Like a Hurricane. Roxanne St. Claire

she looked at him. She couldn’t let him know she was the owner of the dump. It was just too embarrassing.

      Oh, God, what a day. A day? What a year. Life had spun completely out of control well over fourteen months earlier when Hurricane Dante spent six destructive hours as a guest on St. Joseph’s Island. The storm’s category-three winds weren’t deadly, but just potent enough to rip the charm right out of Mar Brisas. Eighty-mile-an-hour winds, and one grossly worded insurance policy had left the resort her great-grandfather had designed and built on its last gasping breath after a glorious sixty-year life.

      “Surely someone will come up here tonight,” he said as he gave the door far too light a tap and tilted his head toward the other end of the hall. A gorgeous, sexy, come-hither tilt. “The workers left their stuff out.”

      “Uh, I don’t think so.” Workers? Hah. He was looking at the workers. With only a tiny percentage of the insurance money ever paid after the storm, the task of repairing Mar Brisas fell on the owner’s proud, but poor, shoulders. So poor, in fact, that she’d agreed to meet with a potential buyer. But so proud that she’d chickened out before he could show up. “Trust me, Mac, not a lot of people frequent the third floor. We could be here awhile.”

      A curious frown deepened a crease between his eyebrows. “How did you know my name?”

      His name? “Mac?” She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I call everybody who meets my backside first.”

      He laughed again. A low, erotic sound that plucked at her heart and sent electrical charges darting into her stomach. His laugh was almost as smooth as his voice, which was like buttah.

      “You’re not still thinking about that, are you?” he asked. “Forget about it. I have.”

      Liar. “I’ll be thinking about you for the rest of my life.”

      “Wow.” He grinned at her. “I’m flattered.”

      “Don’t be. It’ll only happen when I play one of those ‘reveal-your-most-embarrassing-moments’ party games.”

      He leaned his shoulder against the door, his arms crossed. He was definitely not banging, but his wide, muscular chest and the few dark hairs that sneaked out of his unbuttoned collar distracted her so much she didn’t complain.

      “So what are your other embarrassing moments?”

      She heard the question, but only listened to the cadence of his mesmerizing voice.

      Watching and listening to this guy was a heady experience. She was definitely light-headed. “Tell me yours first.”

      He leaned closer. “It’ll cost you.”

      She sucked in a little breath at his proximity, catching a whiff of peppermint and maybe the very first drops of heated male sweat that dampened the strands of black hair that fell on his forehead. That reminded her of the nasty no air-conditioning comment.

      “I’ve paid my dues,” she managed to respond. “You’ve seen my underwear.”

      “Not really.”

      She arched a skeptical eyebrow.

      “Just one little tiny scrap of lace,” he admitted.

      She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Mac wasn’t going to cut her an inch of slack.

      He moved closer, invading the last vestige of her personal space. He wasn’t smiling, but his dark-chocolate eyes burned as his gaze traveled over her, lingering on her revealing tank top before returning to her eyes. He parted his lips and she caught a momentary glimpse of his tongue.

      Light-headed intensified to bona fide dizziness.

      “Blue is definitely your color.”

      He had to have heard the little sound that tumbled from her mouth. Because he lowered his face even closer to hers, eliminating all the space and all the air. “Lingerie that matches your eyes. You could start a whole new fashion trend.”

      She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. He was close enough to kiss. Her heart thumped, blood rushing melodiously through her ears. Kiss, kiss, kiss it sang to her.

      “Kiss.”

      Before she realized what she’d said, he did.

      His mouth came down on hers gently at first, but the instant their lips met, he increased the pressure. He put his hands on her hips and turned her body toward him. Deepening the kiss, he pulled her into him, pressing her into his rock-hard chest and rock-hard…

      She broke the contact, but he kept a firm grip on her hips, then nuzzled his mouth at her ear.

      “You said ‘kiss.’” His breath skimmed the hairs on the back of her neck.

      She shivered. “I said miss.” She gently pushed at the impressive shoulders to look at him. “I meant…maybe someone will miss you and call the front desk—”

      He shook his head. “I’m here all alone.”

      “What about…back home? Your…wife?” She had to be sure this was safe and legal. Because it felt anything but.

      He shook his head again, his lips curling in a wistful smile. “No wife.”

      It was too good to be true.

      He was too good to be true.

      “What about you?” he asked, his thumbs circling each of her hip bones in a maddening, mesmerizing rhythm.

      Obviously, he was asking if she were attached, married or otherwise unable to continue what they’d just started. With the exception of two feeble attempts in her early twenties, she basically defined unattached. Should she let him know that? Or just back away?

      This was her chance for common sense to outweigh what he was doing to the other five. This was her chance to prove that humans really do reason, when animals only act on instinct. This was her chance to end this insanity. Should she take it?

      Not a chance.

      “No one is missing me,” she told him truthfully.

      “Then please let me kiss you again.” That silken voice caressed her with the same power of his hands. “That elevator door might open any minute and I hate missed opportunities.”

      Her gaze dropped from his eyes, over his classic Roman nose, his handsome, hollow cheeks, pausing at the lips that she’d just tasted.

      She wasn’t going to miss this one. She stood on her toes to meet him and this time, his tongue darted directly into her mouth. And out again. And in. And out.

      His not-so-subtle message turned her legs to water. In fact, her entire lower body had liquefied and she wrapped her arms around his neck to keep from melting onto the ground.

      She refused to think about what she was doing. Kissing a stranger named Mac, locked on the empty third floor of her resort, when she should be downstairs facing the biggest professional and personal dilemma in her twenty-eight years on earth.

      This was sheer madness.

      This was sheer delight.

      He eased her against the elevator door and she could feel the seam of the two wooden panels against her back. In one smooth movement, his hands traveled up her rib cage and rested on the outside of her breasts. Waiting for permission. The woman in her knew exactly how to give the signal. All she had to do was breathe deeply, press her chest closer and he’d accept the invitation to touch her. He wanted her—there was no doubt about his response, against her stomach. And his heart thumped in the same staccato as hers, against her chest.

      She was long past dizzy now and on her way to full-fledged swooning. She couldn’t possibly open her eyes. She couldn’t possibly stop this feeling of falling. Falling into Mac.

      She felt a vibration, heard a groan.

      As the elevator doors clunked, he swooped her away, saving them both from