Radically.
Gone were the upscale trousers and tailored tops he’d been so used to seeing her wear this past week. The simple white cotton T-shirt had the word princess printed in pink across the delectable swell of her breasts. Her shorts were made of denim. And her feet were clad in simple canvas sneakers secured with plain white laces.
Something else about her was different, too, but even after he’d studied her for as long as it had taken her to greet and applaud the boys for their swimming efforts, he was unable to figure out exactly what it was.
The smile she offered his nephews was genuine. Dazzling, really. She was beautiful. He’d thought so before, but now…
His thoughts seemed to clunk in slow motion as he pondered the woman standing on the sandy bank.
Then he realized something else. She looked so darned…accessible. More so than ever before. The very opposite of the intimidating woman he’d deemed her to be upon her first arrival a week ago. The transformation was amazing.
Fresh. Fun loving. Affable. These were the words that flashed through his mind as he stared at her.
How could one day away from the boys cause such a drastic change?
Suddenly her nut-brown eyes were on him, and he watched as her smile dimmed a little. Her gaze wavered, fell, then met his again.
“Hello,” she finally said. “You’re having a good day with the boys.”
She might not have been posing a question, but he answered as if she had.
“Yes. I am.”
Her mouth quirked and widened into a smile, which then dwindled. Awkwardness seemed to throb from her in invisible waves.
“The activity you chose is perfect.” She swiped the back of her neck with her fingers to make a point. Her hair flipped up and over the back of her hand. “I can’t believe the day turned so hot.”
He couldn’t seem to find his tongue. Every thought in his head was focused on how the sun glinted on those velvety tresses, how her dark eyes sparkled, how her shy smile shone.
She was expecting a response from him. He could tell. He felt like a complete idiot standing there waist-deep in the bay.
Luckily Jeremiah chose that moment to pipe up. “Why don’t you come in for a swim, Amy? Me and Benjamin can show you some more stuff that Uncle Pierce taught us today.”
Benjamin concurred with a gleeful yelp, and he smacked his splayed palms against the water’s surface.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Reluctance had her looking toward the horizon.
Refusing to be put off, Jeremiah encouraged her by chanting her name. Benjamin swiftly joined in.
“A-my! A-my! A-my!”
Laughter bubbled from her, lighting her eyes, her entire face. Pierce hadn’t thought he could become more mesmerized, but…
“Okay! Okay!” she told them. “Lucky for you guys I bought a swimsuit today. I’ll be right back.”
The boys bellowed at what they saw as a great coup. All Pierce could do as he watched Amy race toward the house was feel the pounding of his heart, the rushing of his blood as it whooshed through his head.
The heat that flooded through him had nothing whatsoever to do with the blazing sun in the cloudless sky. It had everything to do with testosterone.
He wanted Amy. Even though he knew he shouldn’t.
The statement she’d made last night when they’d been alone in the kitchen had intrigued him no end. The moment had turned intense, thick with attraction. She’d felt it just as blatantly as he had.
When he’d reached out to touch her, she’d pulled away from him. Her reluctance had led him to believe she had a boyfriend waiting for her back in her hometown. When he’d voiced the thought, she’d quickly set him straight.
It’s not that I can’t. It’s that I don’t want to.
She’d implied that she was free of romantic entanglements. However, she couldn’t have been clearer about the fact that she wasn’t interested in any, either.
He hadn’t been able to keep himself from wondering why.
She was beautiful. Young. Smart. She could have the pick of the crop when it came to men. So…why wouldn’t she want that? What was it that had made her turn her back on relationships?
He’d tossed and turned into the morning hours pondering these questions.
“Uncle Pierce!”
Swiveling his head to look at Benjamin, Pierce reacted to the blur speeding toward him. “Whoa!” Instinct kicked in and he was able to dodge the sopping, spongy ball that his nephew hurled at his chest. “You’re in for it now,” he called, trudging through the water to retrieve the ball, and tossed it at Benjamin.
Jeremiah joined in the game, and they spent some time horsing around and generally having a good time.
Pierce couldn’t help but notice that both his nephews were happy children. Cynthia and John were doing a good job of raising the boys. Benjamin and Jeremiah were stable. They were well-adjusted. They were secure in the knowledge that they were loved.
Those things were clearly evident. In their easy laughter. In their candid questions. In their unguarded gazes.
As a child, Pierce knew, he’d been the direct opposite of Jeremiah and Benjamin.
Oh, he realized that his mother had done all she could to give him and Cynthia a normal childhood. She’d gone out of her way to play the role of both mother and father.
It was obvious that his sister had learned good parenting skills from their mother. The proof was right in front of him, in the happy faces of his nephews.
Pierce loved his mother for all she’d done, for all she’d attempted to provide for him. However, all the love she’d poured on him hadn’t kept him from spending his entire childhood—and his young adulthood, too—feeling as if there was a hole in his heart. As though he were being trailed by a gray cloud of self-consciousness. As though there was something wrong with him, and that no matter how hard he tried, he was unworthy of notice.
Pierce had spent years longing for—striving for—the attention of someone who was…unavailable. To him. To his sister. To his mother.
