WHAT THE HELL am I doing here?
Miranda pushed away from the balcony railing, her movement jerky in contrast to the rhythm of the waves crashing on the shore below. Noah had walked her to her room nearly an hour ago, sweetly kissing her on the hand and disappearing down the hall without a backward glance.
She’d stood there for a full minute, hardly registering that he wasn’t coming inside. He’d treated her to the most romantic of dinners in a private corner of the deserted hotel restaurant. He’d done all the ordering in advance, and the mix of textures he’d chosen—steamed oysters with sweet melted butter, chilled but spicy gazpacho, crisp duck à l’orange and creamy tiramisu—had whet her appetite for so much more. During the meal, he’d stroked her hand, fed her morsels from his plate, even insisting she close her eyes during that all-important first taste, then asking her to describe the flavors as they rolled over her tongue.
Miranda had never really been aroused by food before. Leave it to Noah.
He’d followed their sensuous meal with frozen brandy Alexanders at the quiet poolside. A few hotel patrons wandered in and around the area, but he’d again chosen a quiet corner where they could watch the stars with the pool lights behind them and the beach just beyond. The pulse of the gulf beating against the shore provided a rhythmic background for their quiet conversation about the constellations, mythology and the seductive qualities of the night sky.
And yet, except for holding her hand on their way back inside and then pressing his lips to her knuckles before he left, he’d done little but tease her with unspoken promises of what was yet to come.
And because of his behavior, Miranda was sure she wouldn’t get a lick of sleep.
Slipping off her short satin robe and laying it over the balcony railing, she stretched, inviting the sultry gulf breeze to twirl around her body, fluttering the hem of her full-length nightgown. She’d thought for sure that Noah would be seeing her in that nightgown right about now. And it wasn’t as if he wasn’t interested. She had seen the dark shadow of desire in his eyes since the moment they’d met in the lobby. He was holding back. Keeping the lust in check. Making her wait. Probably waiting for her to beg him to touch her.
Well, she wasn’t going to beg. He could get that idea out of his head.
But she was going to sleep with him before the weekend was over—that was a given.
The hour drive from North Tampa to St. Petersburg Beach had given her plenty of time to think. During the week, she’d been able to hide from the topic by throwing herself into her work. She’d graded each and every one of her classes’ exams the very day they were taken. She’d written an academic paper that wasn’t due until next month and helped two graduate students with their theses, even though she wasn’t their official adviser. She’d even drafted several topic sheets for her as-yet-unofficial radio program. But on the ride over, not even the CD she’d shoved into the stereo could distract her from coming to grips with the fact that Noah Yeager was so much more to her than a colleague. So much more than a friend.
And despite that they’d yet to sleep together, he was already becoming so much more than a lover.
She hadn’t yet experienced the sensation of his body joined with hers, yet they were lovers all the same. Had been from that moment in her library when she’d fantasized about the nuances of his touch. Now that she’d experienced that touch, she couldn’t turn back.
She was done with that. If she’d learned nothing else from the C.I.S.S. contest, it was that her days of hiding from life were over. She’d probably never admit it to Noah, but “confronting the conflict” was, without a doubt, much more satisfying than avoiding it altogether. She might be a damn sight more conflicted than she was a week ago, and a heck of a lot more confused, but somehow she knew that she wouldn’t trade these experiences for all the misguided virtue in the world.
Though Miranda still believed in the strong moral code that helped her achieve her goals in life, she also realized that she’d used that code as a shield, protecting her from risking her heart. The time had come to make some revisions in her thinking, even if she ultimately lost Noah in the process.
Despite the cliché, she couldn’t help remembering the sentiment her sister had once stitched—badly—into an overstuffed pillow. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Miranda stirred the melted contents of her frozen brandy Alexander with her straw, then slid the cup back onto the small table on her balcony. She didn’t need more to drink. She needed Noah, and not on just a physical level. She needed him because she was a woman—a full-blooded, warm-bodied female with needs and wants and desires. Yes, adults had a responsibility to be smart about relationships, but hiding from life was no life at all.
She knew that now. And by tomorrow afternoon, she intended for Noah to be in on her secret as well.
THE SPA ATTENDANT placed two fluffy towels, one for Noah and one for Miranda, over the carved bench. “Looks like you two lucked out,” he said. “No one else is scheduled for the mud baths today. You have the whole place to yourself.”
Miranda’s head snapped up just in time to catch the twenty-something hotel employee winking at Noah. Leave it to another man to think he was behind their private interlude.
She’d called the concierge first thing this morning, asking about the amenities in the nationally known spa. After waking early with a renewed sense of purpose, Miranda decided that starting immediately after her scheduled talk and brief interview with Yancy Graham, the Channel 12 reporter, she was going to embark on a mission. Noah may have brought her to the resort this weekend to seduce her, but he was doing a damn poor job.
