as he looked up at her.
She could use it.
So she smiled her best rendition of something seductive. She smoothed her hands down the sides of her skirt to emphasize her hips, and was suddenly glad her blouse edged toward sheer, with the suggestion of her breasts beneath. She had every intention of using the weapons she had when she sat down on the couch opposite him to negotiate.
With her entire body, if required. Because Lucinda was here to win.
By any means necessary.
JASON KAOKI STARED at the woman who’d appeared before him dressed in head-to-toe black like the goddamned Grim Reaper, right here on his island like the ghost of lives he didn’t want.
Lives he had outright rejected. Repeatedly.
“Are you going to stare at me all day?” he asked her, with the kind of lazy grin he liked to use on people who came at him in suits. “It’s an interesting sales pitch, I’ll give you that. Though I’m not sure it’s effective.”
His grin usually sent them running, alarm stamped all over their faces. Especially when he combined it with that tone.
Because Jason never tried too hard to hide his rougher edges.
But if he expected this newest suit to look stricken, or apologetic, or even faintly nervous like all the rest, he was disappointed. She left her little wheeling bag—also black—near the lobby doors and marched across the tile floor to settle herself against the low-slung couch opposite him. She sat as if she owned the place and him, too, which was definitely a bold approach. Then she crossed one decidedly well-formed leg over the other in that ridiculously tight skirt that belonged in an anonymous corporate office somewhere far to the north of here. She even folded her pale, slender hands in her lap, pious and prissy, and regarded him as if she was the one doing him a favor.
It should have put his teeth on edge, like all the teachers and social workers and coaches who’d tried and failed to civilize him always had. But this one was different from the parade of doughy accountant-types, each more arrogant than the last, who had traipsed out here and thought they could talk down to him.
For one thing, he had the feeling that if he could peel away all those laughably inappropriate black layers and see the woman beneath, she’d be hot. Sweet. A perfect snack for a man with a voracious appetite. She had hair the color of fire, and Jason was an elemental kind of guy. He wanted to take her pretty hair out of that agonizing-looking bun she’d slicked it into and get his hands in it. He wanted to see how all that fire smelled now that the sun and the sea had gotten in there and tugged a few strands free. He wanted to bury his face in its thickness and see how hard that got him.
Just to pull up a few urges at random.
What he couldn’t tell from looking at her was if she knew she was hot or not. And if she did, was she hiding herself in the funeral garb on purpose? Did she think that would work?
It didn’t. Her breasts were plump and round and begged for a man’s palms through the almost-sheer fabric of the fussy blouse she wore. She was tall for a regular woman—meaning, she was tall, but not one of the models he usually gravitated toward because they had legs that went on forever and that looked good draped over his shoulders while they fucked. And despite the tight-assed expression on her face, there was no disguising the flush on her high, ivory cheeks—currently from the sun, he figured, but he knew he could do better—and the full, soft lips he’d greatly enjoy seeing wrapped around his dick.
Jason was entertained.
And he couldn’t recall the last time that had happened in the presence of a suit.
He admired whoever had thought to stop sending all those boring tools and uptight douche bags here to talk at him until he scared them away. He wanted to applaud whoever had finally figured they were better off sending a hot little package like this one instead. Because the only thing better than an obviously hot woman who appeared ready to go and easy to get was one a man got the pleasure of unwrapping himself.
The quiet had stretched out between them, with nothing but the sound of the waves on the beach outside to divert attention from the way they were staring at each other.
Jason grinned. A little social discomfort didn’t bother him at all. But he couldn’t say the same for all the mainlanders.
This one broke the way they all did, but she kept her cool, businessy smile in place.
“It’s nice to meet you at last, Mr. Kaoki,” she said, in an English accent with something richer beneath it. Like an extra kick. He liked the way it moved over him, then settled in his cock. He wished she’d follow suit. “I appreciate you seeing me without any kind of appointment. For the record, I did try to make one.”
Her voice was, if possible, even more prim and proper than she looked, if he overlooked that burr beneath.
Jason had always liked the wild ones. The feral creatures who could keep up with him. But the more he stared at this defiantly pale woman with her gorgeous hair ruthlessly wrestled into submission, the more he wondered if it was the ones who pretended to be civilized who were the wildest underneath.
Something in him—and not just his dick—wanted to rise to that challenge.
“‘Mr. Kaoki?’ Jesus Christ. Who the hell is that? Sounds like someone who needs his ass kicked. I’m Jason.”
Her polite smile didn’t dim, and against his will, he was impressed. Each and every one of the wussy little men who’d sweated at him in this very same lobby had looked nauseated and ill at ease by this point. Because douche bags always imagined they could manipulate a big, loud, dumb jock—and they were always surprised and disconcerted to discover that this particular dumb jock was a whole lot more difficult to handle in person.
Not his prissy little redhead, sitting rigid and sure on the old sofa like that painful-looking bun of hers was pulling her spine straight. “I’m Lucinda Graves.”
“Why am I not surprised your name is Graves?” When she frowned, Jason shrugged. Expansively. And noted, with interest, the way her gaze followed the play of muscles in his shoulders. “Maybe you’re too jet-lagged to notice you’re in the South Pacific. Here we dress in pretty flowers and aloha and not a whole lot else. But you came dressed for a funeral.”
She rustled up that smile again, twice as polite this time. He figured she considered it a weapon.
He thought that was cute.
“I’m sorry if my professionalism offends you,” she said coolly. “I’m only trying to treat you with the courtesy due your position.”
“You mean my money, not my position. I don’t think you’d give a rat’s ass about my position if it wasn’t directly in your way. Much less any courtesy.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Kaoki. Manners never go amiss. Especially in trying situations.”
Was she scolding him? Jason thought she was. And even stranger, he found it just as hot.
Which probably said some shit about him, but he had no intention of analyzing it.
He shifted where he lounged there across from her before his unruly cock announced itself. He rubbed absently at his side, and once again her gaze dropped to follow the movement. All over the tattoo he’d gotten when his football scholarship had come through, so he’d never forget where he came from.
And Jason didn’t think she was the type to find ink quite that fascinating.
“I have to be honest, Lucinda.” He made her name a meal and discovered that he was actually good and hungry. Bordering on straight-up starving. “I don’t really think you know how trying this situation could get. Let me know if you want that to change.”
She