Sinful Seduction

by Ann Christopher

  Chapter Five

  The lightning and thunder eventually moved on, but the driving rain stayed behind, lashing against the windows in an endless pinging rattle. Skylar fell into a restless and exhausted doze, her stitched-and-bandaged leg now propped on pillows. There’d been some discussion of carrying her upstairs, to one of the bedrooms, but Sandro and Mickey decided it was best not to move her again so soon. So she stayed put on the leather sofa, zoned out on liquor and lost in the dull throb of her injured body and the warmth of the down blankets until a noise woke her.

  She stirred and turned her head on the pillow, opening her eyes and then squinting them against the sudden flare of light. Her pupils adjusted, allowing the large form of Sandro to come into view.

  He was across the room, where he’d started a fire in the fireplace, which was large enough to park a VW Beetle inside. Wood was piled high, crackling and spitting sparks, and the flickering orange glow illuminated the strain in his tight face as he bent to jab at the logs with a poker.

  His head rose, turning in her direction at this sign of life even though she didn’t think she’d made a sound. His brow was lined with worry, his voice soft and anxious.

  “How are you?”

  “’m okay.” She tried to speak clearly with her rusty voice, and also tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it was a no-go on both. Her poor brain was too fuzzy to manage any higher functions. “You should go…to bed.”

  “Nah.”

  “You need rest.” Man, she couldn’t even keep her eyes open.

  “You need to stop talking and go back to sleep.”

  Yeah, he was right about that.

  Her lids drifted shut, but not before she told him what was on her mind.

  “Thank you…for taking care of…me,” she murmured, fighting the exhaustion. “Sorry I’m such a…pain in the ass.”

  And then she was asleep again, or thought she was asleep again, except that the low murmur of his voice cut through the fog.

  Or was she dreaming?

  “You could never be a pain in the ass, beautiful Sky.”

  * * *

  Skylar cried out against a particularly nasty throb in her calf, waking herself with a start. The fire still blazed, filling the room with heat and the comforting smell of hickory, but she was alone with only the pain and the darkness, which seemed to be edging closer.

  A sudden flare of panic made her lever herself up on her elbows, looking for—

  “Sandro!”

  “I’m here.”

  A shadow moved, detaching itself from the nearest armchair, and then Sandro was there, sitting at her hip again and studying her with anxious eyes. One of his cool hands went to her forehead, probably checking for a fever, and it felt good. Reassuring. That hand was just what she needed, and she didn’t want to lose it, so she grasped it by the wrist, holding tight.

  “What can I get you, Sky? What do you need?”

  The pain, exhaustion and lingering scotch buzz all conspired to make her honest.

  “I need you to sit with me for a while.”

  He didn’t answer. Maybe he’d been hoping she’d ask for something easy, like a sip of water, then go back to sleep and leave him alone.

  His silence shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter, she told herself vaguely, succumbing again to the oblivion that kept reaching up, grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her under. Except that it did matter, even on this dark and stormy night when she was stranded and injured and managing the pain should have been the only thing on her mind.

  She opened her mouth, and the embarrassing confessions just kept coming.

  “It makes me so sad,” she said as her heavy lids slid lower.

  He leaned closer, his thumb now stroking the hair at her uninjured temple, soothing her.

  “What does, Sky?”

  “That you don’t like me. I wish…you liked me.”

  He stiffened, withdrawing his hand and its comfort, which was, she supposed, her punishment for babbling. The last thing she saw before she fell asleep again was the flash of his gaze, which was dark and unreadable, and the flare of his nostrils as he turned his face away from her.

  * * *

  The next time Skylar woke, it was to the weak suggestion of a yellow dawn breaking on the other side of the closed plantation shutters. Was it morning, finally? And she’d lived through the night? And the storm had finally blown itself out?

  Glory hallelujah.

  She was still wiped out, though. Beyond exhaustion. She wouldn’t be hitting the road back to Boston today, that was for sure. Possibly not for several days.

  Testing out her leg seemed like a good idea, so she decided to start small, with a toe wriggle. Ouch. Sore—very sore—but not unbearable. So that was progress. What about her side? She shifted against the pillows, twisting at the waist.

  Again…ouch. But manageable.

  Her bandaged temple was now down to a dull thud, nothing that an extra-strength dose of acetaminophen couldn’t handle. And her body temperature felt fine. Neither too hot, nor too cold, so she prayed that Sandro’s liberal use of rubbing alcohol last night (the memory made her wince) had done the trick and protected her against infection.

  She was, in short, on the road to recovery.

  The rhythmic swish of a broom sweeping up broken glass came from the corner, and she raised her head (another ouch) to see Sandro dumping the last of the fragments from the smashed photo of Tony, along with the tumbler that had done the smashing, into a trash can. But he kept the picture, shaking off glass dust and placing it, with loving care, on the mantel.