Time for her to take the reins.
She’d considered the hot tubs or massages, but they seemed…ordinary. She wanted a new experience to lead in to her new experience—the one she planned for this evening. The in-ground tub filled with a surprisingly sweet-smelling combination of clay, peat and hot mineral water, coupled with the intimate configuration of the room would provide the perfect prelude.
“Guests usually stay in the mud about thirty minutes.” The attendant set a timer on the wall and then adjusted the stereo to pipe in soothing strains of jazz from the speakers mounted in the ceiling. “After that, you can shower here, and then through that door is a private mineral Jacuzzi bath. Another twenty to thirty minutes in there and then I’ll be back to take you to the private blanket-wrap room where you can cool down. After that, you can do either a massage with one of our licensed therapists or take a refreshing dip in the pool.”
The young man wiped his hands on his stark white resort pants, then gestured to a small refrigerator built into the wall. “Either of you like something to drink?”
When they both shook their heads, he wished them a relaxing experience and left, closing the door behind him.
“Well!” Noah’s voice had escalated in volume just enough to indicate his nervousness. She couldn’t help feeling a bit flattered. “This is cozy.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Miranda tossed her beach bag on a corner bench and slipped off her sandals. “In fact, an awful lot of this weekend getaway has been cozy, wouldn’t you say?”
Except for the full house of thirty attendees and a camera crew at her talk this morning, Miranda had yet to see more than three or four non-hotel employees since their arrival. And now, in the warm, teak-paneled room, they were completely alone for the next hour at least. Miranda doubted they would once again get by with only small talk between them. Not when so much else begged to be said.
“I guess we picked the right weekend to come,” Noah decided.
“How lucky of us.”
Noah tossed his room key and wallet on the bench beside her bag. “Isn’t it? This place is ending up to be worth the price I’m paying for two separate rooms—on different floors, no less.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Noah shrugged out of his USF polo shirt and kicked off his flip-flops, leaving him in nothing but shorts. She’d seen his body before…just one week ago, to be exact. Still, the sleek, muscled planes of his chest, sprinkled with just enough auburn hair for a woman to slide her fingers through, stole her breath.
His hands slipped to his waistband, but he stopped when he caught her staring.
“See something you like?”
Miranda grinned. “Does that embarrass you?”
His eyes narrowed. He sensed she was up to something. Noah was many, many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
“You know it doesn’t.”
She turned around and untied the sash on the robe she’d donned after changing into the spandex suit the spa provided for her to wear in the mud. “Good.”
Miranda closed her eyes and held her breath, listening intently for the sound of a snap, then his zipper, followed by the gentle swish of cotton against flesh. She really didn’t want to know what sort of wear the men were provided. Probably one of those tight little Speedos Olympic swimmers wore. She hated those.
She did. Really.
Except for possibly on Noah. She had a strong feeling she’d find him incredibly alluring in anything—including just a smile.
His decidedly male groan, only somewhat satisfied, caused her to turn. He lowered himself into the steaming pool of mud, his face a curious mix of enjoyment and perplexed disgust.
She couldn’t help laughing. “How is it?”
He squirmed, settling into the curved bottom of the shallow tub with his arms held high above his head. He stopped moving, but clearly wasn’t quite sure of what to do with his arms. Finally he draped one, leisurely, along the side and folded the other behind his head.
“This is…interesting,” he answered.
“Interesting how?”
Noah took a deep breath, scooting slightly lower in the goo with his exhale.
“Come in and find out. There are some things that defy verbal description.”
Miranda had always heard about how relaxing and rejuvenating a mineral-enhanced mud bath could be. She’d only once allowed herself the luxury of a massage and a facial, and while the experience fully lived up to its decadent reputation, her life didn’t exactly accommodate such frills. But up until last weekend, there were a lot of pleasurable experiences she’d denied herself. Now she was about to slip into a sensual pool of hot clay with nothing to look at but a view of the Gulf of Mexico and Noah.
She couldn’t wait.
Situated on the fifth floor of the hotel, these private rooms were angled such that the tinted glass windows on the west wall gave bathers a clear, unobstructed view of the jewel-green gulf waters. Except for a few swimmers who’d ventured far into the surf and the occasional sailor of a sleek catamaran, no one could be seen from the windows. The sandy beach, close beneath them, was out of view. They were, effectively, alone.
Noah leaned back into the sloped edge of the mud pool and closed his eyes. Miranda quietly removed her robe and slid, literally, into the surprisingly warm combination of finely sifted clay and hot mineral water. As her bare skin slipped beneath the ooze, Miranda inhaled the heady scents of eucalyptus, camphor and several herbs whose mixture also proved heady, even if she couldn’t identify them. The fragrance, earthy and warm, seemed to reach into her lungs. She couldn’t help but relax, even when she caught Noah peeking at her slow descent into the mire.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
She was lying next to him in a tub of incredibly potent mud. How comfy could she be?
