by Natasha Tate
He followed her as she scurried toward the wide porch. The click of her heels against the pine steps sounded as panicked as she felt, and she wondered if he noticed her agitation.
Drawing up behind her, his broad chest skimming her shoulder blades, he leaned over her neck and asked in a deep voice, “You running from something, Catydid?”
“Of course not,” she lied. She fumbled with her clutch, and her keys clattered to the wooden planks beneath her feet.
“Allow me.” He squatted to retrieve her keys and then straightened by incremental degrees, his shadowed gaze tracking every trembling inch of her body. Brushing her nerveless hand aside, he fit the key in the lock and turned it with a soft click. They stood in breathless silence for several excruciating heartbeats before he pressed the wide door open in a noiseless arc. “After you,” he said, gesturing her forward with a palm.
She stepped over the threshold and into the dimly lit foyer. Checkered black-and-white marble, polished to a gleaming sheen, stretched before them. Dual staircases, curving in graceful arcs toward the second floor, spiraled around the giant chandelier the family had ordered from France a century ago. She saw the opulent display through Ethan’s eyes, seeing her home not as the employee he’d once been, but as a wildly successful man no longer impressed by the trappings of wealth.
“Father’s study and the papers are this way,” she said, striding down the north hall and flipping lights on in her wake. Maybe, if she maintained a businesslike professionalism, she could pretend the awful silence in the car had never happened. Maybe, with luck, he’d simply collect the island paperwork and she could survive the night unscathed.
Ethan followed at a more leisurely pace, his hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the crown molding and artwork decorating the silk-paneled walls.
Several feet before Cate reached her father’s study, the door at the far end of the hall opened. Mrs. Bartholomew bustled in from the servant wing, her graying braid draped over one shoulder and her pink housecoat wrapped around her ample girth. “Is that you, Cate?”
Cate rushed forward to clasp her aging nanny-turned-housekeeper’s arthritic hands and lowered her voice to an earnest scolding. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“Oh, you know me,” she replied with a reassuring pat on Cate’s knuckles. “I can’t sleep properly when you’re off in the city.”
Cate’s smile felt more like an awkward grimace as she tried to usher Mrs. Bartholomew back toward her room. “Well, I’m home now, safe and sound. You can go back to bed.” She pressed against the housekeeper’s soft back and curved shoulder. “Go, before I feel any guiltier for ruining your night’s sleep.”
A sound stalled their footsteps and Mrs. Bartholomew turned to gaze down the hallway. Tipping sideways, her eyes narrowed as she squinted toward Ethan. “Who’s that with you, dear?”
Cate closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose, scrambling for a lie that would appease her self-appointed mother hen without making things worse. “Nobody. It’s just someone from the auction.”
“Oh, my heavenly stars, I don’t believe it,” the housekeeper breathed. Mrs. Bartholomew abandoned Cate and raced to intersect Ethan, her slippers slapping noisily against the marble. “Ethan Hardesty, is that you?”
“Mrs. Bartholomew?” The cynical mask he’d worn all night slipped to reveal unabashed pleasure as he opened his arms and hauled the housekeeper into a hug. She squealed like a girl when he lifted her from the floor and spun her in a joyous circle before returning her back to her feet. “I can’t believe you still work here!”
She gripped his hand with both of hers, her happiness at seeing him bowing her cheeks high. “Where else would I be, you big galoot?”
Cate sidled closer while they grinned at each other, hoping Mrs. Bartholomew didn’t say anything incriminating.
Ethan reached to cup Mrs. Bartholomew’s rounded jaw. “You’re retiring from this job,” he told her. “Tonight. I won’t hear of you working another day.”
She tugged free of his touch, her booming laughter echoing in the cavernous hall. “You always were too bossy for your own good.”
“I’m serious.” He reached for her shoulders. “I just bought Cate’s island for Dad and I know he’d love to have you there with him. You and he could be a couple of retirees, soaking up the island sun just like old times.”
