Shock Waves by Jenna Mills

palm and strong fingers, the tanned flesh, and didn’t want to take it. Didn’t want to touch him again. That’s how everything had started, after all. With a simple touch between strangers. He’d yet to make the connection, yet to remember the night they’d brushed, flesh to flesh, in the vet clinic where she worked. She was nothing more than a stranger to him, and even were she to remind him, he still wouldn’t believe.
    It wasn’t in his blood.
    She brushed by him, toward the open doorway. “Freshening up sounds wonderful,” she said. Pointedly she turned and scorched him with her eyes, let her gaze linger on his ratty running clothes. With great effort she wrinkled her nose, pretended the masculine smell offended. “Something around here stinks more by the minute.”
    * * *
    The room stole her breath. Large and spacious, with a stunning wall of windows and a verandah overlooking the beach, high windows open to allow the crosswinds to feather through the tropical warmth, several wicker fans whooshing lazily from high on the ceiling. Not much furniture adorned the room, but then, not much was needed. The wood was surprisingly dark, mahogany maybe, reminiscent of that found in the old sugar plantations. A dresser, an armoire, a chest and a bed. A big, beautiful, four-poster bed with netting dangling around all four sides.
    Brenna ignored the quickening deep inside and tried not to look at the white covers, pulled crisply back. At the pillows, fluffed and waiting.
    “These must be for you,” Ethan said, and she spun toward him, relieved not to look at the bed, not at all prepared for the sight of him standing by the armoire with a pair of dusty rose panties and bra dangling from his fingers.
    She swallowed hard. “I certainly hope they’re not for you.” He glanced toward a pile of clothing by his feet, a pair of khaki cargo shorts and black knit shirt, a pair of gray boxers. “Not unless you’d rather wear these.”
    The room started to spin, but she fought the sensation, fought the odd vertigo whirring through her. It was like falling down the rabbit hole, she thought dizzily, and discovering a strange new world where nothing made sense. She’d seen the dream, after all. She knew what was coming.
    The elegant room and fresh supply of clothing didn’t fit.
    “Would you like to clean up first?” Ethan asked.
    There was a gleam in his eyes, a gleam that matched the thickness of his voice. Pretending she noticed neither, she crossed to the armoire and looked inside, selected a simple white sundress. There was no simple underwear. It was all in sets, all provocative. There was a black combo with a lacy bra and a matching thong, a crimson set in silk. The pink set in Ethan’s hands. The most discreet was a set of pale yellow, a demicup bra and matching bikini panties.
    An odd rush feathered through her as she picked up the garments under Ethan’s watchful eye. When she returned from the shower, he’d know what she had on beneath her dress, a reality that left her feeling as exposed as if she stood before him naked.
    “I won’t be long,” she said with a breeziness she didn’t come close to feeling, then forced herself to walk casually to the bathroom.
    She’d never seen anything like it. Sprawling, definitely. Elegant, for sure. All white marble. A sunken tub large enough for two, with blood-red rose petals sprinkled liberally, even though no water waited inside. Jacuzzi jets. A shower encased in erotic glass blocks. Dual vanities, each stocked with shampoos and lotions and powders, toothpastes, the works. An entire wall of windows, with no curtains or shutters, open and exposing tropical foliage just beyond, the beach below. The tide washed lazily against the beach of glowing white sand.
    The beach soon to be drenched in red.
    Blocking the images, the memories and visions she wanted no part of, she stripped out of the stifling black clothes and stepped into the shower, welcomed the blast of lukewarm