SeductiveIntent

by Angela Claire

  “No, never mind. I’ll just have an armed guard posted from now on.”

  Kendon laughed. “It’s not as bad as all that. There are some things you can do.”

  Not one to get into the details on most things, Brendan nodded. “Fine. Just go over them with Mandrake. Mandrake,” he addressed the butler, “give Sam here whatever he needs to assure me I don’t have to worry about this again.”

  Mandrake, probably happy for something to do, nodded enthusiastically.

  “You said they were looking for a safe,” Kendan said. “I take it you don’t have one?”

  “No. Not here.”

  “Do you know if they were looking for anything specific?”

  “No idea. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to my sister’s wedding.”

  * * * * *

  Sophia put down her earphones and Arthur did the same. “That Kendon guy’ll find the bugs in no time.”

  Arthur shrugged. “No big deal. They did their work. All I wanted to confirm is that he didn’t have a safe or hiding place there we somehow missed.”

  “And that he didn’t know what we were looking for.”

  Arthur nodded. “That too.”

  “Which isn’t hard,” she added, “since I don’t know what we’re looking for.”

  Arthur smiled his mild smile and ignored the hint.

  “Go get your party clothes on, my dear. We’re going to a wedding.”

  * * * * *

  Aaron Winston, Virginia Beckett’s fiancé—soon to be husband—hadn’t wanted a bachelor’s party, so Brendan had very little to do as best man but make sure he didn’t lose the ring, which he managed not to do. He patted the pocket of his tux. As the only brother of the bride, he also got to walk her down the aisle since their parents had passed away years before. With five sisters, however, he wasn’t especially anxious to show up at Bransport—the Becketts’ Connecticut estate and the site of the wedding—too much in advance of the festivities, his aching head aside. He knew the house would be in a tizzy, as they say. Actually, his head was feeling better—it just felt as if he was getting a relapse when he sauntered into the bride’s bedroom ten minutes before the wedding was scheduled to start and registered the sound of five Beckett women, and a niece or two as well, all talking at the same time.

  “Brendan! You rat, showing up at the last minute like this.”

  Brendan kissed his oldest sister, Allie, the most motherly of the Beckett sisters. “I didn’t want to interrupt your pre-wedding heart to heart with Virginia. Did you fill her in on what happens on her wedding night?”

  Their nineteen-year-old twin sisters, Mindy and Missy, guffawed. “Everybody knows all Aaron and Virginia do is have sex!” one of them said, while the other chimed in, “And with a hunk like Aaron, who can blame Virginia?”

  “That’s enough, girls,” Allie said reprovingly. “Nora, could you go see that everybody gets seated? Since Brendan’s here now, we can start right on time.”

  “Good thing, too,” Nora responded on her way out, “since Aaron promised to tear our sweet little brother here from limb to limb if he had to wait one extra second for his bride.”

  Brendan grinned at the threat, approaching the bride, who was straightening her veil. “Gorgeous,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. It was an unusual show of affection for the two of them, seeing as how they worked side by side at Beckett Family Delicacies and shows of affection between a CEO and her executive vice president were usually eschewed. “Mom and Dad would’ve been so proud.”

  “Please!” Virginia laughed. “They probably would’ve just been amazed I’m taking time out for a honeymoon.”

  Virginia was a workaholic, a problem Brendan most definitely did not suffer from.

  “A secret honeymoon!” Missy approved with a clap of her hands. “It’s so exciting. You really don’t know where Aaron plans to take you?”

  “Not a clue. But as long as he’s with me, I don’t care where it is.”

  “Ah, true love,” Allie sighed, as she straightened the sash at the back of Virginia’s dress. “Ain’t it grand?”

  “You should talk!” Allie and her husband were very happily married. Their other sister, Nora, not so much. Actually, not any since the divorce. Brendan wondered how today was going to go for her.

  “Well, I’ll take the girls down.” Allie took her daughters, one blonde and one redheaded, each by one hand.

  “Good luck, Auntie Gin!” they sang as they went out.

