by Maggie Wells
Narrowing his eyes, he studied her closely. “What? Why are you smiling?”
The smile grew as she tossed off another one of those careless shrugs. “Nothing. I guess I need to work on my seduction skills.”
Bewildered but undeniably bemused, he reached for her once more. Excess fabric bunched in his palms. Fisting the lapels of his jacket, he pulled her close. Her lips parted in surprise. Brian made a vague mental note. Response to stimuli wasn’t the least bit compromised by confusion. Poised mere millimeters from her lips, he paused to relish the sensation of her hot, damp breath mingling with his.
“Your skills are superior in every way.”
He cut her laugh off with a kiss. A kiss as different from the one they’d shared before as night was from day. The memory of that heated, desperate crush of mouths lingered for years, but this was ten times better. Pillowy-soft but supple, her bottom lip was sweet enough to smother the lingering bitterness he’d felt that warm June day. He ran the tip of his tongue over it, coaxing hers to come out to play. The first brush of wet velvet stole the last oxygen from his lungs. A tidal wave of desire swamped him, drowning all logic and reason, and threatening to pull him under. Clinging to the frayed thread of his self-control, he broke the kiss.
Her lips grazed his cheek and jaw as she rocked back. Delicate fingers splayed wide on his chest and his overtaxed heart thrummed against his ribcage, desperate to launch itself into the warmth of her palm. Her lashes fluttered. Heavy eyelids lifted to reveal green eyes smoky with unspent arousal. He wanted to lose himself in them. In her. Deep inside her.
“I want to use you, Brian.”
Her whisper nearly floated away on the spring breeze before he caught it. Ignoring the insistent throb of his cock, he tilted his head and forced himself to focus on what she was saying. “Huh?”
“I want to use you, but for something more important than an interview.”
Shaking off the last of the fog, he took a step back. “Why do I get the impression you’re not talking about using me for my body?”
Brooke heaved a shuddering sigh then turned away. Her gaze locked on the brightly lit mansion, and she swallowed hard. “I’m not going to pretend it hasn’t crossed my mind, but that’s not why we’re out here. I have a lead on a story. An important story about the oil spill.”
She clamped her mouth shut. He bit back a grin. The girl he once knew had a natural inclination to overshare when it came to showing off her smarts. It was good to know she hadn’t changed much. And she was every bit as stubborn as she was back then. A part of him wanted to tell her to save her stores of determination. The last thing she needed was leverage over him. He’d give her just about anything she wanted.
“Meet me for lunch tomorrow. Hear me out.”
This was the Brooke he’d fallen for all those years ago. The serious, studious girl trapped in a beauty queen’s body. On one hand, she made him want to make up for every chemistry formula he’d ever withheld. On the other, he wanted to uncap her shaky resolve, and pump her until she spilled the information funneling up inside her. Before he could press, the door to Putnam House opened and the sounds and lights from the party spilled out.
“Shelbrooke Hastings! What on earth are you doing out there?”
Brian released her wrist as if he’d been scalded. Brooke whirled and pressed her hands to her cheeks when she spotted her mother framed in the doorway.
“Who are you with?” Emmaline demanded. “Is that that Dalton boy?”
“Oh, how quickly they forget,” he muttered under his breath.
“I’ll be along in a minute, Mama.”
Emmaline tapped the toe of her shoe, an appraising gaze darting from Brooke to Brian then back again. Faint lines of disapproval bracketed her lush mouth. “Jack has been looking for you everywhere.”
“Well, unless he expects to find me in the bottom of a glass, he’s been looking in the wrong places.” Brooke jerked her chin up a notch. “I said I’ll be in directly.”
Her mother took a step back but left the door standing wide open. Brooke turned to Brian with a wry grimace. “I have to go now. My mother is calling.”
Seeing his chance slipping away, he made a desperate grab for the thread she dangled. “You wanted an interview.”
She turned the bright, shiny smile she used as a shield on him. “And you said you didn’t want to give me one.”
