Stella passed two frothy beers to the couple on the other side of the bar, flashing them both a friendly smile as she took the twenty the man offered, made change with one hand and poured the next customer a shot of Goldschläger with the other. Jace watched her brazenly, not even bothering to do it from the corner of his eye.

God, she was so amazing. And one of her questions was why Jace wanted her so badly? Why would he not?

Unashamedly watching her as he tended to his own customers, Jace rubbed at the raw place in his chest. Still hurt from earlier, after being forced to stop kissing her. He’d have stayed in that alcove for an hour, just exploring the wonders of that woman’s mouth.

But no. She’d had to throw down all kinds of bombs, and he wasn’t done picking up the pieces yet. This was the first time in his life a woman had repeatedly rejected him. Of course, it was also the first time he’d gone back for seconds and thirds. Usually it was easy enough to move on to the next willing woman, but he couldn’t this time. Stella was a frustrating challenge and a sweet reward all wrapped up in one small, delicious package that he ached to unwrap. He wasn’t dealing with it well, particularly given that the latest reason for her rejection was because he was going to want babies one day.

That was the lamest excuse he’d ever heard. He’d only recently started tiptoeing through the idea of having permanence with a woman. He still liked it as a concept. Maybe could even see himself married one day—which she’d denied as a possibility if Stella was indeed the woman he got permanent with. Okay, fine. He could live with a wait-and-see approach on something as big as marriage.

But babies? Definitely not on his radar. So why was that such a deal killer? And he totally believed that it was, in her mind. Once, he would have chalked it up to her skewed view of him, but now he wasn’t so sure. There was more going on here that he wasn’t getting, and he had a sneaking suspicion that whatever it was had nothing to do with his age.

She’d confessed to being divorced, so he could see her being skittish about getting serious again. But a few days ago, her objection had been because he couldn’t take things seriously. Obviously, her problem was that she didn’t know whether she was coming or going, and he had no problem stepping in to guide her on that.

Being in the Navy had taught him a lot of things: patience, perseverance, strategy, all of which he’d already stretched to the breaking point with Stella. And he’d have to switch it up yet again if he wanted to cross the finish line with her.

This place he was eking out at her side was worth it.

At closing time, Jace pulled the glass wall closed and locked the side door after the last of the customers. But instead of diving into the perpetual cleanup routine that always started at 2:05 a.m., Jace cornered Stella near the register.

Firmly he closed the drawer with a resounding click, narrowly missing her fingers. Startled, she glanced up at him. The tension was still pretty thick between them even after he’d chased her down the crowded boulevard earlier that afternoon and walked her back to her apartment to be sure she got there safely, then left her alone until it was time for his shift.

“You should hire a couple more bartenders,” he told her as he crossed his arms so he didn’t accidentally smooth back the loose strand of red hair falling across her cheek.

“Why, are you giving notice?” She’d meant it to be a joke, but he didn’t laugh.

“Of course not.” The thought of not seeing Stella every day stabbed through his chest. He couldn’t quit her any easier than he could quit being a twin. “I love this job. But we need more people if we’re going to stomp the competition.”

And because he couldn’t take her to dinner if she didn’t have other people running the bar. He wanted to have that freedom, to surprise her with a picnic on the beach or to take her back to Duchess Island to eat in the resort restaurant if the mood struck. If it was all set up, she couldn’t say no, and that was his new goal. No more no.

She glanced at the construction zone across the street, silent and still for the night, but it would start up again tomorrow, barreling toward the Eye of the Storm’s opening day, which the prominent sign posted front and center said would be in two weeks. With enough money, you could get anything done in the Bahamas, even the world’s biggest rush on renovations.

“You’re right,” she said, and he clutched his chest in a mock heart attack, which made her laugh. “I’ll post the job opening in the morning. You know anyone looking?”

Ha. His so-called friends were all in the throes of matrimony and getting their wives pregnant. A tinge in his midsection tripped him up for a second because it sure felt a lot like jealousy. Which it could not be. Stella wasn’t on board with anything permanent. Yet.

