Lying in Your Arms Read online

  She nodded, knowing she could do it on her own but somehow unable to refuse his help when he bent and slid a powerful arm behind her shoulders. He helped her into a sitting position and it was all she could do not to turn her head and nip at the rigid muscle flexing near her cheek, or to breathe deeply to inhale his musky, masculine scent.

  Tommy had obviously been right. She needed sex, badly. And for a moment, she found herself wishing her first impression had been correct and the man had been for hire. Because completely unencumbered, drop-your-pants-right-now-and-make-me-come sex sounded pretty damned awesome right now.

  “By the way,” he said as he stepped away from the bed, “I’m Leo. Leo Santori. What’s your name?”

  “My name?” Considering how desperately she’d been trying to evade the scandal her name created lately, she had to think for a second about how to respond.

  “You have one, don’t you? It’s the thing they give you at the hospital before you get to go home.”

  “I thought that was a blanket.”

  “I don’t think they give you the blankets anymore.”

  “Pacifier?”

  “Judging by the number of kids my cousins have had, I’m thinking they pretty much ship you out the door with just a red-faced mutant and a big old bill.”

  She snickered, liking the good humor in his tone. Then she seized on the rest of his comment. “So you don’t have any of your own?”

  “Pacifiers?”

  She smirked. “Kids.”

  “Nope.” He hesitated the briefest moment before adding, “And there’s no one waiting in the wings to supply any.”

  So, he was single? How interesting that he’d felt the need to point that out. How fascinating that the knowledge made her heart leap in her chest.

  “What about you?”

  “No pacifiers. No kids. Nobody trying to get me to have them.”

  “Well, that covers just about everything,” he said. “Except one... Are you going to tell me your name?”

  “It’s Madison,” she said.

  She didn’t add the last name. No need to tempt fate, right? He didn’t look like the kind of guy who followed Hollywood gossip. Nor did he seem the type who would sell her out to the tabloids. But then, the host of that syndicated radio show hadn’t seemed like the type who would release her private number on the air so she could be bombarded with hateful calls and texts, either.

  If this Leo Santori was the curious type, he could get online—she supposed even this reclusive resort had internet access—and check her out on Google. If he had her first and last names, he’d come up with a ton of hits, none of which put her in a very good light. Any of them would probably tip somebody off that they could make a quick buck selling her out to the tabloids. That was one reason she’d chosen this resort—they apparently catered to wealthy clientele looking for privacy.

  Which made her wonder just what Leo Santori did for a living, and what he’d come here to escape.

  “Okay, Madison, how about you stay here? I’ll go talk to the people at the front desk and try to get this straightened out. And I’ll bring you something to eat when I come back.”

  “I couldn’t...”

  “Sure you could. Feel free to dive into the pool and cool off while I’m gone. You look like you could use it.”

  She glanced out the door, seeing the beautiful swimming pool, so secluded in a private, idyllic garden, and realized he was right. Gliding through that cool water sounded like heaven right now.

  “You’re sure you don’t mind?” she asked, feeling badly but also really not wanting to make that long trudge back to the front desk again.

  “I’m sure,” he said, heading into the bathroom. The bed was angled so that she had a clear view of him standing in front of the large mirror, and she watched as he grabbed a shirt and pulled it on over his massive shoulders.

  Gracious, the man’s muscles had muscles. Her heart was being all spastic, thudding and skipping along, and she couldn’t seem to even out her breaths to get the right amount of oxygen. She felt light-headed, no longer queasy but there were definitely butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. Her legs were quivering a little, and she was hot between them.

  The stranger was totally turning her on, like she couldn’t ever remember being turned on before. He was like a miracle worker, a sex god who got women all hot and bothered for a living...except he apparently didn’t follow through.

  Right. Not a gigolo. Check.

  Which was too bad.