He plucked his cell from his pocket. “You didn’t really lose your phone, did you?”
Brooke raised an approving brow. “You always were a smart guy.”
She rattled off her number as she slipped his suit coat from her shoulders and handed it to him. “Have your agent give me a call and we’ll set something up.”
Somehow, he managed to resist taking a sniff as she walked away. “Are you free tomorrow?”
The note of eagerness in his voice made him cringe, but Brooke’s answering smile was everything he’d once dreamed it would be—warm, a little wicked, and pointed directly at him. “For an interview?”
“For a date.”
She paused, her hand braced on the doorframe and one foot across the threshold. Finally, she shook her head. “I, uh, I’ll call your agent.”
He squared his shoulders, meeting her stubbornness with his own brand of mule-headed. “Good luck with that.” But his resolve began to dissipate when she flashed a tired, but friendly smile.
“Welcome home, Brian. It really is good to see you again.”
“You, too,” he managed to mumble as she disappeared into bustling kitchen. “Too damn good.”
Chapter 4
A waitress in a stretched-tight T-shirt jostled the table when she bustled past. Brooke winced as her sleeve adhered to the sticky Formica. She’d felt calm and in control when she pulled the sweater from her closet, even though she’d scorned the impractically of lovely silk when her mother presented it to her. It was too pastel for a woman who scoured the underbelly of the Port City in search of the next big story. Too soft for someone who liked to think she was tough. Four days had passed since the fundraiser. She’d called his agent the next day, but the only response she got was a message from Brian on her cell asking her out for a date.
She didn’t take him up on it. It was so much safer to hide behind her recorder than to make small talk over wine and calamari. She needed to remain cool. Objective. Hard-nosed and cynical.
But, of course, she hadn’t been any of those things when Brian Dalton kissed her behind Putnam House. Gone was the edgy reporter who cornered hapless petroleum executives outside men’s rooms and exposed one city council member as a corrupt misogynist with a penchant for high-priced hookers. The second Brian’s lips touched hers she cracked and opened to him like an oyster. Hell, she all but shucked her dress right there on the lawn.
She sniffed and wrinkled her nose as she shook off the memory of her easy capitulation. Luckily, she’d come to her senses since the night of the Saints Preserve Us fundraiser. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she bypassed her phone and its handy-dandy recording device in favor of a small spiral notebook and a good old-fashioned ballpoint. The Pit was a landmark, but it was a damn noisy one. No way was she going to risk losing one word of this interview to shouts for slaw.
Housed in a white clapboard house, the barbecue joint was far enough off the tourist track to maintain a loyal crowd of locals. Bubba, the self-proclaimed Pit Master, produced mouth-wateringly tender ribs soaked in a rich, dark sauce never exactly duplicated from batch to batch but that always tasted like home.
The scent of sticky-sweet molasses and smoked meat was nearly overpowering, but somehow it packed less of a punch than the sight of the hometown hero dressed in a washed-thin Crimson Tide shirt and jeans worn nearly white. His running shoes were pricey but every bit as battered as the rest of his ensemble. Their disreputable appearance added to the deliciousness of the whole package.
Hiding a glare behind lowered lashes, Brooke flipped open the notebook and clicked the pen. Refusi
ng to look directly at the handsome man across from her and resenting every minute she spent primping for him. And she’d spent quite a few. If she believed in magic, she might think her mother had put some kind of spell on the sweater. The moment she pulled it on, the ante had been upped. She needed more mascara, a different shade of lip gloss. At the time, a dab of the weird opalescent highlighting serum her mother swore by seemed a harmless addition. She’d hauled an ancient set of hot rollers out from under her sink, but she called the act impulse and nothing more.
Then he dared to show up looking casual and relaxed and…perfect.
Brooke steeled herself for full impact once again and raised her eyes. Warmth made his big brown eyes shine with the most appealing hint of mischief. Gone was the shy, quiet guy who rarely looked straight at her. This new Brian was bold and brash and undoubtedly aware of his appeal.
