It had to be the magical, mystical moonlight that allowed her to even consider such foolishness. They were lawyers in the same firm, both thriving on competition and one-upmanship. They had that much in common, yet they had no possible future no matter how hot the chemistry.
They were co-conspirators in this seductive game and that diminished the risk and leveled the playing field. At least, she hoped. There was no denying that with this invitation they’d reached the point of no return. She had no choice now but to believe in his integrity, knowing her career was in his hands. There was no turning back.
Not in the midst of this heated game. And it was hot. With deliberate precision, she mimicked his movements, placing her hands on his backside and pressing him more firmly, more intimately against her. His deep groan of satisfaction caused a trickling of damp desire to settle between her legs. The hard planes of his chest brushed against her aching breasts and relief seemed so close yet so very far away.
IT WAS HOT, Jack thought, this wicked fling beneath the moonlight that mimicked hot sex yet fell short of mutual satisfaction. He didn’t know how much longer he could rock against her willing body yet get no relief against the crescendo of need building inside him.
He’d meant to give her sweet torment and take her further than she’d taken him last night, but she’d turned the tables, torturing him instead, and imminent release was building fast and furious inside him.
At least he wouldn’t be alone if he took that plunge, but it wasn’t the ending to the night he’d originally envisioned. He had no intention of embarrassing either of them when all he wanted was to take her to the edge and give her a night to remember.
Without speaking, he swept her into his arms and began a lazy walk into the ocean.
“What are you doing?” She shrieked and wrapped her hands firmly around his neck.
“Cooling us off.” He paused as the water reached his knees and when the next surge swept toward the shore, he treated them to a thorough dunk in the ocean water.
The rush of cold water should have shocked his system, but with Mallory in his arms and heat arcing between them, all it did was get him wet.
She was laughing as he carried her back to the large towel he’d set out on the sand. He placed her onto her feet and handed her a smaller hotel towel to dry off before settling himself besides her.
“Did it help?” she asked, as she ran the white terry over her hair and arms.
His body still throbbed with unslaked need and watching her movements beneath the sleek, wet suit, renewed desire hit him all over again.
He settled himself on the towel. “Didn’t help a bit.”
“I didn’t think so.” Without warning, she walked over, swung her leg around his waist and climbed into his lap.
He let out a groan. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“I’m just trying another alternative to solving your problem.” She shifted until his hard flesh met her moist heat, the swimsuit barriers practically nonexistent. “I’ve heard the French call it a ‘little death.”’ A seductive gleam twinkled in her blue eyes.
He titled his head back, and staring at the night sky with its array of stars he grasped for control. “I would have to pick an educated smart-aleck woman.”
She laughed lightly and snuggled more intimately astride him. “It’s part of my charm.”
He could think of many other attributes she possessed although right now he found it hard to think about anything else besides her body.
“And for the record, counselor, I believe I picked you first.”
“I didn’t know we were keeping track,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck and letting his damp lips trail a blazing path on her soft skin.
She let out a soft exhale. “Liar. You were too keeping track or we wouldn’t be here right now.” Her back arched.
He caressed her neck and chest with laps of his tongue, tasting salt water and soft skin. It took some maneuvering, but he managed to ease her onto the towel, so she lay on her back and he sat on top, finally gaining control of the situation. Or so he thought until she parted her legs and allowed her thighs to cradle his erection in a cocoon of damp heat.
Complete access but no penetration, Jack thought and knew he was lost. His hips jerked forward. Mallory moaned aloud, but suddenly the sound of voices and laughter intruded on his passion-fogged brain.
He forced himself to focus. “We’re not alone anymore.”
Her long lashes fluttered against her pale skin. “That’s probably for the best.”
She was right but he disliked hearing it, especially coming from her well-kissed lips. He was the one usually pulling back from a woman and he damned well didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end. Especially when the woman was Mallory.
Even in the darkness of the night, with the beach lit only by background hotel lighting, he could see where his razor stubble had chafed her flesh.
He swung his leg around and rolled off her. She raised a hand, covering her forehead and eyes from view, but she said nothing more. Her breathing was as labored and rough as his.
Long after the laughter had faded down the long stretch of beach, he lay by her side in silence. Surprisingly comfortable silence for two people still strung tight with arousal, caught in an awkward and potentially compromising situation.
He extended his arm and reached for her hand and she enclosed her fingers around his. Against the backdrop of the ocean roar, Jack realized he had accomplished his goal. He’d issued an invitation of his own and proved she was just as attracted, equally as affected by him as he was by her.
Alone, with no rules or interruptions, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
They’d even begun to exchange memories—something completely foreign to him, yet utterly enjoyable.
But the score was even now. He had no excuse to challenge her again and the disappointment was strong, lingering and beyond anything he understood.
8
JACK WAS STILL WIRED after he said good-night to Mallory. His cold shower had done even less for his disposition than his state of arousal and sleep was impossible. He couldn’t think of a damn thing except Mallory tossing and turning in the bed across the hall from his. Just because they had both agreed to part company before things went any further he didn’t have to like it. He tossed off the covers and climbed out of bed.
