Wilde Nights in Paradise (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (10 page)

Chapter Twelve

“I told you, Noah. I’m not supposed to talk about it. For my own safety.”

Jude stopped short as he stepped into the house from the patio with a towel raised halfway to his dripping hair. He’d been feeling pretty damn good this morning after his swim, had worked out the tension that kept winding tighter in him as each day passed. But as soon as he heard Libby’s oh-so-practical voice chatting away in the living room, every knot returned to the exercise-loosened muscles of his back and shoulders.

Noah?
As in Matchstick, her skinny, flame-haired assistant? Son of a bitch. She couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to call him.

“I wish I could,” she continued with resignation tingeing her voice, “but I have a Neanderthal of a bodyguard and—yes, that’s the one. I know. I’m not particularly fond of him, myself, but you can rest easy. He’s not going to stop me from working.”

Cursing, Jude threw aside the towel and stalked across the kitchen, leaving wet footprints on the tile behind him. He found her seated at the computer desk in the office off the living room. As she started speaking legalese into the cell phone clamped to her ear, she clicked her way through a pdf file on screen.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She jumped and spun around in her seat.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he repeated through his teeth and snatched the phone out of her hand. At the other end of the line, he heard Noah squawking with outrage, but ignored it and powered down the iPhone. He pulled it out of its protective case, strode to the patio doors, and fast-balled it into the pool before returning to the living room. He handed the case back and Libby stared down at it, shock widening her eyes behind her glasses.

“Jude, you son of a—”

He held up a finger to silence her. “No phones. I thought I made that clear.”

“Bullshit. You said no such thing.”

“I told you our first night here. No phones. No computer. No contact with anyone in D.C. as long as we’re here. Those were my only fucking rules, and you went and broke them the first time I turned my back.”

“You want to talk about breaking rules?” she retorted. “I seem to remember someone trying to make an escape the other day.”

Fuck. Should’ve known that would come back to bite him in the ass. “Key difference, I didn’t leave. As much as I wanted to, as much as I needed to get out, get some air, I stopped myself. As you should’ve when you picked up that phone to call your office.”

“Dammit, I have to work.”

Frustration, worry, and anger brewed into an explosive combination in his chest, and he grabbed her by the shoulders, hauling her out of her chair. He couldn’t figure out which he wanted to do more: kiss her sassy mouth shut or shake some goddamn sense into her hard head. “You’re on vacation!”

With a jerk of her shoulders, she dislodged his hands and dropped back into her seat like she had every intention of returning to the legal brief on screen. “I don’t
take
vacations.”

Jude yanked the computer’s plug out of the wall. “Explains why you’re such an uptight hard-ass.”

She whirled in the chair to face him again. “I’m the hard-ass? Excuse me, but
I
didn’t just toss
your
four-hundred-dollar phone into a pool for breaking the so-called rules.”

“Those so-called rules are in place to keep you in one piece.”

“For godsakes, I was talking to Noah.”

“Who could be your stalker.”

“What about K-Bar?”

“I’m not ruling anybody out. Didn’t Noah start working for you around the same time you got the first doll?”

Her mouth opened. Closed after a heartbeat without uttering a sound. For a moment, genuine fear shone on her face, and his anger drained away.

“I’m sorry about the phone,” he said as gently as he could manage and ran a hand down the silken length of her ponytail. “But I couldn’t risk someone—like Noah—tracking you with it.”

“No.” She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head. When her lids lifted, she was all fire and outrage again. “You’re wrong. Noah’s as harmless as a bunny.”

Jude snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, sure. I’ve never met a lawyer who doesn’t have teeth.”

“That’s just it. Noah’s a smart kid, but you need more than brains to get anywhere in big city law, and he’s not cut out for it. After he finishes school, he’s probably going to end up as a small-town lawyer, handling wills and civil cases. He doesn’t have the fortitude for criminal trials.”

Christ, she had a counter-response for every point he made. He supposed that was a sign she was good at her job, but it also made it frustrating as hell to carry on a conversation with her. “Libs, think about it. Paper dolls? Is that really something a hardcore gangbanger like K-Bar is going to mess around with? No. It’s more like something a kid with no backbone would do.”

