But here was she was in Los Angeles and her stomach quivered with excitement. She turned her cell phone back on in case Jason tried to call her as she rode down the escalator, then searched the crowd at the bottom for him.

There he was. A smile broke across her face at the sight of him, taller than everyone else, broader than everyone else, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt. Bare arms in early April. Awesome.

He spotted her too, sending her a big grin, and caught her at the bottom of the escalator in a big hug.

“Congratulations,” she said to him after he’d kissed the wits out of her. “You won last night.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. He took her suitcase in one hand and her hand in the other and started toward the exit. “I got two goals.”

“That’s all?” She lifted a brow at him mockingly, and he growled.

“Whaddya mean, that’s all?” Then he laughed and lifted her hand to his mouth to kiss her knuckles.

They stepped out into sunshine and warm humidity. “Oh, that feels nice,” she said.

“Bring a swimsuit?”

“Yes.”

“Good. There’s a nice pool at the hotel.”

He led the way across roads crazy with speeding cars, taxis, limos and noisy shuttle buses to the parking garage. “I got a rental car for the weekend,” he told her.

“This?” She stopped in front of the little black convertible. She looked across the roof of the car at him and smiled.

“Yup. Sweet, huh?”

“Perfect.”

He put the top down and they were soon leaving LAX, the warm wind tossing Remi’s hair around her head, and she sat there with a feeling of warm contentment mingled with excited anticipation. As they drove along Century Boulevard, her cell phone rang in her purse.

With a small frown, she pulled it out. Kyle.

“Hey,” she said into the phone.

“Hi, Remi,” Kyle said. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m okay.” She grinned at the thought that he had no idea where she was just then. “What’s up?”

“I’ve got a bit of a problem.”

“What is it?”

“I kinda…missed an exam yesterday.”

She glanced at Jason, who was glancing at her as he drove. “What do you mean, kind of? You missed it or you didn’t.”

“Okay, I missed it. It was totally an accident. My alarm didn’t go off and I slept in.” His words picked up pace. “But if you could call the dean and tell him that I was sick, they might let me rewrite it.”

“But you weren’t sick.”

“But if you say I was, they’ll let me rewrite it.”

She paused and stared at passing palm trees and billboards and big hotels.

“You want me to lie about it for you?”

“Well…yeah. Please, Remi. If I can’t write the exam, I flunk the whole course. I’ll have to do it all next year. That’s going to set me back.”

Shit. It was hard enough paying his tuition without tacking on an extra year—term? Whatever.

“I don’t know, Kyle.” She nibbled her lip. “Are you sure that’s all I’d have to do?”

“Yeah. I think so. But you have to do it Monday.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Where are you, anyway?”

“I’m …uh…actually in Los Angeles.”

“Whaat! What are you doing there?”

She sent another sideways glance at Jason, this time smiling. “I’m having a little weekend vacation.”

“Huh? Who’re you with? What’re you…”

“I’ll call you back later. Bye, Kyle.”

She snapped her phone shut.

“Your brother?”

“Mmm. He has a little problem he wants me to fix.”

She told him the story and he frowned.

“He does want you to lie for him. How old is he?”

“Eighteen.”

“Shit.”

“He’s just a kid.”

“When I was eighteen, I was earning my own living. I’d been on my own for a couple of years.”

“Well. He’s in college. I still have to support him while he goes to school.”

Jason’s mouth twisted. “I suppose. I didn’t go to university.”

The touch of bitterness in his tone made her shift in her seat to look at him.

“That’s okay,” she said. “You had other talents.”

He nodded and accelerated fast to merge onto the freeway.

“Didn’t you finish high school?” she asked tentatively.

“Yeah, I did. I was playing major junior hockey and I was living in Brandon. With another family. They made sure I went to school, although it was kind hard keeping up with it when we were on the road a lot. But I did finish. I even took a few university courses.”

“That’s good.” It must have been hard to combine school and a hockey career at that young age. Kids that young weren’t ready to be living away from home. Yet Jason seemed to have done okay. “Was it hard for your parents to let you move away when you were so young?”

He glanced at her. “I don’t know. I never thought about it.” He tipped his head to one side. “It was just what we had to do. I guess it probably was hard for them, but…my parents made a lot of sacrifices for all of us so we could be successful.”

