by Maisey Yates
He didn’t say anything, only gave her a wicked grin and lowered the zipper on his pants, shrugging them down his slim hips, revealing his swim shorts.
She narrowed her eyes and grabbed the hem of her T-shirt before hauling it over her head. She tugged her shorts down and tossed them onto the chair before the full impact of what she’d done and what she was wearing could hit her.
His eyes raked over her, his expression mirroring everything she was feeling, although he didn’t have the dumbfounded look she was sure had been etched onto her face. No, there was nothing confusing about any of this for him. His expression showed nothing but intent. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what to do about it, and suddenly she felt as if she would trade anything, even half of her kingdom so to speak, for an ounce of that surety. To feel confident. To know she could have what she wanted and suffer nothing for the indulgence.
Her self-imposed strictures had never bothered her before. She’d been happy simply putting her head down and working, climbing the ladder, doing everything she could to put miles between herself and her past.
Now, for the first time, she wondered if she’d missed something somewhere along the way.
Part of her wanted to give him the disclaimer that she never wore such revealing swimwear. But another part of her, the more stubborn part, didn’t want him to know that she felt totally out of her depth being alone with a man in the middle of a tropical paradise, wearing little more than a few strings tied together and passed off as swimwear.
Instead she reached up and released her hair from its clip, letting it fall down over her shoulders in a wave before she headed over to the ladder that led to the water below them.
She could feel him watching her, could feel the heat of his gaze, touching her like a caress. A shiver ran through her. Her breasts felt heavy and she knew, without having to look down, that her hardened nipples were clearly visible through the thin fabric of her bikini.
She turned and put her foot on the first rung of the ladder, very determinedly not looking at Gage. She made it halfway down the ladder when Gage dove over the side of the boat, his perfect entry barely making a ripple in the clear pool of water.
She rolled her eyes and continued down the ladder. “I’m very impressed,” she quipped when he came back to the surface.
“I am, too,” he said, not bothering to hide his frank appraisal of her.
Embarrassment warred with pride and arousal. It was the strangest thing. Men had liked her looks before. Men—adult men—had been making passes at her since she was a freshman in high school. Her first, immediate response had always been to discourage. It always made her feel defensive.
But this didn’t feel like something she was being subjected to. She felt a part of it, like they were both trapped in the same swirling undertow, unable to escape the pull. She felt like she knew Gage’s thoughts, knew them and shared them. That their desire mirrored each others.
She dropped into the water, shocked at how warm it was. Gage swam to her, and put his hand over hers, over where she was still clinging to the metal ladder.
“You can swim, right?”
She nodded. “I just haven’t in a long time.”
His touch was doing all kinds of things to her, making her ache, making her want, but also, offering comfort. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt before, and she hated that she was feeling it for him. That she was feeling it for her boss.
He smoothed his thumb over her ring finger, over the ring that was settled there. His ring. “Don’t lose this. I don’t want to have to send a dive team out.”
She looked at her hand. “Oh!” She hadn’t even realized the ring was still there. And it had felt so heavy at first that she’d been conscious of it all the time. She didn’t even want to know what that might mean. “I can go put it back.”
“I’ve got it.”
He took her hand from the ladder and slid the ring off of her finger, climbing quickly back onto the boat.
She flexed her fingers. Now they felt bare. It was an irony she didn’t enjoy.
Gage came back down the ladder and she moved to the side as he slid back into the water beside her. “Can you swim to the shore?”
She nodded with more confidence than she felt.
“Let’s see if you can beat me,” he said.
She couldn’t fight the slight smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You know me so well. How can I resist a challenge?”
“I knew you couldn’t.”
He turned and swam toward shore, smooth strokes barely making a splash in the crystal water. She followed, trying hard to keep up, but she couldn’t. He must have known she couldn’t or he wouldn’t have issued the challenge. He probably swam competitively or something.
She gave up trying to preserve her makeup and slipped under the water, knowing she would be faster that way. When she finally surfaced to get air, Gage was already on shore, lying on the beach, the white sand a light dusting on his golden skin.
When she finally got to where her feet could touch bottom she walked the rest of the way onto the warm sand. “That was cruel,” she said, wiping water, and what she was certain would be trails of black mascara, from beneath her eyes.
“You should always carefully consider challenges.”
“I accept every challenge.”
“Which is why you lose some of them.”
She scowled at him and sat next to him, the heat from the sand burning her partially exposed backside.
Gage was having trouble drawing breath, but it had nothing do to with his recent physical exertion, and everything to do with the woman sitting next to him. He’d seen Lily polished to perfection, ready to tackle the press. He’d seen her dressed for an art gala, her hair and gown perfectly pressed. But he’d never seen her like this.
Her brown hair hung wet and curling, her makeup washed off by the saltwater. He could see a light sprinkling of freckles over her nose and across her high cheekbones. She looked softer, more touchable.
