SeductiveIntent

by Angela Claire

  Before she could object, he unzipped her cover-up, parting the sides and pulling it off her arms. When he saw the bounty he’d uncovered, he swallowed, hard. The coral-colored two-piece suit was not especially daring, given the string bikinis common on beaches these days, or even the topless sunbathing in Europe of course. It wasn’t the suit that was so sexy, but what it did to the body it covered—using that term fairly loosely. The bottoms rose high on her slim hips, accentuating the miles of legs below, baring her tiny waist. And then the cups of the top. Two pieces of material accentuating the most perfect of breasts.

  Determined to keep it light, though, he fiddled with the strap of one side of her bikini top. “This is a private beach. You don’t need this if you don’t want.”

  Sophia looked up and down the deserted strip of sand, the blue-green water lapping calmly at the shore line. “Couldn’t somebody be walking along here? Maybe from one of the hotels farther down the beach?”

  “Nobody ever walks this far. And if they did, the privacy signs would keep them out.”

  Well, now he was just outright lying. Those signs didn’t keep anybody out if they wanted a long walk straight down the beach and the Becketts had never minded one way or the other. It was true that most tourists seemed content with the strip of beach at their own hotel and didn’t wander too far off track, but if they wanted to, neither Brendan nor any of his family ever had a problem with it.

  Right now, though, he wished there was an electrified fence guarding his privacy with this girl. But he didn’t push it. “If you want to keep your top on, that’s okay. Lie back.”

  He pulled her hat off as she complied, spreading her hair out around her as he leaned over.

  Sophia had seen Brendan Beckett naked, the other night when they’d broken into his apartment and before that, notably when she had been watching him make love to another woman. So she didn’t think that seeing him in a swimsuit today would be any big deal. Oh, was she wrong. He was gorgeous of course. But what was different this time was that he was for her, if she wanted him. And what woman in her right mind wouldn’t want him? Well, maybe a twenty-something—God, would she never get over this childish preoccupation with the fact that she didn’t know when her birthday was?—virgin con woman who was good at baiting men but wasn’t exactly sure what to do if she caught one.

  A con woman who, by the way, was supposed to be conning this hot guy, not necessarily falling for him.

  Virgin. She cringed at the thought at her age, whatever the hell it was.

  Brendan squeezed a dollop of sunscreen into his palm and lay down next to her on his side on the oversized towel. Balancing his head on the hand without the sunscreen, he looked down at his other hand, which was now spreading the sunscreen over her stomach. As if he had to watch and feel at the same time.

  The lotion felt cool to the touch. Nice in the heat of the tropical sun. His hand, however, was doing anything but cooling her off. It traveled in slow circles, getting closer and closer to the edges of both the top and bottom of her two-piece in its forays.

  “That feels good,” she murmured, trying to stay in bait mode and not give in to the pleasure, which of course was absolutely impossible. He leaned down to her and took a leisurely kiss. She kissed him back, their tongues only slightly in each other’s mouths.

  Her senses were clamoring for her to indulge them further, but she resisted, pulling back. Now that her stomach was adequately covered, he refilled his palm with sunscreen and then resumed its journey, this time travelling along her neck slowly, then her collar bone and the part of her chest not covered by the cups of her suit. When his hand wandered carefully lower, beyond the edge of the cloth, massaging still, she forced herself to say, “I think the suit covers that part of my skin adequately. I don’t think you need to put sunscreen there.”

  His hand flicked just an inch or two farther underneath her top, well short of her nipple, but then stopped. He pulled his hand out of her top. “If you say so.”

  She would never survive her thighs. “I can do this myself, you know.”

  “Sure, but where’s the fun in that?”

  His erection was hard to hide in a swimsuit. She’d seen that before too.

  “I hope I’m not going to be fighting you off the whole time.”

  Oh my God, where had that shrewish comment come from? It not only wasn’t true, it was so not in the tone in which she was supposed to address a mark. So absolutely not in the playbook for acting as bait and leading a guy on a merry chase.