“Just me.” He let his gaze rove her in pure, blatant appreciation because flirting he could do, was comfortable with. “I like what I see too.”

“Looking for a job,” she stressed as her cheeks went pink. “We cleared up all that personal stuff earlier, Jace. You’re not supposed to say things like that anymore, remember?”

“That’s not the conversation I remember.” The way he recalled it, she’d cut their afternoon short because she’d insisted on making his decisions for him. “There was not one single second while we were wedged into that little space between buildings when we were discussing a cease-fire. You threw out a lot of nonsense about babies and diamond rings but then didn’t give me a chance to tell you why none of that matters.”

Her mouth firmed into a line. “Because there’s not more to the conversation.”

“Oh, yes. There is.” Ms. Chase needed a lesson in living in the moment. Since his shrapnel wounds hadn’t properly illustrated the point, he’d have to go about it another way. “Come with me.”

“I’m trying to close the bar,” she reminded him, but curiosity was written all over her face. This was also part of her problem. The heat between them got to her, but she couldn’t seem to let go long enough to find out how much fun they could have together.

“It’ll still be here.” He held out a hand, and when she didn’t immediately take it, he wiggled his fingers. “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder.”

That got a major reaction. Not the one he would have expected. Her gaze slid down the length of his body as if gauging whether he planned to make good on that promise, and there was at least a part of her that was thoroughly intrigued by the idea. Well, well. Stella had a caveman fantasy flitting around inside her just looking to bust out. That put a grin on his face. He filed that away for later because hell if he wasn’t the right man for that job.

“I thought you wanted to finish the conversation.” She eyed him. “I’m listening.”

“We’re finishing it somewhere that’s not here,” he returned smoothly and waited so very patiently for her to decide that having her curiosity appeased was far more important than sticking to her guns.

That took way less time than he’d prepared for because she immediately clasped his hand, rolling her eyes as she did it, but he didn’t care. The thrill of success was only eclipsed by the sweet sting of awareness as her palm settled into his. “That’s my girl.”

“I’m so not, but whatever. Where are you taking me?” she called out as he took off through the back door, pausing only to lock it behind him.

“It’s a surprise. You don’t have to know everything that’s going to happen ahead of time.”

Pocketing the key, he led her down the alley to the street and kept going. She tried to dig in her heels twice but clearly didn’t understand that she had literally no shot at even slowing him down, let alone halting his progress toward the end of the street.

This was going to work. He could feel it. They’d turn the corner this time, and by tomorrow, Stella would be his. Well, not his like everyone was on board with her in a white dress and baby talk. She didn’t want serious. That whole line of thinking had been a mistake. Fine. He could bring the party like no one’s business.

The starlit marina appeared on their left, boats bobbing on the eternally restless sea. Aqueous Adventures rented a slip on the fourth row, which Jace appreciated since he was really the only one who used it lately. Charlie had been the main one mooring a speedboat here back when Audra still lived in Freeport, but she’d moved into their bungalow a few months back, and neither of them left Duchess Island much.

“In you go.” Jace didn’t dare release Stella’s hand, so he hopped into the boat and helped her step down onto one of the seat cushions. She picked her way into the boat delicately and didn’t lean into him like he’d half hoped she would. Too bad.

“Um… this is a strange place to have a conversation about how we’re all wrong for each other,” she announced, crossing her arms in an attempt to disconnect their hands casually without seeming like she was.

That was crap. Why was she so uncomfortable all at once? They’d held hands earlier today without it being weird. He had to get things moving in the right direction, or his entire plan was going down in flames.

Though right this minute the bar was nowhere in his sights. Just a pretty woman who needed him.

“I never said we were going to talk about that,” he murmured, letting his voice go low to match the sultry predawn atmosphere. He dropped onto the rear bench seat, the one that unfolded to become a full-sized mattress, which he intended to keep quiet about for now, and motioned for her to join him.

