Being at a public beach with a half-dressed man who looked like Jace Custer was torture of the highest order. What had she been thinking? Stella stuck her own sunglasses on the bridge of her nose, determined to play it as cool as he was when in reality, her pulse had been hammering in her throat since she’d opened the door back at her apartment.

The bikini had been a risk. Symbolic. A plea. Something. She just knew that she couldn’t play the part of a seductress any more than she could pretend to be a Latino. Her date was supposed to take one look at her and dissolve at her feet, slavish in his devotion to making her feel good. She could lay back, let the bikini do all her begging for her, and that would be that. She’d be off the hook for moving this thing with Jace forward, and he’d be doing all the hard work.

Hey, he’d promised her that. Multiple times. Yet here they were—at the beach—and the most erotic thing she’d done was get her fingers sticky with something as banal as sunscreen.

For a guy who supposedly excelled at getting a woman into bed, she wasn’t so impressed.

Glancing at her phone, she almost groaned. She had to be at the bar in an hour if she hoped to start on her daily scrub-down routine. That whole process took way longer than she would have liked, especially today when she had other plans. Or rather she’d thought she had other plans.

Other Plans was currently lying on the blanket with his hands folded behind his head, sunglasses pointed at the sky. He might even have his eyes closed.

No rules, huh? That meant she could stare at his gorgeous body all she wanted to, and there was no better opportunity than this one. When she’d suggested the beach, she hadn’t really thought that was where they’d end up. She’d only grabbed the sunscreen because it was ingrained. Redheads didn’t get within sneezing distance of outdoors without it.

Good God the man was built like a fantasy come to life. There wasn’t a part of him that wasn’t honed to perfection. Ripped. Hard. Bronzed. Her mouth watered to run her tongue along those ridges above the line of his board shorts.

Actually, the covered places had a lot of interesting contours too. Maybe that was where the majority of her piqued curiosity lay if she was being honest. Was it horribly wicked to wish they were someplace where she could slide those shorts off and just look at him?

“See something you like?” he murmured wryly, and she glanced up. He was watching her from under the rims of his glasses.

What was she supposed to say to that? Yes? “Yes.”

Why not? It was the truth. His mouth quirked up into one of his smiles that never failed to make her feel like she’d won the lottery.

“Then you’re too far away to properly enjoy it. Come here.”

Obediently she crawled across the blanket, perfectly fine with being instructed what to do if it got her over this strange hump where she couldn’t seem to tell him she was ready to let him make all her fantasies come true.

“Do I need to get a towel?” he asked as she settled into a spot on the blanket where the sun had warmed it nicely.

Um… because she was planning to go swimming? “I don’t know how to answer that.”

Instead of laughing at her like she’d half expected, he sat up and took off his sunglasses. “To cover things. If you wanted that.”

Oh. Her cheeks prickled with heat that had nothing to do with the fact that it was midday in the Bahamas. This was her fantasy to lose. What did she have to be embarrassed about? She’d confessed her lack of experience, and he was still here.

Emboldened, she nodded. “Then yes. That is what I want. Wait. Cover what things?”

Couldn’t hurt to be sure they were talking about the same things. Because she was envisioning a lot of touching of naked parts, and maybe he was thinking something else entirely.

He did laugh at that. “Sweetheart, whatever things your heart desires even if it’s donuts so you can eat twelve without fear of disapproval. This is supposed to be fun, and you look like you’re about to analyze yourself into a hole in the sand. Relax.”

“I’m sorry, have you met me?” she shot back loftily. “My brain doesn’t take a day off.”

“Then that’s what we need to tackle next, obviously.” He grabbed the towel with one hand and snagged her hand with the other. “Take off that sarong and lie down.”

When she did, he slid into place next to her, his big body taking up far too much real estate on the blanket that had never seemed so small before. Of course, she was about half his size.

The towel drifted over them both, surprisingly large enough to indeed cover quite a few things. He settled underneath it, facing her, and there was scarcely an inch or two between their bodies. She’d lain in his arms on the boat, stargazing. But this was different. There wasn’t as much of a barrier of clothing between them this time nor the caution she’d always carefully employed when it came to him.

Today was her crossroads, and she wanted to take a different path than the one she’d forced herself to walk for the past five years. Today was about letting go of her inhibitions, letting her guard down. Finding a way to rejoin the land of the living without fear because no one was going to get their heart broken. Her brand-new IUD was in place, and so was the man.

