The Seduction of Arabella Quinn

by Caryn Carter

  "Right now you think this is what you want, Bella. But afterwards, you'll be sorry and then you'll blame both of us--yourself for asking, and me for giving in."

  "I can tell you're a hard man to change once you've made up your mind, Nick Fuller."

  "Hard is not the word I'd use right now if I were you," he said, his voice as tight as his balls trapped in his briefs with no room to expand. His heart rate was still doing triple time and the pain in his crotch had extended to his groin. It would have taken little or no effort on his part to come right there fully clothed--and that hadn't happened since he was fifteen and being fondled by the neighborhood prick teaser.

  Bella gave a little moan and slid her hand across his chest, slowly making her way downward. He nearly lost it when he realized where she was headed. Jesus, he had to end this fast. Roughly, he pulled away from her and forced enough distance between them so that the only parts of their bodies that touched were his hands at her shoulders.

  "I also promised I wouldn't keep you out beyond another thirty minutes," he reminded her.

  Her body sagged, she released a lungful of pent up air and lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry, Nick. I don't know what got into me. You're right of course."

  Damn. Hearing her agree with him after their sizzling prelude to what could have been the hottest sex of his life, was like having his cock plunged into ice water. It lost a lot of its punch. Not enough that he'd trust getting in the clinches with her again, but enough that he was thinking almost rationally now.

  The most frustrating thing for him to accept was that not all of his concern for keeping his word and building up her trust in him was phony. Somewhere, somehow, in these past three days, he'd begun to feel a little uneasy about deceiving her. And that was not good. Not good at all.

  "I really think we should be going." Not what he wanted to do at all. But what he knew he should.

  She moved toward the stairs and he followed her outside. As they walked in silence to their cars, he wondered if she was really glad he'd kept his promise to her, or if she was feeling rejected. For some reason that thought bothered him.

  "Bella?"

  She'd already opened the door to her car, was preparing to get inside when she turned. Moonlight caught the sheen in her eyes. The beginning of tears? He felt like a heel.

  He jammed his hands in his pockets, ignored the part of him that shouted caution, and told her, "I just want you to know it would have been damn easy to make love to you back there."

  This time the moonlight caught her smile and lit up her entire face.

  "Thanks," she whispered. "And thanks for not taking advantage of me. I guess I'm in a pretty sorry state right now, what with everything you've told me and my mother so sick on top of it. I'm usually not so forward." She lowered her head as if she were ashamed.

  Great. Now that he had her trust, the very thing he'd set out to gain, he felt like rat shit.

  But he couldn't let himself be duped by her pretense of innocence and vulnerability. She'd tried to pull that act on him the first night they met, but he'd seen through it. Just like he was seeing through it now. Wasn't he?

  Somehow though, he didn't feel as convinced of his righteousness when he pulled out of the parking bay behind her. He'd offered to follow her home right off but she'd been against it at first. He'd sensed she was merely putting up a brave front so he'd insisted and knew he was right when he saw relief spread across her face. She seemed genuinely frightened.

  He followed a comfortable distance behind her, waited until she was safely inside her house, and drove slowly down the street, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. From what he could tell, there were no cars parked on the street that didn't belong there. He really hadn't expected any. It jolted him to realize he was disappointed that there weren't.

  In spite of the conclusions he and Vince had drawn that morning that some undesirables were casing Bella's house on the lookout for Kevin Pitre, he couldn't help but wonder if she was lying about that, too.

  Vince had said he was going to check out her story. As he continued the drive through the neighborhood, Nick considered there were only two scenarios Vince could report back. Either someone was watching Bella, or they weren't.

  Nick wasn't sure which version of the story he hoped would prove true.

  * * * *

  Two hours after she left Nick, Bella finally admitted there was no way she was going to sleep that night without help.

  She slid from under the snug cocoon of the bedcovers and pulled on her robe against the cold air that hit her. She shivered, not sure whether it was from the air conditioning or the scary thoughts that had contributed to her wakefulness.

  She walked to the window and pulled the blinds aside. The street was deserted. No parked cars. Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, she shivered again. She thought of Nick's suggestion for her to stay on the boat. She was anxious now to take him up on it.

  She'd tried to push away the ominous thoughts that had stayed with her since he'd told her his theory about Kevin and some underground connection, but she couldn't. Several times during dinner and especially afterward on the boat she'd felt on the verge of breaking down and admitting how frightened she was. The only reason she could come up with that she hadn't broken down, was that she didn't want to seem weak to him.

  Nick Fuller was the kind of man who admired strong women. She had sensed that from the beginning. He would want a woman who could fend for herself, not some wishy-washy damsel in distress that would cling to him like plastic wrap.

  He was a former cop. He was tough, and the woman in his life would have to be tough as well. It didn't bother her that her reasoning made little sense since Nick Fuller was no longer a cop. Besides, she most definitely was not his woman.

  She went to the refrigerator for a glass of milk and forced down a couple of swallows. When another chill raced up her spine she suddenly realized why her body was reacting to cold so violently.

