goaded her into foolish behavior.
And that kiss…She wasn’t going to think about it or how she’d almost coiled around him and kissed him back.
Toby surfaced a few yards away.
She tried to ignore her tingling lips and treaded water. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you. Are you okay?”
“C’mere.” He swam toward her with a predatory glint in his eyes.
Uh-oh. You’re in trouble now.
She sculled backward toward the ladder with her gaze locked on the man pursuing her. “Toby, I don’t think horseplay is a good idea for a man in your condition.”
“You started it.” He kept coming.
“You needed cooling off. I thought you wanted to exercise.”
“I do. But right now I want payback. You pushed me. You owe me.”
“Oh, puh-lease. I agreed to lunch, not to be mauled by you.” Her hand bumped the ladder. She gripped the cool metal tubing, but before she could swing around and climb out, Toby grasped the rails on either side of her body, caging her between the steel of the ladder at her back and his equally hard body in front. His strong legs trapped hers beneath the water. Warm. Hairy.
“Mauled?” He practically growled the word. His eyes narrowed to silvery-blue slits. “I remember you liking my hands and mouth on you. ‘Touch me everywhere,’ you said. Correction—you begged.”
Yes, she had. Shamelessly. Heat pulsed through her. Gulping, she kept her eyes trained on his face despite the temptation to grasp his broad, muscular shoulders, press herself against his chest and relive that night.
Provoking him wasn’t her best move. And reminding him that sleeping with him had been a mistake didn’t seem like the wisest course of action at the moment either. As much as he liked challenges, he’d probably insist on proving her wrong.
Get a hold of yourself, Lambert, and get out of this. He may be sexy, but he is also hazardous. To himself and to you.
But how? A challenge?
“I bet you can’t beat me in five laps. Or should we make it one? Are you up to a race at all?”
His nostrils flared at the implied insult. “Yes.”
“If I win, you lay off the tiresome cliché macho come-ons for five minutes.”
“And if I win…” His eyes narrowed. “I get five minutes.”
She frowned. “Five minutes of what?”
“Whatever I want.”
Her heart rat-a-tat-tatted like a snare drum. She shook her head with enough force to send her wet hair flying. “No.”
“I’m not talking about screwing you, sugar. Even at my worst I take longer than five minutes.”
A fact she knew all too well. She shivered despite the warmth of the water and the bright sun shining directly overhead.
She didn’t gamble, but this was a safe bet. Toby might have a size advantage, he might even be in good shape, but she’d been on the swim team in high school and during her first two years in college. Since then she’d maintained a gym membership and still swam a mile three times a week. His powerful legs would give him a better push off, but if sudden changes of direction were a problem, she’d beat him in the turns. Surely he’d be eating her wake long before five laps?
“You’ll keep your hands and penis to yourself?” His hands had wreaked havoc on her control that night. As had the rest of him.
“If you insist.”
“I do.” She prayed she wouldn’t regret this. “Okay. Deal.”
He rolled onto his back, displaying his calendar-hunk chest, muscle-gridded belly and narrow h*ps in brief black trunks as he swam toward the shallow end. “Need a head start?”
“No.” She wouldn’t take that much advantage. “Do you?”
He chuckled. “Nah.”
She br**ststroked after him and realized that for the first time she was pursuing him instead of running in the opposite direction. The idea amused her.
Aroused her.
Worried her.
“Trying to psych me out, Amelia?”
She neutralized her expression. “Would it work?”
“Sugar, I play with the big boys. It’s going to take more than an itty-bitty nurse to mess with my head.”
She couldn’t wait to humble him by beating him.
He reached the shallow end and stood. Water streamed from his body and glistened in his chest hair, reminding her of their shared middle-of-the-night shower ten months ago, of chasing droplets across his flesh with her tongue, of him doing the same to her. Goose bumps raced over her skin. Her breath quickened and her muscles tautened. She rolled her shoulders as she walked to the end of the pool, trying to shake off the time-robbing tension that could slow her pace.
Instead of lanes painted on the bottom of the pool to draw boundaries between her and Toby, the beautiful mosaic of tropical fish looked like a living coral reef beneath her. She knew from her guidebook that Monaco royalty had been heavily into oceanography since the 1800s. The legendary Jacques Cousteau had been director of the principality’s Oceanographic Museum at one point. As soon as she could escape Toby, Amelia intended to tour the museum this afternoon. Without one irritating driver.
“Sure you’re up to this?” she asked and placed a hand on the smooth rounded tile edge. “Five laps is a good distance.”
“Chicken?” he countered, mimicking her crouch, and when she shook her head he said, “On three. One. Two. Three.”
Amelia exploded off the wall. Toby bumped into her—not hard enough to hurt but enough to knock her off course. She sensed him stopping, standing, and heard him ask if she was all right, but she corrected her course and plowed onward without wasting precious seconds to reply. She wasn’t an overly competitive person by nature, but this time she had to win. Had to.
He reached the first turn several lengths behind her, but by the second he was closing in. A quick turn and push and then—boom!—he bumped her again. Two things registered. First, she’d underestimated his swimming ability. And second, the turns knocked him sideways and into her path. She adjusted by widening the gap between them.
By the end of her third lap, allowing him five minutes of whatever started looking like a real possibility. A nightmare of possibility. She put everything she had into beating him. Her arms and legs protested her furious pace. Her lungs burned. But still he stayed abreast. She couldn’t shake him—and she had to. Now. On this final stretch. But with the finish line in sight, he pulled ahead and she knew she was in trouble. She touched the side several seconds after him and slowly stood on rubbery legs.
What had she gotten herself into?
Toby leaned against the tiles, chest heaving, with a smug smile on his face and a promise in his blue eyes. The victor.
And she was the victim of her own foolish overconfidence. “The turns messed you up?”
“Yeah. You want to cry foul?”
“No.” He would have beaten her whether he bumped her or not. “Okay, do your worst.”
“I never do my worst.”
The ego again. She sighed. “What’s my forfeit, Toby?”
Before he could answer, the door opened on a pair of uniformed servers pushing a linen-draped table. Lunch had arrived.
“You’ll have to wait and see.” And with that he launched himself out of the pool in a rippling display of muscle, leaving her anticipat—dreading what was to come.
The fastest car didn’t always win the race.
Toby’s years in NASCAR had taught him that winning took patience, skill and strategy. Knowing when to hold your ground and when to make your move often meant the difference between first and forty-third place.
“Sure you want to stick with that no-hands rule?” he asked as he laid his cloth napkin on the table. His body idled like a perfectly set-up car waiting to be unleashed on a superspeedway.