  If Brendan Beckett’s expression right now was any indication, he was proof positive of why not.

  Jesus, what was with this girl? Either she liked him or she didn’t. The latter was shaping up as a distinct possibility right about now, in which case her motivation for accepting his invitation to the Caymans was suspicious. Maybe she was the thief from his apartment. If so, what the hell did she want? To tease him to death maybe?

  She had paid her own way here. Not that he had to pay for it or anything. And though she had entered the house this morning with an overnight bag and put it in an upstairs bedroom, for all he knew, she might be planning to stay in a hotel.

  But she was still on his goddamned beach. Did she have to be such a snip about everything? It was on the tip of his tongue to say that—the tongue that had just tasted the nirvana of her kiss. He realized how it would sound and it was so unlike his usual approach with women that it gave him pause. Where was the laid-back playboy persona he’d perfected into an art? He never turned caveman on a girl, let alone turned into the spoiled rich boy brat that everybody probably thought he was anyway. He’d never even wanted to.

  Deliberately, he collapsed onto the towel, dialing himself back, folding his hands behind his head and looking up at the cloudless sky.

  “I’m sorry, Brendan. I didn’t mean that.”

  “That’s okay. You’re right. We said no strings attached. I’m coming on too strong. I’ll tell you what. We won’t go anywhere unless you specifically ask for it. How’s that sound?”

  Terrible. That sounded really terrible. He had no fucking idea why he had even proposed it.

  Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he sat up. “Come on. Let’s go swimming.”

  “In the ocean?”

  He didn’t dignify that with an answer, but rather just picked her up unceremoniously and started walking toward the waves.

  She quickly looped her arms around his neck, squealing. “Don’t you dare drop me right into the water, Brendan!”

  “We’re at the beach. You’re supposed to go in the water,” he chided with a smile.

  “I can’t swim.”

  He stopped, the waves calm today, no higher than his knees at this point. “Really?”

  Her eyes in the sunlight were an intriguing shade, more green than blue. She looked vulnerable, hesitant. Then she laughed. “No, not really. I can swim. I just don’t like to be dumped into the water.”

  He laughed. “Don’t forget, I have five sisters. I excel at dumping girls in the water.”

  “Especially if they don’t like it, I bet.”

  “Especially then.”

  He walked farther in as she held on tighter to his neck.

  “Oh no, you’re not going to get me with that.”

  “What?”

  “Snuggling up to me in the hopes that I’ll take pity on you.” He was thigh high in the water now and the waves almost to her bottom as he held her.

  “It’s cold!”

  “It is not. This is the tropics.” Smiling down at her, he didn’t dump her, though. “All right, you’ve discovered my secret. I wasn’t the obnoxious brat brother who liked to torture his sisters. I was the wimpy brother who played nice with them.”

  “Good. I hate obnoxious brat brothers.”

  “Do you have any?”

  Her face was blank.

  “Brothers?” he clarified.

  “No. I have a confession too, though.”

  “Yeah? I’ve
got to hear this.”

  “I love to be dumped in the water.”

  He laughed, spinning round in the water to her renewed squeals, and with great fanfare flung her into the waves. She went under and came up like a champagne cork seconds later, water dripping off her hair and body. Then she lunged at him. “Your turn, mister.”

  He ran away as fast as the water would allow, but she caught up to him easily, swimming toward him, and levered herself up with her palms on his shoulders to dunk his head beneath the water. When he came up, laughing, she said triumphantly, “Now we’re even.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “Nowhere near even.” Hands on her waist, he bent his head to kiss her cool, wet lips. Nothing heavy. No tongue even. Then he twirled her around slowly in the water, loving the sight of her in this mermaid mode, the sun glistening off her wet hair and skin, the buoyancy of the water making her feel other-worldly in his arms. She flipped on to her back to float, which in her bikini top was really quite a sight. He fought back the lascivious thought. She was just a girl having fun in the water. Let her be, he told herself sternly.

