by Lori Foster
Owning a small, exclusive gym made it possible for Bram to stay in the best possible shape. Working out was a part of his daily routine, and it showed. He didn’t have a single ounce of fat on him anywhere, and his power, his strength, was evident in every line of his tall body.
But who was she kidding? The man had always looked that way, even before he’d bought the gym. Back when she’d first met David, she’d been distracted by Bram’s body, and he hadn’t been much more than a teenager then, because she and David had married when she was twenty.
Perfection was the only word to describe Bram. And disturbingly enough, the older he got, the better he seemed to look.
At forty-one, he had a wide, hard chest with clearly defined muscles that could make a female of any age hungry. His streaked blond hair, always in a somewhat shaggy, unkempt style, was shades lighter than the dark brown hair on his body. Through Bram’s wet, tattered T-shirt she could see the muscles moving and shifting on his chest as he turned the steering wheel on the boat, slicing through a bigger wave. She could also see the sprinkling of hair that spread out over his upper chest and then narrowed to a silky line down his abdomen. Lucy realized she was undressing him mentally and tried to pull herself back.
David’s chest had been hairy, too, but he hadn’t looked like Bram.
Guilt slammed into her and she looked away, determined to keep her thoughts on something other than Bram’s magnificent body.
But as if he’d read her mind, he slowed the boat and pulled his wet shirt off over his head, giving her an earth-shattering view of the object of her distraction. He was tanned darker than she, with shoulders twice as wide and narrow hips barely covered by loosewaisted faded jean cutoffs. Soaked, the waistband of the jean shorts curled out away from his body. Lucy could just see the edge of a pair of dark snug boxers.
It was difficult to breathe with so much hunger swirling inside her.
Lucy watched as Bram lowered one large rough hand to his ridged abdomen and lazily scratched. With the other hand, he steered the boat.
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
She wanted to touch his abdomen, too. She wanted to hear that enticing rasp in his voice that told her he was aroused. She wanted to tease his navel with her tongue, do things to him that she’d never been able to do with any other man—including her husband.
Lucy closed her eyes against those thoughts. Imagining letting go with a total stranger whom she’d never have to face again was entirely different from thinking of doing wild, wanton things with Bram. She knew him and knew that he thought of her as a lady. How could she confide in him her darkest secrets, her most forbidden fantasies?
“Now,” he said, his voice loud over the rumbling purr of the engine, “are you ready for me to explain?”
She was ready to jump overboard.
Maybe the cold water would help her, though looking at Bram’s fly, she saw that it hadn’t cooled his ardor one bit. There was a very visible ridge in his shorts, a large, solid ridge that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than what it was.
That thrilled her, even as it confused her. She could hardly warrant that Bram wanted her. But looking at him there wouldn’t do a damn thing toward getting her calmed. All the stories she’d heard about him were real; he was very well endowed and supposedly knew how to use what he had. A slow explosion of heat nearly took her breath away.
She didn’t know if she could really handle all of him, but she very much wanted to find out. Her body clenched with the need to find out.
“Explain what?” she asked stupidly, her mind still on his big hand and his bared flesh and the clear delineation of his maleness beneath his fly. He said he’d been hard for a while. Well, he was hard still. Her heart could barely keep up with her racing pulse.
Glancing at her quickly, Bram reached out and tucked a tendril of her flying hair behind her ear. “I can hear the excitement in your voice, Lucy.” He stroked her cheek and over her bottom lip. “Now—and then.”
She couldn’t deny the now. She didn’t want to deny it. Bram was here, and even if she couldn’t be totally free with him like she could have been with a stranger, neither could she resist him.
But earlier, when she’d given him permission to take the kids camping and explained that she’d be away for a week, Lucy knew she’d been very discreet. She hadn’t admitted a word of her real intent to a single soul. She took her status as mother seriously and would never, by word or deed, deliberately make her children uncomfortable.
Planning a brief fling with a stranger was bound to fit into the “uncomfortable” bracket.
Yet she was so lonely, her body so hungry. She was sick and tired of going to sleep with the need to touch and be touched making her crazy. The only thing she’d been able to come up with was a onenighter to assuage the fever. She was human; didn’t she deserve some gratification, even if it was only sexual?
Bram slowed the boat, steering it easily along the shoreline, staying just far enough out to avoid submerged logs and large rocks that could damage the bottom of the boat. Hanging branches from tall trees dipped into the water’s edge, shielding snakes and frogs and turtles. Bright orange tiger lilies, black-eyed Susans, and Queen Anne’s lace grew in profuse, wild tangles, enticing hummingbirds to flit about.
Farther out on the lake, a bass jumped, drawn by the hot sunshine.
Using just that one rough fingertip, Bram continued to stroke her face. Lucy shivered. His touch was almost casual, as if he’d decided he had the right to touch her and no one was going to stop him.
“I saw your purpose in the way you spoke, the way you held your body. There was anticipation in every muscle, and a glow in your eyes.”
Lucy scoffed at such a notion. “Poetic nonsense, Bram. If sexual intent was that easy to read in a person, I’d have known that David was going to cheat.”