Libby brightened. “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. K-Bar’s not involved, and the notes and dolls are just some nutso’s ridiculous idea of a joke.” She made a move like she was going to stand. “So now that you finally get it, why don’t we just end this nightmare of a vacation and go home? We’ll never have to see each other again.”

He kept her in the chair with a hand on her shoulder. “Yeah, nice try, babe. Even if it’s not K-Bar, there’s still a very real threat that we need to take seriously.”

Her lower lip trembled into something damn close to a pout, though he bet she’d kick him in the balls if he pointed it out. Still, he couldn’t resist the urge to drag his thumb over the inviting jut of her lip.

“Someone tried to run you over, remember?”

She turned away, and damn it all to hell, even though it was just one more rejection in a very long line of many, it stung. Way more than it should have.

“I’m still convinced it was you they were aiming for,” she said, all prim and haughty like a princess addressing a servant so far beneath her that he barely rated her notice.

All right. If she wouldn’t accept tender words or gestures from him, he could go back to being the hard-ass. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her. “We’re staying until your father or my brothers give me the all clear to take you back.”

With a groan, she banged her forehead on the desk. Once. Twice. Damn woman was going to give herself a concussion.

Jude winced. Squatting beside her, he caught her chin in his hand to stop her from doing it again. “C’mon, it’s not that bad. If your father had it his way, we’d be shacked up in some cabin on a dead-end mountain road, trying not to freeze to death. At least here you can enjoy some sun, the pool—”

“And your shining presence?” she said, heavy on the sarcasm.

“I can tell ya my presence is a lot more shiny here than it woulda been in that mountain cabin.”

“Small consolation.” She sighed and lifted her head. “Do we have any wine? I have a headache.”

“You bang your head on a desk and expected
not
to have a—” Jude wisely sealed his lips when her eyes narrowed in warning. He hitched a thumb toward the kitchen. “I stuck a bottle in the fridge to chill for you.”

“Look at that.” She patted his cheek in the same indulgent way his mother had when he was five and had drawn himself a report card to go with his brothers’ already pinned to the fridge. “You can be tamed after all.”

Jude stayed where he was for a moment after she got up and walked toward the kitchen.

Tamed? Him?

Nah, he decided and stood. He hadn’t been tame a day in his life and didn’t plan to be. Someone out of the five Wilde boys had to live up to the name, after all.

Chapter Thirteen

“Another glass already?”

Libby glared up at him as he walked into the kitchen from the living room, where he’d been watching TV. Then, just to be pissy, she dumped more of the wine into her glass. He held up his hands in surrender. “Just asking.”

“It’s not like I have any work to do. I’m on
vacation
.”

He exhaled. “You’re going to be pissed about that for days, aren’t you?”

“Hmm.” She swirled her wine, pretended to consider it. “Yeah, I think so. And you owe me a new phone.”

He waved a dismissive hand and disappeared into the bedroom. Impossible man. Impossible, frustrating man. With a shake of her head, she stuffed the cork back into the neck of the wine bottle and returned to her seat at the kitchen island, where she’d left her book open on the countertop. She started reading, intent on sinking back into the words and forgetting about him for a while, but a thump from the bedroom drew her attention. Another thunk. An exclamation.

What the hell was he doing in there?

She stood and made it halfway to the hall when he reappeared with a box in his hands. He breezed past her and deposited his cargo on the dining table in the open area between the kitchen and living room.

As she moved to his side, she got a good look at the box. “Battleship?”

“My favorite. I knew Seth had some board games stashed away somewhere from when his family used to use this place as a vacation house, but I didn’t think I’d find this one. Wanna play?”

“Seriously?”

“We don’t have anything else to do,” he said with mock gravity. “We’re on vacation.”

“Yes, ha-ha, throw my words back at me. You’re so clever. Let’s all laugh.” She traced her nail along the edge of the old, beat-up box. “I haven’t played this since I was… I don’t know. Ten?”

