Jo Leigh - Minute by Minute

“Interesting as in the old Chinese curse?”

He smiled, nodded. “I used to love waking up in the morning. Seriously. I couldn’t get enough. Nothing mattered except the work. This was even before the column, when I was learning the ropes at the Post. Everything was exciting and challenging, and I was on the side of the White Hats for truth, justice and the American way.”

“And now?”

“Haven’t you heard? Gray is the new white. And my hat’s become a bit tarnished.”

“Oh.” She tried to see his eyes, but he was assiduously studying the sand. “Care to elaborate?”

“Not really,” he said.

“Is it just work? Or are things not peachy in your personal life, either?” she asked.

“What personal life?”

“Ah, that’s a tune I know by heart,” she said, sighing.

“Honey, you wrote the music.”

She stopped. It took him a minute to realize that she wasn’t next to him, but then he came back.

“We’ve chatted pretty much every night for eons, talked about everything from Nietzsche to your obsession with white panties, and this is the first time I’m hearing you’re unhappy with your work?” she said.

He shrugged.

“But your column is doing so well.”

He looked at her with such troubled eyes that she hardly knew what to do. “Let’s go swimming,” he suggested.

She reached to pull off her cover-up. “We didn’t bring towels.”

“Oh. Not good. You go on in. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, thanks.”

He hesitated, and she wasn’t quite sure why. That look was still in his eyes, that combination of hope and despair that made her want to hold him. With a slight shake of his head, he turned back to the bungalow, jogging easily through the sand.

Just yesterday she’d told herself over and over that she knew this man. That she’d spent a year getting to know him. They’d shared secrets. Big ones. And she didn’t know something as huge as his unhappiness with his work?

What else didn’t she know?

She tossed her cover-up to the sand and walked into the surf. The waves brushed her legs and then her thighs. The water was a little chillier than she’d first thought, but nice. She lived an hour from the beach in L.A. and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in the ocean.

He was right. She had written the book on working too much. It had to stop, or she was going to lose it big time. The only problem was, she didn’t know how to stop it.

The first step was to stop thinking about it. To stop thinking altogether. And the best way to do that was to have oodles of hot, sweaty sex. Having seen Alex’s super pack o’ condoms, she surmised that he needed the exact same thing.

Anesthesia by orgasm.

It worked for her.

ALEX GRABBED A COUPLE OF the big towels, both of them vivid with animal prints, and went back out to meet Meg. Thigh-deep in the water, she was as beautiful as anything on the island.

He hadn’t expected that. He’d been so used to looking at her picture that she didn’t really seem like the same woman.

Not that he was complaining, but it was still a little disconcerting.

Which was how she must be feeling after his confession. He hadn’t even planned on telling her. At least not on the first day. She didn’t need to be burdened with his crap. It was probably all midlife-crisis bullshit, although he was only thirty-three. And for God’s sake, he worked in politics. How could anyone not get caught up in all that power and all that bull? It had crept up on him with amazing stealth. Secrets shared, held close to the vest, but they all came with a price. Nothing earthshaking, nothing to lose sleep over. Until he was buried so deep he could hardly breathe.

Which was why he’d needed to get the hell out. To take his mind off work, off Washington, off anything but one beautiful woman who made him laugh as much as she made him hard.

He jogged through the sand, checking out Meg, checking out the emptiness of the beach, putting two and two together. Although the actuality of doing anything out here, while private, would probably be uncomfortable. Sand had its place, and that was far, far away from all the good body parts.

On the bright side, the bungalows were real close.

Meg turned as he spread out the second towel. She was in up to her waist now. When the waves receded, her hips and thighs came into view.

He wanted to touch her. Everywhere the water touched. He wanted to feel the soft skin between her thighs, trace every curve.

“It’s fabulous,” she said, waving him in.

He went in, shocked by how cold the water was, but completely unwilling to admit it. Smile firmly in place, he decided this was another reason not to have sex at the beach.

“Is it always this deserted?” she asked.

“No idea. The other bungalows are booked, though. I know, because the only reason I got this one, considering the holiday, was through contacts at the paper. Redskins tickets were involved.”

She grinned as she dunked a little deeper into the water. “I’m glad you didn’t say blackmail, because I doubt very much I would have cared.”

“Confessions of wickedness so early in the week? Excellent.”

She splashed him and the shock of the water threatened his manly countenance. He managed to hold it together somehow. Especially with Meg as a reward.

“The water is so clear. I can’t even imagine how good the snorkeling’s going to be,” she said.

Should he tell her he’d never been snorkeling? Or on Jet Skis? Or gone windsurfing? That his experience with large bodies of water consisted of flying over them at thirty-five thousand feet? And was there any cool way of casually mentioning that he played a mean game of one-on-one at his local park?

He decided to show, not tell, so he took three long strides, then dived into the water. Tensing from the cold, he swam until he got more accustomed, which was just long enough so that he gasped for breath when he shot up.

Actually, he felt pretty damn good. Which had more to do with Meg than with the ocean, but the ocean didn’t hurt.

She was laughing. What a sight it was. Broad laughter. Laughter that involved every part of her, and he chalked up another one for the good guys. He knew she didn’t laugh like this often. Her life was one problem after another, one horse, one llama, one cat, then the next. Always on call, never enough help. Never enough rest because the phone might ring.

They both needed to be here. And they both needed to get the hell over whatever awkwardness they felt, and get down to it.

He was going to make sure that by the time Meg Becker got back on the plane, she’d be the most sexually satisfied woman who ever lived.

If he felt damn good along the way, so much the better.

As he watched her, as the waves knocked him in the ass with soothing regularity and the sun warmed his chest, her laughter stilled. She rocked with the same rhythm, from the same waves. The joy was still there in her eyes, but something else was there, too.

Curiosity. Desire. But still, that bit of hesitation. They knew each other and they didn’t. The only cure was getting close, letting down the walls. Telling the truth.

He wasn’t used to that. Not that he lied all the time, but he’d learned to be very selective about what he said to whom. It was all about omission in his line of work. Getting the other person to reveal too much, while he revealed nothing at all.

Which was great when he interviewed a congressman, but counterproductive in the ocean with the woman he hoped to sleep with until they both cried uncle. “I was thinking about walking to the hotel tonight. Getting some dinner, checking out the disco. What do you think?”