She did, wonder of wonders, settling into the seat cautiously without letting her back touch the waterproof cushions behind her. Yeah, they weren’t that comfortable, but he suspected she objected more to the fact that his arm was slung across it than the stiff fabric. He didn’t move it.

“What are we doing here then?” she asked.

“Having fun.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s exactly what I thought we were doing,” she shot back sarcastically. “I have an hour’s worth of work back at the bar, and it’s definitely more fun to be hanging out on your boat than it is to—”

Her voice broke on a squeak as he brushed a thumb across her lips. They were full and gorgeous, and he very much wanted to sample them again, but this time with no barriers between them. Real ones, fake ones, or ones she pulled out of thin air in an attempt to stop what had already happened. “Shh. Listen to the water lap against the hull. Hear it?”

He paused and tilted a head toward the side of the boat. It was a testament to the quality of the water music that she did as he suggested, closing her mouth and at least faking like she was soaking in something other than the stench of spilled whiskey and cigarette fumes.

“This is one of my favorite things to do,” he told her in the long pause. “When I was deployed, we often sat around for hours upon hours counting scratches in the dirt while we waited for intel or the insurgent convoy that was supposed to come through our stakeout point. But anytime we had to wait in the boat, there was the sound of the water. It never got old or boring, and the lap of it reminds me that there’s always something else out there just over the horizon. Being in the boat is the first step toward it.”

“That’s a beautiful sentiment, Jace,” she allowed quietly, finally cluing in that they were using church voices. Partly because of the sacredness of the dark where reality wasn’t so much of a factor and partly because normal volume drowned out the magic.

That’s when she relaxed, her back curving into the crook of his arm so naturally that he couldn’t stop from drawing her closer. Her scent floated to him on the slight breeze. Woman and vague notes of vanilla. She smelled like heaven and hell all at once, ethereal and yet the author of his eternal torment, and it was so arousing that it was almost painful. The good kind of pain that only one thing could heal.

“More where that came from. Your hair for example.” Tilting his head, he grazed her temple with his as he got a little cozier. He lifted a hand and lazily smoothed it up her bare arm until his fingers hit one dark red strand. “It’s silk and fire all wrapped up in a song. The sound of my hands in it would be sweet harmony.”

Her lashes fluttered closed as he demonstrated as best he could with all of it bound up in a rubber band, and no, that was not going to work. So he pulled it out gently, letting her hair waterfall down her back before plunging his fingers through it. The shush and slide of the strands was indeed amazing, and he filled his senses with it.

“Amazing,” he murmured as he levered her head skyward to let the starlight shine on her face. There was no moon as it had set a few hours ago but the darker, the better. Easier to sense things instead of letting your eyes deceive you. Her eyelids drifted closed as she let him keep caressing whatever his fingers came in contact with.

“How did I not know you were so poetic?” she asked, her eyes still closed.

He wasn’t normally, at least not out loud. But Stella needed that extra push, and he wasn’t above pulling out the big guns. “Saving my best stuff for the right time, I guess.”

Her eyes blinked open, and their lips weren’t but an inch or two apart. The heavy awareness twisted between them with so many invisible strands that he couldn’t have moved away from her under any circumstances. Her gaze wandered down his face to his mouth, and it was achingly clear that she was recalling their kiss from earlier. He was too. It had been the stuff of legends and epic quests to claim a lady’s hand, or at least it was headed in that direction before he’d had to do a sanity check.

Good thing he had. The last thing he wanted was an unwilling woman in his arms. That’s why this side trip away from reality had been so necessary. Stella needed to get out of her own head and into the moment.

“Jace, I…”

“Want me to kiss you?” he murmured. “Say the words.”

Her lips curved into a gorgeous smile. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“It can be. There are no rules here. I’m the captain of this boat, and if you want to change your mind, that’s allowed,” he told her, letting his own smile match hers. “See, you’re going about this wrong, sweetheart. I’m all about fun. Think of me as having your cake and eating it too, except I come with no calories. No guilt. Pure indulgence.”

