Free Eden Burning by Elizabeth Lowell

remembered that she was still hot and messy from the wild dance. “I’ll shower and meet you back here in ten minutes.”
    He didn’t release her wrist. “It takes longer than ten minutes to get to the Kamehameha estate and back.”
    “There’s a shower behind the changing room,” she said, tilting her head toward the backstage area.
    “Big enough for two?”
    Chase felt Nicole stiffen instantly and withdraw. Silently he cursed himself for being a headlong fool. Just because she was in the business of selling herself to the highest bidder didn’t mean that she was cheap, much less easy. Coming on to her like a boy who had just discovered a built-in Erector set wasn’t the way to make her want him more than she wanted Dane. His brother had always been such a smooth, elegant, civilized bastard.
    “Sorry,” Chase said, stepping back. He released Nicole’s wrist in such a way that his fingertips slid gently across her palm. “I’m hot and sweaty and must smell like old socks, but I’ll wait my turn.”
    For an instant she closed her eyes, both savoring the sweet brush of his fingers and regretting her automatic retreat at his half-serious, wholly sexy invitation. But she didn’t know him well enough to explain her own past, her own reasons for fearing sex.
    She smiled hesitantly. “You don’t smell like old socks.”
    Her low voice curled down his spine like a caress. “You sure?” he asked.
    She nodded.
    He gave her a slow smile that was made even hotter by his relief that she wasn’t going to make him pay for trying to rush the seduction.
    “Then how do I smell?” he asked teasingly.
    “Like a man who enjoys the strength of his own body.”
    Surprise showed in his eyes. He had been expecting a sassy double entendre or outright flattery. He couldn’t have said which surprised him more—her honesty or her insight.
    She turned away and walked into the wings.
    “Do you?” he asked.
    She looked back. “Do I what?”
    “Enjoy the strength of a man’s body.”
    With what could have been a shiver, she looked away and walked toward the wings again. He watched her retreat for a long breath before he called out.
    “Nicole? Do you?”
    A husky murmur came back to him, a word that could have been once or tonight or both together.
    But that didn’t make sense. He must have been hearing things. He called out again, his voice low and resonant.
    She didn’t answer again. She simply tucked a towel around her hair, turned on the shower, and stepped within reach of the hot, pulsing spray. She enjoyed the rhythmic slide of water over her body and the feeling of renewal that came after a good dance.
    Good?
    She almost laughed out loud like a giddy schoolgirl. “Good” didn’t even begin to describe what she had felt. If part of her hadn’t been scared rigid, she would have pulled him into the shower with her and . . .
    And what?
    The shiver that came this time had nothing to do with pleasure. A hot kiss didn’t make her less frigid when it came down to where it counted. In bed. She was a fool for forgetting what she had learned at such painful cost. When it came to the opposite sex—to sex, period—she just didn’t get it.
    That was something she had to remember. A man as sexy as Chase Wilcox would expect and deserve a hot partner. She wasn’t it. Having her nose rubbed in her failure as a woman wouldn’t teach her anything new. Her ex-husband had covered that ground quite thoroughly.
    Deliberately she turned off the hot water. The shock of the cold made her gasp. When her skin felt as cool as her mind, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself. Thinking about nothing at all, she pulled on fresh thong underwear and went to the long cupboard where Bobby kept lavalavas of all sizes. She picked out an emerald green cloth with black orchids and a matching black halter.
    After a long hesitation, she pulled out an indigo lavalava that looked like it would fit Chase. She left the cloth draped on the sink