“I’m fine, thanks.” Unlike Noah, she used her hands to guide her way in, ensuring that she didn’t slip too close to him too soon. He lay just three inches away with only the mud between them. She submerged all the way to her chin.
“Looks like we’re not going anywhere for a while,” she said.
“Nope.”
Miranda let the silence last just long enough to let Noah to consider that this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Her pores tingled. Her muscles eased. She could practically feel the rhythm of her heart slow to a lazy beat.
“This is a surprisingly sensuous experience,” Noah commented.
“Mmm-hmm. The mud is so hot, and tingly—like a million little fingertips running all over your body.”
He cleared his throat. “Do you mind? I’m not exactly in a position to make that particular fantasy come to life. Keep up the talk about fingertips and I might need years of therapy.”
Miranda opened her eyes and turned carefully to the side. “Noah Yeager? In therapy? If you haven’t done that by now, I doubt I’m the woman who’s going to push you over the edge.”
Noah laughed. “True. I’ve had my share of nut-cases and you’re not one of them.”
“Neither was your wife?”
“Trish? No way. She was the reincarnation of Harriet Nelson, mixed in with a bit of Martha Stewart.”
“Sounds like a perfect wife.”
“She was.”
If not for the fact that Miranda knew he’d initiated the divorce, she might have felt more jealous than she naturally already did. “Then why didn’t it work?”
Noah stared at Miranda, unsure why she’d asked and equally uncertain he wanted to answer. They’d talked about his failed marriage before. Wasn’t the topic closed yet?
From the intensity in her gaze, it clearly wasn’t. Noah hated churning up his past this way. It accomplished little but reinvigorating his guilt over hurting Trish the way he did.
“The perfect husband I was not.” He turned fully onto his back and stared up at the lacy blue patterns sponged onto the ceiling.
“Did you expect to be perfect?”
Noah adjusted his position. He was squirming and he knew it. “I wasn’t even shooting for perfect. I would have been happy with mediocre, but I couldn’t even pull that off. Do we have to talk about this?”
Miranda’s smile was a distinct combination of self-satisfaction and sly design. “You aren’t very good at confronting the conflict when it’s your conflict that needs confronting.”
“Conflict? I don’t have a conflict. I don’t have a care in the world.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. Unless you want to share why you’ve kept yourself out of circulation on the personal relationship front?”
“I think I’m ready for that.”
The admission made Noah forget to keep his arms out of the mud. He leaned to the side so he could see Miranda’s face.
“Why now?”
“This seems like the perfect place for talking, for delving into the labyrinth of the human heart—even if you don’t think so.” With some effort, she lifted her hands to the surface. The milk chocolate–colored mud dripped from her bare arms. “Movement isn’t exactly easy. Besides, it’s private and we won’t be interrupted.”
He slid his hand toward her, not quite certain where the thick texture of the silky clay ended and her skin began. “Seems like the perfect place for other things.”
“In the mud? Ew. I’d feel like a pig.”
“I read a study once that said female pigs have thirty-minute orgasms.”
Her eyebrows popped up, then narrowed over indignant eyes. “Forget it. I arranged this so we could relax.”
“You didn’t mind the dirt in your backyard.”
She grinned and accepted his challenge. “What I didn’t mind was the way you cleaned me. The water was so cool, your hands…”
“I remember, I remember.” She was right. He wasn’t about to attempt to come on to her in the mud. He had great faith in his abilities, but no man was a match for nature at its gooiest.
“Let’s get back to you, then,” he insisted. “You already know about my failed marriage, but you haven’t mentioned any one horrible relationship that made you avoid the dating game.”
She eased deeper into the mud. “Neither have you.”
“I don’t avoid dating.”
“No, but you avoid commitment.”
“That’s because I have a long, ugly string of horrible relationships to convince me I’m not cut out for personal partnerships. Practicing psychology has taught me that some people simply aren’t built for long-term promises.”
She smirked, then forced the skeptical expression from her face. “Maybe I’m one of those people, too.”
“You don’t know. You haven’t tried.”
“You’re right. But personally witnessing each and every one of Teri’s disasters affected me in ways I don’t think I even fully realized until recently. My sister is a beautiful, talented, amazing woman. Men adore her. Some of her boyfriends weren’t even half-bad. And yet in every single case—even the ones where she broke off the relationship—she’s walked away with a broken heart.”
“Maybe your sister’s too sensitive,” he offered.
“Teri?” She started to object, but a single sidelong glance stopped her protest. “Okay. I’ll concede that Teri is a rather emotional person. But that doesn’t diminish the hurt she’s felt. I’ve been there to pick up the pieces. I have been forever. And I guess after my one relatively rotten experience, I decided the whole process wasn’t worth the trouble.”