That experience had affected him greatly. It had made him realize what he was. And what he wasn’t. It had forced him to make some hard-line decisions about what directions his life would—
“Catch this one, Uncle Pierce!”
There was a blatant challenge in Jeremiah’s tone as he reared back and flung the ball over Pierce’s head. The ball sailed up into the air and out several yards to plop into the bay, where it bobbed on the water’s surface.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Benjamin complained. “Looks like the game’s over. We’ll never reach that ball now.”
“It’s okay, Benjamin,” Pierce told the boy. “I’ll get it.”
“B-but the water’s too deep.”
He offered the boy a small, indulgent smile. “When you learn to swim,” he said quietly, “you’ll be able to go out into water that’s over your head, too. And you won’t have to be afraid.” He dived toward deeper water, kicking his feet and pumping his arms.
Once he reached the ball, he snatched it up and twisted around, treading water, with the intention of calling to Benjamin and tossing the ball to him. But the sight of Amy striding toward the water’s edge wearing a revealing bathing suit made his brain go haywire.
She was like a big swallow of cool water to his parched senses. Heat sparked deep within him, curling and spiraling low in his gut.
What was it about this young woman that provoked such an overwhelming reaction in him each and every time she was near?
“Throw the ball to Amy, Uncle Pierce!”
The idea Jeremiah planted in his head had him grinning wickedly. “Here!” he called out to her. “Catch!”
He tossed the ball, and Amy’s features registered surprise. The ball landed in her hands, water splattering down her arms and across her taut stomach. She gasped, evidently just discovering that the ball was spongy and sopping.
Fire sparked in her brown gaze. “You rat!”
Momentarily
, Pierce thought she just might be angry. But then he saw she was laughing and kicking off her canvas sneakers.
“I’ll get you,” she threatened, slogging into the bay knee-deep, where she pushed the ball beneath the water to fill it. Then she flung it directly at his head.
He howled as he easily made a catch; however, he wasn’t able to keep water from spraying him in the face. He sputtered. The boys cheered.
“That sure sucks for you, Uncle Pierce!”
“Benjamin!” Amy admonished.
“Well,” Jeremiah added with an ornery snicker, “it does suck for him that you splashed him so good.”
“Boys!” There was caution in Pierce’s tone. “I don’t want you using that word again. It isn’t nice. And if I hear it one more time, you’ll be spending the rest of the day in your room.”
Both children muttered apologies and promises to be good.
They were eager to show Amy, all over again, all they had learned. And they even surprised themselves when they began to paddle, doggy-style, through the water.
“We’re swimmin’!” Benjamin shouted, catching his brother’s eye. “Look at us!”
Amy looked over at Pierce. “It’s a start,” she said.
“They’ll be swimming around here like little minnows before too long.” He held her gaze for a moment. “You will be, too. If you still want me to teach you to swim, that is.”
“Oh, I do,” she told him. “It’s not safe for the boys to be in the water without an adult who can at least come to their rescue if the need arises.”
Inadvertently his gaze dipped to her cleavage…to where the stretchy bathing-suit fabric caused her breasts to swell into milky mounds. He was grateful that her attention was focused on the boys’ antics.
He was actually embarrassed by his lack of self-control when it came to his physical reaction to Amy. Never before had a woman affected him so. The situation confused him.
“Uncle Pierce, I’m thirsty.”
Pierce’s gaze swung to the shoreline, where both boys were standing.
“Me, too,” Benjamin added.
Before he could respond, Amy said, “I brought a pitcher of lemonade out when I came.”
“Can we have some?”
Amy chuckled, the light, breezy sound of it making Pierce smile.
“Of course you can,” she told them. “I set the pitcher and cups on the table on the deck.” She turned to him. “Would you like something to drink?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
The boys ran across the yard toward the house. Although his nephews were still within sight, Pierce felt as if he and Amy were pretty much alone. A sudden case of nerves fell over him.
“Well—” His voice came out rusty, like the croaking of a frog, and he paused for a quick clearing of his throat. “Would you like to have your first lesson right now?”
The edginess that had infected him must have been contagious. Amy’s head bobbed, her hair swinging to brush her shoulders. Her intriguing brown gaze turned aside momentarily. Finally her eyes rose to his as she answered with a tiny nod.
The timidity she exhibited did something strange to the air surrounding him. It became hard to inhale, and even though he was standing waist-deep in the bay, he felt flushed, overheated.
As he stared at her, he realized that her face was scrubbed free of every trace of makeup. Since her arrival, he’d only seen her wearing eye shadow and lipstick and whatever else women used to enhance their beauty.
The fact Pierce comprehended in this instant, though, was that Amy didn’t need any enhancing. Her skin glowed with vibrant health. Her coffee-colored eyes were perfectly framed with delicate brows, her long russet lashes creating an attractive fan.
She looked the very essence of freshness. Of vitality. And until this very instant, he’d never realized how that kind of energy enthralled him.
His heart tripped against his ribs as further insight set in. In order to teach Amy to swim, he was going to have to get close to her—very close to her.
