“This better be important, Alistair.”

Ethan was already on his way back to the office, feeling like a fool and wondering what the hell was so damned important that Alistair needed him so desperately.

“It is important. We’re about to miss out on an acquisition here.”

That alone was enough to give Ethan pause. Lose out on an acquisition? They had never lost an acquisition they’d sent Alistair after. That was, after all, why they’d put him in charge of acquisitions. He was good at it. “What do you mean?”

Alistair groaned into the receiver. “I mean this woman’s out of her fucking mind. Absolutely crazy. She tried to kill me.”

Ethan could hardly believe that. Alistair wasn’t only the eldest Kensley son, he was also the largest. Any woman would have to try pretty hard to take him out. “Alistair, there’s a shit ton to do in the city right now.”

“If I don’t get this property, Ethan, half of that shite will stall and you know it. Just come down here.” Ethan lamented that the immense Scotsman wasn’t present so he could glare at him. He certainly hadn’t been planning to go to Texas any time soon. Their father was overworked, Vlad and Toshiro were halfway across the globe and he couldn’t get his mind off a certain blonde. Hardly the best circumstances. 

He exhaled a long breath. “When would you need me?”

“Now,” Alistair returned succinctly. “Immediately. As soon as you can get here.” There came a faint crash from the background and Ethan’s eyes widened. What the hell was that?

He was treated to a few seconds of Alistair cursing in both English and Scottish Gaelic before his brother returned, sounding significantly more ruffled. “Please, Ethan. I’m fucking begging you.”

Well, begging certainly wasn’t Alistair’s style. He was more the demanding type - and the fact that he was pleading for anything was obviously a red flag. The problem was that Ethan didn’t know if he wanted to know what the red flag was over. If it was something serious enough to derail Alistair and his steamroller personality, maybe they would need Vlad.

And he wouldn’t be happy about that.

“I’ll do my best. Let me look at tickets and call you back in a few hours.”

“You’re saving my life, Ethan. Literally.” Alastair wasn’t usually the dramatic type - and Ethan had no qualms admitting that, by this point, he was curious as hell as to what all the craziness was about.

He had almost reached the office by the time he hung up with Alistair, but before he went inside, Ethan hesitated. He checked his phone to see if he’d missed any messages from Harper - perhaps something about their next meeting. At the very least, he was sure that she was going to bust his balls for ducking out when they were in the middle of a conversation.

But there was nothing. Not a single message and no e-mail. The discovery made him frown.

He really should be concentrating on getting to Texas if Alistair needed him so badly - but, for the life of him, he could never seem to keep from thinking about Harper for very long. Especially when he still smelled of her perfume.

**

God, she was such an idiot.

Even a full twenty hours after Ethan had all but fled her office, Harper was still self-deprecating. What the hell had she been thinking? The moment he touched her, she should have shoved him off. She should have made him talk to her before he got all handsy.

But when Ethan Kensley got handsy, all her good intentions seemed to fly out the window. It was like the man’s cock (and his mouth) cast some sort of voodoo on her and she was helpless every time he came within three feet of her.

She, of all people. She, who had believed that sex was something intensely overstated and only just endurable, at best. She, who had always believed that she held all the cards when it came to attraction and its factors.

Ethan had blown all that out of the water.

Half a million dollars or not, the safest thing to do would be to sever ties with him. It would mean admitting that she couldn’t find him a suitable match, but wasn’t that worth her sanity and peace of mind?

Ethan was fucking with her in a way she couldn’t abide by - both literally and metaphorically.

With a low groan, Harper threw a hand over her eyes, blocking her view of the ceiling of her apartment. She’d been lying on the couch for hours trying to work, without much success. Of course, she had long finished paperwork for her other clients. The only one left was Ethan... and Harper was frustrated enough to dump the entire file in the garbage.

She should just let it go. What was so terrible about letting it go? It wasn’t as if the money was a make or break issue. She was very comfortable currently.

...But it wasn’t just the obscene paycheck that really sparked her interest. If Harper was completely honest with herself, she was dying to know what the hell it was about Ethan Kensley that so drew her to him. If she were interested in dating, he certainly wasn’t her type. For all intents and purposes, he was still all but a stranger to her. They’d had sex twice, but anything else that had happened between them was beneath the guise of business.