  You’re being ridiculous a little voice in her head said. One thing Madison had never been accused of was having a limited imagination. Considering she wrote stories for a living—one of which was an extremely erotic film that would surely earn an NC-17 rating if it ever got made, and that looked pretty iffy right now—she couldn’t deny she’d been thinking about wild, wicked sex a lot lately. It seemed the longer it had been since she’d had it, the more it filled her thoughts.

  So much for coming to a secret hideaway to get some peace and tranquillity. If this guy’s room was anywhere near hers, she would probably turn into some female Peeping Tom before the week was out. Because her mind just wasn’t going to stop thinking about that white towel until she knew what was under it.

  “What do you do, anyway?” she asked when he returned, carrying his shoes. Stripper? Male model?

  “I’m a firefighter.”

  Her jaw fell open, then she snapped it closed. Because, that totally made sense. She could easily picture him carrying ladders and big, thick hoses. He probably carried one around with him all the time.

  Stop it. You’re delirious.

  “A real American hero?” she said, amused that her instant assessment of him was so dead-on. He really was a hero.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he insisted with a self-deprecating shrug.

  “Have you ever saved anyone’s life?”

  Another shrug. He looked embarrassed. “I guess.”

  “That was a pretty vague answer to a yes-or-no question,” she said, her voice wry. “‘I guess’ is the type of answer you’d give if someone asked you if you had a good time at a party or if you liked a movie. Saving someone’s life seems to require a bit more specificity.”

  “Okay.”

  “Was that a yes?”

  He grinned. “I guess.”

  She couldn’t help chuckling. “Where do you live?”

  “Chicago. You?”

  Hmm. Good question. She’d been raised in Florida. Then she’d moved to New York after grad school, determined to be a world-class journalist. Only, she’d realized she kind of hated journalists. That was when she’d started writing screenplays. And when she’d gotten engaged to Tommy, she’d moved to Southern California. Now, she honestly didn’t know where she was going to live.

  “I’m sort of between housing right now.”

  That dimple reappeared. “That was a pretty vague answer.”

  “I suppose it was. I’ve been living in L.A. But I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I leave here. I might go back to New York.”

  “Chicago’s got better pizza.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You must be kidding. That loaf of bread with cheese on it that they serve in Chicago has got nothing on a thin, crispy slice of pepperoni from Ray’s.”

  He drew up, looking offended. “My uncle and cousin run a pizza place with food that would make your taste buds decide to commit suicide rather than eat pizza anywhere else ever again.”

  “With all due respect to your uncle and cousin, you’re mental cheese has obviously slipped off its crust. Because you’re crazy.”

  “I challenge you to a taste test.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to find very good examples of New York or Chicago style here in Central America.”

  “When we get back stateside then.”

  Implying they might see each other again after they left here? Oh, how tempting a thought. But she forced herself to concede, an impossible one.
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  “Maybe,” she murmured, quickly looking away. A sharp stab of disappointment shot through her because she knew she was lying.

  She couldn’t see him again. Not at home. Not here. Once he got the room situation straightened out, she needed to avoid him altogether.

  Maybe if he’d been the gigolo she’d thought him, she’d take a chance. Or if he’d been anything but the delightful, warm, friendly, protective man she’d already seen him to be. As it was, though, she couldn’t get involved with anybody like Leo Santori. Her life was too freaking messed up right now to involve anyone else in it.

  “Well, guess I’ll head up to the lobby,” he said, as if noticing that she’d pulled away, if only mentally. “And I was serious, feel free to use the pool.”

  She nodded. “I might do that. Thanks. Maybe you should take my room key, just in case I’m outside and don’t hear you knock.”

  He picked it up off the dresser where she’d tossed it and departed. After he’d gone, Madison thought about his offer to use the pool. She had been serious about how appealing it sounded, though she wouldn’t swim the way she suspected he’d been about to. Judging by the towel he’d been oh-so-inconveniently holding, he’d been planning to skinny-dip. That sounded perfect, delightful, in fact. Letting her naked body soak up the breezes and the warmth was just about her idea of heaven.