  “You two come too,” Allie ordered her twin sisters. “You should be waiting to walk down the aisle. When you hear the music from the open window, guys,” she instructed Virginia and Brendan, “that’s your cue. And keep this door shut in case Aaron gets away from me before I hustle him outside and tries to see Virginia in her wedding dress again before the ceremony.”

  It was an outdoor wedding, rows and rows of open air seating and a tent nearby for the reception. The day had cooperated—sunny and warm for May—which was a good thing, since Virginia and Aaron had not always had it so smooth. At each other’s throats for the first part of their “relationship”, they were then stalked and threatened with death after that.

  It had been a relatively smooth year since then, though, and the couple was so crazy about each other that it was no surprise to anybody about this wedding. The only surprise was that Virginia had managed to hold Aaron off as long as she did, until after annual reports and proxy statements were filed and her calendar cleared. Aaron was CEO of his own company, much bigger than BFD, but he had a looser definition of taking time off than his wife-to-be.

  “Did Aaron see you in your dress, Virginia? That’s bad luck, you know.”

  “Have a little more faith in your sisters than that, Brendan. They tag-teamed him, holding him off. Bad luck, we don’t need.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He rubbed the bump on the back of his head without thinking and Virginia saw it.

  “You okay?”

  Dropping his hand quickly, he registered that the music was starting below. Virginia didn’t need to hear about any burglary on her wedding day. She’d had enough drama of her own. It would only worry her, big sister that she was when all was said and done.

  “I’m fine. I just have a little hangover.” He held his arm out to her and she took it.

  “What’s your excuse for that? Aaron didn’t even have a bachelor party. I happen to know that for a fact since he was with me last night.”

  “How untraditional of both of you. I had to carry the tradition of the party on in his honor,” he lied. Looking to the back of her dress, he asked, “There’s no train or anything to carry?”

  “No, it’s fastened up. Allie will unfasten it at the last minute before we walk down the aisle.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Shall we?” He opened her bedroom door.

  * * * * *

  Sophia watched Brendan Beckett out of the corner of her eye—like she’d been watching him for weeks. Trained from an early age to read a person’s clothes as an indication of their potential as a mark, Sophia had been confused from the get go about this man. His clothes said wealthy. No doubt about that. Whether in jeans or a bathing suit or a tuxedo, as he was now, Brendan Beckett dressed as only a rich man could dress. A really rich man. But his clothes couldn’t tell her much otherwise. They weren’t as flamboyant as a playboy’s or as staid as the scion’s of an old family, both of which roles he undeniably otherwise fit quite nicely. She couldn’t follow the pattern of his dress to seek out his strengths and weaknesses like she could for most people. Like she’d been taught to do.

  And that was only the beginning of how Brendan Beckett confused her. He was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, of course—in his late twenties, six feet four, muscled but lean, with sun-kissed blond hair, blue eyes and dark black lashes of all things. She’d initially pegged him as no more than a pretty boy, a lightweight intellectually. He’d graduated Ivy League, just like his older sister Virginia, but without the cum laude,
let alone summa, she’d managed, and he worked at the family company with only the most casual of interest.

  But then her surveillance of him uncovered that he read incessantly—in private or surreptitiously on his iPad—anything and everything from the classics to poetry to existential philosophy, all without even bragging about it to anyone. On the contrary, he seemed to be hiding it. And he wrote beautifully. Then when his sister had to give up the reins of the company last year when someone had been trying to kill her, Brendan stepped in and ran things just fine in her absence. It was almost as if he were playing the part of wastrel.

  Not that he didn’t revel in some of the aspects of that characterization. He did actually sleep around quite a lot. At first, contradictory as it might seem, Sophia suspected his apparent promiscuity might mask doubts about his own masculinity. She wondered if he might even be gay, but abandoned that theory early on, after the parade of models and actresses and socialites gave identical testament as to his prowess in bed and she witnessed it once, quite by accident, herself.

