Amy Andrews - The Heat of the Night

Claudia blinked. Only Avery would come up with such a fanciful nickname. ‘Captain Sexypants?’ Of all the... ‘Just because you are all loved up, Avery Shaw, does not mean the rest of the world is similarly interested.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Avery got that dreamy look in her eyes again—the one that had been an almost permanent fixture on her face since she and Jonah had become an item—and Claudia rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the paperwork in front of her.

‘You can tell me, you know, Claude. We’ve been friends a long time—you know you can talk to me.’

Claudia glanced up as Avery turned serious, her American accent more pronounced when edged with worry. The thing was she knew she could. Or she used to be able to anyway. But then the resort got dumped on her as a sole responsibility and, even though Avery had been there by her side throughout it all, the onus still fell directly on Claudia’s shoulders. Trying to keep it altogether, make it all work, had forced Claudia into an almost permanent state of seriousness, with no time for frivolous girly chatter.

And then Avery had hooked up with Jonah and how could Claudia possibly dump her problems on her friend’s shoulders? Avery was happy—she didn’t want to bother her with trivial stuff.

The days of their girlhood confidences had been well and truly squashed by her very adult responsibilities.

So now she wasn’t sure how she could say, well, actually, Avery, Luke sleep-groped me a few days back and I’m so sexually frustrated I think I might die from it or at the very least jump the next guy who walks through the door.

How could she even voice that, think of her own petty desires, when the world around her had gone to hell and there were so much more important things to deal with?

And it was just as well she didn’t as Jonah chose that moment to walk through the door and Avery’s face lit up as if he were dipped in chocolate and rolled in sugar.

‘I know, Avery,’ Claudia said, and smiled at her best friend in the whole world. ‘I know. I just have a lot on my plate.’

Avery gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘You need a break.’

Claudia nodded. ‘Later.’ She tapped a pen against the resort plans in front of her. ‘After.’

But then Jonah’s, ‘Where are those refreshments, woman?’ boomed across the foyer and Avery said, ‘I’m just going to organise some drinks for the workers.’

Claudia nodded absently. ‘’Kay. See you later.’

Claudia watched as Avery took off in Jonah’s direction and smiled as Jonah swept her up and pressed a very indecent kiss on Avery’s mouth. She looked away.

Outside. To the pool.

Luke was boosting himself up on the side, his back to her. Water sluiced off his hair and down over his shoulders and the perfectly delineated muscles of his back. For a man who had an office job, he was in excellent shape. In one smooth movement he’d twisted and sat on the coping of the pool. The broad expanse of his chest was exposed to her view now and Claudia drank it in. Firm pecs, flat abs and that distinct trail of hair that arrowed from his belly button down...

Before she could follow it all the way to its destination, Luke turned again and pushed up through powerful quads into a standing position.

Her gaze was drawn to those legs. Lightly haired, his calves firm without being bulky. And then there were his boardies. His very wet boardies that clung in all the wrong places, outlining the hardness of quads beneath but also the part of his anatomy she’d felt up close and personal only days before.

Claudia’s mouth suddenly felt as dry as day-old toast.

He chose that moment to look up and suddenly she was looking straight into his eyes. Eyes that, despite distance and the barrier of glass, seemed to pierce right to her centre. Their gazes locked and held and Claudia’s heart banged around in her chest. Her breath hitched. Her mouth went from dry to arid.

There was a frankness to his gaze and in that instant she knew, she just knew, he’d been aware of her interest all along. A part of her wanted to hide behind the desk, hide from the directness in his gaze, but he chose that moment to sweep a flat palm up his belly to his chest and her eyes helplessly followed.

She couldn’t look away.

He motioned to her then, inviting her to join him and, God help her, she wanted to. Really freaking bad.

But the phone rang, dragging her back from the edge, and she leapt on it as if it were the last life buoy left on a sinking ship, picking it up and brandishing it at him, barely stopping herself from kissing it.

He looked at her long and hard for a moment before shrugging and nodding and she turned away gratefully, catching her breath as she greeted the caller, her usual chipper phone manner lost in the mental images of a half-naked Luke.

Captain Sexypants indeed.

* * *

Later that evening, with the bulk of the clean-up finally completed, Claudia threw an impromptu luau down on the beach for all the volunteers. Back before the resort was blown to hell, every Saturday night was luau night. It was one of their most popular themed events amongst their largely family clientele as well as Crescent Cove locals.

This wasn’t going to be anywhere near as fancy as that. There wouldn’t be drums and ukuleles to hula to and there wouldn’t be the usual feast but then, there wouldn’t be two hundred people either. There was only a dozen to cater for and, given that there was enough raw material to make a bonfire big enough to be seen from space, all they really needed was some fresh seafood and some cold drinks.

Jonah had been tasked with taking one of his boats out and catching some fish, which he’d done most admirably. Tony, their chef, who was still with them after all these years, had cooked the fish along with an amazing rice-in-coconut-milk concoction and piping-hot fresh bread. Avery had dug out the leis and a CD of Hawaiian music.

And even if partying was the last thing Claudia and her aching body felt like, she put on her uniform, plastered a smile on her face and was the chipper Claude that everyone knew and loved because these people had helped out and worked like dogs, out of the goodness of their hearts, and she owed them.

But it felt good to sit down on one of the logs that ringed the fire and just listen to the chatter and the swish of the ocean. To not do anything. It felt like the first time she’d sat and done nothing for over a week.

She buried her toes in the cool sand and let the bliss take over. Hull, Jonah’s hulking great hound, had collapsed on the sand beside her.

She tipped her head from side to side to stretch out aching neck muscles. She rubbed at the left side with her hand and winced as her index finger twinged. She looked down at her hands. They were in bad shape from a week of hard labour—some old blisters on her palms in various stages of healing, her fingers rough and dry from pulling out a zillion splinters.

She’d kill for a day at one of those fancy spas.

Iron out the kinks with a massage. Get a pedicure. Sit in a sauna and soak half the day. Maybe one of those full-body scrubs.

Nearby laughter pulled her out of her fantasy and Claudia smiled as she watched Cyrus and Isis perform a rather good hula. Jonah in his boardies and Avery in a tangerine bikini with a matching sarong low on her hips danced a much closer, sexier number in the shadows further away, lost in each other.

A pang of jealousy bit Claudia hard in the chest.

‘They look good together.’

Claudia looked up, all the way up, to find Luke looking down at her. He was in boardies as well—dry this time, thank goodness—and his chest was covered with a form-fitting T-shirt. She resolutely ignored the wetter, less dressed image of him that floated in her mind’s eye but his eyebrow kicked up and he looked at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.