He's So Fine

Commando.

She rolled the excess material at her waist and cuffed them at her feet. Cole had provided a T-shirt advertising some dive shop in the Turks and Caicos and a thick Navy sweatshirt. Both smelled delicious as she pulled them on, like some sort of fresh, clean detergent, but there was also a hint of something she couldn’t put her finger on. Whatever it was made her want to bury her face in the material and inhale for about a month. She was doing just that when he walked back into the room.

He arched a brow.

“I like the smell of your detergent,” she said.

He smirked, and she barely resisted smacking herself in the forehead for being so lame.

Cole had pulled on another pair of cargo pants and a long sleeved T-shirt. He was still barefoot, his hair standing up on end like he hadn’t even bothered to brush his fingers over it after pulling on the shirt. He eyed her wearing what she presumed were his clothes and smiled, sexy as all get out.

“I feel like we’re going steady now,” he said.

He had no problem talking about his feelings, joking or not. She wasn’t anywhere close to as comfortable with her own emotions, and she drew an unsteady breath rather than admit she felt the odd sense of intimacy as well. “It takes more than clothes sharing to get me to go steady,” she said.

“You did see me naked,” he reminded her with a smile.

Yes, and the image of his naked body was burned in her brain in the best possible way, not that she was about to admit that either. It was much smarter, and much easier, to give him a smart-ass smile in return.

He groaned and shook his head. “Giving me a complex,” he said, but she knew he was just playing, because something warm had come into his eyes.

Uh-oh.

“You should know something,” he said.

“What?”

“I peeked too.”

She had long years of acting more hours a day than she’d actually lived her life, and from this, she’d developed a healthy cynicism. Nothing much surprised her or caught her off guard.

But Cole did both.

He grinned at the look on her face. “You’re cute,” he said.

Okay, back on familiar ground. She’d heard this. A lot. Child stars were inevitably “cute.”

Until they weren’t.

But she wasn’t a little kid anymore, and nothing about the responses he effortlessly coaxed from her made her feel juvenile. Before she could respond, the boat shifted as if someone had come on board, and then there were male voices.

Two someones.

“Fuck me,” Cole said conversationally. “Listen, you might want to brace yourself—”

Four feet and then four long legs appeared on the stairs. Cole turned to face them and Olivia started snatching up her clothing before sinking to the bench again, out of immediate view.

“What’s up?” one of the men said to Cole. “You were supposed to call me—” There was a pause and the sound of exaggerated sniffing. “You smell like a woman. A really great-smelling woman, which can’t be. You haven’t gotten laid since the Ice Age. What gives?”

“Nothing,” Cole said, standing in a way that clearly told her he was purposely blocking her from view. “You two go get a booth at Eat Me; I’ll meet you there for breakfast.”

“No can do,” the other guy said. “We’ve got clients coming— Why is there a pair of black panties on the floor?”

From her perch on the bench, Olivia cringed. Whoops.

Cole sighed. Or at least Olivia assumed it was Cole. She was doing her best to be invisible.

“Either you’re making a lifestyle change,” the first guy said, “or you’ve had a woman in here.”

“It’s got to be the lifestyle change,” the other guy said, “because we have the no-booty-call-on-the-boat policy, and the one who breaks it has to work a week in the buff as the walk of shame.”

Horrified, Olivia stood up, and still holding her clothes—minus her panties—she took a few steps forward, wanting to clear the air about this being a booty call.

As she suspected, the two men were Sam and Tanner, Cole’s partners. She’d interacted with Sam on a few occasions, since he was engaged to Olivia’s friend and next-door neighbor Becca. Tanner she’d seen but not spoken to. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a way of holding his body that suggested he’d had a dark life as well.

Tanner’s gaze locked on Olivia, took in her appearance, and then reached out and gave Cole a shove.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Olivia said quickly. “He fell into the water, and I jumped in to help—”

Tanner shot Cole a look of disbelief. “You had to be rescued?”

“Oh, no,” Olivia interjected. “He was fine. I just didn’t know it, so I—”

Tanner finally grinned. “Yeah,” he said to Cole. “You had to be rescued.”

“Really,” Olivia said, “he didn’t. He wasn’t drowning at all. He just fell into the water, and it was really cold and—”

“He fell into the water,” Sam repeated, as if this didn’t compute. “And it was cold.”

Cole grimaced and ran a hand down his face. “It is cold.”

For some reason, this made Tanner grin.

“Yes, very cold,” Olivia said, feeling the urge to come to Cole’s defense. “I thought he was in trouble, so I jumped in to help, and then our clothes were all wet so…” She trailed off and realized from the look on Cole’s face that she’d only made things worse. So she shut up and bit her lower lip as Cole turned back to Tanner and Sam.