  Shoot. She’d meant to get out of Brendan Beckett’s hotel room before he got back. If their mark found her, Arthur would just kill her. A quick scan of the history on his iPad internet browser had turned up nothing incriminating or useful, although the sites he’d perused had surprised her. No porn, but rather an unsettling amount of poetry sites and an assortment of novels that would make a local library proud. She’d found a journal as well, not online as she would’ve expected, but an old-fashioned leather bound one. But paging through that was just as unhelpful. It wasn’t a diary that might have chronicled his daily movements and perhaps led them to what they were looking for, but instead a notebook of some kind with verses and random thoughts. As if that could possibly help.

  When she’d heard the card key being inserted in the door, she thought at first it must be the maid come to make up the room, deviating apparently from her usual route since that would’ve given Sophia another half hour or so. So she’d slipped into the closet, watching through the slatted door. It wasn’t the maid. It was him. And he wasn’t alone.

  “Come here, you infuriating boy.”

  Sophia tore her eyes away from the vision of Brendan Beckett shrugging out of a tee shirt and bearing his muscular chest. The woman who purred her instructions to the “boy” didn’t look much older than he did. But something about the carefully coiffed blonde hair, French manicure and toned and tanned body barely covered by a bikini suggested that the illusion of youth may have been bought and paid for.

  “Jesus, Kim, you’re greedy. First you couldn’t wait to at least let me get a swim in and now you’re too impatient to even let me undress. Take a pill or something.”

  His hands went to the waistband of his bathing trunks and Sophia held her breath.

  “I did take a pill, darling. As soon as I got up. And it made me horny.”

  “Where’s your regular boy-toy?”

  “Still asleep and not anywhere near as talented with his cock as you are.”

  “Gee, I’m flattered.” He pushed his trunks off just as the woman untied the top of her string bikini. The tan covered her whole body, it turned out. And her breasts didn’t sag in the slightest bit, thanks to either surgery or silicone or some combination of the two. Since Sophia didn’t have those advantages and still had a double-D cup, she found herself a little jealous of that at least. Not to mention this woman was about to go to bed with one hot guy. She was a little jealous of that too.

  Brendan had his back turned to the closet, so Sophia could only see his rear for now. The view, however, was quite nice. Those broad shoulders tapering down to narrow hips and the tightest little bottom.

  Kim hummed appreciatively, slipping her string bikini bottoms off as well, standing naked before him. Since Kim’s pubis was waxed clean, it was impossible to tell if she was a natural blonde, but Sophia would bet money she wasn’t. She held her arms out to Brendan and he went to her.

  “See how good I make you feel, lover?” the woman crooned, dropping to her knees and pushing him back against the closed door to the hallway so that Sophia saw him front-wise for the first time.

  Oh my.

  He certainly looked as if this Kim made him feel good. He was completely erect as she took him in her mouth and his hands fisted in her hair, directing her, the blonde bobbing her head up and down on him. Sophia watched, mesmerized. At first, it was just the acrobatics involved in the fellatio. How in the world did she take that huge thing so far into her mouth? But then she got distracted by the expression on Beckett’s face. He looked in pure…ecstasy, his eyes closed, his head back against the door, his lips thinned. What would it be like to render this particular man immobile with pleasure?

  “Aren’t I the best little cocksucker you know, Brendan?” Kim paused momentarily to reflect.

  Brendan opened his eyes and looked down, smoothing her hair back. “Not every woman would consider that an attribute, Kim.”

  He pulled her up and flipped her back against the door, kissing his way down her neck, her breasts, her toned tummy until he was pushing her thighs apart and evidently returning the favor to squeals of delight. “Oh, you’re so good at that. Oh, just there. That’s right.”

  It was hard for Sophia to tell exactly what Brendan was doing with his mouth down there, given a woman’s private parts were a touch less out there, but whatever it was it was well appreciated. After a while, Brendan got up and walked to the dresser where Sophia knew his wallet lay. An exhaustive search of it earlier had not produced anything of significance—other than awe that he had left it right out like that, not worried about thieves apparently—with only a driver’s license, credit cards, and condoms in it. Brendan extracted a condom and ripped the foil package open with a practiced hand.

