him?” Crissanne asked, because he sounded just like his father had when he’d been talking about Ethan.
Ethan chuckled. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re right.”
“Did you get some good pictures of the town?” he asked.
She flushed. She was pretty sure all she’d photographed was Ethan. “I did. Sort of scene shots with the street and the people on it.”
“Good.”
They continued walking in silence back toward Ethan’s Ferrari, which he’d parked at the far end of the historic district on the other side of the Grand Hotel. She thought about how nice this town was, how lovely Ethan’s family was and how she really had to be careful about her emotions. This was a stopgap. Cole’s Hill was meant to be a place for her to breathe and then figure out her next move.
She couldn’t fall for the town or the Carutherses. And she knew that was a distinct possibility. Ethan held her attention—Lord knew, he always had—but seeing him here and not in Los Angeles was bringing him into focus.
And she wished she could say that she was seeing all his scars and his faults, and that was a turnoff. But his scars made her understand him better. Which was dangerous. She could resist perfection. But she was going to have to really stay on her guard to keep the Ethan she knew at arm’s length.
* * *
Ethan had been in bed for two hours listening to the sound of the wind blowing and the scrape of the tree branches against his window. He really needed to take care of that. But he knew that wasn’t what was keeping him awake.
Crissanne was in his house. Sleeping just down the hall in the spare room. He had never slept with her under his roof before. It wouldn’t have mattered before, but now he knew it did.
He’d told himself over and over that she was just a friend.
She was still Mason’s girl until his best friend told him otherwise.
And of course that just sharpened the ache of desire inside him. His skin had felt too tight for his body all night, except for those few moments when she’d smiled at him, and then he’d forgotten she wasn’t his. She was here as a friend. And she was her own person.
She’d come to him for friendship, and he was going to deliver.
He rolled over and saw the empty expanse of the bed next to him. He closed his eyes and swore he smelled the scent of her perfume drifting through the open French doors that led to the balcony.
He got up and walked to the open door and saw the shadow of someone standing at the railing.
Crissanne.
He reached for his jeans and drew them on over his naked body. He carefully pushed his erection out of the way as he buttoned his jeans, and then scrubbed his hand through his hair as he stepped out.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, keeping his voice low so he didn’t startle her.
“No. Too much in my head,” she said, turning to face him. She wore a thin sleeveless nightgown that ended at her knee. The moon was full tonight and it shone down on her, making her look almost as if she wasn’t of this world. As if she didn’t belong here.
Hell.
He knew she didn’t.
“Did I wake you?” she asked, leaning back against the railing. The breeze stirred her hair, catching it and making it flow against her shoulder and then across her face. She tucked it back behind her ear.
“No.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “But what’s keeping you awake? Maybe talking will help.”
He doubted it was going to help either of them sleep if he told her he’d been consumed with images of her and that he couldn’t stop thinking about her mouth and wondering about her kiss. He rubbed his hand over his chest as his skin started to feel too hot. He needed her. He knew what lust felt like.
But this was Crissanne. Not a stranger, not someone he could simply hook up with and then smile at the next morning.
They had history.
And on his side...attraction.
So much wanting, he thought. In the moonlight with the shape of her body hidden by the flowy nightgown she had on, his imagination was running away from him. He wanted to lift the hem of that gown—
“Ethan?”
“Huh?”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “No. What about you?”
“I definitely don’t,” she said.
“Want to play sips and lies?”
She laughed. “The last time we played that I won.”
“Only because I let you,” he said.
“Uh, sure.”
“It’s true,” he called back over his shoulder as he walked to the wet bar at the end of the balcony. “I’m a gentleman.”
“Whatever you say,” she said, moving over to the padded lounge chairs that were clustered around a portable fire pit. She sat down and pulled the throw off the back of the chair, drawing it over her shoulders.
He busied himself looking through the bottles searching for the Patrón that he knew was her favorite. And then he sliced a lime and put it on a serving tray next to the shaker of salt and two shot glasses.
He set the tray on the end table between two of the chairs. “Are you cold? I can light the fire.”
“I’m okay with the blanket,” she said, pouring both of them a shot of tequila.
“Who’s going first?” she asked.
“You.”
“The gentleman thing again?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Haven’t had time to think of a lie that you’ll believe.”
She started laughing.
He loved the sound of her laughter. He still remembered the first time he’d heard it all those years ago. She’d been sitting on the arm of Mason’s chair and someone had said something and she’d started laughing. It was such a joyous sound it always made him smile and at times had cut through the fog he’d allowed himself to live in for a few years.
The game, which they’d played many times in college and since then, was simple. They took turns telling a story and the other players had to guess if it was true or false. If the guess was right, the one telling the story had to drink, and vice versa.
“Topic?” she asked.
“First kiss,” he said. It was the first thing that had come to his mind, and as soon as he said it he knew that he was in trouble. He shouldn’t be sitting in the moonlight with Crissanne, drinking and talking about kisses. He didn’t have the strength that he’d need to keep his distance.
“First kiss? Well, that’s an interesting one. It was that time I kissed a frog,” she said. “I was at this party at school and I remembered the fairy tale about the kiss turning a frog into a prince. Molly Moore dared me to do it, and I thought what the heck and did it.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Was the frog an actual amphibian?”
“What other kind is there?” she said, not really answering his question.
“I’m going to go with lie,” he said.
“Truth. I got in trouble for kissing the frog and had to have detention,” she said.
“Why?”
“Molly and I were really there to free the frogs from the science lab, so me kissing one was the distraction while she