Amy Andrews - The Heat of the Night

Luke nodded as she trailed off. ‘They’d have to take sides. It could ruin a friendship that’s somehow survived twenty years of being in business together.’

And if Luke knew one thing it was how easily work relationships turned to dust, and the long-reaching consequences that could have. He was still paying for the faith he’d put into his.

And he’d vowed to never stick his head in the mouth of that lion ever again.

Claudia shrugged. ‘We couldn’t do that to them. It wouldn’t be fair.’

Luke nodded. She was right. Their parents’ friendship was a very good reason why he needed to forget how it felt to have Claudia smooshed up against him. To have touched her breast. Felt it respond. He shut his eyes to block the mental image even as his palm tingled. He turned around, grabbing the railing hard as he stared out over acres of calm ocean.

Hell. He must be jet-lagged.

Get a grip, man.

Claudia let her gaze wander over the contours of his back. She supposed he didn’t have a tan any more. He used to. Surfing every day with Jonah, he used to go a dark nut-brown. His hair used to be long and shaggy.

And then he’d left.

Claudia dragged her mind back to the present. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Avery needs me. Jonah can take you back to Cairns later if you like. I believe there’s an afternoon Qantas flight to Heathrow.’

Luke’s shoulders tensed and he counted to ten before he turned back to face her. ‘I’m not going anywhere for a week,’ he said. ‘I’ll help with the clean-up as much as I can. You might as well just go on and get used to it.’

Claudia regarded him for a moment. His jaw was rigid and his mouth was set in that obstinate line she remembered so well. She’d forgotten how stubborn he could be. And the reality was, she could ill afford to knock back help.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Stay. See if I care. I need every bit of muscle I can get my hands on anyway. But we’re doing this my way—do you understand? I,’ she said, pointing to herself, ‘am the boss. You—’ she pointed at him ‘—are the muscle. Got it?’

Luke suppressed the twitch of his lips at Claudia’s Little Miss Bossy Britches act. He nodded without saying a word. He’d never been known as the muscle before but it brought a whole new connotation to her dominatrix spiel. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at his easy capitulation but said nothing before turning on her heel and leaving.

His gaze was drawn to the swagger of her butt in those terrible capris.

Who knew polyester could suddenly seem so enticing?

FOUR

The next day they got the all-clear to start the clean-up and for five long days Claudia and the whole crew worked like Trojans to clear the mountains of debris whirled up, ripped to shreds and dumped back down again by the cyclone.

Five long days from sun up to sun down—picking up, chopping up, loading, dumping and starting all over again. Crashing exhausted into bed each night with aches and pains and blisters galore. Waking early to do all again the next day.

Too busy to do any of the leisure things that could usually be indulged in at a beach resort. Too busy to relax on the beach or go surfing after shift end. Too busy for long, boozy chats late into the night. Too busy to take a day off and go out fishing in one of Jonah’s charter boats.

Too damn busy for sure to psychoanalyse a very weird moment that should never have happened. Too busy to question it. Too busy to barely say a dozen words to each other.

But when she shut her eyes, all bets were off and Claudia spent a lot of time fantasising about just where that moment could have gone. If she had shifted against him, slid her arm around his neck. If he had kissed her, if he’d pushed his hand under her shirt.

This was what happened when there were unfulfilled sexual fantasies. They just grew and grew in the deep, dark recesses of the imagination until a person could barely sleep from the wondering.

Maybe they should have got it on as he’d put it. Done it early, rid it from their systems. Hell, their parents would never have even known if they’d had some wild pash one night down on the beach.

It probably would have been one of those awful, soggy, teeth-clashing kisses. Probably. And that would have been that.

Because she sure as hell was spending a lot of her supposed sleep time wondering about a wild pash with Luke now.

Too much bloody time.

* * *

On the sixth day Claudia was busy inside, ostensibly going over the strategic plan, plotting their progress, seeing what else had to be done/arranged and making some phone calls to local suppliers.

And it really had started out that way.

But from the reception desk she had a bird’s eye view of the pool. The pool that Luke had decided was on his to-do list today. She’d actually put it on Cyrus’s list but clearly they’d swapped. So there he was in a pair of boardies. And nothing else.

He didn’t have that deep nutty tan any more. Although, he had toasted to a light delicious golden colour even in the short time he’d spent back under the north Queensland sun. His chest was as hairless as she remembered, just a sprinkling around his nipples and a fine trail that arrowed down from his belly button.

All the way down.

Her work largely forgotten, Claudia, her handy clipboard clutched to her chest, watched Luke clear all the large debris that had been dumped in the previously sparkling water of the large resort pool that meandered its way all around the outside of the main building. He stood on the edge and pulled it all out with a large net. From leaf matter to building wreckage to about a zillion dead insects.

There was no sign of the mobile phone he had practically glued to his hip the entire week. Taking phone calls from London at all hours of the day and night, downing tools while he dealt with whatever matter was deemed urgent enough by the person at the other end to interrupt his week off, then picking up again and getting on with it.

Nope, as he waded into the pool with the hand-held industrial vacuum cleaner the phone was nowhere to be seen. Just Luke and his boardies and a pair of reef shoes to protect him from any glass hazards that could still be lying on the bottom of the pool, hidden by the slightly murky water.

With her occupational health and safety hat on, Claudia was pleased to see Luke being cautious. But that wasn’t what was causing her to openly ogle him.

No.

That would be the way water droplets clung to his arms and chest, glistening distractedly. The midday sun shone down on him, sparkling in the droplets, and he was literally dazzling to her eyes.

Claudia swallowed as she watched his broad shoulders and powerful quads get to work, sweeping at the layer of silt and sand on the bottom of the pool.

‘Hey.’

Claudia almost jumped out of her skin as Avery’s voice sounded right near her ear. ‘Do you have to creep around like that?’ she protested, pressing her hand to her pounding heart.

Avery frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Claudia muttered, quickly turning back to the desk.

But it was too late. Avery turned to see what had been holding Claudia’s attention. And found it.

Or him, as the case may be.

She grinned. ‘Well, well, well,’ she teased. ‘Were you perving on that gorgeous hunk of man flesh, Miss Claude?’

Claudia refused to look up and give anything away. ‘Just checking he was wearing the appropriate shoes. That’s an accident waiting to happen,’ she fobbed.

Avery grinned again. ‘Uh-huh.’

Claudia glanced at her friend sharply. ‘I was.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Claudia shoved her hand on her hip. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded.

Avery shrugged in that gorgeous retro Hollywood movie star way of hers. ‘Nothing. I think it’s great that you can’t take your eyes off Captain Sexypants.’