And they both knew that was bullshit.

Harper had always thought herself the queen of self-preservation. If something wasn’t in her best interests, she tended to abandon it as quickly as possible. Ethan was the only exception to that rule - and, despite her best intentions, she couldn’t seem to shake him.

Raking her hands through her hair, Harper cursed herself for a good ten minutes before she found the wherewithal to get up and pour herself a glass of wine. Then she cursed herself some more.

It was times like this that she wished Athena would call, but Harper hadn’t heard from her sister since their last awkward conversation. Just remembering it was enough to make her frown even more deeply.

Athena was convinced that she was a grouch because she needed a man in her life - if anything, her interactions with Ethan were evidence to the contrary. Men just complicated things, and the Kensleys were the pinnacle of that complication.

For a long while, she contemplated calling Athena, then decided against it. If her sister was having fun wherever in the world she was, Harper didn’t want to dampen the mood - especially if Athena felt guilty. 

Maybe what she needed was a break - an extended break, and a little bit of perspective. It was really the only reason she could come up with that would keep her from looking at her phone every two minutes. From wanting him to call when he so obviously infuriated her. Harper’s life had been fairly simple before the Kensleys came along and now…

Well, now she was fucked.

After she finished her second glass of wine, Harper stared at her computer screen for a long time. At this juncture, the last thing she wanted was to work on Ethan’s supposed “matches” a moment longer. She closed the match program and instead opened up her internet browser.

Harper had taken relatively few vacations in her life, but the image of a white beach and clear blue waters on the travel page she brought up immediately caught her eye. That was what she needed - to be as far away as she could, as fast as humanly possible. If her sister could escape, why couldn’t she?

The thought was probably one of the most selfish she’d ever had, but, at this point, Harper hardly cared. She’d let Ethan touch her in her office - her sacred ground - and she still wasn’t entirely sure if she regretted it or not.

Her trip was booked within minutes - truthfully, Harper had never done anything so desperately in her life. A departure, she knew, would provide her with the clarity she needed. She’d be able to talk to Athena and get the truth about Toshiro. She’d be able to think of the best way to get Ethan Kensley off her plate and to bring her life back into the careful balance she had maintained for so long.

After her vacation, everything would work itself out... at least, that was the plan.

Gary called her on her way to the airport, and Harper found herself both amused and surprised at the concern in his voice. “I just checked your site and it said that you were going to be unavailable for the next week or so. What the hell is that supposed to mean? You aren’t sick, are you?”

Harper swallowed a wry laugh. “Hello to you too, Gary.”

“Hi, honey. You’re ok, right?”

It was nice to be reminded that she wasn’t as much of a grouch as her sister insisted that she was. At the very least, she hadn’t driven Gary away. He was even worried about her. The only other person to do so on an ongoing basis was Athena herself.

“Fine, Gary. I just need to get out of the city for a while. I can’t remember the last time I took a vacation.”

“And you wouldn’t happen to be fleeing the city for any other reason?”

There was a slight edge to his voice that made Harper sit up a little straighter in the cab. She didn’t like that edge. “What are you talking about, Gary?”

Her friend’s beat of hesitation was just enough time for her to grow even more nervous. “Harp... you haven’t seen the news lately, have you?”

The news!?

Harper scrambled to turn on the TV screen in front of her so quickly she almost caught her fingers in the partition that separated her from the driver. She couldn’t control the TV channels - at most, she could only peruse the headlining news - but Harper didn’t have to wait for very long before she saw exactly what Gary was talking about.

She was on the television. Or rather, Ethan Kensley was on the television, and she, being with him, showed up by default. Someone had taken a picture of the two of them kissing outside the restaurant in Soho a few weeks ago - and it looked even worse than Harper might have feared. Ethan had all but gathered her up against the front window of the restaurant and they were locked in an embrace that looked every bit as passionate as the newscasters were claiming they were.

Of course, like any good reporters, they had done their research. They knew who she was and what she did, and they were currently in the process of announcing it to the rest of the country. Apparently, she was Ethan Kensley’s Newest Flame.

