Justine wanted to prolong her coolness toward him. However, she was hungry and tired, and the prospect of a fine meal with an ocean view was too tempting to resist.

“That might be nice,” she said grudgingly. “But even if I have dinner with you, it doesn’t mean you’re forgiven.”

“Am I at least a little bit forgiven?”

“Maybe a barely-measurable-by-science bit forgiven.”

“That’s a start.” Jason fished his cell phone from the inside of his suit jacket. “I’ll make the reservation.”

“All by yourself?” Justine asked in mocking awe. “You’re not going to have one of your minions do it?”

He gave her a sardonic glance and began to dial.

“Wait,” she said, recalling his schedule. “You have plans for the evening.”

“I’m completely free.”

“You’re supposed to have dinner with some computer-simulation guys tonight.”

Jason looked up from his phone. “How do you know that?”

“Priscilla gave me your schedule.”

He glowered down at the phone. “Bad minion,” he muttered.

“It’s no problem. I’ll just relax in the private hot tub while you go out for your business dinner.” Justine paused before adding, “I hope there are no rules about nudity. I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

She heard his breath catch. “I’m canceling dinner.”

“At the last minute?”

“I cancel dinners all the time,” he informed her. “It’s part of my elusive charm.”

Justine couldn’t help smiling. “‘Elusive’ is one word for it.” As they reached the boardwalk, she paused to take in the view, the flat sand beach silvered with a heavy infusion of mica, the water, startling Pacific blue. “No wonder L. Frank Baum wrote such a great book while he stayed here,” she said. “It’s a magical view, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” But Jason was looking at her. “Did you ever read The Wizard of Oz?”

“When I was little. Did you?”

“No, but I saw the movie at least a half-dozen times.” Gently he smoothed back her hair as a breeze toyed with the loose locks. “Incidentally … I always rooted for the witch.”

* * *

The beach cottage was sophisticated and luxuriously appointed with hardwood floors, an abundance of glass windows, and deep comfortable furniture. A color palette of creams and neutrals gave it a fresh open feeling, with the blues of the sky and ocean visible from every room. There was a gourmet kitchen, a dining room, and a main living area with a fireplace surmounted by a flat-panel TV. The king-size bed in the bedroom was covered with heavy slick linens. A huge marble tub dominated the adjoining bathroom, which also featured a separate glass shower. After investigating every room of the elegant villa, Justine went back to the main area.

Jason had removed his suit jacket and was draping it over the back of the chair. She had caught him in an unguarded moment. He was tired, she saw, his handsomeness a bit lived-in, worn around the edges. Somehow that made him even sexier, more human, a man with flaws and needs.

“You wanted love,” he had told her in the lobby. “Now you’ve got it.”

No matter how angry or hurt she was, Justine knew it was the truth.

And the echo of Priscilla’s words were still with her: “Even if that spell worked … you don’t have forever.”

Could she afford to waste a moment of love? Could anyone?

Jason looked up as she approached him. The self-possessed mask was instantly resumed. “Do you like the cottage?” he asked. “Because if you don’t—” He broke off, his only reaction a quick double blink as Justine deliberately stripped off her T-shirt and tossed it to the sofa. His gaze locked on to her slim form, dressed in a white cotton bra and jeans. “Justine,” he said raggedly, “I want to make it clear that there’s no obligation … that is, you don’t have to…”

“You’re trying to say I’m not required to sleep with you in exchange for room and board?”

“Exactly.” He didn’t move as she reached for his tie, her slender fingers unknotting the length of silk.

Justine tossed the tie aside. “So when you canceled my reservation and insisted that I stay in this cottage with you, there was no thought of sex lurking in your mind?”

“Not lurking,” Jason said, breathing unevenly as she began to unfasten his shirt. “Stampeding. But you still don’t have to sleep with me.”

Justine let the front of his shirt hang open and slipped her bra straps down. Reaching for the back fastening of her bra, she arched her br**sts toward him. “So if I asked you to take the sofa tonight, you’d be fine with that?”

“Yes.”