Bram withdrew, and for several moments he was silent. “Maybe,” he finally said, “I just know you better than you knew David. Maybe I’m more observant where you’re concerned.”
Lucy stiffened, hearing his words as an insult. David had told her many times that she neglected him. She hoped Bram wasn’t saying the same. “How so?”
“I watched you marry David.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him. His blond hair, still damp, blew straight back from his forehead. The sun glinted off his mirrored glasses. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and a light shadowing of whiskers darkened his lean jawline and upper lip.
He had the most sensual mouth Lucy had ever seen. Beautiful white teeth, a strong chin, high cheekbones. But it was the innate sensuality in his eyes, in his every gesture, that usually had women taking a second and third look.
Right now, there was an expression on Bram’s handsome face that made her stomach curl with some unnamed emotion.
“I knew what you felt then, too,” he said. “During the wedding, and after. I’ve always been able to read you.” He smiled slightly, turning her muscles to soup, and added, “When you were pregnant, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
Lucy remembered his fascination with her then, the questions he’d asked, the awe in his expression the first time she’d convinced him to feel the baby kick. She also remembered how he’d avoided her whenever he could. He hadn’t come around nearly as often during her two pregnancies. Not until the end of her second pregnancy, when he’d realized that David couldn’t keep up with his work at the office and help her around the house, too. Then suddenly Bram was there, proving himself a true friend by keeping the grass cut, carrying laundry up and down the steps for her. He always came when David got home, and together they’d get the extra chores done. Lucy never saw Bram except when David was there.
Something about that memory nagged at her, but she put the thought from her mind.
“When I was pregnant,” she half-teased, but knew it was true, “I was fat.”
A grin flickered over his mouth. “Lush.”
�
�What?”
“You weren’t fat, babe, you were lush.” They neared the boat docks where vacationers could purchase bait, basic groceries, and other necessities. “I remember thinking you got sexier the further you went along in your pregnancy. Your breasts were incredible, and your eyes were so pretty. And after Kent was born and you nursed him … it used to choke me up.”
Lucy leaned around to see his face, stunned at what he’d said. “It didn’t.”
“Hell yes, it did.”
He sounded so sincere, her heart twisted. Without thinking, she touched him. His thigh was hard and hot and roughened with hair. She felt the muscles flex, go rigid. “Why, Bram?”
He expertly steered the boat into the dock where a worker grabbed the lead line and secured it to a grommet. Bram just sat there, his hands resting loosely on the steering wheel, his gaze straight ahead. Around them, people on a pontoon chatted and laughed. Another man sat on the side of his speedboat, reeling in a ski line.
Bram went so long without answering her, Lucy began to think he hadn’t heard her at all.
Then his hand covered hers on his thigh and he pulled off his sunglasses. His golden brown eyes blazed with intensity, with emotion. And with desire.
He lifted her hand and kissed her palm, the pads of her fingers. “I got choked up,” he explained against the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, “because I knew I’d never have what you had. And I thought it was all pretty damn special.”
Lucy blinked hard. She cared about Bram, she always had. Now, more than ever, she understood why. He wasn’t just a sexier-than-sin, macho ladies’ man. He was also a sensitive man, caring about the kids’ needs and attentive to them all as a family. For the first time she realized how he might have felt like an outsider.
She stood, smiling slightly, and, using her free hand, ran her fingers through his fair hair. It was tangled from the hot wind, thick and soft. “Of course you could have those things, Bram. You just have to stop tomcatting around and settle on a single woman.”
She meant her tone to be teasing, but instead it sounded gruff. Touching him, even casually now that he’d made his desire known, unsettled her.
Bram hesitated, his lips pressed to her wrist, then he shook his head. “I’m not looking for a new woman these days, Lucy. Right now, all I want is you. And tonight I mean to show you just how much.”
The sensual threat nearly made her gasp with anticipation. Her knees trembled, and desperately she locked her legs to stay upright. Lucy watched him leap from the boat, then offer her his hand. She didn’t know if she could touch him after he’d said such a thing. She was beginning to realize that this wasn’t just a lark for Bram. He wasn’t just teasing to make her forget about a fling. He wasn’t merely flirting to ease her transition at turning forty. He wasn’t just in search of a quick and easy sexual adventure.
He really did want her. Bram Giles, lover in hot demand, bachelor in every sense of the word, wanted her. Not just as a conquest, not just because she was handy and desperate. He wanted her, as an individual woman. As a woman he found sexually attractive.
“Give me your hand, Lucy.”
She looked at him, saw the implacable command in his eyes, the erotic promise. She felt helpless against him and couldn’t resist. She reached out to him. A sexual fling with Bram Giles.
Talk about shooting for the moon!
They’d taken no more than five steps up the cement walkway when two women, scantily covered in string bikinis, left the shop and started down the walk toward them. The women looked to be in their late twenties, perfectly toned and perfectly tanned, their hair Barbie doll long and just as blond. One of them carried a six-pack of beer, the other a brown paper bag filled with a variety of chips.
They stopped talking when they saw Bram. Even their body language changed, from casual movement to seductive fluidity. They no longer walked, they swayed.