“See? There. We have something in common. Though, for the record, Miranda, you’re not your sister. You’d make entirely different choices than she would.”
“Would I?” Miranda looked at him pointedly. “She’s been making goo-goo eyes at you since she met you.”
“Her eyes don’t excite me.”
“But mine do?”
Since he had little to focus on at this particular moment, he could hardly blame anything else for the arousal he battled right now. Her eyes glittered like center-lit amethysts, but slightly bluer, as if they caught the reflection of the afternoon sky and held the azure hue just to drive him mad. The delicate fragrance of her shampoo broke through the strong herbed odor steaming from the mud; the sweet citrus scent teased him from the tangle she’d made of her hair atop her head with the same silver clips she’d worn last weekend. The image of releasing those clips and flinging them across the room, followed by a rather erotic picture of him brushing her hair, dried the moisture from his mouth.
“At this particular moment, it’s your hair that has me hard.”
She didn’t even flinch. Darn her. For a self-avowed “good girl,” not much shocked her.
“Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?” she asked.
“No, I don’t.” He turned back to staring at the ceiling before he did something really stupid. Like look a little too long at those curvy pink lips of hers. Or worse yet, lean over and kiss her—starting something he couldn’t finish. At least, not here in the mud.
“Maybe you should.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Professor.”
Miranda remained silent for a moment, then replied in a voice so soft, so vulnerable, he wondered if someone else had come into the room.
“I’m wishing for you, Noah.”
Her gaze glimmered with honesty—the kind that hurt, the kind that came with a price. Noah’s heart clenched in his chest, then tried to hammer its way out. She wished for more than just another sexual encounter like their interlude in her backyard. She wished for something more intimate. More binding.
He nearly forgot to breathe.
“Miranda, I can’t promise you I won’t be any better than those guys who broke Teri’s heart. My history speaks for itself.”
“History is the past. This is here. Now.”
“History repeats itself.”
“When people aren’t smart enough to see the patterns. Just admit you’re scared, Noah. I will. You scare the hell out of me.”
“Good. You should be afraid. Very afraid.” Noah sat up, the rejuvenative powers of the mud effectively undone. He reached for the towel the attendant had laid along the rim and wiped off his hands.
“Then why did you bring me here this weekend? To a place you knew I’d love? A place brimming with romance and sensual experiences, if not to seduce me?”
“I did not plan to seduce you this weekend,” he insisted, not needing her scoffing “ha!” to tell him the claim seemed ludicrous.
He had wanted to seduce her. He had wanted to ensconce her in an atmosphere so seductive, so arousing, she would remember their weekend fling forever. But that’s all it would be—a weekend fling. A temporary liaison. No strings. He’d orchestrated last night to arouse her. Today—after they got out of the mud—he’d meant to follow through, but she’d beat him to the punch, and that alone threw him off kilter.
He’d considered, long and hard after his interview with Katie, how he could ensure that he didn’t do to Miranda what he’d done to Trish and to Sarah. The answer came like lightning. He’d waited with them. Drawn things out. Acted as responsibly as he knew how—getting to know them before taking them to bed. In Trish’s case, he’d even married her first. After all that time and emotional investment, the inevitable break-ups had done more damage than he ever intended.
So, with Miranda, he decided to start quick and end quick. Her responses to him in her backyard told him she was more than ready to become his lover. So he’d arranged the weekend at the beach, completely certain that they’d burn off the passion raging between them and then return to Tampa with wonderful memories of a liaison no one else would ever know about.
And while she seemed perfectly comfortable with that idea, he wasn’t so sure himself anymore.
“I was wrong,” he concluded. “You deserve better than a one-night stand.”
“Well, we’ve actually been booked here for two nights.”
“Miranda!”
“Noah!”
“This was a mistake.” He scrambled out of the mud bath, flinging dollops of clay in her direction. He’d be damned if he’d admit it, but Noah cared about Miranda in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to care about a woman in a long, long time. And that meant certain tragedy for her—the exact consequence she’d been trying to avoid for years.
He slid to the showers and turned on the water, wiping the layer of mud from his skin with long, hard swipes.
“Not so much fun when you do it by yourself, is it?”
Miranda reposed serenely in the mud, her eyes closed, her grin annoying.
He finished rinsing off before he answered, slipping out of his muddied swim trunks and wrapping himself in another clean towel. “I’m going to give you some privacy.”
“Okay. But who was it that said, ‘You can run, but you can’t hide’?”
Noah didn’t know the answer, and he didn’t attempt to figure it out. Countless philosophers from Socrates to Bob Dylan could have penned that line. As he opened the door and left Miranda behind, he silently admitted only one thing—it was the truest sentiment ever written.