Free Bare In Bermuda by Livia Ellis Page B

attraction he felt for this stranger totally bewildered him. Everything about Henna made him curious. Her every move and her every word stoked an ember of longing and desire within him he thought had been extinguished.
    He wanted her near him and feared the moment she finished with him. He desperately wanted her to touch him and recreate that feeling of being alive she'd given him in the airplane and then the limo. He wanted to do whatever it took to feel his heart beat and his body spark as it had when she touched him.
    The sound of her shoes clicking against the marble tiles mixed with the rhythm and the sway of her hip under his hand equaled contentment. That morning in Miami, he'd dreaded returning to Bermuda. His reward for bravery in confronting his past, walked next to him.
    Henna slowed her pace then halted. “Stop. Just a moment.”
    She dug in her purse as he discretely looked down, trying to get a look into the giant leather sack filled with minutia she probably absolutely, implicitly, totally, and categorically needed to have on her before she'd even consider leaving her home. “Can I help you find something?”
    “No.” She shook her head a little. “It's in here...” With a triumphant cheer, a slim wallet emerged from her bag. “I can never find anything in this bag.”
    “Have you considered carrying a smaller bag?” Did those words actually come out of his mouth?
    She turned her head and looked up at him. “No.”
    Returning her attention to her bag, she then pulled out the black banded notebook she had carefully written down the details surrounding her lost carry-on, including names, telephone numbers, birthdays, and social security numbers of every person who knew something about her carry-on.
    “Do you often lose your luggage?”
    “First time,” she said. “I'm actually pretty lucky, which I don't actually attribute to luck but rather careful planning and an attention to detail. You haven't exactly seen me at my best today.”
    “I would have to disagree.” He believed he had caught her during a moment in which she was her most authentic, which, in his mind, equaled her best. “If this is not your best, then I cannot imagine better.”
    “That is a very sweet thing for you to say, but I am really not me today. In fact, you may find yourself profoundly disappointed very soon when you discover the real Henna isn't nearly as fun as the one you've spent the past few hours with. I don't know what I was thinking. I cannot believe I left my bag behind in that bar.”
    “Tell me the truth,” he whispered in her ear. “Did you forget your bag because you were overwhelmed by thoughts of what I might have done to you if I hadn't left?”
    “You know,” she said. “That really might have something to do with it. You left an impression. No doubt about it. The bartender thought I was a hooker, too, by the way. He offered me the fifty you tipped him to blow him in the backroom.”
    An irrational and instant jolt of jealousy erupted in his core. “Do you want me to have him killed?” He could. He knew people. Especially in Miami. Not that he would. He forced himself to calm down. When the moment of murderous rage had passed, he smiled. He was alive. He felt jealousy. He felt passion. He felt like himself again.
    She looked up at him from the corner of her eye. “No. But thanks for the offer.”
    He walked up to the counter with his arm still around her waist as if letting her go might make her disappear. But she did disappear. She stepped away from him as she fiddled with her phone while he checked into his room. He stood to the side as she checked into her room.
    “It's under Schwartz,” she said to woman behind the counter as she finished sending a text. “Dr. Simon Schwartz.” Eduardo felt another bolt of jealously strike his core. Henna had said she was supposed to be traveling with a friend but not that her friend was a man and that they were sharing a room.
    “Will Dr. Schwartz be