She let the bra drop to the floor. Standing on her toes, she slipped her hand behind his taut neck. “Doubtful,” she whispered, and pressed her parted lips to the underside of his jaw. “But you get points for trying to be a gentleman.” The familiar warmth and scent of his skin was her undoing. All trace of melancholy was driven out by a relief so sweeping and giddy that it felt like being drunk.

Jason brought his mouth to hers in a slow, hot kiss. His long fingers spread over the contours of jaw, cheeks, nose, forehead, as if he were blind and could perceive her only by touch. The kiss turned deep and ravenous, until they were both panting, fumbling to undress each other.

Soon a trail of clothes marked the path to the bedroom. Standing by the bed, Jason held her close and cupped her breast. He shaped the plush contour, his thumb and forefinger gently pinching the tip until it was hard and deep pink. He bent to soothe it with his tongue. At the moment her balance faltered, his arm was there to support her, lowering her to the wide bed covered with cool white sheets.

There was nothing in the world beyond this quiet room with the shutters drawn closed. No time, no spinning earth, no deep blue ocean, no broken magic or fate bestowed by unfriendly stars. There was only this man. Her lover, her charmer, binding her heart with invisible cords.

He pressed her back and bent over her breasts, kissing the swollen tips. Sensation darted from her br**sts to her groin in vibrant flashes. His hand went to the soft place between her thighs, one of his fingers wriggling into the tightness, his thumb resting lightly on the aching peak. He began to massage her in slow, teasing circles, inside and out. Pleasure began rolling up to her, gathering momentum. Not yet. She wrenched free and bent over his lap to take him into her mouth, letting her tongue circle the stiff silky tip. The taste of him was intensely arousing, a hint of saline freshness like the ocean.

Jason went still. His eyes closed, and his hands clenched into fists as if he were being tortured. Soon he moved to stop her, pulling her head away with unsteady hands.

He pushed Justine to her forearms and knees, his palms sliding along the taut lines of her body. As he moved behind her, the hard, hair-roughened texture of his legs intruded between hers, spreading them wide. She jerked at the touch of intimate hardness, a blunt stroke all along the open cleft. Moaning, she gripped handfuls of the sheets, waiting blindly. He lifted her h*ps into a high upward tilt as if she were a stretching cat.

They breathed in unison, hearts and lungs laboring. Without warning, he entered her in a demanding thrust. She writhed and backed up against him, her flesh throbbing reflexively around the insistent pressure. He set a relentless rhythm, every movement roughened with pure carnal feeling. Her inner muscles clenched and unclenched in the opposing tensions of pleasure and need. Another slippery-hard plunge, another, deepening until there was no part of her he hadn’t reached.

Too much pleasure, her face burning with it, her flesh aching. She was so close, just a few heartbeats away.

“Jason. Please—” She broke off with a whimper as his hands came to her bottom, rotating to make her feel the taut circling pressure of him inside.

“Tell me,” came his dark whisper. “Tell me what you need.”

She found herself gasping out words that had spilled from a heart cracked wide open. “Love me. I need you to love me.”

She felt his response, a deep shiver, a hot jolt inside her. He answered with a rasping word. Leaning over her, he murmured endearments, gathering her h*ps more tightly up against his. His hand slipped between her thighs, kneading in counterpoint to the deep centering thrusts. A cl**ax broke over her, immolating and blinding.

Pressing her face against the mattress, she made raw pleasured noises, her flesh squeezing and pulling at him. He drove deep and held, not moving, not even breathing for a moment as the release pumped through him. A shudder, a growl, as he luxuriated in the hot clasp of her body.

As they lay together afterward, groggy and spent, Justine realized what he had said to her in that ultimate moment.

Always.

Twenty-two

Since neither of them was inclined to leave the bed, Jason canceled their dinner reservations. He paused to stare at the long lines of Justine’s body. She was stretched out on her stomach, the sheet gathered up to her slender hips. “Your skin is so beautiful. Like white violets.” He ran his fingertips along her spine, marveling at the perfect paleness of her back. She blushed easily, the fever-color lingering. He found a delicate rosy shadow on her shoulder, and another on the side of her breast. “After I’ve made love to you,” he said, “these sweet little pink patches appear everywhere, especially on your—”

“Don’t embarrass me,” she protested, burying her face in the pillow.