For a long moment, Harper could only stare, horrified, at the screen in front of her. This had to be some type of obscene nightmare that she would wake up from at any moment. She had done everything she could to ensure discretion, and yet he just had to try and seduce her out in public.

Harper didn’t know what made her more angry - the fact that the media was clearly touting her as something she wasn’t or that the memory of she and Ethan’s first kiss made her more than a little hot around the collar.

“Gary... how long has this been running?” Her voice was so tight with incredulity that Harper could barely speak.

“Babe... it was on when I got up this morning. All day? That’s part of the reason I called. What with the reports running and your website, I was worried they might have driven you out of the city or something.”

Driven her out? New York was her city. Like hell anyone would be able to drive her out. The very notion was fucking insulting! But Harper also couldn’t ignore the fact that her image was all over the TV. This wasn’t good for business, and it certainly wasn’t good for her privacy.  “I... let me call you back, Gary.” It was the only thing she could think to tell him, currently. At that precise moment, Harper had bigger fish to fry, and one of them was the man who had gotten her into this mess to begin with.

She hung up, hoping Gary wouldn’t be too angry with her, and immediately dialed Ethan’s number. It barely occurred to her that she hadn’t wanted to be the one to call him - that it would have been better if she never spoke to him again. Harper’s temper had gotten the better of her, and it was times like these when she pitied whoever was in her way.

That said, Harper really didn’t expect Ethan to answer. If he had run away from her the moment she attempted to have a civilized conversation with him, she hardly expected him to answer her calls. But, that’s exactly what he did.

“Harper. To what do I owe the pleasure?” It was alarming how fast that smooth tenor of his threatened to disarm her. Harper found her anger stuttering for a moment before she forced it back into place, her gaze narrowing.

“I take it you’ve seen the news, Ethan.” Her tone was so sharp that even the driver winced, even though he wasn’t following her conversation directly. 

“I haven’t, actually,” he returned, ever smooth. “I’m currently in the middle of nowhere, Texas, trying to do my idiot brother’s job for him.” As if to give fuel to his current sentiment, a deluge of harshly accented curses followed his words and Harper’s eyes widened.

“What the hell was that?”

“My brother,” Ethan replied, deadpan. “So, I’m a little busy at present.”

But he wasn’t about to throw her off. Not just like that. Harper demanded satisfaction. “Ethan, my face is all over half the news channels in the country. That little stunt you pulled outside the restaurant - everyone saw.”

“Stunt?” He sounded more than a little amused at how she defined it. “It takes two to tango, Harper. You were hardly shoving me away.”

The blonde’s mouth dropped open in outrage. “You are the most ridiculous…” she seethed, searching for words that might give weight to her anger. “The most incorrigible... I can’t believe I-”

“I can, Harper. I can believe I had you in my bed and in your office. And I can believe that it’s damned near impossible to think about anything else - even fifteen hundred fucking miles away.”

That did it. Despite how tightly she tried to clutch at her anger, Harper found the wind taken right out of her sails as she grew warm and slick between the legs at the very prospect. It wasn’t fair - not even for a fucking millisecond was it fair.

“I’m not inclined to continue to let you keep fucking me if we can’t even hold an adult conversation,” she replied, somewhat dryly. Harper could, of course, say this because Ethan was in another state. If the man had been sitting right next to her, she was fairly certain he’d be able to convince her otherwise.

“Harper…” For the first time, Harper swore she heard a tinge of regret in Ethan’s voice. “Look, I know I left in a hurry... but that wasn’t my intention.”

She’d believe that when she saw it. “It’s fine. What more do I need to know about you, right? Just makes me even more determined to show you how adept I can be at finding a woman you’ll fall for.” The words tasted surprisingly sour in her mouth, and Harper fought the guilt that rose in her belly.

At this point, she was beginning to realize that she could hardly be objective with the man anymore - but that was no one’s fault but her own.

“Fat chance of that,” Ethan responded casually. “There’s only one woman I want, Harper - but if that means I have to keep pretending to be interested in your matches, that’s fine with me.”

