Crazy for Love (7 page)

“Come up to the beach,” he murmured. “I want to show you something.”

“Really? Is it in your pocket? Because that sounds a little creepy.”

“Oh,” he said. Then, “No!” as he started to laugh. “No, not that. Jesus. I was talking about the moon.” But even past his laughter, he was moving her backward. The waves only reached her knees now.

“I just thought…” His hands slipped down
her shoulders to her upper arms. “We're finally alone….”

God, this would be so lovely if he wasn't faking it. She could just close her eyes and pretend…

Max dipped his head, easing a centimeter closer to her mouth. “So I thought maybe…”

“Oh, God, you're really going to do this, aren't you?”

His chin jerked back a little before he eased back into his role. “I sure am,” he said with a slow drawl.

“It's not fair, Max.”

“Hmm?”

“You're going to make out with me just to keep me from swimming!”

This time his whole body jerked back when his chin drew in. Chloe gave him a disappointed push to help him along.

“What?” he huffed.

“You don't want me to swim at night, so you're pretending you want to make out!”

Panic flashed in his eyes, but Max assumed an incredulous expression. “That's ridiculous. What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about you being a freak, Max.”

“Hey!”

Shaking her head in disgust, Chloe spun away
from him and waded toward the sand. “I thought you
liked
me.”

“Wait…” His splashing tossed water high, making her shiver when the drops struck the small of her back. She'd felt confident and playful a moment before, but now she was left vulnerable in her swimsuit, exposed to a man who didn't find her attractive.

She made it to the waterline and looked around for her shirt.

“Chloe,” Max said behind her. She jerked away when his fingers curled around her elbow. “Chloe, I do like you. So why are you calling me a freak?”

“Give it up, already. I'm on to you, okay? I see what you're doing.”

“What?” He threw his hands up. “What am I doing?”

Though he tried to hold her gaze, Chloe turned away to search the beach for her shirt. Humiliation was a familiar enough feeling that it only stung a little when she realized how close she'd come to letting him distract her with his fake kisses. Even now she wished she'd kept her mouth shut. Or just opened it for him, actually. She could be rolling around on the sand with her hands wrapped around those big biceps right now.

“Last night, you weren't interested in me or in
Jenn, were you? You were checking on the fire. That's why you came over.”

“Chloe,” he said, his voice warm with indulgent laughter. “Come on.”

“And the
diving?
You didn't want to go diving. You didn't even look at that wreck.”

This time he didn't respond. Finally spotting her shirt, Chloe sprinted over to grab it and shook it hard to be sure there were no crabs nesting in it. She jerked it over her head, then glanced back to find him standing five feet away, hands open as if he'd paused midgesture.

He inclined his head, and his hands completed the circular motion. “Of course I wanted to go diving. I love diving. It's what I do. Sorry, I must've gone into work mode. I guess I'm not used to diving on vacation anymore.”

“Max.”

“What?”

“You're a big fat liar! You didn't want to have marshmallows, and you didn't want to go diving, and you definitely didn't want to make out on the beach tonight.”

“I… It's…” He looked dumbstruck. His big, sexy shoulders drooped. “It's no fun to make out on the beach. The fucking sand is a hundred times worse than a rug burn.”

“The
sand?
What's the sand got to do with anything?”

“You said I didn't want to make out with you. That's not true. I just didn't want to do it here.”

She ignored the stab of ugly hope that hit her belly. Slick talk. “So why'd you follow me out here?”

He snapped his mouth shut.

“Why did you want to come with me?”

“It seemed like a fun idea.” There was a tiny note of question in the last word, as if she finally had him on shaky ground, but he clearly didn't mean to give up the truth. She'd had enough of lying men.

Chloe shook her head in disgust. “I need to find my shorts,” she growled, bitterly aware that a phrase like that should be uttered under much happier circumstances. “Good night. I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow.”

Wishing she'd brought a flashlight, Chloe walked along the waterline, squinting into the darkness. Where the hell could her shorts have gone? Had she missed the sand completely and they were even now floating toward Europe? The perfect end to a shitty evening.

She finally spotted the shorts and hurried to grab them. No wonder they'd been hard to spot. The pale gray material blended right into the sand. As she checked them over carefully for clawed animals, Max's voice emerged from the darkness.

“I didn't want you to drown.”

Chloe frowned and turned toward him, shorts clutched to her stomach. “What?” She couldn't make out his features in the ten feet of darkness between them, but she could see that he'd stopped walking and stood with his hands shoved into his pockets.

“I didn't want you to drown. Or get eaten by a shark.”

“Okay.” He was talking, at least, but she couldn't see the logic. “So you came along to keep me from drowning. Why couldn't you just say that?”

The edge of his jaw looked hard as rock now. “Because people don't like to be told what to do.”

“Max—”

“People don't want to hear that swimming at night is idiotic. In fact, if you tell someone they've got a really stupid idea, they become determined to prove you wrong.”

“So you made it seem like a great idea instead?”

“I just thought I'd find a way to distract you.”

She narrowed her eyes at his words and took a step forward. Now she could see his mouth set in a flat line. “What about the beach fire? You didn't really come over just to flirt, did you?”

“Your pit was too close to the sea grass. It needed to be deeper, and I wanted to be sure you didn't build it so high it would stay hot all night long.”

“I see. I suppose I can understand being haunted by Smokey the Bear. Lots of people have a fear of fire.” She crossed her arms. “So what about the diving?”

He took his hands out of his pockets, then put them back in before rocking back and forth on his heels.

“Max?”

“What about it?”

“You didn't want to go.”

His mouth tilted at an incredulous angle. “I asked to go.”

“Jesus, Max!”

“What do you want me to say? I'm a professional diver. You actually think I don't like diving?”

