And the heck of it was, he hadn’t even kissed her.
When she’d come back to Chad’s apartment after the debacle on the beach, she’d been fiercely glad of that. But it hadn’t stopped her traitorous mind from wondering what the man’s kiss was like.
Still, if she wanted kisses, there were a couple of single marines in the group behind her who would be glad to oblige, she was sure.
Somehow, though, she doubted it would be the same.
Lifting her face to the moon riding a drifting cloud, Ellie knew she’d been out here long enough. After all, her brother had thrown this shindig so she could meet some of his buddies. It was also a sort of last “oo-rah.” Many of them, like her brother, would deploy to Okinawa shortly.
As she turned to reenter the apartment, however, Ellie glimpsed a shadowy figure sitting at a picnic table just beyond the range of light shining through the patio doors behind her.
A tenant from one of the other units, perhaps? But most of them, also marines, were at her brother’s party.
Yet there was something about the vague shape…
Ellie walked toward the picnic table. With at least ten good men in the room behind her, she had no reason to be afraid.
Once close enough to get a look at the seated figure, though, her heart lurched. She halted abruptly.
Daniel!
She narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
From where he sat, the man had certainly been able to see her when she came outside. But he hadn’t said a word.
Holy grief, was he stalking her?
“There’s a whole platoon of marines in there,” she informed him tightly, nodding toward the low-level noise behind her when he didn’t answer right away. “I suggest you leave while you’re still in one piece.”
“Love to,” he replied, not moving.
“Well, go on.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “If you don’t leave, I’ll…I’ll—”
“You’ll call in the artillery,” Daniel said, sounding tired. “Go ahead. Maybe that will work.” He stood.
In the moonlight Ellie saw his faint, bitter smile. It was the saddest thing she’d ever seen.
But remembering the man’s effect on her at the beach, she froze her melting heart right back up again.
Still, when Daniel stretched and rolled his shoulders as if he’d been sitting too long, her gaze couldn’t help but follow his rippling muscles.
He wore the same bathing suit he’d had on two nights before, she noticed. Or was it boxers?
A thought that revved her imagination into overdrive.
It was definitely time for this man to hit the road.
“Look,” she began with a growl….
“Hey, El. Who you got there?”
Chad had come up behind her and now put out his hand like the friendly Texan he was. “Chad Simms, Ellie’s brother,” he said.
“Daniel Morgan,” Daniel replied.
The two shook hands congenially.
Men, Ellie thought. Did they never stop the good-ol’boy routine long enough to ask questions?
“Daniel was just leaving,” she said.
But she should have known. Her brother had Texas hospitality bred to the bone.
“Why don’t you join us?” he invited. “We’ve got plenty of chow and cold beer, and you’d be welcome.”
For a split second Ellie saw a look of such raw longing on Daniel’s face that her heart stopped. But the look disappeared when he smiled easily.
“Sorry, but thanks, anyway. I’m, uh, missing my party threads. My clothes were…stolen and…” He shrugged.
“That’s been happening on the beaches a lot lately,” Chad said. “But hell, buddy, we’re about the same size. I’ll loan you somethin’. C’mon in.”
And that was all it took for Daniel to join their party.
Chad found him a change of clothes, even a pair of shoes. Using the bathroom, Daniel showered, then joined the rest of them, wearing a pair of her brother’s khakis and a blue golf shirt, a color that intensified the aquamarine of his eyes.
Several of the other women noticed how well the shirt suited him, too, Ellie saw.
But the man was clearly a survivor. In a room full of burly marines, he wasn’t about to show interest in one of their wives or girlfriends.
Oh, no. He kept his interest for an intent perusal of Chad’s CD collection. And no woman there claimed the same attention as the sports page of a week-old edition of the Honolulu Times lying on an end table. He even studied the snack platter as if it were a painting by Michelangelo and he an admiring critic.
Daniel’s fascination with the mundane was, well, fascinating. And Ellie was fascinated.
Unobtrusively she watched him pick up a potato chip and examine its wavy shape as if the chip were an architectural wonder. Slowly he brought it to his mouth.
His lips opened…the chip entered. And when it touched his tongue, his eyes fluttered shut. He began to chew—carefully, as if each crunch might detonate an explosion.
Ellie watched, mesmerized by the slow, rhythmic movement of Daniel’s jaw, the infinitesimal stretch and compression of skin over his cheeks, the tiny arcing purse of his mouth. When at last he swallowed, so did she.
Or tried to. Her throat was dry.
Then her brother handed him a can of beer. “Here you go, Dan. Sorry about your gear getting ripped off. Bummer.”
Daniel looked uncomfortable, but lifted the can and nodded toward Chad in a small salute. “Thanks.”
When he’d first joined the party and was pressed, Daniel told them his things hadn’t been stolen at the beach, as Chad assumed, but at his hotel.
Ellie knew in her bones the man was lying. There were holes in the story big enough to drive a semi through. But her easygoing little brother had no trouble swallowing the tale.
“Don’t worry about the threads,” he said now. “I’m getting ready to deploy. Weeding out things, you know. You’ll be doing me a favor if you keep them. I’ve got more you can have, too.”
“Appreciate it.”
Daniel took a swig of beer, and Ellie, feeling like a voyeur, had to turn her head away from the look of absolute pleasure that passed over his features.
Everything the man did became a symphony of the senses, she thought, and felt her face grow warm at the memory of the way he’d touched her on the beach.
When he tasted her potato salad, though, Ellie knew she’d really impressed him.
Chad wanted this party to be an honest-to-goodness, Texas-style barbecue, with beans, potato salad, cole slaw and corn on the cob to go with the steaks, brisket, sausage and chicken he had on the grill.
Everyone who came pitched in, bringing meat, snacks, drinks and side dishes, but Ellie volunteered to make the potato salad, a family recipe and one of her brother’s favorites.
The party migrated outdoors when it came time to eat, and she found herself sitting across from Daniel at the picnic table on the side lawn. They weren’t the only ones at the long table, but they might as well have been.
Daniel sat with a paper plate full of food in front of him, but instead of diving in