She should have been offended. At the very least, the correct response would be to want to bite the man’s head off. Pretend to be interested in her matches, her ass. Wasn’t he the one who had come to her? Before he’d even known who she was or about her reputation? This was Ethan Kensley, world-famous womanizer. He couldn’t possibly be talking to her about a single woman.

And that woman couldn’t possibly be her.

Harper opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. She found herself at a surprising loss for words. Thankfully, she was spared having to answer when the taxi driver pulled up at the airport curb. Her plane was leaving in an hour and a half, which was cutting it rather closer than she would have liked... but it was decidedly harder for her to concentrate on that when Ethan had just told her that she was the only woman he wanted.

Even if he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, Harper was far more vulnerable to his sweet talk then she might have liked. She had to get away.

“I have to go.”

“Go where?”

Harper scowled at his question. “You left the city. Why can’t I?”

“Because I want you to be there when I get back.”

Harper hung up. She couldn’t think of any other appropriate way to respond. It was better to hang up then to attempt to answer the man, stammering and flustered. Who the hell did he think he was, insulting her line of work? Completely turning her formerly boring sex life on it’s head?

The next time she saw him, she was going to -

Halfway to the airport entrance, Harper froze. She wanted to think she’d strangle him - slap him senseless. Take out her weeks of frustration upon him… but the truth of the matter was that all she wanted was for the man to take her again. To impose on her that ridiculously easy-going manner, those bedroom eyes, and that glorious…

“Fuck,” Harper cursed lowly, shaking her head, as if in a daze. Beach. She needed the goddamned beach.

Hopefully the sea air could somehow bring her back to the real world.

 

**

Ethan was pretty sure towns didn’t get any smaller than Granbury, Texas. The main street was hardly a mile long and the shops all closed at six. There was far more farmland than land allocated for businesses - but that wasn’t surprising. It was, after all, one of the reasons the Corporation was attempting to acquire a huge chunk of it.

For the most part, the citizens of Granbury were more than welcoming. The entire town was suffused with the old world southern charm that so attracted northerners like him and his family.

And then there was Alistair. Ethan could hardly think of a location where his brother was more out of place. The loud, boisterous Scotsman drew attention wherever he went - and while most gazes were amused, the woman Alistair was trying to win over certainly wasn’t.

She was, admittedly, the only thing that had managed to tear Ethan’s mind from Harper in a very long time.

“What the actual fuck?”

After his first encounter with Chloe Trellis, Ethan needed a very stiff drink. The woman had actually levelled a shotgun at his head the moment he set foot on her property, and apparently, that was better than the greeting Alistair got.

“Tell me something I don’t fucking know.” Alistair was nursing his own drink, as well as a black eye from a woman half his size. “She’s out of her mind.”

Though Ethan knew that Alistair would never demand his presence for something that wasn’t serious, he couldn’t deny being shocked at just how abrasive the landowner was. The moment he arrived, Alistair described the situation as impossible and unbearable. He commented that he had never, in his life, considered harming a woman, but the Trellis woman was out for his blood.

“So, she insists that she doesn’t want to sell?” It was hardly a question that needed to be asked. Chloe Trellis’ exact words were something to the effect of ‘if she saw them on her land again she’d shove their dicks up their asses and shoot them full of buckshot.’ Ethan didn’t even know what the hell buckshot was, but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to be full of it.

“She won’t even talk to me!” Alistair exclaimed. “The woman can’t be reasoned with!”

Under normal circumstances, Ethan would have argued that anyone could be reasoned with. But, under normal circumstances, they could have called Vlad down to deliver some of that stoic level-headedness he was so well-known for. Normally, five-foot-even women didn’t swing shotguns around like they ruled the fucking universe.

“You have to find a way.”

Alistair looked to him incredulously. “Me!? That’s why I called you down here!”

Ethan shot him a flat look. “You’re the head of land acquisitions. I’m not doing your job for you. I’m just here to offer moral support.”

“What the fuck!?” Alistair exclaimed loud enough to draw the attention of the bar’s few patrons. “I don’t need moral support, I need a legal team! She’ll kill us both!”

“And how do you suppose we bring in a legal team when the land belongs to her?” Ethan arched a brow. Despite being generally congenial with people, Alistair sometimes had to have things spelled out for him. When he came up against a problem he felt insurmountable, he often tried to headbutt it into submission.