Edgy and frustrated, he figured he might as well put his restless energy to use and get some work done. Hanging out at the bar and making small talk with the bartender might give him some insight into Paul Lederman. The elusive client. He pulled on a pair of jeans and an old University of Michigan sweatshirt, then took the elevator downstairs.
Jack glanced at his watch and was surprised at how late it actually was. At a summer resort the bar would normally be hopping, but last call had been half an hour ago and the place had emptied out. As he made his way inside the room, he realized he hadn’t been the only one who couldn’t sleep. His associate had the same idea of hanging out with the bartender, only Mallory had cozied up to him in a way Jack never could.
Apparently playing the helpless woman at the pool table had gotten her close to the surly guy. Close in a way Jack didn’t like at all. He clenched his hands into fists as he watched Mallory, dressed in form-fitting jeans, lean over the pool table so the bartender, a blond-haired surfer type, could press up behind her and correct her form.
She tossed her hair back and laughed at something the bartender whispered in her ear. Jack’s gut clenched with jealousy. A foreign emotion for him when it came to women. A shocking one when it came to Mallory. He’d been with attractive women before, eager women, women he’d actually had sex with, but he’d always been able to cut them loose with no regrets or second thoughts.
So why with this woman? The one he worked with, who could jeopardize his career with one whisper. Perhaps it was the forbidden that attracted him, since their rendezvous could only be conducted in secret. Maybe it was the excitement of the chase, th
e challenge she posed that intrigued him so. As his body, still strung tight, reminded him, it could also be the lack of closure to the relationship that tugged at his gut.
He couldn’t put her behind him. Not yet, anyway. It was time he stepped up the challenge.
He strode forward into the light surrounding the pool table. “Mind if I join the game?”
At the sound of his voice, Mallory groaned while the bartender turned his head to acknowledge the intrusion. “Bar’s closed,” he said.
Jack leaned an elbow on the wooden edge of the table and nodded at Mallory. “She looks like a customer to me.”
Mallory narrowed her gaze and shot him a scathing glance.
“She’s a guest of the house. You can come back tomorrow night. Drinks on the house.” The bartender turned his concentration back to Mallory, or rather, to her waist. He gripped his hands around the bare skin of her midriff, where her shirt had drifted upward.
Anger Jack hadn’t experienced in ages rushed to the surface along with another memory—of coming home early from school at age fifteen to find a stranger and his mother exiting the bedroom she shared with Jack’s father, the stranger’s hands on his mother’s waist as he helped her snap her pants closed.
But unlike his mother, Mallory didn’t giggle and lean closer. She stiffened and would have moved away but for the pool table in front of her and the bartender’s strong arms holding her in place. Whatever her earlier act, she was obviously through with the man now.
“Doesn’t look like she wants to be that kind of a guest.” Jack spoke through clenched teeth.
Sparks flashed in Mallory’s blue eyes, emotion and anger aimed at him. “She can speak for herself.”
She turned her gaze to the bartender and fluttered her lashes in a gesture Jack had never witnessed from Mallory before. “Looks like my friend doesn’t know when a lady’s playing hard to get, Jimmy,” she said in a lazy drawl. But she casually moved his hand away from her waist.
“You know this guy?” The bartender jerked a finger Jack’s way. From the sneer on the man’s face, Jack figured any hope he’d had of gleaning information about Lederman was long gone.
“We work together.” Mallory let out a long-suffering sigh and took a step back from Jimmy, tripping over his sneakered feet and nearly toppling to the floor in the process. Jack tried to reach for her at the same time as the bartender but she lunged onto the pool table and steadied herself first.
“Oops.” She let out an un-Mallory-like laugh. “Those darn Long Island Iced Teas.” She batted her eyelashes again and glanced at Jack. “Did you know they have a drink named after this area? Well sort of this area. Long Island Iced Tea. He makes them extra special,” she said, smiling at the bartender. “Think I can have the recipe?”
“I think you’ve had enough.” Jack had no doubt she wasn’t drunk, just trying to keep the bartender off balance and intrigued. He stepped forward and grabbed her elbow before his competition could get to Mallory first.
“Don’t you think the lady can decide when she has or hasn’t had enough?” the bartender spoke.
Mallory bestowed her sweetest smile upon him. “A man who respects a lady’s mind. I like that.”
“Did you forget our early morning meeting?” Jack asked pointedly. “With Mr. Lederman?” He tossed Jimmy’s employer’s name into the mix and got the reaction he’d hoped for.
Jimmy stiffened. “You work with Lederman?”
Mallory clenched her jaw, clearly unhappy with Jack invading her territory. “He’s considering using my firm. I thought I mentioned that.”
“Before or after you pumped me for information?”
Mallory shrugged and smiled sweetly. “I’m a people watcher by nature. You wouldn’t hold that against me, would you? Tell you what, why don’t we meet up again when he’s not around?” She elbowed Jack in the side.
Jack stifled a grunt but before he could speak, the bartender shook his head. “The boss’ll have my head for consorting with the guests,” he muttered. “Not that he wouldn’t appreciate your charms himself but I need this job.”
