She walked in a small circle to ease the lactic acid burn from her legs.
'You do weights?'
'Some. Mainly light weights. Although I missed every one of my workouts this week due to work, so no doubt when I start back Monday morning I'll be a little sore.'
'Do some now.'
She cast her eyes from the sparkling ocean to the sand dunes behind them. 'I'm sorry, but if you see a weight machine anywhere around here you're on your own.'
He laughed. 'There's a lot you can do without machines. Trust me. This is part of my day job. Why don't we start with some ab crunches?'
He lay on his back and started curling his head towards his bent knees. He'd made it to twenty when out of the corner of his eye he saw her reluctantly join him. He wasn't sure why that pleased him so much.
She kept pace for a minute, then fell back on the sand. 'I've been running for a while but I'm still pretty new at the gym thing,' she said.
'Okay, now squats.'
Miller groaned. 'I really don't like squats.'
'No one likes squats except bodybuilders.'
She laughed and the husky sound made his stomach grip.
'Come on.' His voice was gruff, unnatural sounding.
She jumped lithely to her feet and he couldn't look away from the toned muscles in her thighs as she braced her legs slightly apart.
'Raise your arms overhead as you go down. And keep your chest up.' He cleared his throat, trying to concentrate on her technique rather than recalling the feel of her peaked nipple pressing eagerly into his palm. 'Squeeze your glutes and extend through your hips as you come up.'
He'd need to dunk himself in the ocean at this rate, but at least his mind was fully focused on something other than racing again.
'Am I getting a personal training session now?' She grinned at him, but didn't stop.
'Maybe.' He returned her smile. 'I do aim to please.'
'What's next?' She breathed deep and shook out her legs.
Tino could think of a lot of 'nexts' that involved her horizontal on the soft sand without the top and shorts, but he shouldn't even be thinking like that.
He sucked in a litre of air and took her through a couple of other light exercises. 'Push-ups.'
Miller grimaced. 'Oh, great. You're hitting all my favourites.'
She got down on the sand and started pushing herself up, her knees bent.
'They're not real push-ups,' he teased.
'Yes, they are!' After twenty she collapsed and rolled onto her back. 'Okay, that's it. Those and the bench press are my weakest exercises.'
He absently noted how the sun had turned her hair to burnished copper, with some of the tendrils around her temples darkened with sweat. Her cheeks were pink from exertion, her chest heaving...
Don't even go there, Ventura.
'That just means you have to do more of them.'
Miller turned her head towards him and her eyes sparkled as blue as the ocean behind her. 'Oh, darn. No bench press. What a shame.'
Tino smiled. So she did have a sense of humour.
Lifting from his sitting position beside her, he came over the top of her, before he could talk himself out of it, his body hovering far too close to her own.
Her eyes flew wide and her hands fluttered between them, the pulse-point at the base of her throat hammering wildly. 'Valentino, what are you doing?'
He liked the way she used the full version of his name. Breathless. Husky.
'Accommodating you.' His own voice was rough again, as if he'd swallowed a mouthful of sand, and he hoped to hell she hadn't noticed that he was already fully hard. 'I'll be your bench press.'
'Don't be silly.'
He braced himself on his arms and lowered his upper body slightly over hers. 'Hands on my shoulders,' he commanded.
When she put them there he barely suppressed the shudder that ran the length of his whole body.
She shifted beneath him. Swallowed. 'This won't work,' she said, but she didn't remove her hands. 'You're too big.'
Her eyes met his and the air between them sizzled.
She was wrong. This wasn't silly. This was way beyond silly. 'Ten reps. Go.' He just wanted them out of the way now.
She pushed at his shoulders and he mentally worked his way through every component of a car engine as they moved in unison. He could feel her hot breath on his neck as she exhaled and he dared not look at anything but the sand above her head.
Of all the lame-brain things to do...
He paused when he felt her weaken, intent on pushing himself away from her, but he made the mistake of looking down into eyes that had gone indigo with desire.
The sound of seagulls squalling couldn't even distract him from the hunger that burned a hole in his belly.
Her hands slipped down his arms, shaping his muscles, and her eyes drifted to his mouth. 'Valentino...'
Her husky plea weakened him more than fifty reps with twenty-five-pound dumbbells could and, groaning deep in his chest, he lowered his head and captured her soft mouth with his own.
* * *
Miller was aware of every hard inch of Valentino's male flesh pressing her into the sand. Her own body throbbing as if it was on fire, totally drugged by his heat, his smell, his taste. She couldn't remember why this was a bad idea. No rational words remained in her head to rein in her pleasure-fuelled body. Her arousal with him in bed earlier had returned full-force.
Impatient with a need she'd never felt before, she swept her hands down his back and then smoothed them up under his sweaty shirt. He groaned approvingly and with his elbows either side of her face cradled the back of her head, angling her so that his skilful mouth could ravage her lips, his moist tongue plundering and duelling with her own in a way that made the ache between her legs become almost painful.
She felt his other hand drift over her torso, feather-light as if learning her shape, his fingertips moving closer and closer to the tip of one breast. Moaning, Miller twisted in his hold, her body begging for more of his touch. She felt him smile against her mouth, his lips drifting over her jaw and down the column of her throat.
'Please, Valentino...' she pleaded, her body craving a release she had never experienced during sex but which now seemed infinitely possible. Infinitely desirable.
Obliging her, his hand rose over her breast, cupping her, his thumb flicking back and forth over her nipple at the same time as his teeth bit down on the straining, sensitive cord of her neck.
Miller cried out, jerking beneath him. Her body was liquid with need, her hips arching towards his, her mind completely focused on one outcome.
His fingers plucked more firmly at her nipple and her fingernails unconsciously scored the tight muscles of his lower back.
He shifted sideways and she whimpered in protest. Then his hand slid lower, and she stopped breathing as he cupped between her legs.
'Miller-'
She didn't want him to speak. She just wanted to lose herself in these magic sensations. She dragged his mouth back to hers, her tongue instantly gratified by the warm wetness of his deep, soul-destroying kiss. Her body was close, so close, and she couldn't think, couldn't breathe.
'Oh!'
His hand slipped beneath the hem of her shorts and knickers and then his fingers parted her and lightly stroked her swollen flesh. He groaned into her mouth, pressed deep at the same time as Miller pressed upwards, and that was all it took for her to tumble over the edge. She gripped his shoulders and wrenched her mouth from his, gasping for oxygen as her body disintegrated into a million wonderful pieces.
For a while nothing happened, and then she became aware of the sound of Valentino's harsh breathing above her own panting breaths, the seagulls squalling overhead.
When she finally managed to open her eyes she found him looking down at her with an open hunger that made her feel instantly panicked.
Oh, God... 'What have I done?'
'I believe it's called having an orgasm,' he mocked, clearly understanding the horrified expression on her face. 'Followed closely by feeling regret.'
Regret? Did she regret it? She didn't even know. But all the reasons this was not a good idea rushed back like a blast of cold water from a hose.
Public beach. Playboy. Promotion.
If she could bury her head in the sand right now she would.
A seagull squawked close by and Miller jumped. 'You have to get off me.'
'I'm not actually on you.'
He was right. His body hovered beside her, shielding her from any prying eyes at TJ's house some way along the beach, but he wasn't holding her down.
Miller scrambled to a sitting position and looked over his shoulder. They were still alone. Thank God.
'I said I wasn't going to have sex with you,' she spat at him accusingly. She knew full well that she was equally responsible for what had just happened between them, but was still unable to fully take in the sensations rippling through her body. 'This never happened,' she said firmly, her emotions as brittle as an empty seashell.