Trying to be inconspicuous, Lucy released Bram’s hand. She knew what was about to happen, what always happened when women caught sight of Bram. They’d flirt and simper and strike up a conversation. She didn’t want to be in the middle of it when it happened. At nearly forty, she was feeling every single year of her age and didn’t care to stand side by side with model look-alikes.
The problem was, though she released him, Bram held on. And he ignored the women, managing to nod politely while not quite looking at them. He dragged Lucy along reluctantly in his wake, and despite herself she snickered when the women frowned at her. “Now you’ve confused them.”
Bram lifted a brow at her. “Hmm? What was that?”
Stunned, Lucy realized he really hadn’t paid any attention to the women. She indicated them with a toss of her head. “You missed your newest fan club.”
Bram glanced over his shoulder toward the women, then smiled. “Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”
“Really?” She found it a little incredible that he had missed the women’s attention altogether.
Bram gave her a crooked smile. “Tonight. I was thinking about tonight and how long I’ve waited and how damn good I know it’s going to be.”
Lucy only had time to gasp before they stepped into the small grocery shop and icy cold air blasted them from a struggling window air conditioner. Bram tugged her toward the back aisle where the meat was kept. She moved along like a zombie, caught in a sensual trance.
“Bram.” She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to contain her heat. “You really were thinking about me?”
As he examined a package of steaks, Bram said idly, “Yeah. You. Naked.” He glanced at her. “I’m obsessed.”
Heat flooded over her, counteracting the too-cold artificial air. Lucy quickly looked around, but no one was listening. There were only two other people in the store besides the salesclerk, and they were in the farthest corner contemplating a variety of fishing lures.
“Bram,” she chastised, unwilling to even consider what he might think if he saw her totally unclothed. She was almost forty. She’d had two kids. And she had no spare time to invest in working out, as he did.
Bram drew his attention away from the steaks, took in her flustered expression, and grinned. His large hand curled around the nape of her neck, and he drew her close. Against her lips he murmured, “I can’t wait to see all of you, honey. I expect it’ll take me a good long time to look my fill, so you might as well start preparing for it.”
Lucy was going to tell him to hush, but he kissed her. Not a killer kiss like earlier, just a nice, soft pressing of his mouth, so warm, so gentle. She leaned into his chest and returned the kiss, wanting so much more.
Bram stroked her cheek and smiled at her. “Damn, I shouldn’t start this here.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” she managed to say with less than realistic conviction.
“The cold made your nipples hard,” he informed her in a whisper, and bold as you please, he dragged one knuckle over her left breast, teasing the taut tip.
Lucy’s breath caught, the touch was so electric. She felt the sweet, aching pull of desire everywhere, but especially between her thighs. She started to turn away, and Bram caught her shoulder. “No, don’t abandon me. I’ve got a boner and it’s just a little noticeable.”
She glanced down and then quickly closed her eyes. Little was not an apt part of the description.
Bram grinned at her. “I’ll stay behind you.”
Lucy started to nod, not seeing any other recourse, but he just had to go and breathe real close to her ear, “It’s a favorite position of mine anyway.”
She turned and stalked away, figuring he could either follow her or not. If she’d stood there one second longer, the look on her face would have given her away and everyone in the store and outside would have known what she had on her mind.
When she reached the counter, Bram’s warm breath touched her nape, assuring her he had indeed followed. When she got him home …
She drew up short on that thought, uncertain exactly how to proceed.
And equally uncertain as to what he’d expect.
Bram reached around her, putting not only the steaks on the countertop but two large baking potatoes and two ears of corn as well. Where he’d snagged them she didn’t know, and she wasn’t about to ask him. It’d be just her luck that her voice wouldn’t work and she’d squeak like a ninny.
Then she did squeak, when Bram leaned into her and she felt the full hard length of him against her bottom. He pointed to a T-shirt hanging on the wall and said, “An extra large, please.”
The shirt read: WET AND WILD and included a logo from a popular brand of skis. It was also long enough to cover his fly. Lucy sighed in relief. Out of sight, not quite out of mind, but at least she ought to be able to stop staring.
The two women they’d passed on the way in were sitting on the edge of the dock when they walked back out. Lucy knew they were waiting and almost resented them, but when she glanced at Bram she couldn’t blame them. She’d have waited for another peek, too.
“A few years ago,” Bram whispered to her, keeping her close with one arm around her shoulders while he held the bag with his free hand, “I knew a woman who looked just like the one on the right.”
Startled, Lucy asked, “Is that maybe her?”
“No, but the similarity is uncanny.”
Feeling a tad snippy, Lucy said, “She was rather memorable, I gather?”
“Yeah, she was.” Bram led her around another couple coming up the walk, then again steered them toward the boat. “She’d been coming to the gym for about a month before I said anything to her. As soon as I did speak to her, she told me she and her boyfriend had just broken up and she invited me over.”
“And of course you just had to go.”
Bram shrugged. “You and the kids had just taken off for vacation. I didn’t have anything more exciting to do, so yes, I went.”
They had reached the dock, and both of the women turned, smiling at Bram. They didn’t seem the least put off that he was with another woman, Lucy noted, and she wanted to push them both into the water for discounting her so completely.