“I guess we should start with the basics.” He lifted his hand in a most casual gesture and was shocked to see he was trembling. Slipping his hand beneath the surface of the water, he hoped she hadn’t noticed his reaction to the mere thought of touching her.
“The basics,” she repeated. “Sounds good.”
There was a slight tremor in her voice. He swallowed and wondered how the atmosphere could have changed so quickly, so drastically. One second they’d been cavorting playfully in the water with the boys, the next they were acting like teens who had never encountered the opposite sex.
“Um, ah,” he stammered. He took a step closer to her. “Let’s see how you do at floating on your back.”
She hesitated.
“I realize,” he hurried to say, “that being on your back will make you feel terribly vulnerable. But if you tackle that fear, you’ll be all the better for it.” Feeling that she was still unsure, he added, “Trust me. I promise not to let anything happen to you.”
He continued to sense reluctance in her as she took the final step toward him. The faint scent of sun-warmed lemon emanated from the surface of her skin and mingled with the salty tang of the bay.
“I’ll place my hand at the back of your neck,” he told her. “Until you feel comfortable on your own.”
Amy nodded.
His hand felt leaden as he placed one palm high on her back at the base of her neck. The other he pressed against the velvet skin of her shoulder. The force he applied was gentle, and Amy relaxed against the support he provided.
She scorched him. The pads of his fingertips and the fleshy part of his palm were flaming hot. He was surprised that steam was not rising from the surface of the water.
It was a silly notion, he knew. There was no way that the simple fact that they’d made physical contact could generate heat. The scientist in him could rationalize what was happening. The simple biology of human sexuality.
He desired this woman. He’d realized that much already.
However, Amy wasn’t interested. She’d made that clear enough.
What he needed to do was eradicate this wanting from his mind. He was fairly sure he could. It was eradicating the wanting from his body that was going to be the problem.
Pierce closed his eyes, dragged in a breath and tried to obliterate every nuance of physical longing from his thoughts and transform his thinking into a void. Like the blue-green vastness of the Delaware Bay. Only then did he raise his eyelids—
And his gaze helplessly scanned the entire luscious length of her body.
Water lapped at every inch of her. It hugged her arms, embraced the ample curves of her breasts, waist and hips, cuddled her thighs, her perfect knees, those shapely calves. His eyes languished on the painted tips of her toes that peeked above the surface of the bay.
He blinked. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even as she concentrated on floating. He couldn’t stop himself from feasting on the sight of her lovely face. Pierce felt like a ravenous man who was suddenly seated at a fully laden banquet table.
Her lips, with that flawless bow, called to him.
Kiss me. Kiss me.
“Okay.”
Her mouth rounded slightly as she spoke. The tiny movement of her lips fascinated him. If he hadn’t been ogling her so closely, he’d have missed it.
Had she read his mind? Had she sensed his need? Was she somehow agreeing to the desperate urges whispering through his brain? Thundering through his veins? Was she urging him to kiss her?
No. No. That just couldn’t be.
Without even thinking about it, he pulled his hand away from the back of her neck.
Amy tensed immediately, and that set off a small chain reaction: her head dipped backward, she flung out her arms and a gasp issued from her throat. Automatically he grasped her upper arm. She thrashed in the water until she could get her feet beneath her.
Sputtering and coughing, she laughed as she scrubbed her hand over h
er face.
“I thought I was ready.” She flicked water from her fingertips. “But I…I guess I wasn’t.”
Their gazes collided like two comets flying through space. The amusement that had struck her left her in a breathy rush. Jolting electricity swirled about them, permeating them, igniting the air with a prickly current that was nearly tangible.
They didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe.
Droplets glistened like diamonds along the line of her cheekbone. He felt as if time was shifting into a lower gear. He lifted his hand and smoothed away the beads of water with a feathery swipe of his fingertips. Her bottom lip was velvet against the pad of his thumb. He stroked the full length of it, and desire sparked inside him like a blaze gone wild.
Her gaze never left his, the craving she felt darkening and intensifying her lovely mahogany eyes.
“My God, Amy,” he whispered. “What is this?”
Chapter Five
What is this? he’d asked.
Attraction. Allure. Lust.
Before this moment, Amy would have used any and all of those terms to describe what she experienced when she was with Pierce, when the man merely entered her thoughts. But now she felt those words were not ample enough—not profound enough—to define what was haunting her like some indomitable wraith.
She’d spent her entire adulthood shunning everything that even hinted of becoming a temptation regarding the opposite sex. Erotic urges ensnared a woman just as surely as if they were the steel jaws of trap.
But this…
This was something…more. Something mysterious. Something that bordered on the ethereal. The unexplainable. The otherworldly. And she found it wholly entrancing.
The magnetism pulling her intensified when Pierce cupped her jaw with his hand and leaned toward her.
He’s going to kiss me. The thought burst in her head like a neon sign in the darkest part of the night.
In that mindless instant there was nothing on earth Amy wanted more.
His gaze was steady as he slowly inched closer. She feared that, before she even had the chance to taste him, he was going to devour her whole with those feverish green eyes of his. Well, she was more than ready to be consumed.
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