  “Don’t you ever ride barebacked, lover?” Kim went to the bed and lay among the crumpled sheets, opening her legs wide. “Or is it just me you’re always so careful with?”

  Brendan rolled the condom onto his penis and joined her. “None of your business,” he said, pinning her arms over her head as he climbed on top of her. When he kneed her legs open wider and thrust into her, Sophia felt it herself between her own legs. For the first time, she realized with horror what all this interest in the scene was on her part. She was turned on by it. She was imagining that she was the one in bed with Brendan Beckett.

  His hips moved smoothly and she imagined he was moving in her. The woman wrapped her legs around the tops of his thighs, digging her heels into the flesh just below his bottom. Sophia watched, fascinated at the rhythm of his thrusts, the muscles of his back straining as he rode her. Although the woman made an interesting array of sounds throughout their lovemaking—from the verbal “oh, that’s so good” to the nonverbal grunt—Beckett made no sound. Or at least no sound loud enough for Sophia to hear. When the woman finally let out a theatrical moan worthy of a porn film star and announced she was coming, only then did Brendan Beckett seem to let his control slip. Relinquishing her arms, he looped them under her thighs and tugged her farther toward him, coming up on his knees and levering her as he pounded in to her, one last thrust and a muted groan announcing apparently that he had come as well, though in a less dramatic fashion than his partner.

  Finished, he pulled out and removed the condom, tying the end and tossing it in the waste paper basket. He put his trunks back on. “Can I have my swim now?”

  “Oh, baby, don’t leave now,” the woman whined. “I know how many times you can do that. Why in such a hurry?”

  Brendan threw her clothes on the bed. “Come on. Get dressed.”

  By the time the two of them were gone and Sophia felt it safe to come out of the closet, she figured at least five minutes must have elapsed. A little tighter than she liked, but she needed to get out of there. She no sooner opened the door to the hallway than she came face to face with Beckett. She mumbled her excuses in Spanish, consistent with her disguise as an older Hispanic hotel maid. One with a weight problem
care of what Arthur indelicately liked to call a fat suit.

  To her astonishment, instead of the usual dismissive response in English the five-star patrons of a hotel usually gave in this situation—inconveniently encountering the help—Brendan Beckett answered her in pretty good Spanish. Almost as good as hers, as a matter of fact, which was not only impressive, it was dangerous. How had they not known he spoke Spanish?

  Smiling, he asked her to excuse him for barging in and disturbing her in her work. No problem, she’d responded meekly, opening the door again and saying she would come back. She had left a cleaning cart in the hallway outside the room when she first came in, just in case. She put one hand on it and tried to shut the door behind her, but he held it open, coming out into the hall, assuring her she didn’t have to leave as he just wanted to grab something and he’d be gone again. She nodded her “Sí,” figuring to do otherwise would make him suspicious, and he went back into the room, leaving the door open.

  “You there.” The young man hurrying toward her down the hall was dressed in swim trunks, like Beckett, but rather to worse effect. “My room’s not been cleaned yet and I have a very important conference call in a few minutes. Get down there and see what you can do. I’m in the Presidential Suite.”

  Sophia repeated her claim not to speak English. His response was a tirade of swear words she would’ve understood even if she hadn’t spoken English. Now this was a response she was more used to after having had considerable experience in years past dressing as she did now in a dowdy hotel maid’s uniform. Guys who would sidle up to her in a second when she wasn’t in disguise treated her like dirt when she was. A disguise like this anyway. Especially the rich ones.

  Brendan Beckett came out of the room. He glanced at the other guy for a second and then smiled at her, holding up swim goggles, and telling her in Spanish that he had what he needed.

  “Look, pal, my room gets cleaned first,” the obnoxious guest clarified. “I’m in the Presidential Suite. That trumps you,” he glanced behind Brendan toward the open door, “since you’re in just a regular suite. Why this fat cow was in your room first, I have no idea.”