  To aid in the effort, he let go of her and swam a few lengths, his head submerged, his arms and legs feeling the pleasurable resistance of the waves. He’d gone for a run on the beach before Sophia had shown up, but it hadn’t been enough to tire him out, which he supposed was what he was trying to do so he wouldn’t come on so strong with her.

  So much for that.

  When he came up for air and looked around, treading water, he couldn’t spot Sophia at first. But then he saw her, swimming steadily farther out. Since this was a private beach, there were no public safety buoys posted at various lengths to warn swimmers to go no farther, as there were at hotel beaches. But he and his sisters had never needed them. They had been coming here all their lives and could adequately judge how far they should go out and when they needed to turn back. Sophia had no such experience.

  And she was way past the point of safety. Not only were the currents too strong for comfort out there, there was also the issue of the occasional boat.

  Shit. He should have warned her. The sheer panic he felt hadn’t surprised him, but he didn’t stop to question it. He headed straight for her, swimming as fast as he could, head down, which was probably not the way to go about it. It just meant two of them were in danger instead of one if a boat, for instance, should happen by. By the time he paused to lift his head, he realized that he was only marginally closer to her now. She was a hell of a fast swimmer. He should know, since he was a hell of a fast swimmer.

  But what the hell was she trying to do? Swim to Cuba?

  Chapter Four

  She was really way too far out now, and from what he could tell, she wasn’t even pausing to gauge how far from the shore she was. There was a real danger at the pace she was going that she might find herself too tired to make it all the way back when she finally turned around.

  The little idiot.

  He redoubled his efforts, ensuring of course that he might find himself too tired as well by the time he caught up to her to get back, but he didn’t care. He’d seen the dot of a boat or two out on the horizon. God forbid that one of them head back in and Sophia find herself in its path.

  Blanking his mind, he swam with an intensity that signaled stores of adrenaline he normally used only for long bouts of mindless sex were being called upon. When next he raised his head, he was much closer to her, although that was probably because she appeared to have stopped swimming, waiting for him. When he caught up to her, he didn’t bother to say much. “You little fool” sufficed. But he added, “Do you know how far out you are?”

  They were both treading water, breathing hard, but his comment seemed to surprise her. “Is that why you followed me?”

  “Come on. We swim back together. Side by side.”

  By the time they both trudged onto shore, he for one was exhausted, and pissed as hell. Flat on his back on the sand, breathing hard, he tried to rein back in his anger. “Do you know how dangerous that was?” he muttered, eyes closed. When he opened them, she had her head turned toward him, flat on the sand like him, but watching him.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Is that why you swam after me? You were worried about me?”

  He said nothing for a minute, trying to remind himself she wasn’t familiar with these waters. She couldn’t have known. It was his fault for taking her into the ocean without adequately warning her first that no matter how good a swimmer she was—and she was damned good apparently since she wasn’t even breathing as hard as he was—these waters could be treacherous and the kind of chance she took was crazy.

  “Look, Sophia, you were about twice as far out as was safe. The currents, a boat, anything could’ve turned that into a very unhappy ending. Even for a very good swimmer. Don’t do that again. Promise.”

  She came up on her side, on one elbow. “That means it was dangerous for you too. Yet you came after me, even though you knew that.”

  Part of him wanted to take credit for doing that. Whatever floated her boat. That was the whole point of getting her here, wasn’t it? To seduce her, and maybe in the process discover whether she might have had something to do with the break in at his apartment.

  But mostly to seduce her.

  If she needed to think of him as some kind of knight in shining armor to be into it, he was okay with that. Maybe it was even some kind of silly girl test that, happily, he’d passed.

  So why the next words came out of his mouth, he had no clue. “Don’t flatter yourself. I would’ve done that for anybody. I don’t like people dying on my beach.”

  He got up. “I’m going in to take a shower. Can I trust you not to go back into the water right now? You need to rest.”

