The Pleasure Of His Company. Lindsay Evans

her mother’s tone changed “—think about how amazing this would be for you, too. You could have the financial freedom to realize your dreams. And have a handsome husband to call your own.”

      As if all Adah had ever wanted from this thing was a man.

      She twitched under a particularly firm press of the masseuse’s fingers. “I know I agreed to all this before, but I just need a little time right now.”

      Her mother sighed. “I know, darling. I know.”

      Then she noticeably withdrew into herself, leaving the room silent except for the sounds of the women’s hands on their skin, oil rubbing into flesh and quiet breathing. Embarrassment at airing their dirty laundry in such a relatively public place heated Adah’s face. Although it hadn’t been a full-fledged fight, she felt battered and in the wrong. Her mother had always come away from their arguments as the clear victor while Adah was left limping and bleeding in her separate corner. This time was no different. She sighed into the deafening silence.

      Later, Adah tried to recapture some of the lighthearted conversation they’d been having before. But her heart wasn’t in it, and it was obvious. Soon enough, their spa day was finished. Adah’s body was limp from the massage, but her mind was wound too tightly to rest.

      After the car dropped them off at the hotel, Adah and her mother picked up the keys to their new rooms and took the elevator up. The penthouse room was beautiful. But Adah gave it no more than a passing glance before she grabbed her jogging clothes and quickly changed.

      “I’m going out,” she called out through the open door between their rooms, then left before her mother could reply.

      Adah took the stairs. Her sneakered feet pounded on the elegant steps, taking her down five flights, away from her mother and the snaking guilt that wouldn’t let her say no outright to the gift of an upgrade. For so much of her twenty-six years, Adah felt she’d been stealing her life. A charmed existence taken away from her sister, who’d died before she’d even fully known what she had. Parents who loved her. Parents who could afford to send her to private school. Who had the strength and brilliance to start a small business that became a national company within Adah’s lifetime. Her parents wanted more. Adah wanted more. But she knew the things they wanted were no longer compatible with her own wants, if they ever were.

      At the bottom floor, she panted rough and ragged, sweat covering her body, heat flowing through her like she wished some new strength would. She was tired of this weakness of hers in the face of her parents’ wishes. Marriage was a serious thing. If she couldn’t find a man of her own, she’d rather be alone than with someone she wasn’t in love with.

      The messed-up thing was that she actually liked Bennett Randal. They’d known each other for years and were like brother and sister. But he wasn’t someone she wanted to marry. At first, she thought she would be able to do it, but the idea of being with him in that way had unsettled her more and more as the years passed. Bennett, she knew, didn’t have the qualms she did.

      He expected the marriage to happen. While the details were being finalized, he was enjoying being a bachelor, gobbling up all the available sex he could, usually via the hottest reality stars in Atlanta and the world, before he was tied to Adah forever.

      Forever.

      Just the thought of it made her breath stutter. And it wasn’t just because she was running full speed out of the hotel and onto the beach. Her feet pushed into the soft sand, and she forced herself to take even breaths, trying to put as much distance from her troubles as possible while not getting one step ahead of them.

      Adah squeezed her eyes tightly for a moment but kept pace along the beach, which was nearly empty; most of the beachgoers had gone inside for showers and dinner and sex. The moon was fat and gorgeous in the Aruban sky. A paradise. Or it would be if her mother and Adah’s own troubles hadn’t followed her here.

      She ran on. Her breath huffing. The sound of her feet thumping against the sand and the waves rushing up toward her but never touching. A writhing shape in the water pulled her attention from her breath’s steady rhythm. The moon glided over whatever it was, showing hints of curves. A couple, she thought, making love in the water and under the stars. She changed her path and ran in an arc away from the water, giving whoever it was their privacy.

      But as she moved away, the splashing grew more intense and moved closer to the beach; then a lone body climbed from the water. Adah’s footsteps slowed as details of the swimmer emerged under the moonlight. A masculine body firm with muscles apparent even in the dark, bare shoulders, torso and hips. She stared, her footsteps slowing. Was this man naked?

      “Doe Eyes?”

      She stumbled at the familiar voice and nickname, then without fully realizing it, began walking toward the water’s edge and the gorgeous creature emerging from the water, getting barer as the moonlight slid silver fingers over every hard inch of him.

      “Ah,” Kingsley said, his breath coming quickly after his swim. “I figured I would see you again.”

      Adah clenched her jaw to stop her tongue from hanging out of her mouth. Kingsley wasn’t naked, but he might as well have been. The moonlight outlined him from the top of his proud head to his feet striding out of the water and across the sand to meet her. Pale swim trunks clung to his hips, to the insistent shape between his legs, and the tops of his muscled thighs that were wide and hard enough to make the tips of her fingers ache to sink into them.

      He just said something. It’s my turn to talk now. She swallowed again.

      “I’m just going for a jog to escape my troubles,” Adah finally said with her wryest smile. She looked down the beach and saw the illuminated outline of her hotel much farther away than she’d realized.

      Damn. How far had she come?

      “Should we call it destiny then?” Kingsley wiped the seawater from his face, dragging his hand from his chin down to his strong throat and chiseled chest. Even in the soft light and pervasive dark, Adah could see his grin.

      “Let’s just call it a coincidence and leave it at that,” she said, crossing her arms over nipples that had gone embarrassingly tight.

      Kingsley stepped even closer, and she resisted the urge to close the last few feet of space between them and see if his body was as hard or smooth as it looked.

      She cleared her throat. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll cart you off for public indecency?”

      He looked down at himself and shrugged. “They’d be false charges if they do,” he said, grinning. “Do you think I’m being indecent just by swimming at night? I have a suit on.”

      “What you call a bathing suit some might call underwear.” And the fact that it was a pair of tight white trunks only highlighted what a dark bathing suit would hide. Not that he had anything to be ashamed about. Heat scalded her cheeks, and she yanked her gaze up from his crotch.

      “I’m more covered than most people on the beach today,” Kingsley said.

      He was right. On her walk, she’d seen dozens of European tourists spread across the beach, all body types and speaking so many languages that she’d lost track of how many she heard. But the one thing most had in common was that nearly all the men wore brief swim shorts that clung to their butts and crotches, being just as aggressively sexy as the women in their bikinis. Adah was all for equal opportunity swimwear and enjoyed her walks mostly because of the view. Not all the men were beautiful, but the ones who were gave her quite the eyeful.

      She’d been impressed and amused until she saw the more modestly covered Kingsley on the kite and just about lost her mind. Not that she was doing that great of a job of managing herself now. And if his smug grin was anything to go by, he saw through her clearly enough.

      Adah could only laugh at herself. “Anyway, it was great to see you, all of you.” She couldn’t resist. “But I’ve got to get going.”

      “Nope.” Kingsley shook his head.