A_Little_Harmless_Fascination Read Free Page A

her friend
in the process. She didn’t have many women friends, but Maura was a constant in
Jillian’s life.
    She poured her coffee then took a sip, hoping the caffeine
would jolt her head out of the gutter.
    “So, what do you plan to do with me?”
    The steamy liquid caught in her throat and she began
coughing. When she finally caught her breath, she looked over at him. He was
smiling at her and sipping his coffee. Now she knew he was messing with her.
    Jillian picked up a napkin and wiped her mouth. “Do with
you?”
    “Today. You said you would show me around. You haven’t
changed your mind, have you?”
    “No. I promised Maura I would keep my eye on you.”
    His smile widened. “That’s interesting.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I thought we could drive around, maybe
pick up some lunch?”
    “That sounds like a plan.” Then he surprised her by winking
at her. “For now.”
    He turned and walked out of the kitchen leaving her
completely aroused and thoroughly confused.
     
     
     

Chapter Two
     
    Conner watched Jillian as she turned onto Kamehameha
Highway. It was hard not to be a little distracted by her. She had always been
fascinating, but now she was in her element. Hawaii seemed to agree with her in
a way the mainland never would.
    He still felt a little bad about waking her up. Worse, he
didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t realized what time it was. Hell, all he had
to do was look outside. He had even been outside to go down and knock on her
door and hadn’t noticed the sun. He’d traveled enough to think of these things,
but lately details had been escaping him.
    “Have you talked to Maura today?”
    He shook his head. “I have a feeling I will soon. She’s
being a little overprotective.”
    She laughed as she rolled to a stop behind a tour van. “Yeah,
I have no idea where she got that from.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    She snorted and put the jeep in gear as the light turned
green. “You were a bit...overbearing in college.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. I mean, I was in my sophomore year, and Maura was my
third roommate. But you knew that, right?”
    He nodded, wishing he could see her eyes, but she had
covered them with a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. Normally, they would
make the woman wearing them look masculine, but on Jillian they just made her
sexier.
    “You were the first of my roomates’ relatives to check me
out.”
    For a second, he thought of the night before, the way she
had looked with those snug jeans, barely-there T-shirt, and the way she had
been dressed that morning. He was damned sure she hadn’t been wearing panties
under that shirt.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I know you did a background check on me.”
    “Did you tell Maura?” he asked, feeling more than a little
embarrassed.  
    She laughed. “Do you think that Maura would have kept quiet
if I had?”
    He had to smile at that and the sound of her laugh. She
rarely tried to hide her joy, and sometimes it was a bit contagious.
    “No, I doubt that. There is one thing Maura has never been,
and that’s quiet.”
    “Tell me about it. She’s a loud one. But then, I think that’s
why you complement each other. She lives life out loud, and you go about it
very quietly. Believe me, with my family, I know how bad it can be having too
much of one kind of personality.”
    Jillian had been right. He did snoop, so he knew about her
family. Born to a white, upper-middle class mother and an African-American
superstar baseball player father, she had spent the first ten years of her life
away from the crazy Bentley family of Atlanta. When her parents had died in a
car crash, she’d had nowhere else to go except to that crazy Bentley family.
And even though she was no longer rooming with his sister, he had kept tabs on
her. He didn’t know why, but for some reason he felt a need to make sure she
was doing okay. Probably because she had taken care of Maura. Moving to Hawaii
had been exactly what he’d expected of