“You did
not
want to dive with us, so why did you go?”

“Because diving is incredibly dangerous,” he bit out. “And you were diving with a guy with unknown credentials.
Who picks a dive guide off the grocery store bulletin board?
”

Whoa. Well, he wasn't being charming anymore. Chloe told herself that was progress.

“Sorry,” he muttered, kicking at a clump of wet sand. “I didn't mean to raise my voice. I don't know what got into me.”

Chloe suspected she knew what had gotten into
him. Panic. But now she was getting truly angry. “So you didn't want to dive?”

“No.”

“And you didn't want to toast marshmallows?”

“No.”

Great. Another guy pretending to like her. Just fucking great. She was cursed. “Well,” she snapped, “I'm not going swimming, so you can go now.”

“It's dark out here. I wouldn't want to—”

“Just go! I absolve you of any responsibility, okay?” Wrapped up in her righteous anger, Chloe wasn't expecting any response from him. She certainly wasn't expecting him to shout again.

“It doesn't work like that, damn it!” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “You can't absolve me of responsibility, Chloe. If I leave you out here alone in the dark and something happens to you, it'll be on me, because I left knowing it wasn't right.”

She shook her head. “I'm an adult. You're not responsible for me. I can do whatever I want.”

“That's the problem!” His hands flew wide, gesturing around him, as if drawing attention to the whole world. “You can do anything you want, so I have to make you want something else.”

Her breath left her on a rush, leaving behind a painful void in her chest. Chloe pressed her palm to her heart. “That's just cruel, Max.”

Though he'd been glaring in the direction of the lights of the cabins, Max's head swung toward her. “Cruel?”

“You pretended to like me just to…just to get control over my beach fire!”

“That's crazy. I was never pretending to like you.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. When you inserted yourself into my entire vacation, I guess it was stupid of me to assume you were flirting!”

“I
was
flirting,” he said simply, as if her voice hadn't taken on the edge of hysteria. “I like you. It's just hard for me to stop…thinking.” He crossed his arms and uncrossed them while Chloe tried to take in what he meant to say. He
liked
her?

He ran an impatient hand through his hair. “Do you want to go for a walk? I need to walk.”

“Why?”

“I've never had this conversation before.” He strode toward her and took her hand to tug her along the edge of the water. “It's nice tonight. Let's walk.”

He seemed to need to burn off some energy, and for once, his charm wasn't on display. Max looked nervous and unhappy. And his fingers were wrapped tight around hers, distracting her more than even his most charming smile could. She kept pace with him,
letting the occasional wave sweep over her toes, but he didn't drop her hand.

“How could you have never had this conversation?”

One shoulder rose in a suspiciously casual shrug. Now that they were walking, he seemed disinclined to talk. Ironically.

“Max? Do you want to talk or is this walk just another one of your ploys?”

He stared straight ahead. “How did you see it?”

“See what?”

“How did you see what I was doing?”

“Well, I was kind of looking forward to hanging out with an international party boy, but then there didn't seem to be much partying going on.”

He drew in a breath as if he meant to say something important, then let it out again, slowly. His fingers shifted, sliding in between hers. “You don't seem like the type of girl who likes party boys.”

“Ha! No, I guess I'm not. That's why I was intrigued. New experiences.”

“I'm sorry if I'm a disappointment.”

“I don't know
what
you are. I can't figure it out.”

Max finally smiled, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight. “Boy, are you selling yourself short. You're the only one who's ever called me on my…issues.”

“I can't be the only one.”

“Believe me, you are.”

“But you can't take responsibility for every single person you meet, right?”

“Mm,” he hummed, “of course not.”

“Max.” She stopped and used his hand to force him to turn toward her. “Do you take responsibility for every person you meet?”

“No!” he said with a laugh. A charming, warm laugh exactly like one she'd heard from him before. When he was being a big, fat liar.

“Look, we're on an island. We don't know each other. After the end of this week, we'll never see each other again. So you may as well tell me the truth. When will you have the chance to spill your guts without any consequences? Don't think. Just tell me.” He hesitated.

“Tell me.”

“Yes!” he said on a rush of air. “Yes, I feel responsible for everyone I meet.”

“But… That's crazy. How can you do that?”

“I can't. It's…” His wide shoulders slumped. “Chloe, it's exhausting.”

“Oh, Max.” She sighed at the utter weariness in his voice.

“It
is
crazy. I know that. I see that, but I can't stop it.” As he spoke, she could hear herself in his words.
The desperation and tiredness and helplessness she'd been feeling for weeks. It was all there in his deep, rich voice, coming from this confident man with strong shoulders that looked like they could carry the weight of the world. And did, apparently.

“Max.” She sighed, her fingers tightening in his. Forgetting for a moment that he might not even be attracted to her, Chloe leaned toward him, pushing up on her tiptoes, feeling the sand give way and squeeze through her toes. She felt all this, but his mouth was all she could see, all she could think of. His mouth and the sad curve of his lips, and the slight, surprised parting when she'd almost reached him.

At the last second, just as doubt reared its ugly head, he finally moved to meet her. That sad mouth didn't feel sad at all. It felt…comforting. Warm. And definitely interested.

For two heartbeats, his lips simply pressed hers gently, but then Chloe felt the faint rush of Max inhaling, and his arms curved around her.

A brief moment of shock sizzled through her. Shock at being touched by a man who'd never touched her before. But when the surprise wore off, his hands were so solid and hot against her back, and she was no longer on her tiptoes. Max was holding her, his lips parting to taste her.

Chloe opened for him, and the first taste of Max
drew a little sound of approval from her throat. An embarrassing sound, surely, but Max's tongue rubbed against hers and she didn't have time to be embarrassed. She was too busy being happy.