Some Like It Hot by Zoey Dean Read Free Book Online Page A

for?”
    For a moment she was ready to fib, but she decided to hold to her honesty policy. When he'd lied about why he'd abandoned her, when she'd not been up-front about the guys she'd been seeing in Los Angeles, when he'd hidden the fact that he had to return to Princeton or that the school would kick him out, it had hurt them. She didn't want that to happen again.
    “The truth? I wasn't longing for anything. I was thinking about the first time you brought me out here. New Year's Eve.”
    Ben winced and shook his head. “Don't.”
    The
Nip 'n' Tuck
cut across the wake of a larger vessel and pitched forward and backward. Ben put his hands on Anna's hips to steady her.
    “I was so sure you had used me. But you'd gone off to play the knight in shining armor to your dad.”
    “You had no way of knowing that,” Ben reminded her. Anna saw the flush of shame in his cheeks. “I don't blame you for jumping to the wrong conclusion.”
    “That's the whole point.” She traced the line of his jaw with her forefinger and gazed over his shoulder at the California coastline. The further they went from the harbor, the more beautiful it became. To the north she could see the Santa Monica Pier, with its famous Ferris wheel. To the south, planes were roaring into the sky from LAX. “Why was I so quick to think the worst of you instead of the best?”
    “Because men are dogs?” Ben ventured.
    She smiled. “Because I was afraid of … of everything. Being hurt. Wanting you.” She ducked her head self-consciously. “I should shut up now.”
    He cupped her chin until she lifted her head to face him again, and turned his body slightly to shield her from the fine spray as the bow of the yacht cut through some choppy water. “Hey, don't do that. I'm just as sick of all the bullshit out there as you are. You can tell me anything.” His hand traced a line from her chin down her neck; then he gently brushed his knuckles against her collarbone. “Man, I missed you.”
    “Me too.” Her eyes searched his. “I really think … if we're honest with each other, we can be …” She searched for the right words. “Far from the madding crowd.”
    He pointed at her playfully. “Thomas Hardy. You thought I wouldn't know.”
    “‘The sky was clear—remarkably clear—and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse,’“
Anna half-whispered. “Isn't that amazing, that one man could write something like that?”
    Ben's strong hands circled her slender waist. “I think
you're
amazing.”
    Anna rested her cheek against his strong chest and shut her eyes, letting the perfection of the moment wash over her. Then she opened them again. Honest. She had to be honest.
    “I wanted to ask you. About Blythe.” She cleared her throat.
    “Blythe-at-Princeton Blythe?”
    “Is there another one?” she asked archly.
    He laughed. “Yeah, somewhere in the universe, I guess. It's just that I haven't even thought about her in three months.”
    Anna wanted to make absolutely certain she had this right. “You broke up with her?”
    “There wasn't anything to break up. We hung out a few times; that's pretty much it.”
    “That's not how it sounded when you first told me about her. You're really not ‘hanging out’ anymore?”
    “No, Anna,” he replied as if humoring her. “We are not ‘hanging out’ anymore. I have no female hang-out partners under the age of eighty, I swear.”
    “Well, then.” She smiled. That was that. “You need to kiss me.”
    He did, over and over, until Anna couldn't think at all. Then he lifted her up in his arms and carried her down the steps to the main cabin. It was bigger than the one that had been on the original
Nip 'n' Tuck,
more lavishly appointed, with actual portholes, a white Berber rug, and an Adriatic desk. The light brown teak king-size bed was built into a darker teak headboard-bookshelf combination—recessed track lighting plus twin reading lamps provided