“Without you kids?” She slapped his hands aside. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m perfectly happy here and Cate still needs me.” Mrs. Bartholomew reached for Cate’s wrist and tugged. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
Ethan’s gaze narrowed on Cate as he waited for her reply, as if daring her to exploit his treasured childhood friend any more than she already had.
Cate weighed her words carefully. “You know I love having you here, but all I really need is for you to be happy,” she said. “I’m grown up now, so if you’re ready to retire, you’d have both my blessing and your well-deserved pension.”
“Nonsense. You won’t be grown up until you have a decent man in your life.” She turned to Ethan as if he were her confidante and a necessary companion in getting Cate raised right. “This girl needs someone who can take care of her, no matter what she says.”
“I do not!” she protested. Humiliation fired Cate’s skin when she caught sight of Ethan’s amused expression, and she wished the marble floor would simply open beneath her feet so she could sink out of view.
But it wasn’t to be.
Instead, things got immeasurably worse.
The housekeeper’s grip tightened about Cate’s wrist, betraying the flash of inspiration that led Mrs. Bartholomew to snag Ethan’s hand, as well. “Ethan, Cate’s still as pretty as when you were a boy, isn’t she?” she asked.
“Mrs. Bartholomew!” gasped Cate.
“If you agree to consider taking care of Cate for me, then maybe I will retire.”
“Promise?” Ethan teased. His gaze slid to Cate’s. “Because nothing would please me more than taking care of Cate.”
Mrs. Bartholomew didn’t appear to notice the note of sarcasm beneath his words, because she drew both Cate and Ethan’s hands together before chirping, “I always knew you’d come back for her!” She patted their stacked hands and then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone as she leaned toward Ethan. “I’ll just leave you two to sort out the details, and if you’re still here at breakfast time, I’ll make those cranberry waffles you love so much.”
Cate yanked her hand from his the minute Mrs. Bartholomew turned. Anxious to escape her own reaction to his nearness and the horrible, awful way she wanted to crawl into a hole and die, Cate ducked around Ethan to stride back toward her father’s study. She pressed her hands against her stomach, trying to stem the tide of embarrassment cinching her belly tight. Her skin burned. Her head hurt. And she wanted the night to be over. Now.
She told herself it was because she was exhausted. The stress of preparing for the auction, skipping dinner, selling the island, resurrecting a past she’d hoped to keep buried, it had all taken its toll. It had nothing to do with the way her pathetic heart had responded to the prospect of Ethan taking care of her. To the prospect of Ethan caring for her.
She’d agreed to bring Ethan here for one purpose, and the sooner they finished their business, the sooner she could resume her life. She didn’t want Ethan to think she needed anything from him beyond the auction bid he’d promised. She was no longer an eighteen-year-old girl hopelessly in love with the caretaker’s son. Craving more than he’d ever want to give just made her feel pathetic and desperate.
She didn’t do desperate. Not anymore.
It wasn’t until she’d reached the imposing double doors of her father’s study that she heard Ethan’s footsteps resume.
Cate immediately grappled with the door handle, wanting to maintain the distance between them. But his long legs had him catching up to her before her fumbling fingers could wrestle the door open. He reached for her wrist, his deep voice rippling th
e air beside her cheek. “I’m not going to bite you, Cate.”
She jerked away from his touch and glared up at him. “I can’t believe you said that to her.”
“I was just making an old woman smile.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t get her hopes up like that when nothing’s going to come of it.”
He reached to cup the side of her face, skimming his thumb along her jaw as his lips curved in an enticing smile. “Who says nothing will?”
She reared back, breaking the contact. “Ethan!”
“What?”
“Please don’t make things worse. I’m embarrassed enough.”
“Why?”
A stupid, stupid film of tears gathered in her eyes and she blinked furiously to keep them at bay. She hadn’t cried for nine years, and she wasn’t about to start now. “I don’t know, Ethan. Maybe because of how you’ve been reacting, all seductive and detached and angry and … grateful. I can’t read you anymore, and it puts me at a disadvantage. I don’t like it.”