He could do fun. It was his wheelhouse. Ironic that he’d been trying to move away from meaningless to match what he thought she’d wanted only to find himself back in player territory.

“I thought the one doing the eating in this scenario was you.”

Her guileless gaze skewered him as she let that soak into his already heavily aroused skin, and he was pretty much a goner at that point. Which didn’t seem to stop him from laughing. “You can say that too. The key is that you’re in charge of what’s going to happen. Stop obsessing about what anyone may or may not want tomorrow or the next day. We can be all about right now.”

And right now he wanted to dive into her and never come up. He’d dreamed up a thousand scenarios designed to break down those barriers, but in the end, she had to be the one to remove them.

The breeze toyed with her hair, lifting the strands away from his fingers as she watched him. “What if I think it’s fun to just sit here and stargaze?”

“Then you’re in luck.” He shrugged and laid a way-too-short kiss on her lips before releasing her. “Because I think that’s fun too.”

She wasn’t ready to indulge in the hedonistic carnival he had in store for her. That was fine. He’d waited this long, and since she wasn’t vaulting out of the boat, this was what progress looked like with them.

“If you want to do this right,” he said. “Let’s do it right.”

Pulling her to her feet, he snagged the cushion they’d been sitting on and laid it flat on the floor of the boat. Presto. Full-sized mattress. He crawled onto it to stare up at the stars. Not only did she not dash for the door, she followed him, stretching out on the makeshift mattress. They both shifted at the same time, and he really should have warned her of the indentation in the middle that did some interesting things with gravity. But the second she rolled into him, the quick, sharp sensations clawing through his gut glued his mouth shut.

She struggled for a long moment to roll away, but his weight advantage ruined that idea. He started to help her, to at least for the love of God stop her twisting around because every brush of her breasts against his chest piled more wood on the fire. But she froze with a heavy sigh and then shocked the hell out of him by snuggling into the circle of his arms without protest.

Holy mother of God. How did she feel so good against him? They were fully clothed. This might be the least sexual position he’d ever been in with a woman. But it was so very right.

Struck mute suddenly at how he’d gotten exactly what he’d needed after all, he tightened his arms around Stella and nuzzled her hair, letting his gaze wander across the sky he’d seen a quadrillion times from the deck of a destroyer, from helicopters, even from the driver’s seat of this boat as he sped back and forth from Duchess Island to Freeport. Always in pursuit of this bundle of energy and light and contradictions and amazingness that by some miracle he got to hold in his arms.

The neon and resort floodlights from Freeport dimmed the stars a bit, but the sky studded with twinkles had never been more spectacular because he’d never seen it with her.

“Jace.” His name was nothing but a breath on the night air, floating through his body to sensitize spots inside that he’d never have guessed words could touch.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“I do have fun with you. Always.”

The admission put a grin on his face. “Best part? I’ve barely gotten started. You deserve to have all the fun you can handle.”

“How do you know that?”

The question brought him up short. Everyone deserved to have fun, to enjoy life and always be on the lookout for the next great thing to come along. Didn’t she think so too? But that wasn’t a thread he needed to pull right this minute. Just because he could be serious didn’t mean he wanted to. “Because I’ve decreed it. What I say goes around here.”

He felt her smile the same way he could tell if he was facing the sun when his eyes were closed.

“Wait a minute. I thought I was in charge.”

“You’re in charge of whether or not I’m going to kiss you. I’m in charge of everything else.”

And she could interpret that however she liked—including the general idea that he could do a lot of things to her that didn’t involve his mouth on hers but absolutely involved his mouth on other parts of her body.

To demonstrate, he nuzzled her throat, tilting her head back with his chin to give him more room to work, and when that gorgeous expanse of skin lay open to him, he couldn’t help but taste it. The gurgling sound emanating from her throat spurred him on. He dragged his tongue up the column of flesh, gratified as she gasped and sank her slender fingers into his hair.