“That’s what parents do.”

“Yeah.”

She’d bet it had been a lot harder for his parents to let him go than he even realized. “Where are we staying?” she asked, changing the subject. Sunshine flashed and glinted off speeding chrome and glass surrounding them on the freeway.

“The Ocean Front, in Santa Monica.”

“Oh. I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a small place, a boutique hotel, very nice.”

She was sure it would be, knowing Jason. More excitement tingled in her veins.

Her cell phone rang again as they were checking in. She moved away from Jason in the lobby, her boots clicking on the bamboo floor. She needed to get out of these winter clothes. “Hello?”

“It’s me again.”

Kyle. She sighed.

“Look, I didn’t tell you the whole story when I talked to you earlier.”

She slowly walked past white upholstered furniture and palms in chrome pots. “What’s the whole story?”

“I was sick yesterday.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say that? Are you okay now?”

“Yeah, I feel fine now. But I couldn’t write that exam. I was just too sick.”

“Well, in that case…I suppose I could talk to the dean. Was it the flu?”

“Yeah! Yeah, it was the flu.”

Remi’s bullshit radar pinged. “Kyle, are you being honest with me?”

“Of course! Would I lie to you, Remi?”

“Yes. You would. You have. Many times.” She sighed. She’d bailed him out of situations more times than she cared to remember. Helped him with homework. Loaned him money. Jason was right. He was eighteen. He needed to take responsibility for his actions.

“I’m busy right now,” she said, seeing Jason turn from the reception desk. “I’ll call you back later.”

He lifted a brow as she moved toward him. “Kyle again.” She filled him in on this conversation as they rode the elevator to their room.

“He was hungover and missed his exam,” Jason said.

“He was not!”

Jason lifted one eyebrow and gave her a crooked smile as the elevator rose.

“You think?”

“I know. I know teenage boys. I used to be one.”

She sighed. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Then thoughts of Kyle scattered as she walked into their room.

“This place is amazing!”

Their room—or rather, suite—was immense. Sliding doors opened on to a balcony overlooking red tile roofs interspersed with green palm trees and, in the distance, the pale sand of the beach, the azure Pacific Ocean.

She trailed her fingers along the creamy duvet that topped the king-size bed and flopped down onto the chocolate brown couch facing the balcony. “Wow.”

He stored their suitcases in the massive closet and went to shut the doors.

“Wait! I want to change.” She extended her legs. “I can’t wear these boots when it’s so warm here.”

But it took longer to change than she’d thought because once she started taking her clothes off, Jason attacked her. Or maybe she attacked him. Whatever. It didn’t matter, they were hot for each other after a couple of days apart.

Down to her black lace underwear, she went to take the boots off and he said, “Leave them on.” He knelt between her legs, admiring her in her bra and panties and stiletto boots. Her body heated up.

“Now that is a fantasy come to life,” he said with deep satisfaction.

Her toes curled inside her boots.

“Very hot,” he murmured, hands on her thighs. “Like a baby dominatrix.”

“You want to be dominated?” Her heart hammed ferociously. She wasn’t sure about…

“Not really.” He bent over to lick the sensitive flesh of her belly and she shivered. “How about you?”

Oooh. Her breath sighed out of her. She moaned.

He lifted his head. “You do, don’t you?”

She bit her lip and met his eyes.

“Oh, Remi, you naughty girl. My whips and chains are…uh…”

She laughed and pushed at his big shoulder. “You don’t have any whips and chains.”

“I can get some.”

“That’s okay.” She kissed his shoulder. “I don’t need that much dominating. I just need…”

“This.” And he rolled her on top of him and laid a firm pat on her butt. She moaned and turned to liquid. “I know you like that.”

She just moaned again and he pulled her face down for a blistering kiss. He gave he a couple more sharp little taps, sending heat shimmering over her buttocks, then rolled her to her back again. “And this.” He clasped both her wrists in one hand and held them over her head while his weight pressed her into the mattress and he kissed her, his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth, so sexy. He sucked on her tongue, bit softly at her lips. Molten pleasure spread inside her as he rubbed his body against hers, mesmerizing her with his heat, his strength, pinning her there, helpless.