But this was my Landon, and I was helpless.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kiss your mouth,” he whispered.
“Okay.”
“But it’s not because I don’t want to,” he said, pulling back to look in my eyes.
“Oh?”
A corner of his mouth tilted up. “First, I want you to realize that this isn’t just sexual for me. I meant what I said last night. I’m not touching any other woman, and that includes you, until you realize that it’s not about the score.”
The look I gave him must have been skeptical, because he grinned at me.
“I’m dead serious.” He gestured down his body. “All this is closed until you believe that I’m in this to win it. The long haul. Your heart. All of it.”
God, I wanted to believe him. My heart was practically banging at my ribs to get out and launch at him. But I knew better, didn’t I? I wasn’t some starry-eyed girl who thought she could change Landon Rhodes. I was the girl he’d left standing in an empty apartment with no savings, no college, and no family.
But there was this tiny part of me that was growing steadily stronger, begging to give him a chance. To put those claims to the test. But I also knew that was the last part of me that had never gotten over him, and with one misstep, he’d kill off that chance for good.
“And what’s the other reason you won’t kiss me?”
How long could he hold out if I really pushed? If I frayed the edges of his nonexistent control? How long would it take to prove that he just wanted to score the one girl he thought he couldn’t have? Wasn’t it safer in the long run to break my heart at the size it was now as opposed to letting it grow bigger for him again?
He crinkled his nose. “Your breath smells like puke.”
I couldn’t help it; I burst into laughter.
Testing him was going to be so much fun.
Chapter Nineteen
Landon
Jakarta
“Stop scratching at it,” Penna snapped as we stared out over the calm waters of the crane park. The water was glassy within the sectioned-off area of the bay, no waves lapping against the various ramps, air cushions, or docks that held the huge cranes that would soon catapult us across the water.
“I’m serious,” Penna warned.
I lowered my hand from its exploration of the waterproof plastic covering my stitches. Sure, I needed the protection, but damn if I didn’t feel like a set of leftovers in cling wrap ready for the microwave.
“You’re one to talk,” I told her as she shifted next to me. “Or was that not a coat hanger I saw you shoving down your cast this morning?”
She pointed her finger at me. “You have no clue what it’s like to be in a full freaking cast in this heat and humidity. None.”
“Touché,” I agreed, tipping my baseball hat in her direction.
She rolled her eyes, and I grinned. Damn, I was just glad she was out here with us. It had taken every weapon in our arsenal to get her to the stunt site, and even though she insisted on sitting in the shade with a book, I’d take it.
It felt like the first step to bringing her back.
“So what’s up with you and Rachel?” she asked, picking her nail polish off and flicking it onto the wooden deck, just to watch it fall between the cracks to the water.
“That, my friend, is the million-dollar question,” I said. I turned my hat around backward, then leaned over the railing to see Paxton fifteen feet below on the lower deck, making the final arrangements for the stunt.
I should have been with him, but I needed Leah to get here and sit with Penna so she wouldn’t try to run away.
“I’m just glad you two aren’t pulling each other’s hair anymore,” Penna said as she leaned against the railing with me. “You’d better not fuck this up.”
“Doing my best not to. She doesn’t trust me.”
“Can you blame her? You left that girl high and dry and then went on to become a superstar. Add that to your propensity for fucking anything in a skirt—”
“I’m done with that,” I cut her off.
“Just like that?” She tilted her head. “You, who I’m not sure has even gone a day without sex in the last two years, are going to give up your little addiction cold turkey?”
“Already have,” I told her as I spotted Rachel walking toward us with Leah. She had on board shorts and a tank top, and her hair was pulled partway up, leaving the line of her chin bare.
“Seriously?”
“I haven’t breathed in the direction of another girl since I saw Rachel in Dubai. That’s over three weeks.”
“Wow. That’s almost thirty days sober. I applaud you.” She saw Rachel and Leah coming and whispered, “Does that include your lucky charm over there?”
I grinned. Rachel really was my lucky charm, even if she was convinced that she was cursed. “Especially her,” I told her in low tones. “I have to convince her that I’m after more than her body.”
She snorted, threading her long blond hair through a ponytail holder, but before she could say anything, the girls had reached us.
“Pax says he’s ready for you,” Leah told me from under her giant, floppy sun hat.
“You going to join us?” I asked.
She glanced at Penna. “Nope. I think I’m just fine shore bound today. You guys have fun. Rach, did you want to leave your stuff in my bag?”