And then there was her body. A body that had inspired him to get into the water as quickly as possible so he could avoid revealing to her the effect she was having on him.
Her curves were always flattered by whatever she wore, but seeing them revealed by the bright red bikini was an entirely different experience.
Her pale breasts, high and firm, her nipples puckered and tight against the wet, clinging fabric of her top, her long, exposed legs, more perfect than his mind could have ever imagined them to be, had him hard and aching. He wanted her, and all of the reasons for him not to have her were becoming less and less significant.
She leaned back, took a deep breath, her breasts rising and falling, his eyes drawn to the pale, creamy skin. “I should take vacations. Or go outside of my condo and go the beach once in a while. You make time for recreation and you’re a lot more successful than I am.”
“I lived eight years with very little personal life. I’ve learned to make the time,” he said.
“I need to, I think. I didn’t before we came here, but … now I do.”
She rolled to her side, propping her head up on her elbow. His heart leapt. There wasn’t a single swimsuit model that could possibly be more beautiful than Lily, with her unconscious, uncalculated sensuality. It was a provocative pose, her breasts nearly spilling out of her top, her waist seeming even smaller, her hip rounder, in that position, yet he could see nothing in her eyes that even hinted at any knowledge of it.
Lily wasn’t sheltered. She wasn’t naive. But she seemed so unaware of the power she could wield over a man. Of the power she had over him now.
“I think I … My life is so focused on work. On getting further and further ahead. I never even give myself a chance to enjoy anything else in life. I love my job, and I enjoy work, but … I never date.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Okay, I’ve dated,” she said. “In fact, recently I’ve had several very disastrous dates set up by well-me
aning friends.”
“Why would you have your friends set you up? Why not just date someone you meet and are attracted to?”
She laughed softly. “That would require getting out of my house or the office on occasion.”
“You could have any man you wanted,” he said, his voice rough.
She looked at him, her dark eyes unveiled for a moment, the heat in their dark depths calling out to him, making his body ache for her. Making him ache for her in more than just physical ways. “I haven’t really wanted any men.”
“You want me,” he said, not seeing any point in skirting the issue.
“I … sometimes I think I do,” she said, her voice a whisper. She looked away from him then. It was strange, seeing her unsure, seeing her vulnerable. He wanted her to be bold, to show confidence, to give him some kind of sign that she was open to a purely physical fling.
If her take-no-prisoners attitude from the boardroom carried over to the bedroom, she would. But when it came to attraction she seemed to lose all of the boldness. All that hardened attitude turned soft. It made him want to comfort her. To just hold her against him until the tension left her body and she softened against him, softened for him.
He sucked in a breath, consigning the consequences of his actions to hell, and leaned in, brushing his lips against hers. He waited, waited to see what her reaction would be. That wasn’t his usual style, but she was nothing like his usual women.
She looked at him then, her dark eyes unsure. He kissed her again, more insistently this time, his hands skimming the dip of her waist, the curve of her hip. When he slid his hands around to her backside and slipped his fingers just barely beneath the waistband of her bikini bottoms she sucked in a shocked breath, parting her lips, giving him the chance to slide his tongue into her mouth.
She brought her hands up to his arms and gripped his biceps, clinging to him. She moaned softly as he abandoned her mouth, pressing kisses to the soft, tender column of her throat. Kissing the pulse that fluttered at the base of her neck.
Then he captured her mouth again, moving both of his hands to her backside and bringing her so that she was resting partly on top of him. Her thigh was pressed against his erection, the slight pressure pleasure and torture at the same time.
She pulled away, her eyes wide, her breathing harsh. “Oh.” She rested her head on his chest, her heart pounding hard enough that he could feel it against his stomach. “How do you do that?”
He chuckled, despite the persistent ache in his groin reminding him they were nowhere near finished, and ran his fingers through her hair. “Do what?”
“You make me forget why this is a very bad idea. You make me forget why I decided it can’t happen. I can’t think of anything when you kiss me.”
“That’s a good thing, Lily.”
“I don’t know that it is.”
Lily slithered away from Gage and stood on wobbly legs. She felt light-headed, like she might pass out. She’d never, ever, been kissed like that. Oh, she’d been kissed, she’d been pretty thoroughly kissed in fact, but it had never felt anything like that. It had never made her forget where she was, who she was, why she shouldn’t be kissing him.
Usually, when she was being kissed, she was wondering if the guy was going to ask to come in for a cup of “coffee,” and how she was going to turn him down. But she had a feeling Gage could have stripped off her insubstantial swimsuit and she never would have noticed, or been upset about it. In fact, she had a feeling she simply would have embraced it, the mind-numbing pleasure of his touch, and gone after something they would likely both regret later.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “We’ve already been over the fact that neither of us does the serious thing,” she said slowly. “Which means … which means if we were to have sex it would be a fling. An affair.”
He stood up, too, his arousal still blatantly pressing against the front of his shorts. She tried, valiantly, not to look, but failed. She’d never seen such an aggressively male sight in her life. And he was tempting her all over again.
