“Obviously,” she retorted with a comical rolling of her eyes. “So let me get this; you held off because you were scared my feelings were fickle? Because you weren’t sure I knew what I was doing, right? You thought I’d hurt you,” she added with a tone less tinged with the sarcasm she’d been using so far.
“Yeah,” he said with a rueful twist to his lips. “I guess that’s the bottom line, in a nutshell. The breathtakingly beautiful and sexy Alexandra Duke, the hottest woman I’d ever seen, could bring me to my knees…so for the first time in my life, I wimped out. I held on to the rules like a life-line. I did my job and swore to keep the professional stance if it killed me. But guess what, sweetie? That didn’t save me.”
Alexandra’s eyes were quizzical as she looked up at him, but she couldn’t speak. She still hadn’t stopped shivering since the words ‘breathtaking and beautiful Alexandra’. He thought she was the hottest woman he’d ever seen? Whoa. The thought warmed her belly, tripped her heart up and made her want to sing. So basically, she was left speechless. A flipping sex god thought she was a sex goddess. She’d need to float down a bit from that first.
Cane smiled tenderly, almost like he could read her mind. Alexandra felt warmth spread over her cheeks and down to her neck, until beads of perspiration formed in the dusky hollow of her cleavage in the white bandeau she wore over her tie-dyed sarong.
“Remember when you asked me…when you wondered if I was ever curious to find out, even just once, how it could be between us?” Cane asked softly, moving so close his body warmth radiated all over her and made her head spin. He smelled so good, as always. Like nothing she could describe; just all male, fresh and inviting. She looked up into those mesmerizing eyes and wanted so much to fall into them – fall into him. But her heart felt wary, even terrified. How could she open the door and get kicked in the chest again?
She could only nod in reply to his question, and he stroked his thumb over her cheeks as he added, “Well, you were right. I was curious; I thought about it every freaking day and night while I was assigned as your bodyguard. Thinking about it, wanting and needing it, only made it worse. And when I left you, I felt like I was ripping out my own soul. I kept wishing I had taken that one kiss, that one night with you in my arms, letting me claim you like a lover should. With you out of the picture, I went so crazy that I was dangerous to have working on a mission. It was like I was slowly losing it and it felt just as it would have done if you had broken my heart, or if it didn’t work out between us. So either way, I was fucked.”
Alexandra drew in a shaky breath, her mind confused, eager to understand yet…cautious to give in. That too-good-to-be-true feeling that she couldn’t shake off. She looked up into his searching eyes and said, “But that doesn’t explain how you’re here, now. How come you just happened to be jogging down the beach, to me?”
Seeing him, identifying his face and that killer body making its way to her from across the pristine beach…it had felt like she’d conjured him just by her aching thoughts. Alexandra felt like she was still in shock from the fact that out of nowhere, her dream man, the one who’d got away…had found his way back to her.
Cane’s smile sobered slightly as he told her, “When I said I was never really gone, I meant it. Sure, I did go on that mission, but in three days I finally convinced myself I couldn’t cope and Noah agreed to let me off the case.”
“But I called him and he told me you were on assignment,” Alexandra blurted out accusatorily.
“Well he was right,” Cane said ruefully. “That assignment was you, rosebud. I came back because I was still worried about you and I wanted to be sure you were okay. So I started to keep watch on you; I followed you to your classes, I was there when you let Malia drag you off to some play or outings with friends, and I generally wanted to be certain that there really was no more threat to you, not from your father’s business rivals or anyone. But it’s become pretty clear now that Vincent really was never the threat; your ex Lamar had been the one who broke in that night at your apartment. But it wasn’t all just a job for me, in case that’s what you’d think. I did it because I couldn’t bear to be far from you, not so soon. I told myself I’ll let you find your heart, maybe meet someone in a normal situation and have a normal relationship. But you never dated and hardly left the house. I was worried about you even as I realized that my feelings were not going to fade away after a while like I thought. Instead, they became so intense I felt ready to face you with the truth.”