Scout's Honor by Tara Janzen Page A

pulled her close into the cradle
of his hips. His rough jeans pressed against her flat stomach
through the thin barrier of her suit. She leaned into him, allowing
the magic of his mouth to continue, working her own magic with him,
believing only in the sensations flaming through her body.
    Somewhere in the conscious recesses of her
mind she registered the incredible potency of Mitch Summers in
action. He pulled back far enough to kiss the corners of her mouth,
and her hands slid down to his chest, the end of the towel clenched
in one fist. She caught her breath against his mouth and chin,
feeling the masculine coarseness of his skin on the softness of her
lips, knowing this had to stop. She tried to speak, but failed, as
he took the opportunity to slip back inside her mouth for an
instant, sending shock tremors through her.
    She tried again, and managed to gasp the
most inane thing she could think of. “You’re wet.”
    “So are you . . . behind the ears,” he said.
He proved his point by licking up the trail of moisture running
along her jaw to her earlobe, where his tongue lingered with a
series of quick, darting strokes.
    “You’re too fast,” she choked out, trying to
control the emotions he incited.
    He nuzzled her ear before lifting his head
and smiling. “And you told me to stay away from the fast action,
right boss?”
    “Right,” she said, drawing just enough
strength into her lethargic limbs to push away from him. “I’ll go
get you a dry towel. Help yourself to a beer or something.”
    She left him on the deck, taking several
deep breaths as she walked to her room. She closed the door behind
her and slumped against the louvered panels, her heart still
pounding out a syncopated beat.
    If he hadn’t sneaked up on her, she might
have avoided the kiss. The kiss . . . She ran over it in her mind,
the warmth of his mouth lingering on hers, and her knees weakened
even from the instant replay. Oh, brother. Snap out of it, Anna,
she told herself. It was just a kiss. Just a delightfully erotic
kiss under a waterfall, just a touching of mouths that had taken
her out of herself and into a realm of magic sensation. Chemistry,
pure body chemistry, she decided. There were probably a few
thousand men in the world who could do that to her anatomy. And
today she’d met the first—Mitch Summers, the one with the broken
nose and the crooked grin, the one with the soft brown eyes and the
innate intuition about how to touch her . . . It was just a
kiss.
    Her black bikini was a web of shadow against
the Haitian cotton bedspread. She’d planned to sunbathe after her
swim, but those two strips of cloth would be suicide after such a
kiss.
    Anna pushed herself away from the door and
swept back the tendrils of wet hair clinging to her cheeks.
Flipping through the contents of her closet, she picked out a filmy
white skirt that had pearly buttons up the front and reached to
mid-calf. The matching blouse had capped sleeves and a pastel
embroidery of wild island flowers to match the pockets of the
skirt. She dropped the outfit in the middle of the mahogany
four-poster and peeled herself out of the swimsuit.
    The lace of her camisole barely peeked above
the top button of the blouse, and altogether, she decided, it was a
very chaste-looking outfit, innocent armor against any passion
lingering in the atmosphere. She worked her damp hair into a French
braid and glossed her lips. With her hand on the doorknob she took
one last deep breath, then walked out of the sanctuary of her room,
still telling herself it was just a kiss.
    Mitch stood at the rail of the deck, staring
out at the ocean. As she stepped through the glass doors, he looked
over his shoulder and a lazy smile spread across his face,
crinkling the corners of his eyes and dazzling her with its boyish
sensuality. Now that she knew what his mouth could do to her, she
couldn’t take her eyes off the curve of his lips and the flash of
white teeth behind them. A shaft of heat