His expression sobered and his gaze searched hers. “I grew up, Cate, just like you did. You can’t expect things to be the same.”
She pressed her fingers to her temple and winced. “I know.”
“So what do you say we move forward from here?” He collected her hand and then tipped her chin until she met his eyes. “Who knows where things might lead?”
Dropping her gaze, she pulled her hand free and lifted it between them. “No. Too much has happened.”
“Like what?” he asked, the timbre of his voice sensitizing her nerve endings while his thumb grazed her bottom lip.
She stepped sideways, shaking her head. “Tonight is about the island paperwork. That’s the only reason you’re here.”
His blue eyes slipped to half-mast. “No, it isn’t.”
“It is for me.” She firmed her jaw, ignoring the tremor of awareness humming in her veins. “I don’t want anything else.”
“Liar.”
She exhaled noisily. “Look. It’s been a really long day and I can’t do this right now. I just want to go to bed.”
Heat flared behind his eyes. “That could be arranged.”
Cate ground her teeth, berating herself for making such an artless statement. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Sorry, Catydid, but you can’t expect me to let that Freudian slip pass,” he said with abominable arrogance. “You want me. I want you. Let’s do something about it.”
She clamped her mouth closed and dragged in a calming breath before trusting herself to speak again. “I don’t want you for anything other than friendship, Ethan. And if you keep pushing, I won’t even want that.”
“Your kiss said otherwise.”
“It wasn’t my kiss. It was yours,” she protested.
The heat in his eyes deepened, its licking flame devouring her common sense. “It sure felt mutual to me.”
Desperation sharpened her tone. “You know what, Ethan? We’re done. You can see yourself out and I’ll send the papers to your lawyers tomorrow.” She tried to step past him, but he moved left, blocking her escape.
“You don’t want my twenty-five million?”
“If this is the condition? No,” she said, shoving hard against his chest. He didn’t budge, and she felt as if she’d just pitted her strength against a concrete wall. Agitated and unable to do anything about it, she dropped her hands and her chin, trying to create some distance between them. “Move.”
“There’s no shame in wanting to finish what we started.”
“No.”
He tipped her chin up, refusing to grant her a retreat. “Admit you want me,” he told her, the rasp of his finger against her skin sending sparks of sensation all the way to her toes. “Just a little bit.”
She forced a glare to her eyes, praying he’d see the anger and not the desire that battled within. “Why don’t you go ask one of your models instead? I’m sure they’d be happy to assuage the demands of your ego.”
“I know,” he said while a predatory light flashed in his eyes. “But where’s the challenge in that?”
For a moment, Cate was rendered speechless. The fact that he was so horrifically confident in his ability to seduce any female he wished, coupled with the very real possibility that he didn’t overestimate his skills at all, served to tip her mood in anger’s favor. “You’re no better than a stray dog, sniffing after every female who crosses your path.”
In one smooth motion he closed the space between them, crowding her until she had to arch her head backward to maintain eye contact. Slowly, he bent over her and inhaled. Deeply. “Jealous?” he whispered.
“Of course not,” she said, grappling for control. “They can have you with my blessing.”
Ethan dipped his head, looming over her until she could see the hint of black whiskers shadowing his jaw, a masculine edginess that enhanced his dangerous appeal. His mouth, quirked with sardonic command, held a trace of threat, a hint of dark intensity that dared her to answer him truthfully. “You don’t mean that, Catydid.”
Cate’s mood flipped right back into desire, her heart thudding heavily against her ribs. She pressed against the door, her shoulders and buttocks flattened against its substantial weight in an effort to reclaim her emotional equilibrium. It didn’t help. They stood immobile for several heartbeats, their bodies nearly touching while erotic urgency hummed its way along Cate’s nerves and created a knot of longing deep in her belly.