Jason bent to kiss every patch he could find, and continued to stroke her with proprietary hands. “Making love…” he mused aloud. “I’ve never called it that before. Too old-fashioned. But with you, the other words for it don’t sound right.”

Her voice was muffled in the depths of the down pillow. “Trust me, there’s nothing old-fashioned about the way you do it.”

Jason smiled, pressing kisses at intervals along her spine. “Are you hungry?”

Her head lifted. “Starving.”

“We could call for one of the hotel’s master chefs to cook something here in the cottage.”

“Really?” Justine considered it. “But I’d have to put on clothes.”

“No, never mind. Let’s get room service.” He left the bed, hunted for a leather-bound menu in the dining room, and brought it back to Justine. “Order something from every column,” he said. “I missed lunch.”

“So did I.” She looked over the menu with evident pleasure. “You want me to order for you?”

“If you don’t mind.”

He stretched out beside her, content to watch her expressive face as she read. He loved the way she wore her feelings on the outside like a price tag she’d forgotten to remove. But even so, her motivations weren’t always clear to him.

His hand caressed her upper arm. “Justine.”

“Mmmn-hmmn?”

“Why did we just have sex?”

“You would rather have done something else?”

“No,” he said fervently, “but it was sooner than I expected. I was going to give you all the time and space you needed. I wouldn’t have said one word of complaint if you asked me to sleep on the sofa.”

“I realized that time is too important to waste.” Gently her finger traced the lines of his nose and mouth. “Even though a relationship between you and me is crazy and inconvenient and basically doomed … none of that matters. Because I love you anyway.”

Jason took her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips, and held them there.

“I’ve always believed love couldn’t be real if it happened too fast,” she told him ruefully. “That’s what makes this whole thing so confusing. You can’t just meet a person and know he’s the one … you have to spend time together, ask a lot of questions, observe him in different situations.”

Jason spoke through the screen of her fingers. “We did that.”

“For two days.”

“That’s not long enough?”

“No, falling in love should be a process. Not like a thunderbolt … there’s a French phrase for it … coup de something … coup de gras?”

“Coup de foudre,” Jason said. “A bolt of lightning. Love at first sight. A coup de grâce is when you deliver a death blow to someone. Which, for us—”

“Don’t joke about it,” she warned, covering his mouth firmly. When Jason fell obligingly silent, she removed her hand. “Aren’t you supposed to pronounce it ‘coup de gras’?” she asked. “In French, you leave the last letter off.”

“Yes, but the word is ‘grâce.’ A ‘coup de gras’ means a ‘blow of fat.’ As in death by bacon.”

Her stomach growled, and she grinned sheepishly. “I’m going to order a coup de bacon,” she said, and turned her attention back to the menu.

In a couple of minutes, she dialed the concierge and ordered several items off the menu, including a bottle of wine. As she considered ordering dessert, the concierge offered to send the ingredients for s’mores, to roast over the private fire pit.

She put her hand over the mouthpiece and asked Jason, “Do you like s’mores?”

He looked at her gravely. “It hurts my feelings that you would even have to ask.”

Grinning, Justine said to the concierge, “Yes to the s’mores.”

After Justine had set the phone back into the cradle, she told Jason, “I hope you’re good at roasting marshmallows…”

“I am.”

“… because I always burn them.”

“I know.”

Justine wrinkled her nose at him. “How?”

“Because roasting marshmallows takes patience.”

“Are you implying that I’m impatient?”

He walked his fingers along her sheet-covered thigh. “I’m stating it as a categorical fact,” he said, and she grinned.

Dinner had arrived by the time they had left the bed and showered. Justine put on a hotel robe and stayed in the bedroom while Jason, who had dressed in casual clothes, let the room service attendants into the cottage. They set out a feast of exquisitely prepared dishes, decanted the wine, and left discreetly.

“How does it look?” Justine asked, venturing out of the bedroom.

“Fantastic,” Jason said, his gaze taking in the sight of her in the hotel robe.