  He stared up at it for a minute, lost in his thoughts, and then, apparently feeling the weight of her stare, turned.

  If she’d had a rough night, his was not much better, judging from the smudged hollows under his eyes. His face was lined with exhaustion, his jaw prickly with the new day’s beard.

  He looked absolutely terrible.

  That didn’t stop his mouth from curling at the edges when he saw that she was awake. The sight of that almost-smile made her skin tingle with awareness, despite her many maladies, and she was glad he didn’t unleash the full smile because, in her weakened state, it would probably kill her.

  “She lives,” he said.

  “She lives.”

  “Did you get any rest?”

  “More than you did.”

  “I wasn’t attacked by a tree.”

  “True.”

  Her gaze flickered back to the picture of Tony. He seemed to be watching her, possibly accusing her with that hard soldier’s stare of his, and it made her uncomfortable enough to look away.

  Sandro, naturally, noticed. “You miss him.”

  It wasn’t a question, which was good because she didn’t have an answer.

  “You’re angry with him. Probably because he died. Am I right?”

  Sandro stilled. It seemed to be a habit of his—being still. She was starting to think of these pregnant pauses as a mechanism he used to wrestle his emotions back under control and get them on lockdown.

  To her surprise, he opened the door a tiny crack, letting her see inside for once.

  “You’re assuming I only have one reason to be angry at my brother.”

  She hesitated and then decided to press her luck. He wouldn’t hit an invalid, surely.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “No.”

  Deflated, she watched as he came to the table and handed her the glass of water he’d been force-feeding her all night.

  “Drink. And then go back to sleep. The sun’s not even up yet.”

  She complied, but only because she was too groggy to do anything else. When she’d laid back against the pillows, he adjusted the blankets over her, taking care to cover her arms while making sure her mouth and nose weren’t blocked.

  Sandro Davies was, she thought, an intriguing study in contrasts.

  Very cold, but occasionally hot.

  Gruff, but tender.


  A twin, but like no other man she’d ever met.

  She fought the exhaustion as best she could, wanting to watch the implacable features on his downturned face and see if he betrayed any feeling, even by accident. Because she knew the feelings were in there. He was like a two-liter bottle of soda, well shaken. Under control for now, but just wait until that lid came off.

  “You’re staring,” he said, his attention still focused on the blankets.

  “I can’t help it.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Not Tony.”

  That got him. His gaze narrowed and zeroed in on her face with sudden urgency, searching for things she hoped he never discovered.

  “What does that mean?”

  It meant many things, none of which she was prepared to get into right now. Mostly it meant that Sandro affected her a million times more than his brother ever had, and the men were twins.

  How could that make sense?

  “I don’t know what it means,” she said as a flush crept over her cheeks.

  His brows quirked with skepticism, if not downright disbelief. It was no surprise that he wasn’t convinced, especially since she was lying through her teeth, but it was still a jolt to be challenged.

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  * * *

  That persistent knocking really got on her nerves.

  Skylar groaned, fighting the grogginess and trying her best to get back to the peaceful oblivion she’d just left. There was a beautiful moment of absolute silence, but the second she began to relax, there it was again:

  Knock-knock-knock.

  It got louder and harder to ignore, which was really upsetting. If it continued, she’d have to open her eyes.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  That did it. With a Herculean effort, she struggled against the warmth of the linens, batting them away, and cracked her lids open a tiny slit.

  What the—?

  Full consciousness slammed into her.

  Levering up on her elbows, she took in the room with a sweeping glance.

  First thing? She was no longer on the leather sofa in the study. No. She was in a pale blue bedroom that looked as though it’d been ripped straight from the pages of Architectural Digest magazine. The wall opposite the bed wasn’t a wall at all, but a row of floor-to-ceiling windows that were currently covered with the kind of handmade silken Roman shades that probably cost ten grand per window. Even with the shades down, though, the room was bright with natural light, telling her that it was way late, possibly past noon.

  There was a seating area in front of another smaller fireplace, which had a blazing fire spreading heat better than a radiator ever could. There were lamps, chairs, tables and ottomans. There was a wardrobe, a dresser and a dressing table, and a pair of crutches leaning against the dressing table. There were two open doors, one of which led to a bathroom, the other to a walk-in closet.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  “Hello? Are you alive in there?” called a voice.

  Oh, but the surprises didn’t end with the room. There was more: she was in a bed. A four-poster so high that it needed—yep, there it was—a stool to climb into, made all the higher by the luxury flowered linens piled atop her.

  But the biggest surprise of all was her attire. Rather than Sandro’s T-shirt, she was now wearing—she looked down at her body, gasping in disbelief—her own Victoria’s Secret full-length pink-cotton nightgown, the one with spaghetti straps and triangle cups. The same nightgown that had last resided in her overnight bag, which was, in turn, in the trunk of the smashed car. The bag that was now, she saw, neatly sitting in the corner near the wardrobe.

