Down at the beach, Luke could forget he’d been shot and almost murdered, and most importantly, the Walking Miracle would be out of the hospital. He’d come back to Chicago with a vengeance—and with the devil on his shoulder.
Just like he damn well liked it.
Chapter One
The view of Peyton Lane’s beachfront casita had just gotten a surprising boost.
Wide-eyed, she peered from behind the novel she had been reading for the past hour, holding her breath at the sight on the horizon.
A man had appeared on the fringes of her private stretch of beach, racing to catch a football. He was tall, tanned, and muscled. No. She was lying. He was actually more. So much more, in fact, she was now gawking.
Because never, in her life, had she seen a man like that in person.
On TV, maybe.
In a magazine, maybe.
But the impact of seeing something like that in the flesh was…bewildering.
Sex appeal oozed from his pores so powerfully Peyton almost felt assaulted. He was all Greek god, do-me-now-or-kill-me-now sexy.
She gaped at all those lean muscles and tanned skin from days spent in the sun. He ran like a born athlete after that flying ball, his muscles bulging and flexing as he caught it and came trotting back out to the sand.
Her nipples beaded in her bikini top. His streaked blond hair blew in the wind, and when he tossed back the ball to someone, he raked his fingers into that golden mane.
A pair of diamond stud earrings glinted in his ears and his swim trunks draped low on his narrow waist. Peyton was practically drooling when he ran after the ball again. Those swim trunks clung to his narrow hips with each step until she could almost see his butt crack. Butterflies whirled inside her stomach.
The man had broad shoulders and his biceps bulged as he tossed the football back and forth with a little boy who appeared on the horizon, probably about ten years old. The word PRESTON was tattooed in an arch across the small of the man’s back, and for some reason, the sight of that tattoo and all the badness that it implied made her sex clench painfully tight. The triceps muscles behind his arms contracted as he caught the ball again, and even his taut back muscles flexed as he flung it.
Peyton’s hands grew so damp, she had to set the book aside.
She wasn’t the type of woman to gawk at a man, she really wasn’t.
Usually she appreciated men with brains rather than brawn. Men who could understand her crazy work schedule and who, like her, had personal ambitions.
But this man didn’t look either smart or hardworking.
He just looked like a sexy surf boy, a delicious beautiful beach body, and this was the first time in her life she had ever actually responded to one.
But then, wasn’t that why she was here? She’d needed an urgent break from her stressed-out, work-packed life and had promised herself she’d have a little fun this week—for a change. Drinks were on the menu. Sex was definitely on the menu, too.
The problem was, she hadn’t met another single person in the entire Riviera Maya beach resort so far, and she was heading back on Sunday so she had merely three days left to enjoy a romp in bed with a stranger.
The Internet hadn’t emphasized enough that most hotel guests were couples and families with children. Therefore a young, healthy, single woman in her thirties was left with too much time on her hands.
It was good she’d brought her laptop, her books, and her suntan lotion, otherwise she wouldn’t have had anything to do all day during her seven-day stay except maybe eat—not that her waistline would appreciate that. But she absolutely refused to turn on her BlackBerry and start working like she always did. No way.
She’d put in enough hours the past month to last her a year, going without sleep while she closed several major deals. Hell, if the world had ended, she wouldn’t even have noticed, she’d been so busy. This was Peyton time now.
Man-gawking time now.
Suddenly she realized that the man in question was backing in racing steps in her direction. His head was tilted to the sky as his eyes followed the ball, which she was shocked to discover was flying straight toward her.
She shoved her chair back while hearing the man shout at the boy, “That’s a bit long, little man!” then he stumbled against her feet and turned with amazingly sharp reflexes as he tripped her.
“Shit,” he muttered as his strong, quick arms caught her fall, and their eyes met in that infinitesimal second where she was suddenly surrounded by hard, male muscles, holding her aloft in the air. It took only that flash of a second for her to register that she had never seen such beautiful, striking blue eyes in her life.
And that they were equally stunned, and staring straight at her.
“Holy shit, you’re pretty…”
The words seemed to have been torn out of him, and he continued surveying her features in disbelief even as he straightened her. Then, a dazzling smile that was a shock of white against his tan appeared on his drop-dead-gorgeous face, and Peyton’s stomach spun into a swirl. “Sorry about that, miss,” he said, dropping his arms at his sides.
He inclined his shaggy gold head and tipped an invisible hat, and oh, God, that smile made all her woman’s parts go crazy. “Perdón, señorita.”
His timbre was rough around the edges, and it was deep and sensual and it made her heart pound wildly. She was oddly, discomfortingly aware of every inch of skin where he’d touched her.
He wore a small bandage on the left side of his chest, but it did nothing to detract from the beauty of all those lean muscles which included a tight six-pack that made her mouth water. His nipples were dark and small and pointed, flat against his taut pectorals…
“You look a bit winded. Do you need mouth-to-mouth?” He peered into her face while tilting her chin up to his, and Peyton caught her breath again.
His voice, combined with his smile, combined with his eyes, did wild things to her libido. They were clear blue, those eyes, but had streaks of gray in them, and they looked intense and intimate as they studied her.
She wanted to tell him that she hadn’t been drowning and therefore did not need mouth-to-mouth, but now she was drowning in his eyes. And she definitely wanted his mouth.
“I’m…fine.”
“Ah, American…so you understood that.” His expression was all cocky and mischief, not like he was one whit worried about her having heard his offer for “mouth-to-mouth.”
Then it struck her that his painfully handsome face seemed vaguely familiar in a movie star, Hollywood type of way. “Do I know you?” she blurted out.