“This is your show, sweetheart,” he prompted softly. “I’m just going to lie here wishing you were touching me.”

“Maybe I’m wishing the same thing.” He didn’t miss the quaver in her voice, and his brown eyes went soft with compassion.

“This isn’t supposed to be difficult.”

“But it is. I told you I’ve never done this before.” She had no clue how to please a man like Jace, and there were no illusions on her side about being such a vixen in his bed that he’d come panting after her for seconds.

His eyelids squeezed shut for a blink as he heaved a giant breath. “Yet I’m trying really hard not to scare you or move too fast. I want you to trust me.”

Her heart tumbled over that. They were both waiting for the other to make the first move for very different reasons. “You don’t scare me. There’s lots of things that do. But you’re not one of them.”

At that, he reached out and brushed a thumb across her temple. “Put your palms on my chest.”

It was warm and still slick with sunscreen. His heart pounded against his ribs. She spread her fingers, letting the feel of him soak through her. “Put yours on me.”

His eyes darkened as he complied, threading his arms through hers into a tangle that shouldn’t have worked but did the moment his fingers found the hollow of her throat, thumbs brushing downward until they located the strings of her bikini top. Both thumbs slid underneath, stroking her flesh. Gasping, she arched into the sensation, silently begging for more.

Watching her with laser focus, Jace eased beneath the cups of her top, slowly sliding them away until her breasts fell free under the cover of the towel. But instead of immediately palming them in a fondle-palooza, he dazed her by wrapping his arms around her and drawing her close until her nipples grazed his chest.

Oh God that felt good. He was so hard and delicious, and the pressure against her aching peaks tugged at her core with shocking strength.

The first brush of his lips on hers set a sensual, slow tone that she loved instantly. She kept expecting him to be rough, demanding, to dive in and take what he wanted, but he’d never been like that. He was patient, so patient, waiting her out for weeks. It was so overwhelmingly wonderful to be that valued. Tears burned behind her eyes.

Crying was really, really not the reaction she’d suspected he’d been going for here. She had to get her crap together and find some courage to treat this midday, under-the-towel encounter with a man like it was supposed to be done.

Working her hips forward, she scooted until they were more firmly aligned, his hard length buried in her abdomen. Not the first time she’d felt it. But definitely the first time with only the thin fabric of his shorts between them. He was big. Shouldn’t be such a shock. She’d imagined him naked lots of times, but she’d always kind of assumed she was embellishing a few details.

Not so much.

Apparently unsatisfied with their current position, he skated a hand down her thigh, wrapped his fingers around it and lifted, opening up a hollow that he settled into easily. His granite-hard length snugged up against her sensitized core, rubbing back and forth firmly enough to set off shooting stars that flamed outward until she gasped.

“Like that?” he murmured against her mouth and levered higher, the angle deepening the contact. He ground against her pleasure center harder and faster until she could only mewl out his name as her long-neglected lady parts welcomed her back to Orgasm-land with a rousing hurrah.

She shuddered through the release, going limp in his arms as he kissed the top of her head. God, how amazing was that? Jace had made her come without even undressing her fully, in broad daylight while other couples lounged a stone’s throw away.

It was the most daring, exciting, fantastic thing that had ever happened to her.

“That didn’t last nearly long enough,” he said into her ear as he nuzzled at her lobe. “I barely got started.”

“There was no barely in that.” She gulped great quantities of air, trying to get her racing heart back under the safe limit. “It was perfect.”

“First of many,” he promised with a wolfish smile. “As long as that was perfect enough to take the edge off, I’m good with going back to the bar. We have a long shift ahead of us.”

Wait. What? He was done? “That was it?”

“For now. At two a.m., I’m closing that wall and spreading you wide open on the service counter so I can lick you raw. I want to watch you this time, see you. Feel you with my tongue as you come all over my mouth.” He captured her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked it into his mouth, nibbling on her like he’d discovered she was coated with his favorite candy.

Her scarcely cooled center erupted again, seeking instant gratification of that promised event right now. “That was dirty. Now I have to think about that for almost twelve hours.”

He lifted his brows with a smirk. “Told you two can play that game. Now we’re even for the lotion.”