Lessons From A Latin Lover

“Don’t be an ass. We’ll just walk together. I always walk with Carson,” she said even as she edged carefully past him down the steps.

He caught up with her and reached around her before she could open the gate and did it himself, then gave her a mocking courtly bow and waved her through. “After you.”

Molly slipped past, tempted to hurry on, but mastered her instinct to bolt and waited while he latched the gate again.

He smiled approvingly. “So,” he said. “We walk. Without touching? Do you and Carter walk without touching?”

“Carson,” she corrected through her teeth, knowing now that he was doing it on purpose. “He touches me,” she said defensively.

He often slung an arm over her shoulders or gave her a bone-crushing hug or grabbed her hand and hauled her wherever he wanted her to go. But something in her tone must have conveyed a certain hesitancy because Joaquin nodded.

“We’ll work on that,” he said. “And the clothes,” he added.

“Clothes?” Molly echoed warily.

Joaquin slanted her a grin. “It’s easier to seduce most men if they don’t think you’re one, too.”

“Very funny. But unnecessary. Carson knows I’m a woman.”

“Does he?” The question was mild but cut to the bone. And apparently realizing it, Joaquin reached out and took her hand. “The thing is, querida, you want the awareness to hit him squarely between the eyes. Men don’t understand subtlety.” He had pulled her to a stop in the middle of the road and was looking earnestly into her eyes.

The look hit her squarely between the eyes, that was for sure. Molly wetted her lips. “I can get something,” she said.

“We will go shopping.”

“You can make me a list.”

But he shook his head. “No. I have to tell you my reactions.” He started walking again, pulling her along with him, though whether he’d forgotten he wasn’t supposed to be holding her hand or whether he intended to keep a grip on her so she wouldn’t run away, she didn’t know.

“Shopping where?” Molly said warily.

“Wherever you want. The boutique at the Mirabelle. Erica’s in town.”

Syd bought her clothes at Erica’s. It had lovely expensive stuff. The boutique was even pricier. Molly almost never set foot in either of them. “I don’t shop there.”

“You don’t shop.”

She lifted a defiant chin and jerked her hand out of his. “I haven’t needed to. I can. I will,” she vowed.

“And I’ll come with you.”

“Not to Erica’s!”

“Why not?”

“Because people would talk!”

He rolled his eyes. “So we’ll go to another island. We’ll go to Nassau. Or Miami.”

“Miami?”

“Why not? Surely they won’t talk in Miami.”

“No, but—”

“Stop arguing, querida,” he said and reached out and snagged her hand, this time lacing his fingers firmly through hers.

She jerked to a stop. “What are you doing?”

“Little things. Connecting things.” He met her gaze with a heavy-lidded one of his own. My God, he had beautiful eyes.

Molly swallowed. “Why?” she demanded and hated that her voice sounded shaky.

“So you can do them with Carter.”

“Carson!”

He shrugged. His eyes never left hers. They were mesmerizing. Molly tried to remember if Carson had ever linked his fingers with hers. She couldn’t. She tried to remember if she had ever tried it with him. She couldn’t.

But Joaquin was right—it certainly emphasized the connection!

“Right,” she said. “Got it.” She tried to unlace her fingers, but he didn’t let go. They were stopped in the middle of the street, staring into each other’s eyes as his thumb slid lightly over her fingers making them tingle.

How did he do that?

It made her so aware of him. She dropped her gaze—and found herself looking at his mouth. Would he kiss her? Molly ran her tongue over her lips.

Suddenly her hand was dropped. Joaquin stepped back, jamming his into his pockets and clearing his throat. “So,” he said brusquely. “You’ve got the point then, sí? Very well. Come on. Let’s go.”

THE WOMAN WAS A MENACE.

Molly McGillivray’s big green eyes could make a man forget his best intentions right in the middle of a public road!

He was crazy to be doing this. Insane. He should have told her it was a stupid stupid stupid idea—this business of “seduction lessons.” He should have his head examined for agreeing. In fact he’d turned up on her doorstep this afternoon to do exactly that.

It had been boredom that had made him say yes. And his perennial need to take on a hopeless challenge. And perhaps, he admitted, the memory of her at Lachlan’s wedding. But sanity had prevailed when she’d left.

He was no Henry Higgins. And she was sure as hell no Eliza Doolittle! And there were some things even he couldn’t manage. He’d gone to her house to tell her so.

And then she’d come downstairs in that towel.

All thoughts of telling her no went right out of his head.

Every time he shut his eyes, he could still see her as she’d been when she’d come down the stairs, lots of bare creamy skin with a bright yellow towel tucked just above her breasts and stopping well above her knees. Used to seeing Molly McGillivray in her brothers’ hand-me-downs, the sight of her on the hoof, so to speak, had very nearly welded his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It had certainly scrambled his brain.

He’d been mesmerized. Tantalized. Maybe, he’d thought, there was more Eliza Doolittle in her than he’d thought. Heaven knew there was certainly some raw material to work with.

But raw was definitely what it was.