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go first.”
    “What? No way. That wasn’t the deal.”
    Emma wouldn’t even look at him, which had double cross written all over it. She wasn’t going to do it and was scouting for an out. And now he was disappointed. Worse, he was disappointed because she’d chickened out of doing something that clearly meant a lot to her. Even the lure of seeing him prance around like a Playgirl centerfold wasn’t enough of a carrot to get her over her fears.
    Maybe she didn’t actually trust him, which sat funny in his craw. She shouldn’t trust him. He had no business caring either way. But he’d have held up his end of the bargain no matter what, because he’d said he would.
    “Come on,” she purred and took a tiny step backward toward the water. “I’ll wade out into the water and you lemme see what you’re hiding under those shorts. I can tell your little guy wants to come out and play. He’s been waving hello since I got here.”
    “ Little guy?” His disappointment melted away to be replaced by indignation. “Sweetheart, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
    “Oh?” She blinked those baby blues, so full of fresh, corruptible innocence that it hooked him right in the heart. “That was a lot of protesting. Sure you don’t have some kind of complex about it?”
    Waltzing closer, lashes lowered, she barged into his space without warning, white bikini making the acquaintance of his steel hard shaft with little teasing sways of her hips. Her milky white shoulders called to him, and he ached to put his hands there to haul her up against the planes of his body.
    “How about a preview then?” she murmured provocatively, peering up at him. “Just so I have the proper dimensions in mind when I speak of your ‘guy.’”
    He inhaled her scent. The sultry perfume she wore melded with the salty tang of the ocean and warm breeze of paradise, and his mouth burned to taste hers from the inside out.
    “You’re good,” he croaked. A lock of her honey-blond hair blew across her lips, and lazily he slid a fingertip along her cheekbone, angling downward to hook the strands while memorizing the feel of her. “I’m almost distracted enough to forget that we’re supposed to be dealing with your fear of the ocean. What happened to you that putting your head under the water is worse than playing chicken with a man who’s already told you he’s not good for you?”
    She froze, going so completely still that he worried for a second that he’d misjudged the situation. But then her lower lip quaked once, and he opened his mouth to let her off the hook.
    “I almost drowned,” she whispered before he could say a word, and the shock of both the content of her answer and the fact that she’d offered one at all nearly knocked his already weak knees out from under him.
    He should be running away from Emma faster than a bullet. Women who shared pieces of themselves expected reciprocation. Yearned for it. That was one deal he could never agree to, and therein lay the reason he could never take what she’d so clearly offered.
    But he couldn’t physically tear his gaze from hers. Anguish bled from her pores as if he might read it like braille by running his fingertips over her skin. As her gorgeous body lay within touching distance, he might very well learn all of her secrets by simply reaching out. One finger flexed, but he didn’t move for fear of spooking her.
    Or maybe he was scared of spooking himself.
    “Almost doesn’t count,” he countered fiercely and instantly forgave her near-successful seduction that had doubled as a distraction, exactly as he’d guessed. “The ocean can be treacherous. But it’s an amazing, wondrous place if you dive below the surface with the right guide. Let me show you.”
    Bad, bad idea .
    Or the best one he’d ever had in his life. If he was helping her get to a place where she could go snorkeling with her friend—now that was an intriguing, totally acceptable solution to