  She nodded.

  Fuck. Way to go, Beckett. Scolding her as if he really were her brother. How screwed up was that?

  Sophia flipped back down onto the sand, not registering the gritty sensation of it against her back. In reality, Brendan shouldn’t trust her to not go back into the water. How could he when she apparently couldn’t trust herself with anything?

  Claiming not to be able to swim was one of her best gigs. She was great at it. The fake fear, the trusting acceptance of the big, strong guy’s instruction, the opportunity to give him a really good look at her body as he taught her to float. It was perfect for this situation. And she’d been about to launch into it, when something about his “really?” stopped her.

  She loved to swim. She loved to play in the water, especially the ocean. Part fish, Arthur had called her when she was a little kid. She had no idea why she wanted to reveal that part of herself, her real self, to Brendan Beckett, but she did. As to swimming out so far, she hadn’t meant to. Not really. She had just been lost in thought and when she looked up, he was following her. At first, she had thought it was a competition, and so she kept swimming, another thing she really should not be doing. Men hated it when women competed against them. She didn’t have to be a seasoned con woman to know that.

  But then she realized what he was doing. The look on his face when he caught up to her humbled her. They were too far out, way too far out. And he knew it, certainly better than she pretended not to. But he had come anyway. Then on the beach, she had half expected him to ask for his reward. Any other guy would have. Or at least play out the rescuing the damsel in distress angle now that everything had turned out fine. But he hadn’t. He had seemed…genuinely concerned and genuinely angry.

  Who was this guy and what was she really doing with him? She was starting to worry it had less to do with finding Arthur’s mysterious box than she thought it did.

  By the time Brendan had showered and calmed down, changed into some khaki shorts and a tee shirt, and gone out on the balcony, he saw that Sophia had moved to the towel again, and seemed to be stretched out asleep. Even at this time in the day, the sun could be scorching. He hoped she’d reapplied some sunscreen. But he was done acting like Big Brother. He’
d brought this chick down here to nail her, hadn’t he? What was he doing worrying about her getting burnt or drowning?

  Okay, maybe worrying about her drowning was understandable, but did he have to be so heavy handed about it? He needed to just chill out and have fun with her. That was what he was all about, wasn’t it? Fun? Ask anybody. Why was he getting so intense with this girl? Hell, he didn’t even know her last name.

  He’d let this Sophia have a nice long nap and then he’d turn to what he’d brought her here for.

  * * * * *

  Sophia woke up with a start.

  “Hi.”

  Brendan was standing over her. She sat up. “I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”

  “No problem. I was just getting hungry. Growing boys need to eat.”

  She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and then stretched, standing up in the process.

  “I thought we could walk down the beach to a little restaurant I know. It’s not too far. Why don’t you just go in and change. I don’t feel like fighting any guys off by bringing you in a bikini.”

  Nodding, she gathered up the towel and her beach things and followed him back in to the house. It was a beautiful setup, this house, one she may have been able to fully appreciate if she hadn’t been on a job. Two stories, it was plenty big enough for all six of the Beckett children if they had all been here at once with their parents growing up. Brendan had mentioned that the family had owned it since before he was born. So the house was plenty big. But the open-air rooms on the first floor and abundant picture windows looking out to the ocean made it seem welcoming and cozy, as if the vastness of the ocean would bring any man-made structure down to size in comparison.

  The hardwood floors and brightly colored cane furniture everywhere completed the picture of casual beach living, though she knew this all must have cost a fortune. Even owning a house on the beach in the Caribbean must have cost a fortune.

  True to his word, Brendan had given her a separate room, complete with its own bathroom. When Brendan left her at its door, she quickly ducked inside and into the shower to wash the salt of the ocean off her skin and out of her hair. Not taking the time to unpack her blow dryer, she just wound her hair, wet, up in a big clip at the base of her neck. Another halter dress, this time a tropical-themed one—halters were good for keeping her in without the need for a bra—completed the ensemble.