Which wasn’t working here.

“You’re crafty. Come up with some kind of loophole!”

“Since when does ‘crafty’ mean delinquent?” Ethan retorted, tossing back the rest of his drink. “We’re supposed to do this by the book. You’ve never had a problem doing anything by the book.” At least, not where work was concerned.

“I’ve never had a woman point a gun at me and threaten to rip my balls off either,” Alistair’s reply was brusque as he slammed his empty whiskey glass down and gestured for another.

Despite the situation, Ethan found himself fighting a smile. It wasn’t often that he got to see Alistair so flustered. The oldest Kensley son often spent his time making sure he caught other people off guard - including his own family. Ethan would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that this was just a bit amusing... despite the close brush they had with death.

“Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” Ethan muttered lowly, ordering another drink for himself.

They spent the next few hours bouncing ideas off each other in the bar. Ethan found himself surprised at how well Alistair had done on his own. He’d been ready to tease his brother for failing to do his research and walking into the situation blind, but, apparently, he’d spoken to a number of people in town about Chloe in preparation to talk to her.

Among the people that lived in Granbury, Chloe was apparently something of a legend - the last of a dying breed. Born to one of the last apache Indians in the area and a trader who’d settled in town for good upon meeting the love of his life, she clung to her family’s land with untold fierceness. She would tell anyone who asked about how much she cherished the hundred or so acres, and how only death would get her off the sizeable plot.

Apparently, she was utterly serious.

However, this wasn’t some sort of B-Action movie, and no one in Kensley Corporation was anywhere near ruthless enough for something of that nature - but Ethan thought that there was something they might use as a bargaining chip where Chloe was concerned. There was a reason Vlad was the head of this operation and they weren’t, but Ethan wasn’t convinced that they were helpless in their brother’s absence.

When Ethan suggested they sleep on it, Alistair only grumbled that he didn’t know how that was going to help anything. “Just another day we’re down here that Vlad and Dad are going to be on our arses for not getting the job done.”

“I highly doubt that you called me down here to sit on my ass.” Ethan returned with a sly smile. “And I didn’t leave the city to come to your pity party.”

Alistair glowered for almost a full minute before a thankful smile shone through. “Fuck you very much.”

Ethan clapped him on the back. “For you, bro, anything.”

Ethan got a room in the same hotel as Alistair - more an inn than a hotel, really - so it was only natural that they drunkenly wandered home together.

“So, I assume there was nothing important happening in the city that you could rush to my aid.”

“Nothing insane,” Ethan replied, loosening the tie he felt he’d been wearing for ages. “Dad’s looking haggard, but there haven’t been any emergencies in the office. The city’s the city... and I’m... fucked.”

It was obvious that was the last thing Alistair expected him to say. Drunk or not, his head snapped around to eye Ethan with concern. “What the bloody hell do you mean you’re fucked? I wouldn’t think that would be a problem for you.”

Under normal circumstances, Ethan might have taken a swipe at him, but he found, in that moment, that all he could do was laugh.

Harper.

He’d been so wrapped up in things here that he hadn’t thought of Harper for a good couple of hours and now, his drunken mind brought her hurtling back to the forefront. She’d tried to have a conversation with him and he walked out on her. What’s more, he was glad for the reprieve. Ethan had never been much of a talker - something his mother always lamented.

But, under the influence, his secret came spilling out. “There’s a woman.”

Alistair snorted. “With you, there’s always a woman.”

“Not like that,” Ethan immediately rebutted - though it was the first time that he’d admitted such a thing to himself. Harper wasn’t like the other women he slept with. He didn’t want to simply add her to his rolodex and call her when he was in physical need. He wanted to be near her all the time. To fuck her, yes, but also to know her. To figure out what made her tick. To wipe away that cynical smile and show her a little true romance.

And it scared the hell out of him.

“Like what then?”

Ethan exhaled a long sigh. “She’s this matchmaker back in the city. I thought it would be a good laugh to hire her and see what she came up with but things got... complicated.”

Alistair made a face. “I didn’t think you did complicated.”

“I usually don’t,” Ethan had to give him that. “But this is... different.”