Clearing her throat, she fought the urge to fidget as the harried waitress dropped two glasses of sweet tea on the table without breaking stride. “Thank you for agreeing to the interview.”
One dark eyebrow rose, drawing the corner of his mouth up with it. “You’re welcome.” Without bothering to mask his amusement, he reached for the roll of paper towels standing sentry at the end of the table. “My agent said you were very polite and persuasive.” He tore a square from the roll and slapped it down on the table, soaking up a splotch of sauce she hadn’t noticed. His smile widened when she jerked her arms from the tabletop. “I told her we grew ’em like that around here.”
“I’m not sure anyone ever accused you of being polite and persuasive.”
He laughed, tipping his head back enough to expose his bobbing Adam’s apple. She wanted to take a bite out of him more than she wanted to sink her teeth into a half-rack of Bubba’s finest. The faintest pink tinged the tips of his ears and his lashes lowered. He made a point of arranging the paper envelope of flatware so they aligned with his left hand and the tea glass with his right before glancing up again.
“I’m better than I used to be, though.” He paused for the barest instant. “Right? With the politeness, I mean.”
Brooke softened, touched by the flash of uncertainty. This was the awkward, fretful Brian she once knew. “Yes, you are.”
And like a flash of heat lightning, it was gone. A devastatingly slow smile cut creases in his cheeks and crinkled those soulful dark eyes. He leaned in, pitching his voice deep enough to undercut the clatter of cutlery and murmur of voices. “I’ve improved in the persuasion department, too.”
Her mouth ran dry. And though she’d stopped breathing the second he unleashed that smile, it was impossible to look away.
“You could have simply returned my call.”
He chided her softly, but the underlying accusation landed like a jab. Which, of course, it was. The waiting game hadn’t done a smidge of good in preserving her pride. They both knew she’d eventually have to give in to get what she wanted from him. She was reduced to using slinky sweaters and bouncy curls, and he…he hadn’t had to do a damn thing to get what he wanted. She was here. Having lunch. With him.
Resigning herself to a trip to the dry cleaners, she planted her elbows on the table and leaned in, meeting his unspoken challenge head-on.
“I think it would be best if we forgot about what happened the other night.”
He huffed a laugh. “Fat chance.”
“Brian, I have a job to—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “Are you going to try to tell me it’s professional and not personal?”
“It is,” she insisted.
“Right.”
A tiny muscle jumped in his jaw, triggering a hot wave of self-loathing. Before she could stop them, explanations and excuses came spilling forth. “I’m in a really weird place right now…My job is…I’m trying to figure out what I want, and this isn’t the best time for me to get…in—”
She broke off with a grateful, if breathless, laugh when the waitress appeared at their table holding paper-lined plastic baskets heaped with food. “Half-slab platters,” she announced, depositing the baskets with little flourish. “One dry, one sopping wet.” She aimed a toothy smile in Brian’s direction as she said the last, mimicking the flirtatious way he’d placed his lunch order. “Anything else I can do for you?”
He flashed the dimple responsible for the only successful sweeps periods the Earth Channel had ever known. “I think we have everything we could possibly want.” He kept his gaze locked on the waitress, but Brooke felt every word like a caress. “Thank you, Darla.”
The waitress shot a snarl in Brooke’s direction then swayed away. Brian chuckled as he plucked the packets of wet wipes from his basket and tossed them to the center of the table, inhaling deeply as gazed down at his lunch with a look best described as adoration. “Smells incredible.”
“Classy spot you’ve chosen.” She bit back a smirk when he scowled at a streak of sauce along the side of his hand. “Usually people pick someplace a little more…upscale when they know someone else is paying.”
Brian grinned, unabashed. “I can’t get enough barbecue.” He cleaned the smear on his hand with a slow lap of his pink tongue. His lashes lowered and her breath knotted in her throat. A low groan marked his obvious relish. When his eyes popped open, she caught the gleam of smug superiority in them. “Did you know up north they call grilling hot dogs and hamburgers barbecue?”