“Really?” Jude seemed genuinely surprised as he opened the box and handed her one of the game boards. “The twins and I play all the time. It’s our go-to game when we’re bored.”

“But…you’re adults.”

“So?” With that, he pulled out a chair, sat down, and focused on placing his ships. She watched him for a moment, amazed at the pure enjoyment he got out of finding the perfect position for each of his game pieces. He muttered to himself—a mix of “hmm” and “nope” and “ah-ha!” until he was finally satisfied and gazed up. He frowned when he realized she still hadn’t opened her board. “You don’t want to play?”

Sighing, she gave in. Like he said, it wasn’t as if she had anything else to do. She retrieved her wine from the island, then sat down across from him. Opening her board, she took considerably less time placing her ships.

His frown only deepened. “You’re supposed to strategize. That’s part of the fun.”

“I did.”

He made a face.

“I did!” she insisted.

“Uh-huh. You’re making this too easy.”

“I am not!”

“All right, then how about we up the ante?”

“I’m not betting on a children’s game.”

“No betting. Well, not really.” A smile—that damned quicksilver grin she found so appealing—twitched at the corner of his mouth. “More like…strip poker. Or in this case, Battleship.”

She stared at him.

“What?” he asked, all blue-eyed innocence. “It’ll make things interesting. I get a hit, you take off a piece of clothing.”

“And vice versa?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Always the negotiating lawyer, huh?”

“It’s not fair if the rules only apply to me.”

“All’s fair in love and Battleship.”

“Uh-huh.” She picked up her wineglass and pushed away from the table. “I’m not playing.”

“Ah, c’mon, Libs. I was joking. Of course the strip rule applies to me, too. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise.”

Libby knew she was dancing too close to the fire, but the wine was a warm, heavy buzz in her head, muffling the little voice inside her mind that always told her the proper way to act, the right thing to say. In fact, it felt good to ignore that annoying voice. And, besides, she never could resist a challenge.

She returned to her seat. “All right. Deal.”

Jude grinned and waved a hand in a flourish, indicating she should start. “Ladies first.”

“Because you are such a gentleman.”

He waggled his brows. “We already established that I’m most definitely not.”

At the reminder, a hot flush blazed just under the surface of her skin. The wine, she told herself. The sudden jump in the room’s temp was only from the wine. Seeing as she was on her second glass, she should probably slow down.

“Well?” Jude prompted. “Give me your best shot.”

She emptied her glass and pushed it away before studying her game board. “B-four.”

He groaned. “Aw, man. You got—”

“Hah!”

“A miss,” he finished with a laugh. “Gotcha.”

She grabbed a white peg. “You suck.”

“Only when asked, babe.”

Okay,
that
rush of heat had nothing to do with the alcohol in her system. That was 150 percent pure lust. Her imagination went wild with ideas of places she could ask him to—

Game. They were playing a game. Nothing more.

She forced her attention back to the board, but the next three coordinates she tried were misses. Jude got her cruiser on his second try.

“Pay up,” he said and held out a hand. She reached down and pulled off one of her socks, then held it out to show she had indeed taken off an article of clothing.

He scowled and looked under the table. “Damn. I didn’t know you were wearing those.”

She just smiled sweetly and set the sock aside. “I seem to have the advantage. You’re wearing a lot less than I am.”

“That’s not gonna make any difference.”

“Mmm.” She eyed him over the edge of her game board. “We’ll see.”

“Oh, it’s on now.” He cracked his knuckles and got down to the business of sinking her ships one by one. With each new hit, she lost another article of clothing, but it was sort worth seeing the hitch in his breathing every time she showed a little more skin.

“You sunk my cruiser.” She pouted, but secretly her body thrummed as he sat back with one arm slung across the chair next to him and scanned her with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Shorts,” he said.

“Cocky,” she shot back.

His arm left the back of the chair and dipped beneath the table. “Uh-huh. I am that.”

Her own breath caught at the mental image of what he was doing to himself under there, which made him grin and release his hold on himself.

“Shorts,” he said again.

