“No. I stick strictly to convenience and liquor stores for my life of crime.”
“Penny ante,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.
“What about you? Are you a secret double agent seducing your way into state secrets?”
She batted her lashes. “You think I could?”
“Honey, I know you could.”
The vehemence in his tone made her smile fade a bit. They were no longer teasing and joking. The attraction between them had been thick from the moment he’d turned around and found her in his room, but they’d been successfully hiding from it. Except, she suddenly remembered, for that long, heated moment when he’d held her in his arms after he’d caught her. She wasn’t a mind reader, but she’d had no difficulty seeing what was going through his head. Probably because the same wild, erotic thoughts had been going through hers.
Sex with a stranger. Nameless, guiltless, hedonistic. Wild and unforgettable and something never to be regretted.
Oh, yes. She’d definitely been thinking those thoughts.
The fact that he had, too, and that he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation, reinforced her hero assessment. She couldn’t think of him as merely a nice guy...that didn’t do justice to this man. She barely knew him, yet she knew he was ever so much more than that.
As if he’d noticed the warm, approving way she was looking at him, he cleared his throat and slid off the bed, standing beside it. “Think you can sit up?”
She nodded, knowing she could do it on her own but somehow unable to refuse his help when he bent and slid a powerful arm behind her shoulders. He helped her into a sitting position and it was all she could do not to turn her head and nip at the rigid muscle flexing near her cheek, or to breathe deeply to inhale his musky, masculine scent.
Tommy had obviously been right. She needed sex, badly. And for a moment, she found herself wishing her first impression had been correct and the man had been for hire. Because completely unencumbered, drop-your-pants-right-now-and-make-me-come sex sounded pretty damned awesome right now.
“By the way,” he said as he stepped away from the bed, “I’m Leo. Leo Santori. What’s your name?”
“My name?” Considering how desperately she’d been trying to evade the scandal her name created lately, she had to think for a second about how to respond.
“You have one, don’t you? It’s the thing they give you at the hospital before you get to go home.”
“I thought that was a blanket.”
“I don’t think they give you the blankets anymore.”
“Pacifier?”
“Judging by the number of kids my cousins have had, I’m thinking they pretty much ship you out the door with just a red-faced mutant and a big old bill.”
She snickered, liking the good humor in his tone. Then she seized on the rest of his comment. “So you don’t have any of your own?”
“Pacifiers?”
She smirked. “Kids.”
“Nope.” He hesitated the briefest moment before adding, “And there’s no one waiting in the wings to supply any.”
So, he was single? How interesting that he’d felt the need to point that out. How fascinating that the knowledge made her heart leap in her chest.
“What about you?”
“No pacifiers. No kids. Nobody trying to get me to have them.”
“Well, that covers just about everything,” he said. “Except one... Are you going to tell me your name?”
“It’s Madison,” she said.
She didn’t add the last name. No need to tempt fate, right? He didn’t look like the kind of guy who followed Hollywood gossip. Nor did he seem the type who would sell her out to the tabloids. But then, the host of that syndicated radio show hadn’t seemed like the type who would release her private number on the air so she could be bombarded with hateful calls and texts, either.
If this Leo Santori was the curious type, he could get online—she supposed even this reclusive resort had internet access—and check her out on Google. If he had her first and last names, he’d come up with a ton of hits, none of which put her in a very good light. Any of them would probably tip somebody off that they could make a quick buck selling her out to the tabloids. That was one reason she’d chosen this resort—they apparently catered to wealthy clientele looking for privacy.
Which made her wonder just what Leo Santori did for a living, and what he’d come here to escape.
“Okay, Madison, how about you stay here? I’ll go talk to the people at the front desk and try to get this straightened out. And I’ll bring you something to eat when I come back.”
“I couldn’t...”
“Sure you could. Feel free to dive into the pool and cool off while I’m gone. You look like you could use it.”
She glanced out the door, seeing the beautiful swimming pool, so secluded in a private, idyllic garden, and realized he was right. Gliding through that cool water sounded like heaven right now.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” she asked, feeling badly but also really not wanting to make that long trudge back to the front desk again.
“I’m sure,” he said, heading into the bathroom. The bed was angled so that she had a clear view of him standing in front of the large mirror, and she watched as he grabbed a shirt and pulled it on over his massive shoulders.
Gracious, the man’s muscles had muscles. Her heart was being all spastic, thudding and skipping along, and she couldn’t seem to even out her breaths to get the right amount of oxygen. She felt light-headed, no longer queasy but there were definitely butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. Her legs were quivering a little, and she was hot between them.
The stranger was totally turning her on, like she couldn’t ever remember being turned on before. He was like a miracle worker, a sex god who got women all hot and bothered for a living...except he apparently didn’t follow through.
Right. Not a gigolo. Check.
Which was too bad.
You’re being ridiculous a little voice in her head said. One thing Madison had never been accused of was having a limited imagination. Considering she wrote stories for a living—one of which was an extremely erotic film that would surely earn an NC-17 rating if it ever got made, and that looked pretty iffy right now—she couldn’t deny she’d been thinking about wild, wicked sex a lot lately. It seemed the longer it had been since she’d had it, the more it filled her thoughts.
So much for coming to a secret hideaway to get some peace and tranquillity. If this guy’s room was anywhere near hers, she would probably turn into some female Peeping Tom before the week was out. Because her mind just wasn’t going to stop thinking about that white towel until she knew what was under it.
“What do you do, anyway?” she asked when he returned, carrying his shoes. Stripper? Male model?
“I’m a firefighter.”
Her jaw fell open, then she snapped it closed. Because, that totally made sense. She could easily picture him carrying ladders and big, thick hoses. He probably carried one around with him all the time.
Stop it. You’re delirious.
“A real American hero?” she said, amused that her instant assessment of him was so dead-on. He really was a hero.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he insisted with