  Of course, she wasn’t quite desperate enough to strip out of her clothes and pose in front of the door the way he had. Even if she did have a very nice ass, if she did say so herself. Still, she wasn’t about to bare it for some stranger...a stranger she’d already decided she couldn’t have, no matter how much she might want him.

  Now that he was gone, now that the room wasn’t full of his warm, masculine presence, she managed to pull the rest of her brain cells together. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t trust anyone she met to keep her secret; there was more to it than that. Coming here to Costa Rica had been about hiding out, licking her wounds, staying out of the limelight and being completely on her own. She needed to rediscover the Madison she’d been six months ago, before her crazy engagement, before she’d become chum for an ocean of avaricious sharks.

  There was more, though. She just couldn’t do that to him...or to any man. Because, even if she could keep him in the dark about who she really was—and the scandal she’d hopefully left behind in the states—she’d be exposing him to a lot of danger, too. The last thing she needed was to get involved with some guy, then get tracked down by the paparazzi. Any man she spent time with would be subject to the same vicious scrutiny she’d endured, maybe even accused of being the mystery lover she’d cheated on Tommy with. The one who didn’t exist.

  She just couldn’t put anybody else through that, especially not someone as great as Leo seemed to be. So, no. There was no room in her life for a fling with a hot fireman. None whatsoever.

  Even if she desperately wished there were.

  4

  AS IT TURNED OUT, they’d both been wrong...and right. They were both in the correct room. Apparently, the woman who’d been at the front desk when Leo checked in was the only one who knew how to operate the hotel’s computerized system. She’d put Leo in the correct room, even though his key card hadn’t been coded properly. Then she’d gone on break, leaving a less-than-capable replacement at the desk. That man had put Madison in Leo’s room, too.

  Leo couldn’t deny that it might be interesting—or, hell, fantastic—to share a bed with the beautiful brunette, but it seemed a bit soon to ask her if she wanted to become roomies.

  Maybe by the end of the week...

  He’d told the clerk that Madison could keep the room and he’d been assigned to another one. The woman got a twinkle in her eye and offered him a slight brow wag when she noted that Madison was traveling alone, too. Maybe she’d also heard from the bellhop that Madison was young and gorgeous.

  Yeesh. He wondered if the clerk had been born a matchmaker or if it merely came with the territory when women reached a certain age. Lord knew there were a lot of them in his family. Of course, even his youngest female cousins seemed to have the gene, so he supposed aging had nothing to do with it.

  Heading back to fill Madison in, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her with every step he took across the grounds.

  Madison Reid. She hadn’t supplied the last name, the front desk clerk had. He liked it. Liked the woman to whom it was attached, even though he had only just met her.

  Leo wasn’t a huge believer in fate, but he couldn’t deny that this afternoon’s incident—them both getting assigned the same room, her walking in on him, him being there to catch her when she fell—seemed pretty out of the ordinary. Like it was meant to happen or something.

  He’d come here to enjoy himself, as well as to put the final touches on the coat of I’m-totally-over-Ashley paint he’d been wearing for six months. Truth was, ever since Madison Reid had walked in on him, he hadn’t given his former fiancée a moment’s thought. And now, as her name crossed his mind, there was only the vaguest sense of recollection, like when he ran into someone he’d gone to elementary school with and couldn’t for the life of him come up with their name. He could barely remember what Ashley looked like, or why he’d ever thought he could be happy spending his life with her in the first place.

  She’d been beautiful, yes. And pretty successful. But there had been a shallowness to her, not to mention a thin vein of hardness that he’d spotted from the start but had fooled himself into thinking was an indication of strength. Maybe he’d had it all wrong. Maybe the coldness had been a symptom of her weakness, her need to constantly make sure she was the most desired, the most loved woman in the room. Perhaps that was why she’d set out to prove it by getting involved in an affair with his friend. Hell, for all Leo knew, it hadn’t been her first.