She shuddered and wagged her head with exaggerated sorrow. “Poor, misguided fools.”
Rich, thick sauce coated his fingertips. He pried one rib from its brethren, only to watch in helpless dismay as the tender smoked meat fell away from the bone and dropped into his basket with a plop. He wet his lips. Those dark eyes fixed on his basket with a primal intensity that made her heart pick up speed. “God, I missed this.”
Brooke gave the paper-wrapped utensils a moment of consideration but quickly dismissed the notion. She was an Alabama girl, born and bred, and some foods were meant to be eaten with one’s hands. Picking a bit of the succulent pork from her basket, she popped the morsel into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Most people miss the shrimp.”
Burgundy splotches of sauce speckled with spices dropped into the tiny mound of potato salad in his basket. His mobile mouth twisted into a smirk, the tender meat inches from it. “You think I had trouble scoring good seafood?”
She froze, too, the hot rash of mortification creeping up her neck. Of course he didn’t miss the seafood. He had spent six months of the year aboard some of the most sophisticated oceanic research vessels filming Voyager. Thanks to his time at the Earth Channel, Brian had sailed every ocean, been everywhere, tasted everything.
“No, I don’t guess you would have,” she conceded.
He smiled his pirate’s smile—the one that made her think he’d already ripped her bodice open in his head and was preparing to feast on her. The charisma backing his cocky smile was soft and natural, though. Something he’d been born with, but he never quite knew how to use it. She could remember catching glimpses of it back in high school. Thank the Lord he hadn’t known how to channel it back then. If he had, she might have ended up a puddle on the auditorium stage.
Setting to work on his lunch, he spoke easily of far-away ports and exotic cuisine. She watched him, fascinated by the flashes of familiar she caught in speaking with this stranger. When the Courier’s veteran fact checker first called Brian a twenty-first century Jacques Cousteau, Brooke had no idea who she meant, but some quick research on Monsieur Cousteau’s legacy left Brooke inclined to agree. Brian was the epitome of one of those geek-makes-good stories videogame-loving nerds cling to in the dark hours of the night.
His show featured the same mix of science and adventure Mr. Cousteau’s documentaries brought to the world. The internet fueled a wave of nerd fandom that catapulted the boy she once knew from the ocean he loved and into the stratosphere of fame. Then they brought him crashing to the Earth by stripping away layers of the one thing he valued the most—his
credibility.
Brooke wasn’t surprised Brian ditched any chance at reclaiming his fame. Judging by this disappearing act on graduation day, he seemed to excel at walking away without looking back. Like everyone else on the Gulf Coast, she’d been waiting and watching, wondering what he’d do next.
Ignoring her seafood gaffe, she switched tactics. “Your parents must be glad to have you back.”
His smile spread slowly. “You act like I’ve been gone the whole time. I did come home for Christmases, you know.”
“I just meant—”
“I spent a few weeks gathering tar balls on the beach after the spill.”
He spoke casually, but the words swirled with undercurrent. Another flash fire of embarrassment sucked the moisture from her mouth. He wrapped long fingers around his glass, sending beads of condensation scurrying. She stared, craving a few drops of the trickling moisture but too self-conscious to move.
A frown creased the space between his brows. He licked a stray bit of tea from his upper lip as he lowered the glass and cocked his head. His gaze flickered to the table and back to hers. “Do I make you nervous?”
The puzzled incredulity in his tone startled her. Brooke glanced down to find she was gripping the edge of the table, her knuckles shining white against her skin. Releasing her hold, she looked up to find him staring at her with an expression of desire so raw and unguarded it made her blood surge. His all-seeing gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth, then slid down to rest on her throat. Like he was about to take a bite out of her.
“Brian—”
“Are you happy to have me back?”
His voice dropped an octave. He spoke the question softly. It should have been lost in the hubbub of the crowded restaurant, but every cell in her body seemed preternaturally attuned to him. She spoke without conscious thought but pure emotion.