  Nick Fuller had lit a fire inside her the very first time she saw him. A fire that had started low and had been building steadily ever since. Their encounter on the boat, brief as it was, had turned the tiny flame into a raging inferno and she was burning up inside and out.

  He'd admitted it would have been very easy to make love to her. Then why hadn't he? Oh, she knew what he said, and even though she respected him for it, he could have tried a little harder. Made her feel like she was truly irresistible. That he wanted to be inside her so bad it was driving him crazy. Like the thought of having him inside her was driving her crazy.

  She poured the rest of the milk down the sink and collapsed onto a chair, lowered her head onto folded arms and allowed herself to cry. She already knew she was in for a huge heartbreak where Nick Fuller was concerned. The tears she was crying now were nothing compared to what she'd shed after he finally had her and then walked away.

  She should be glad he was a man of his word. A man who kept his promises. But she wasn't. She wanted him to be a man who wanted her so desperately he was willing to break all his own rules just to have her.

  Contrary to her own rules, she was going to do everything in her power to seduce him to his knees. She would tear down the defenses around his heart just as he had torn down hers.

  She would make seducing Nick a top priority. If nothing else, it would take her mind off the other worries in her life that seemed to be growing at breakneck speed.

  * * * *

  Nick circled the block in Bella's neighborhood for the fourth time after he was certain she was safely inside, before he decided to give up and head for home. He hadn't seen any suspicious cars on any of his rounds and he'd stretched his surveillance to almost a full hour, driving by her house then taking turns driving to the three neighborhood fast food places, ordering coffee from the drive-thru's, parking to drink it and taking off again when he had downed half a cup. By the time he reached coffee number four, he couldn't manage one more swallow.

  He'd been torn between hoping to fi
nd something out of the ordinary on the one hand, and dreading that he might on the other. It was a no-win situation for him. He wanted to believe Bella was being watched because it would back up his belief in her guilt. The alternative of course, was that she had made the whole spy story up just to get his guard down and his sympathy up.

  He sighed long and hard. This wasn't turning out at all as he'd anticipated. He hadn't counted on becoming fond of Bella. He'd had her sketched out in his mind as this cool, crafty, hard-as-nails woman who gave no more thought to the death of the woman her fiancé killed than she would to a cockroach scurrying around her kitchen.

  True, she hadn't been driving the car that killed Debbie. In reality, Kevin hadn't deliberately driven into that brick wall with no thought for his own life. In many ways what had happened had really been a tragic accident for everyone.

  Still, that didn't change the end result. Debbie was gone and Bella was alive and well, waiting for her low-life, murdering fiancé to crawl into her bed again.

  She'd been true to Pitre, he'd grant her that, if what Vince had been able to piece together was accurate. It didn't appear she'd dated anyone for any length of time these past seven years.

  The thought that she had been pleasuring herself all this time, waiting to release her passion with the man for whom she'd kept herself chaste, was like a hot, sharp knife slicing through Nick's stomach.

  If he followed that line of reasoning, then Bella's supposed turn-on to him was nothing but a means to keep him off-guard and away from Kevin's scent. She was merely leading him on. A real prick-teaser in the truest sense of the word.

  He wondered if she really would spread her legs for him if it got down to the wire. His cock throbbed at the thought and he cursed aloud, wondering how long it would take him to get to sleep with thoughts of whether or not he'd really get to do her, running around in his brain all night.

  He hit the remote for his garage, and drove in. The phone was ringing when he opened the kitchen door and he raced to answer it.

  "I hope I didn't wake you." It was Bella sounding sleepy and so goddamned sexy the throbbing in his cock increased to the point that he had to catch a deep breath before he answered in the negative. Since he didn't want her to know he'd been keeping watch over her since he'd left, he had to find a reason to explain his delay in answering the phone.

  "Actually, I was in the shower. I have an early day tomorrow so I thought I'd get a head start tonight." Jesus, what a lie. And how easily it had rolled off his tongue. A sudden fear took his mind off the problem in his briefs and sent a chill shooting through his body. "Is something wrong?" Maybe someone really was watching her and they'd shown up after he left.

  "Nothing's wrong, except I couldn't sleep. Just going through a mental list of what I'll need to gather up in the morning to bring to the boat after work."

  So that was all. "It isn't something you need to lose sleep over. It's only for a couple of days. If you should forget something you could always run over and pick it up."

  Realizing she might do just that, fear tightened his throat. An inopportune visit from her could throw a monkey wrench into everything.

  He couldn't risk that.

  He needed as much time as possible--both day and night--to search her house for the evidence that would put both her and Kevin away.

  Somehow, he had to make certain she never left the boat until his job was finished.

  Chapter Eight

  After she left the hospital Tuesday night, Bella drove to the restaurant to meet Nick in a less than happy mood. She had doubts about whether accepting Nick's offer was the right thing to do in the first place, and her recent argument with Franny in the hospital parking lot had only added to her uncertainty.