A sudden urge to surprise him, to gain the upper hand, swept through her. She wanted to eradicate his calm control, to flick her tongue against the corners of his mouth and graze her teeth along his flesh until he stumbled back, unnerved. She wanted him on the defensive, as subject to his own body’s cravings as she.
“Besides,” he crooned in a soothing, patronizing voice. “You know I don’t want any of those other women.” With that, he moved closer, his solid weight pressing her against the door and rendering escape impossible. His palms braced beside her head, creating a cage of muscle and sinew and bone. “I only want you.”
CHAPTER SIX
CATE gasped as his thickly muscled chest wedged tight against hers. Silent and unbearably, achingly close, his breath caressed her cheek. For long, excruciating moments, he didn’t speak, as if granting her body the time it needed to assimilate the weight of his.
“I want to taste you again,” he finally breathed.
As insane as the impulse was, she wanted to plunge headlong into the abyss that was Ethan. She wanted to take that clever, teasing tongue of his into her mouth until he came unmoored, to scrape her fingernails over the snowy white pleats of his tuxedo shirt and feel every inch of his warm, satiny skin. “I can’t,” she said in a hoarse voice, thick with desire. “Please let me go.”
“Ah, Catydid …” His voice seduced her, brushing even closer as if he hadn’t heard her plea at all. “I don’t think I can just yet.”
Sensation rippled through her, pinned as she was between the cold, hard door and the hot, hard male before her. His body, so big and thick and strong, was not that of the slim boy she remembered. No longer narrow and wiry, he carried the width and breadth of a full-blooded man well into his prime. Powerful, ruthless and accustomed to claiming whatever he wanted, Ethan possessed a body to match his personality.
Determined to wrest control of the situation, or at least to balance the scales in her favor, Cate reached blindly for the door handle and wrenched it down. The latch gave way and, beneath their combined weight, the door swung inward. She stumbled backward, flailing for balance until Ethan’s hands caught her upper arms and hauled her upright.
For one breathless moment, they remained unmoving, before Ethan’s mouth firmed and he stepped fully into the office. He kicked the door shut behind them, plunging them into the shadowed, predawn darkness of her father’s office. She gasped, her senses heightened by the absence of light. She heard his breath, as fractured as hers, as he spun her back against the closed
door. And then his weight was against her again, his warm hands dragging from her shoulders to hips.
The heat of his breath against her cheek and the possessive demand of his wide palms as they mapped her curves elicited a visceral jolt of sensation deep within. She pushed against him, her resistance losing strength as her fingers met the hard contours of his chest. She absorbed the swell of thick muscle, the sturdy ladder of rib, then stiffened when his insistent exploration of her body detoured to the sensitive underside of her breast.
“Don’t fight me,” he rasped.
She bit her lip, failing miserably in her attempt to keep from becoming lost in the fragrance of him, the salty, musky, sex-scented incense that made her heart beat in heavy, painful blows against her chest. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked in a tortured whisper.
“You know why,” he muttered. “I’ve never stopped wanting you, never stopped wondering how it could be between us.”
Yes. She no longer wished to fight him. Intellectually, she realized Ethan was a danger to her. He threatened the calm serenity of her life in a way that both frightened and worried her. Yet somehow, she couldn’t force herself to send him away. Not yet. It had been so long since she’d felt this way. So long since she’d wanted to be touched.
But she didn’t want to make the wrong decision, take the crazy risk, and lose her heart in the process. Because no matter what lies she told herself, she knew if she allowed herself to love him again, to open her heart and soul when he felt nothing for her, the pain would drive her to her knees.
You’ve endured the pain already, a small voice reminded her. Why not enjoy the pleasure for just one night?
Yes. Her body ached to know his. In truth, it had never stopped yearning for the touch of his hand, the silky slide of his mouth. Her skin, her breasts, her innermost core, craved him. Her body begged her to indulge in just one stolen interlude of pleasure here in the shadows, where secrets could remain hidden and scars could remain unseen. Just once, she wanted to tip from the precarious ledge of arousal into shuddering fulfillment.
