LITMIR.BIZ

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      She flopped back on the bed. “Anyone ever tell you how annoying you are?”

      “Never.”

      Plenty of folks used stronger language than that. Being in law enforcement guaranteed a wide variety of enemies. He counted a few of Kauai’s finest families on that list. Busting up their baby boys’ drug-selling operation had been his most recent task. A task that had earned him the families’ wrath and an internal investigation.

      “They should try sleeping with you. You’re a bed hog.”

      “Never had any complaints before.” Not on that score.

      Of course, since Leilani, he hadn’t kept any woman around long enough to move to the disgruntled stage. The women in his life tended to die young, so he didn’t see the point in getting attached. Breast cancer, car accidents, the reason for the death didn’t matter. Death was death.

      His mother. His sister. His wife. He took the hint and backed off. He was done burying the women in his life.

      She flipped her pillow over once, twice, and smacked it with her fist a few more times.

      He waited until she settled back into the pillows. “You done squirming?”

      Lying on her back with her hands folded across her chest, she did a great impression of a corpse. “Unless it bugs you, then I’ll keep moving around.”

      “While you’re flopping all over the place, you may want to take one or two of those layers off.” If he got a vote, he’d choose removal of all the layers.

      “Keep your nose out of my clothes…” She choked a little. “Well, you know what I mean.”

      “Where did you say I should put my nose?”

      “Shut up.”

      “I’ve seen you naked. The mystery’s gone.” He tried to sound uninterested, as if her body were nothing special.

      “Don’t remind me.” She tugged the covers up to her chin.

      “We’re grownups.”

      “One of us is. The jury’s still out on the other.”

      He could not drop the conversation for some reason. “We should be able to talk about this like adults.”

      “We’re not talking about it at all.”

      He was. “Why not?”

      “I’m not going to answer that.”

      He turned on his side and watched her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. His gaze traveled up to her face. The small upturned nose. The deep-set eyes. Flawless complexion.

      “There’s no reason to get shy all of a sudden,” he said. In my line of work, I’ve seen—”

      “Forget what you’ve seen.”

      Like that was ever going to happen. “Fine.”

      “About my body, I mean.”

      “Already forgotten. Couldn’t even tell you were a woman. Seen hundreds better than you. Happy?”

      The mattress dipped in front of him as she rolled over and fell right into him with an “ompf.” Her breasts crushed against his chest for a second before she reached across him and clicked on the light next to his head.

      To keep from being blinded, he threw an arm over his eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

      The woman had some trouble taking a hint. Instead of going to sleep, she poked and shoved against his shoulder. “Wake up.”

      “What the hell makes you think I can sleep through your acrobatic routine?”

      He dropped his arm next to his ear to get a better look at her. All wrapped up in his robe and glaring, she kneeled next to his hip.

      “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

      “You are.”

      “I thought we weren’t talking anymore tonight.”

      “We’re not talking about the nudity. On every other topic, we talk when I say we talk.”

      “When did you start paying the mortgage?” He closed his eyes. Not looking at her fine-boned beautiful face might ease the tension building in his groin.

      “The guest is always right.”

      He opened one eye. “You’re a guest now?”

      “You invited me to stay over.”

      He had. The move had surprised him more than her. He’d had sex since Leilani. Sleepovers, no. “Who could argue with that logic?”

      She poked him again. Put all her strength behind it that time.

      “Stop that.” He lifted up his arm and looked at the scratch. “You broke skin.”

      “You deserved it.”

      “For what? I’m trying to sleep.” He got a good look at her face. There on her cheeks and forehead. “You’re sweating.”

      “I’m trying to get our relationship on an equal footing. We started off wrong, what with me being naked and you…not.”

      “That part was fine with me.” More than fine. Amazing. Call him an insensitive bastard, but healthy men looked at that kind of thing.

      “I don’t like the imbalance of power between us,” she said.

      “And to adjust this alleged footing issue, you’ve decided to wear all of my clothes at one time. Yeah, that makes sense, Annie.”

      “It does.”

      “The tropical heat has rotted your brain. Maybe you’re allergic to the smell of plumeria.”

      Her eyes grew dreamy for a second. “I love that smell. As soon as I got off the plane, the scent hit me. That unique mix of greenery, rain, ocean water and flowers. Then on the way to the hotel I saw this amazing bougainvillea with mountains in the distance and white puffy clouds filling the sky. The shot would have been perfect for this calendar…” The faraway look vanished. “Never mind.”

      “What calendar?”

      She ignored the question, just as she had most of his questions. “My logic makes perfect sense. You know it.”

      He didn’t. Women spoke a language all their own as far as he was concerned. “Let’s try this.”

      He sat up and reached for the belt to the robe. She pulled back just as he grabbed the end. The move untied the knot without any effort from him. “I didn’t save you on the beach to have you die of asphyxiation in my bed.”

      “Guess that wouldn’t look good in the paper. I can almost see the headline: Police Chief Smothers Female Companion With Clothing. Very catchy.”

      She was too busy chuckling at her lame joke to complain about him sliding the robe off her shoulders. Or the sweatshirt over her head. In about a minute he had her striped down to his washed-out Arizona State University T-shirt, which on her looked oversized but sexy. The same one with a picture of Sparky the Sun Devil, the school’s mascot, right in the center of her chest. Devil. How appropriate.

      His skin itched with the need to touch her. Not the robe. Not the clothes. Her. All that creamy skin. Those full red lips. Her hard little nipples.

      “Kane?” Her tongue swept across her lips, wetting them.

      All he wanted to do was pass his own along that seam, dip inside and taste her. He shook his head to wipe out all of those erotic thoughts.

      “Go to sleep.” He didn’t recognize his own voice.

      “I think we should—”

      “Go to sleep.” Maybe if he said it over and over, he’d

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