“Smart move,” Jack said, making note of his reference to Lederman’s taste for the ladies.
Jimmy scowled. “She’s all yours, buddy.”
“I’m not anyone’s,” Mallory muttered. “Especially his.”
Jack grinned. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying, do you sweetheart?”
The bartender cursed beneath his breath and headed back to the bar to clean up for the night. Obviously he didn’t like the idea of Jack getting the better of him, but when he put his testosterone aside, he knew his job came first.
Jack turned to his colleague. “Time to get you upstairs.” Without waiting for a reply he lifted her into his arms and over one shoulder. “See ya around,” he called out to the bartender who was still cursing and nursing his wounded pride.
Jimmy glanced over and caught sight of Jack’s caveman routine and Mallory’s flailing fists. He laughed hard. “Maybe you’re not so bad. You come by tomorrow,” he said to Jack. “Drinks are still on the house.”
Mallory punched helplessly at Jack’s back until the last shot hit a kidney.
Jack grunted. “You got it,” he called. “Maybe we can compare notes.”
“Put me down,” Mallory yelled at him.
The bartender laughed again. Jack left the bar and made a quick right to the bank of elevators. He had no desire to cause a scene in the lobby.
Once inside the private elevator, he deposited Mallory on her feet.
“Just in time.” She pulled down on her shirt and glared at him.
“I know.” Right before he’d freed her, he’d felt her soft hands inching inside the waistband of his jeans searching for the elastic on his underwear.
He burst out laughing. “An older brother teach you that dirty trick?”
She shook her head. “I’m an only child. And you were this close to singing soprano.” She held her thumb and forefinger together.
“I’d have to be wearing underwear for that weapon to work.”
Her eyebrows arched in surprise and her blue eyes darkened with the possibility he was telling the truth.
He leaned back against the chrome and mirrored wall.
A grin formed on her lips as she stepped closer. “Prove it.”
“What?”
Her fingers reached for the snap on his jeans as his breath caught in anticipation and desire. “You said no underwear. I want you to prove it.”
His groin, free from constraints except for the hard denim wanted to do just that, but he held on to her wrists and met her gaze.
Her face was inches from his, her warm breath with barely a hint of alcohol rushed over his skin.
“How’d you keep surfer boy’s hands off you?” he asked.
She tilted her head to the side. “Are you jealous? I admit he has a great body and a gorgeous tan, but…”
That did it. Jack silenced her with a kiss. It started slow but quickly blazed out of control. His tongue, her tongue, his groan, her heartfelt sigh—he couldn’t tell the difference as they melded together. Like a dying man at an oasis, he drank from her, taking all she offered, all she had to give. And he gave back in kind, until they parted, coming up for air.
Her dazed blue eyes opened wide. “You were jealous.”
He sucked in a deep breath of air. “Not a chance, sweetheart.” But his thudding heart called him a liar. He stepped back and contemplated her. “So how’d you keep the bartender talking and not groping?” He grasped for mundane conversation, anything to give him time to regain his equilibrium.
“I sat next to a huge potted plant in the corner, ordered drinks, nursed them while I inflated his ego, dumped them when he served other customers.”
He grinned. “You are something.”
She averted her eyes. “Why haven’t the doors opened yet?”
He glanced around for the first time and realized neither of them had pushed the button for their fl
oor.
He punched in the button for the fifth floor. The mechanism kicked into gear and they began their ascent. “Elementary.”
“Then how come neither one of us thought of it?”
He reached out and fingered a strand of her hair. “Because we were distracted?”
“By your caveman routine. Which reminds me, don’t you ever carry me anywhere again.”
“Or what?” The doors opened and he escorted her out of the elevator, his hand on her back.
She paused to turn and meet his gaze. “I’ll have to teach you a lesson, of course.” Laughter danced in her eyes.
“Of course you would.” And he’d get himself another invitation. He hoped. “Give me your key. I’ll help you get the door.”
Her expression turned wary.
“Friends help friends, okay?” She reached into her pocket.
“Let’s meet up for breakfast and discuss what you learned about Lederman. He left a message saying he’ll be back the day after tomorrow and I’d like to be prepared.” Although Jack was frustrated by the continued delay, part of him was grateful for the extra time alone with Mallory that Lederman’s absence provided.
“Can we make it lunch? I’m beat.” She pressed her card key into his palm.
“Sure thing.” Then, knowing exactly how she’d respond, he picked her up once more and tossing her over his shoulder, headed for her door.
She didn’t fight him. Instead she ran her fingers through his hair. “You’ll pay for that,” she murmured.
“That’s what I was hoping for.”
THANKS TO MALLORY, Jack awoke early, something that was becoming a habit on this pseudo-vacation. After carrying her into her room and depositing her on the bed, he’d stayed for one lingering good-night kiss before making himself scarce.
But part of him wished they’d never met up at the hotel bar last night. Both the jealousy and caveman routine were foreign to him. He hadn’t recognized the blatant anger or possessive feelings Mallory aroused in him. Even as he’d realized her intent was to gain information from the bartender, the primal urge to carry her out and make an ass of himself had taken over.
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