Alistair smirked. “Careful Dad doesn’t find out. He’ll be out to get you two hitched.”

Ethan couldn’t readily see Harper allowing that to happen. On that particular subject, she was just as cynical as he was. When she told him the story about her parents, she showed a fair amount of detachment, but nothing could completely erase the pain in her eyes. Their divorce had hurt her enough so that she stopped believing in love altogether.

They were more alike than she knew - but Ethan was loathed to reveal any of that. “It’s not like that. We’re just... we’re similar people, but I can’t get her to see past business.”

“Are you sure Vlad isn’t the one she should be seeing?” Ethan elbowed Alistair in the side so sharply he groaned.

“Not funny.”

“I think it’s about as funny as you getting caught up over a woman. Soon pigs will start fucking flying.”

“Well, we could use some of that, considering the situation we’re in.” The statement was enough to make the larger man frown anew. “Fuck. You know she’s not going to sell. No way in hell.”

Ethan smirked. “If I can get hung up over a woman, you can deal with a single difficult land acquisition, can’t you?”

Alistair scowled. “Not if she fucking murders me.”

Despite his somber tone, Ethan could see the cogs in his brother’s mind beginning to work. Alistair fell silent for the rest of the trip back to the hotel and bid his brother good night with a grunt. Ethan could only hope that he was a little more enthusiastic come morning. Getting Chloe to sell her land was pivotal to their future projects in this region, and if she held out, Vlad was going to be pissed.

Which was the last thing they needed just now.

Ethan was tired. He’d travelled a long way just to get chased off a plot of land and pulled into a situation that he hadn’t budgeted time for. Unfortunately, even the alcohol buzzing through his brain wasn’t enough to put him to sleep immediately.

Not with Harper on his mind.

He stared at the intricate plaster designs on the ceiling of his hotel room for a good five minutes before he reached for his phone. It was close to one in the morning, but Ethan had a feeling that if he called, Harper would answer the phone. She might be pissed, but she would answer.

He hesitated for only a moment before dialing her number. It rang enough times for Ethan to question his earlier confidence before he was finally blessed with what he wanted to hear.

“I hope you’re calling to tell me you got the news outlets to shut up about me.”

Ah, the dulcet tone of her voice. “You sound remarkably awake for the hour.”

Harper gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’m in Tahiti.”

Ethan immediately sat up. He didn’t like the way his heart lurched and his throat dried at that particular tidbit of news. “Why would you need to be in Tahiti?”

“It’s not about need,” Harper returned with a scoff, “I’m taking a much deserved vacation.”

The mental image did nothing for Ethan’s current state of restlessness. Imagining the knock-out blonde laid out on a beach somewhere in a skimpy swimsuit, in fact, had almost the exact opposite effect. “When will you be back?” Ethan hadn’t meant his voice to come out half as desperate-sounding as it did, and he cursed himself silently.

“When are you coming back?” Harper countered almost immediately. “Might I remind you that you’re the one who ran from me before we finished our conversation?”

Well, she certainly knew how to hit him where it hurt; but Ethan could admit that the jibe was nothing less than what he deserved - at least upon this occasion. “I did. Something I intend to rectify when I return.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Harper returned dryly. “You’re not much of a talker, Ethan.”

Fuck. “That’s because I rarely find people I enjoy talking to,” he slid his free hand behind his head. “But you are one of the few, Harper.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered? My apologies, Ethan, but if you want to compliment me, helping me do my job would go a long way.”

“Right,” Ethan replied silkily, “Because divulging my sordid past is about helping you do your job.”

A long beat of silence passed between them on which he realized that had been a low blow. Harper had divulged to him, and he was dangling the information she wanted teasingly before her with no concrete intention of caving - making him even more of an ass than usual.

“I’m hanging up, Ethan. I’m on vacation.”

Her cool tone made him wince. “Harper, wait. That was shitty of me, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, Ethan. I work for you. There’s no need for you to be cordial with me.”

Ethan suppressed a groan. “Yes, there fucking is, and you know it. I don’t want you working for me, Harper. I just want you.”

