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slowly leaned toward her. Her exotic citrusy scent filled his lungs, the smell so intoxicating he resented the need to exhale. Trying to ignore the pang of desire, he lowered his voice and layered on the suggestive tone. “I’m local. Think I might be the man for the job?”
    Staring up at him, her jaw slackened, opening her mouth a bit. Testing the waters, he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and let it drag itself free. Her eyes dropped and fixated, darkening with interest.
    And Bingo was his name-o.
    “I think that’s a yes, princess.” He allowed himself the satisfaction of a half smile before bringing his beer up for a victory sip.
    Snapping out of her temporary trance, she let out an indignant huff. “Please. You have heat stroke if you think I’d even let you apply for the job.”
    Laughing at her indignation, Jackson pried his eyes from Vanessa’s long enough to sign his tab. Points for him. It was a damn hard thing to accomplish. She was so different from the women he’d been around the last decade. Island girls typically had happy-go-lucky, easy-going, go-with-the-flow personalities. But she was full of opposites. Fire and ice. Both the calm and the storm.
    And her eyes were the purest shade of green. They weren’t brownish green or hazel green. She turned her head in his direction, rewarding him with the very things that mesmerized him, even if it was in the form of a glare. He looked for the telltale, barely visible rim revealing them as counterfeits…and found none.
    “You don’t wear contacts,” he stated.
    A feathery eyebrow hitched up her forehead. “You say that like you’re surprised.”
    “I am. Usually color like that only comes from cosmetic lenses. I’ve never seen authentic eyes the shade of yours before.” A small sigh accompanied a roll of said beautiful eyes. Amused at her assumption, he added, “That wasn’t a line.”
    “You’ve been throwing innuendos at me since the airport, Jackson. Why wouldn’t I think that was a line?”
    He dropped one arm from the counter and turned his entire body toward her. She was taller than most women—he guessed somewhere around five-nine, five-ten—but at six-four he still had a huge advantage. Especially since she was sitting and he wasn’t.
    Letting his gaze slowly trail over every exposed inch, he made her wait, not saying a word until he’d thoroughly soaked up every detail. Alabaster skin and smooth curves on a willowy frame. Breasts that filled out her bikini top to perfection with tight nipples pushing against…and this train of thought was nothing but a hard-on wreck waiting to happen. His cargo shorts were in serious danger of taking on a new shape.
    Dragging his eyes back up, he met the emerald pools and told her the God’s honest truth. “I don’t use lines. I use compliments. And telling a woman something she already knows isn’t a compliment. You have to tell her true things she doesn’t know.”
    “Okay,” she said, “I’ll bite. What would you say to me?”
    He tucked a stray curl whipping across her face behind her ear, then slowly trailed his finger down the long column of her throat as his eyes followed. “I’d tell you how I think seeing the curves of your silhouette against a Hawaiian sunset would be absolutely breathtaking.”
    She reached up and pulled his hand away, but when he met her gaze she must have forgotten her purpose and their hands stayed clasped together between them. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles just once and spoke again. “I’d tell you you’re the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met, and I’m dying to discover what’s underneath that sexy confidence you wear so well.”
    He lowered their hands and gently released hers. He waited for a verbal backlash, a scoff, anything that would prove he was seeing something that wasn’t really there. But she did none of those things. Simply sat there, stone still, her chest the only thing moving as she took in shallow breaths of the