Oh, he wanted her shorts? Fine. She stood and gave him her back, hooking her thumbs in the elastic waistband. Slowly, so very slowly, she wiggled out of them, then bent over with her ass in the air to take them off her feet. He groaned. Satisfied with that response, she straightened and faced him in just her tank top, one sock, and her panties. Eyes smoldering with barely banked lust, he stared like he was trying to photograph her with his mind. She had to battle the ridiculous urge to throw herself at him and ride him until they broke the chair.

Dammit. She was supposed to be teaching him a lesson with this strip tease, not torturing herself.

She dropped into her seat and finished her wine in a gulp, hoping to cool the wildfire he’d ignited in her, then made herself refocus on the game. “A-eight.”

Even though she wasn’t looking at him, she heard the devastating smile in his voice when he said, “Miss.”

By the time she had only her battleship standing, she’d talked herself into another glass of wine and was feeling flushed despite the fact that she was down to her bra and underwear. She still hadn’t found even one of Jude’s ships.

“You’re cheating,” she insisted, squinting at him through blurry eyes. “Are you moving them around?”

He held up his hands. “I swear I’m not.”

“Uh-huh. Then how come you’re still dressed?”

“I’m just that good. A-six.”

“Hit. Dammit.” She placed the red peg in her battleship, then stared down at herself. Bra or panties? She decided on her bra and reached around to unclasp it, but Jude stopped her.

“Uh-uh,” he said, voice thick. “Panties first.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Heat sparked in his gaze. “Absolutely.”

“Fine.” She stretched out her legs and shimmied out of the panties before balling them up in her hand. She tossed them at him. They bounced off his chest. Laughing, he scooped them up with his finger and waved them like a victory flag. She laughed, too. Couldn’t help it. He looked so damn satisfied with himself.

“I should forfeit,” she told him.

“You won’t.”

“You’re going to win.”

“Yup,” he said, completely unapologetic.

And a moment later he did, sinking the battleship and taking her bra as a prize. She hadn’t scored even one hit against him. How was that possible? She stood and leaned over the table to peek at his board. All of his ships sat stacked one on top of each other.

“You did cheat, you jerk!”

“No, I took a calculated risk. If you had hit one of my ships, you would have hit them all.”

“I demand a rematch!”

He smirked and reached out to trail a finger along the curve of her breast. “You don’t have any more clothes.”

“I’ll play naked.”

“Now that’s an intriguing offer.”

And a stupid one. Why the hell had that popped out of her mouth? It must be a mix of the wine and her competitive nature getting the best of her, and she reeled herself in, sat back down, and crossed her arms over her breasts. “That wasn’t a fair game.”

“Fair enough.”

“Ugh. You’re infuriating.”

“And you’re beautiful.”

That stopped her indignation in its tracks, and she realized he was staring at her like he wanted to lick her all over, all but devouring her with his eyes. Heat bloomed under her skin. Her nudity hadn’t bothered her before, but she didn’t want him to see the flush, didn’t want to let him know how much that languorous sweep of his heavy-lidded blue eyes turned her on. She scrambled to find something to cover herself with, ended up grabbing the thin blanket draped over the back of the nearby couch, and clutched it to herself as she stood.

“We had our one night,” she reminded him, and his easy smile slipped away.

“I’m not satisfied with that.”

“Too bad.”

Jude’s jaw tightened until a tick started in his cheek. “Are you?”

“That was the deal.”

“Forget the damn deal. You know how good we are together, Libby.”

They were good together, but only in bed, and that was the problem. If he were any other man, she’d have indulged in a fling without a thought. Then again, if he were any other man, she wouldn’t have been interested in a fling to begin with. Jude was it for her. The first time they had made love, he’d ruined her for all other men, and she’d made her peace with the fact that she was going to end up a career-focused spinster.

Now here he was again. Back in her life, offering only part of what she truly wanted, and she couldn’t bring herself to take even that. She couldn’t put herself through the heartbreak of falling in love with him again, and she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to help herself if she spent more than one night with him.

Shaking her head, she backed away. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”