She didn’t need tempting. She needed a moment of sanity.
Gage nodded. “That’s how I conduct my relationships, Lily.”
She looked at the water, at the waves lapping against the shore. “What about my job?”
“Your job isn’t in jeopardy either way.”
“Then I guess the only question is whether or not I can do a fling.”
“You think you might want more?” he asked.
“No. I don’t want more, I know that. I like my life as it is. But then …” She’d seen her mother on the brink of insanity over men, crying when they didn’t call, crying when they did. Throwing things when they cheated, screaming when they broke up with her.
Lily had worked so hard to never be that person. She’d avoided relationships, avoided any kind of deep, emotional involvement. Part of her was afraid that, while she knew she didn’t want to enter into relationship hell, she would forget that as soon as she crossed that line with a man.
Sex seemed to have some sort of strange power over women, a power than went beyond the simple pleasure it provided. She didn’t want to be subject to that.
“You’re concerned it would be awkward working together?”
“Yes.” Among other things. “And my job is very important to me. I don’t think it’s worth compromising that for a fling.”
He moved to her, cupping her cheek, stroking her skin with his thumb. “It would be a very good fling.”
She closed her eyes, fighting the rising tide of heat and trying to lay claim on her own body again. “I’m sure of that.”
Fear warred with common sense and desire. She wanted him, but she was afraid. Afraid of who this desire might make her become. Afraid of losing control. Of giving any of her hard-won control to him, both in the bedroom and in her life in general.
She hadn’t been worried about that when he’d been kissing her though. She hadn’t been able to worry about anything.
She felt like she was standing on the edge of one of the rocky cliffs that surrounded the island, poised to jump into the water, unsure of how deep it would be. She could turn and walk away, and never know, but everything would be back to normal, back to her life as she knew it, as she had made it to be. Or she could jump, not knowing what would happen, not knowing if she would survive.
“I … I can’t.” It was too much. He made her feel too much.
She saw a flash of frustration in his blue eyes, but it didn’t linger. He cupped her face with both hands now, his touch tender. “If you change your mind, you can always come to me,” he said, his voice strained. “But you will have to come to me. I don’t force my attentions on women who don’t want them. I have no need to.”
He turned from her and waded back into the water, swimming back to the yacht.
A feeling of sadness washed over her. She almost wished he would have promised to seduce her. Now that it was up to her she knew she would never find the courage. And she hated that. Hated that she still lived with so much weakness. Weakness she’d been able to ignore, been able to deny, until she’d met Gage. Weakness she was still too afraid to try and overcome.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LILY disappeared into her room when they arrived back at the vacation home and reappeared a few hours later, her armor back in place. Her hair was pinned perfectly into place again, her makeup covering her freckles.
“Any plans for tonight?” she asked, her high heels clicking on the wooden floor as she moved across the room, keeping her distance from him as she settled onto the low couch.
“We’re treating the board to a traditional dinner on the beach. Complete with traditional dancing.”
“I love that idea. Will you be doing it for regular guests, too?”
He nodded. “Yes. When I first visited Thailand I was backpacking with friends, no luxury resorts or anything. We ate in the marketplaces and avoided the tourist traps. I want to bring that element into the resort. Lu
xury, but with a chance to experience the culture.”
She shot him a severe look, her lush lips pulled into a tight line. “We’re putting that in the press release when the resort opens. I don’t understand why you’re so reluctant to give the public some information about the good things that you do.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “As you said, Lily, they call it a private life for a reason. I don’t see the point in sharing every aspect of myself with the press. I don’t talk about the fact that I raised Maddy because I’m afraid it would embarrass her. She feels like she must have been unlovable for our parents to neglect her like they did, and I’m not about to let the public know the circumstances of her life. It isn’t fair to her.”
“And the other things? The sanctuary? Your respect for the Thai culture?”
“Personal.”
“But it’s not really. It relates back to your business, to your image. And really, why not let people know you’re actually a decent person?”
He laughed. “My parents made so many charitable contributions they were hailed as the most generous couple in the San Diego area. They have plaques on schools and hospitals. It didn’t make them good people.”
Gage knew, better than most, that public image and private image were not the same thing. His parents were the most self-absorbed, selfish people he’d ever encountered, and that included every one of his past mistresses.
All of the flash, all of the grand gestures, meant very little when the only thing behind it was a desire for more publicity. His parents didn’t care about anyone, or anything, beyond their own ambitions. He’d worked all of his young adult years to establish his business. He’d been so determined to impress them with who he’d become.
He’d made his first million, his first two million, and still he’d waited. Finally he’d stopped caring. Probably on the day Maddy called, telling him she hadn’t eaten for three days, not because his parents were too poor to provide her with food, but because they were so busy living their very important lives they’d forgotten their daughter. That was also the day he’d brought his sister to live with him.