  Funny how easy it was to see her—to understand her—now that the blinders had been so completely torn off his eyes.

  Arriving back at his—no, Madison’s—room, he thrust all those thoughts away. He didn’t want to think about his ex now. Not when there were so many other good things to think about.

  Lifting a hand, he rapped on the door. No answer. Hoping she’d gone ahead and taken a dip, he inserted her key card and pushed the door open a few inches, calling, “Madison?”

  Again, nothing. So he went inside. She wasn’t on the bed, and as he crossed the room, he heard a faint splash. Stepping over to the patio slider, which stood open, he glanced outdoors and spotted a dash of red in the clear blue waters of the pool.

  A red bikini. God help him.

  She was floating on her back, her eyes closed, her arms out to her sides. Her face was turned to the sun and a satisfied smile tugged at those lips. He thought he heard her humming a soft melody.

  Madison had been incredibly hot in a skirt and blouse. Now that she’d donned a couple of triangles of scarlet fabric, leaving much of her body bare for his perusal, he could honestly say he’d never seen a sexier female.

  Her legs were long—heavenly—and she gently kicked them to keep herself afloat. As he’d noted when she wore the skirt, she had some seriously lush hips, covered only by little sling ties that held her bathing suit together. Those feminine hips were made even more noticeable by the slim waist, flat belly and taut midriff. Her bathing suit top managed to cover only the most essential parts of her full breasts, pushing up those amazing curves, leaving a deep V of cleavage that glistened with droplets of pool water.

  All of her glistened. Every inch of that smooth skin, from her pink-tipped toenails on up to her cheeks, on which those long lashes rested, gleamed invitingly. Her thick hair had spread out, floating around her face like a halo, and she looked totally lost to everything but physical sensation as she soaked up the sun and the water.

  A sharp, almost painful wave of lust washed over him. His heart thudded, his mouth went dry with a need for moisture only she could provide. His hands fisted at his sides as he tried to push away the images of touchi
ng her, stroking her, gliding his fingers along every ridge and valley of her body.

  “Oh, you’re back!”

  He flinched, not having even realized she’d opened her eyes. “Yes. Sorry.”

  She quickly dropped her legs, standing up in the pool, which was only five feet deep at the most, and smiled up at him. “You were right, this was exactly what I needed. I feel tons better.”

  “You look better,” he admitted through a tight throat. God, he hoped the sun was glaring in her eyes and she couldn’t see how taut his entire body was as he tried to keep himself from reacting to her. If she were a couple of feet higher, she’d be eye level with his crotch and would undoubtedly notice the ridge in his jeans. He was hard for the woman, wanting her desperately. Hell, he’d been half-hard for her from the minute he’d caught her in his arms.

  “How did everything go with the front desk?”

  “All settled. You get the house, I get the kids.”

  She giggled. The sound was light and sweet, and he liked the tiny laugh lines that appeared beside her eyes. “What kind of mother does that make me?”

  “I guess I’m just more soft and nurturing.”

  Her laughter deepened. “Yeah, you look about as soft as a tree trunk.”

  Oh, if only she knew.

  “What really happened?”

  He filled her in on the situation. She didn’t seem surprised to hear the guy who’d checked her in had messed things up. But she didn’t get all ticked off about it, either. She was calm, chill. He doubted much fazed her...except naked guys catching her when she fell.

  He needed to forget about holding her while he was naked. That was not going to do his pants situation any good at all.

  “I brought you back some fruit.” The lobby had a large bowl of it available for their guests. It should be enough to settle Madison’s stomach until she had a chance to sit down for a real meal.

  “Thank you.”

  “I guess I’ll grab my stuff and go. I’m in the Scarlet Room,” he told her.

  “Maybe the guy at the front desk is color-blind and that’s how our wires got crossed. This is the Emerald one, isn’t it?”