“What are you doing?” she asked. But didn’t let go.

“Must not be doing it right if you have to ask,” he muttered. “Let me try again.”

But that’s when her hand slid from his hair to his jaw, spoiling his trajectory as she held him off from devouring her. “Jace. I… Oh hell.”

And then she yanked, connecting their lips in a savage, bruising kiss that tore him open inside as every ounce of his desire for her exploded into one sweeping heat wave that engulfed his whole body. That counted as asking for it in his book all day long.

With a fierce need to touch, he levered her half under him as he covered her slight body, guiding her hips to nest with his and oh, yeah did she fit. Cradling his hot, heavy erection in her soft abdomen, she arched against him, ground her nipples into his torso in the sweetest agony imaginable. The kiss deepened as the storm of need grew into a hurricane of epic proportions. Their hips rolled together, seeking what the other had to give, and the motion rocked the boat, driving them closer.

Nearly blind with the desire to possess, to claim, to let her do the same, he plundered her mouth, reveling in the sensations of her wet heat, groaning as she met him stroke for stroke. This was why he drove forty-five minutes each way to tend bar. This was why he couldn’t flirt with other women. She had him in the palm of her hand. Everything he’d ever questioned in his life suddenly made sense when Stella was the answer. Did she even understand how much power she had here?

Her hands slid down his back, sensitizing him to the point of pain. If she gave him the slightest encouragement, this shirt would be gone. What had pushed her over the edge? He was dying to ask. Later. Now he wanted to taste and savor and feel and never stop.

But she broke away all at once, her chest heaving and eyes huge with something that looked an awful lot like regret. No, nononono. No thinking, no do-overs, definitely no guilt.

“Don’t you dare—”

“I’m sorry,” she broke in.

“—apologize.” Unable to help himself, he smoothed back the chunky strand of her hair that had fallen into her face. “This is what I’m here for. As long as you’re having fun, there is nothing to apologize for.”

Cautiously she eyed him, looking very much like a woman who had walked out on ice that was thinner than she’d expected and was just waiting for the resounding crack. “I’m giving you mixed signals. It’s crappy.”

Blowing out a breath while trying to adjust things on the sly wasn’t working too well for him. Especially since she was still all pressed up against him and apparently oblivious to the boner poking her in the thigh. “Honey, there are no mixed signals when it comes to what happens between us. You say stop, we stop. No questions asked. I have no expectations other than the one I’ve thrown out over and over. We’re having fun together. Nothing you’ve done or not done so far changes that.”

Bemused she stared at him. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

He snorted out a laugh. That was a big fat lie. She knew exactly what to do or his lower half wouldn’t currently be in the throes of agony. “Do you need a dictionary? English translation app? The word you’re looking for here is F-U-N.”

The complete and utter bewilderment in her gaze didn’t vanish. “I’m not so good at that.”

This time he bit back the laugh. “Not a news flash. That’s why you’re supposed to stick with me and let me do all the heavy lifting. I like being with you, Stella. Let me enjoy it. Let yourself enjoy it. That’s all you need to do.”

After the world’s longest pause, she nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?” His pulse did a weird trippy thing where it missed about fourteen beats. “What does that mean? You’re saying okay, you get it and thanks but no thanks? Or okay, as in you’ll go on a date with me? Okay, you think I’m clinically insane and you’re about to start backing slowly away? Okay—”

“As in shut up,” she said with a laugh and let her arms drift around his neck to cling to him. “You win. As long as you understand that I’m not relationship material, we can see what happens.”

That worked for him on so many levels. “I don’t even know how to spell relationship.”

Though as he scooped her deeper into his embrace, he had the worst feeling that it started with the letters S-t-e-l-l-a and ended with a huge tearing pain in his gut when things stopped being fun and she booted him to the curb.

But that wasn’t today, and he was nothing if not an expert in the art of carpe diem.