  She would have preferred not going into detail with Franny, but that had been impossible. Franny still considered it her duty as the older sister to look after Bella and she hadn't, for one minute, bought Bella's reason for staying on Nick's yacht. Even after Bella reluctantly told her of Nick's concern for her safety, and by extension, the safety of her family if Bella stayed with them, Franny had thought the whole thing ridiculous. She'd been convinced 'this guy' as she'd repeatedly called Nick, was simply out to get Bella in his bed.

  Even if this far-fetched story of his had any credibility, Franny had argued, wouldn't Bella be safer in a hotel rather than isolated out on a boat in the Yacht Harbor? Better yet, wouldn't it have made more sense to bring the police in on it?

  Bella had tried to alleviate Franny's concern by assuring her that only a few people knew Nick even owned the boat. That there may be those on the police force who, in order to protect themselves, would use the information against Nick and make things more dangerous for all of them. Besides, she had told Franny, a hotel would be expensive and she was already shelling out a lot of money for this state-of-the-art security system. Staying on Nick's boat wouldn't cost her anything.

  "Oh, it'll cost you something, little sister," Franny had warned. "This guy isn't doing all of this out of the goodness of his heart. He's planning on getting more than the price of a security system out of this. You can be sure of that."

  Of all the reasons Franny had thrown her way to convince Bella this was the wrong thing to do, that was the one Bella really didn't want to hear. She couldn't bear to think Nick was helping her because he had some ulterior motive, even though that very thought had crossed her mind more than once.

  Franny's parting words as she stomped off to her car carried a bitter warning. "In my experience, sex is usually at the bottom of every seemingly good deed men do." Franny walked the few steps to her car, got inside, and pulled off without even wishing Bella good night.

  Behind the wheel of her car, the mechanics of driving second nature to her, Bella had time to consider her sister's prediction. Was Nick really out for nothing more than sex? But if that were so, why her? There were countless women more beautiful, more sexy, than she.

  Bella slammed on the brakes when her daydreaming caused her to momentarily lose her focus on the car in front of her. The signal light only added credibility to Franny's warning. Red light. Danger. Stop. Wait.

  But that was crazy. If Nick had wanted her simply for sex, she'd certainly given him every opportunity to take advantage of her last night. She'd been willing to open her legs for him without another thought.

  The light turned green and she accelerated cautiously, reminding herself that Nick had been the one to put the brakes on last night. That she had let Franny's objections get to her, made her angry. Hadn't her sister's love life during her marriage been a disaster by her own admission? Certainly she was no expert in the sex and love department.

  Anyway, the deal was done. She wasn't about to renege on it now. Tonight she was going to have another meal with Nick, another wonderful evening enjoying the way he looked at her, enjoying the way she felt when he did.

  She parked in the shelled area across the street from the seafood restaurant that overlooked Lake Pontchartrain.

  Nick hailed her just as she was about to step off the curb and she stopped, held her breath as he hurried toward her. She practically fell into his arms when he reached her, welcoming the safety of his embrace.

  "All packed and ready to go?" Nick asked, still holding her close, his eyes filled with that hungry look that told her it was more than food he wanted.

  "All packed and ready to eat first," she replied, marveling at how easily they had fallen into some kind of natural rhythm, as if they'd known each other forever.

  He laughed, gave her a peck on the cheek, grabbed her hand and led her across the street.

  The restaurant was built on wooden pilings that sat directly over the water. To reach it they had to walk the length of a raised wooden ramp that spanned the grassy embankment holding Lake Pontchartrain in check.

  "We have everything we need for the job. We can begin tomorrow morning," Nick said after they'd been seated.

  "Then I should be back home on Friday."


  "If everything goes as scheduled."

  "Everything had better go as scheduled." She looked at the menu the hostess had handed her when they arrived and pretended to study it while she worried that he might have taken offense at her brusqueness. Apparently, even though she'd fought against it, some of her sister's negativity had rubbed off on her.

  "I'm in the mood for fried oysters," Nick said, ignoring her remark about the schedule. "And a pitcher of ice cold draft beer," he added, ending any concern she might have had that he was offended.

  "Hungry?" Nick asked, laying aside his menu.

  "Seems you're always asking that question."

  "Seems you always have the same answer, too. Skipped lunch again, I'll bet."

  "It was a hectic day. I didn't have time to eat."

  "And it had nothing to do with the fear that you might put some weight on?"

  She was glad for the waitress's interruption so she didn't have to answer his question. She had been conscious of her weight before meeting Nick, but it seemed these last few days she had become even more aware of it in spite of his insistence that he really liked the way she looked.

  Of course he hadn't seen her nude yet. That might change his mind. She worked to dismiss the image of herself stretched out naked in Nick's arms, and managed somehow to give the waitress a coherent order.

  "You're blushing," Nick whispered, leaning forward and enveloping her small hand in his large one. "Care to tell me the reason?"

  Oh God, what was she going to say? That in her daydream she was in the buff and he was getting ready to join her? Never. She shook her head and quickly glanced out the window at the silver moonlight shimmering on the dark water. "Personal," she said, refusing to look at him.

  Let him think what he wanted, make any assumptions he wanted, he still wouldn't know what she was really thinking.

  He leaned in closer. "I was hoping you were having naughty thoughts about me."