Another moment of silence in which Ethan thought he could heard the sounds of the ocean in the background. “You’ve already had me. Twice. Which is more than we agreed on.”

Ethan knew he sounded like a lovesick idiot, but it helped him to remember that neither he nor Harper was in this for love. They were like-minded people that merely happened to be incredibly compatible in the bedroom. Why not take advantage of that?  “You should know by now that I don’t give a damn about agreements. I just do it to see you.”

Harper’s reply was amused. “See me? You could just turn on the news for that.”

Ethan hadn’t had an opportunity to do so all day - he’d been too busy fleeing a certain Texan madwoman. “Not just to see you. To touch you. Kiss you. Taste you.” Harper was, without a doubt, the most intoxicating woman to ever ride his tongue. It was all he could think about for days afterwards. Ethan was certainly thinking about it now.

“Stop that.” Was it just wishful thinking, or did he detect a hint of breathlessness in Harper’s tone. “I’m in a public place.”

Now that sounded interesting. “How public?” He found himself grinning. “What are you wearing?”

There came the sound of air whistling through clenched teeth. “I’m pissed at you, you know. I’m hardly inclined to want to play infantile games with you right now, Ethan.”

He could all but see the way she was probably blushing, her chin held high in indignation. If anything, Harper’s stubbornness only endeared her more to Ethan. It made everything sweeter when she finally folded.

“Tell me what you’re wearing, Harper.” Ethan’s tone turned low and commanding, and three thousand miles away, Harper Jones’ thighs clenched.

It was a long moment before she finally answered him. “A bikini.”

It was just as he’d suspected. “What color?”

“Blue.” Harper returned. “Navy blue.”

Just imagining it had Ethan’s cock pressing flush against the seam of his slacks. “I can only imagine how gorgeous it makes your skin look.”

“I’m sure you’re imagining plenty.” For someone who was supposed to be mad at him, Harper certainly sounded like she was enjoying herself. “I hope that you’re not in as public a place as I am.”

“I’m in my hotel room. Where are you?” Ethan was all but salivating over the prospect of an aroused Harper in front of hordes of people. 

“On a very public sunny beach. So, don’t try anything funny.”

That was pretty much an open invitation. “Harper, I would hardly embarrass you like that. If you were here with me, though, in this quaint country hotel room... the neighbors would know my name.”

“Ethan.” That was definitely breathlessness - edged with a delicious hint of arousal.

“I miss you, Harper. I’m lonely without you.” Ethan had, of course, said the words before. Women liked to hear them. They liked to believe they were important, and he never shied away from making women feel good.

But this time, he meant them. In that moment, Texas was a hell of a long way from California, even more from Tahiti, and the twenty-four hours since he’d left Harper seemed to stretch on forever.

“You can try all you want,” Harper’s reply was a little unsteady, and Ethan relished that he’d garnered that reaction, “But I’m not falling for your sweet talk, Ethan.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I was under the impression that one of your favorite parts of me was my silver tongue.” The ragged breath that feathered over the receiver was worth any amount of wrath Ethan might have incurred. He liked keeping Harper on her toes - literally and metaphorically.

It was rapidly becoming his favorite pastime.

“I’m trying to relax,” Harper murmured lowly. “You’re not really helping.”

Fucking Christ, he’d never known it was possible to want a woman so much. If Ethan hadn’t been bogged down with Alistair, he might have done something stupid - like flying out to Tahiti just to see that little bikini of hers. “Glad to hear it.”

“You should go to bed. I assume you’re not on vacation.”

Ethan chuckled. “Vacation is talking to you, sweet.”

He wondered if he made her smile. Harper’s smile - her genuine smile, free of cynicism and judgement, could light up an entire goddamn room. When she answered him, it certainly sounded like she might be.

“Go to sleep, Ethan. I’ll talk to you later.”

He couldn’t even be offended that she’d hung up on him because Harper had told him she would talk to him later. Which meant that, if he was so inclined to call again, she would pick up the phone.

That was a step up from being pissed at him.

Exhaling a long sigh, Ethan tossed his phone on the bedside table to resume his staring at the ceiling. Despite being halfway to roaring drunk, he now had an irrepressible hard on. He was going to have to do something about that before he could get to sleep.