  Her tablet, which she’d charged before she came, had been thoughtfully placed on the nightstand.

  Being smarter than the average bear, she added up all the evidence and came to one inescapable conclusion: Sandro had, sometime this morning, carried her up here, undressed and redressed her, and arranged her in this bed, all without waking her.

  Unbelievable.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  “Hello,” called that exasperated voice again. “I’m coming in to make sure you’re not dead—”

  “Who is it?” she cried, yanking up the bedding under her chin.

  “Nikolas,” came the reply.

  Nikolas? Who the hell was—

  “Nikolas Davies?” said the voice. “Sandro’s kid?”

  Oh! Nikolas! Of course!

  “Sorry!” she said, swiping a hand through her rat’s nest of hair. “Come in.”

  The door swung open and Skylar tried not to gape.

  Nikolas walked in with a bed tray held in one hand.

  Actually, he didn’t walk so much as he…slunk. Which may be the only way to ambulate when the waistband of your baggy jeans only came up to the bottom half of your butt—she sure hoped his poor belt never gave out, because otherwise they’d all be seeing a lot more of this kid’s paisley silk boxers—and the bottom four inches of the legs pooled behind the flapping tongue of your boat-size athletic shoes.

  He was tall but lanky, having grown into his height but not his musculature, and he possessed a younger version of his father’s face, which made him quite handsome.

  All resemblance ended there.

  He wore an unbuttoned plaid shirt over a T-shirt that said, in big letters, “Don’t Hate,” and he had at least four glittering studs running up the rim of one ear. The end of one of his heavy black eyebrows had been shaved and now consisted of three or four stripes, and his hair was…interesting. He sported a Mr. T Mohawk of unruly dark curls, and the back half of it was—honest to God—red.

  His glittering eyes were pure attitude, although she could tell he was putting on his polite expression for the houseguest. For now.

  Wow. She could just imagine how this rebel youngling went over with his straight-as-an-arrow, former-soldier father.

  Can you say World War III?

  Reaching the side of the bed, he nodded down at her and gave her one of those hard teenage stares. “’S up?”

  Skylar made a quick decision to play it cool. This kid was clearly all about shock value; ergo, she would not be shocked by anything he said or did.

  So she adjusted herself into a sitting position against the pillows, ignored the throbbing complaint in her side and leg, and stuck out her hand.

  “Hi, Nikolas. Great to meet you. I’m Skylar.”

  “Hey.”

  Nikolas had a deep voice, a firm grip and great eye contact, which put him way ahead of many of the mumbling teenagers she had crossed paths with in her practice.

  “My dad said you’re a vet. He told me to call you Dr. Lawrence.”

  She snorted. “Oh, well, if the Captain told you to call me Dr. Lawrence, then you need to call me Sky. He’ll love that.”

  His brows (brow and a half?) rose in surprise, and he treated her to part of a begrudging smile before he caught himself and reverted to sulky.

  “So you’re…what? Thirteen?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Eighth grade?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you go to school here in Sagaponack?”

  Uh-oh. Wrong question. His face tightened down.

  “Not an option. I board. My dad prefers me as far away as possible.”

  There was a world of bitterness there, so much that it made her heart ache for both father and son. She studied him hard, trying to get another bead on him.

  “I’m thinking you’re not the sports type. Which means you must be in a band. Or a rapper. Which is it?”

  He stood a little straighter, fighting that reluctant smile again.

  “I paint. A little. And I’m a drummer. In a, ah, drum circle.”

  “Drum Circle? No way! I saw one of those at Faneuil Hall back in Boston last summer. All these drummers just, I don’t know, came together and started riffing off each other. It was amazing. Do you play djembe or doumbek or…?”r />
  He hesitated, clearly trying not to show his surprise that she knew the names.

  “Ah…both.”

  “I’d love to hear you play sometime. Maybe before I leave?”

  “Ah…sure.”

  “What about the piano I saw? Who plays?”

  “My, ah, dad used to, but he hasn’t in a long time.”

  “Oh.” That made her sad, for reasons she couldn’t identify. “So…is there anything on that tray for me to eat? I’m starving.”

  “What? Oh. Yeah.” Taking great care, he lowered it onto her lap. “Here you go.”

  Her stomach had launched into an urgent growl—she hadn’t eaten anything since she her protein bar in the car yesterday afternoon—so she had high hopes for a hearty meal. And then she saw a cup of milk, a spoon and a bowl filled with a bunch of rainbow-colored sugar chips. No bacon, no eggs or toast, not even a glass of orange juice or a banana.

  Was this what they fed this growing boy for breakfast?

  “Hope you like Fruity Bites,” he said.

  Skylar didn’t miss a beat.

  “I love them,” she said, grinning and pouring the milk, which she sincerely hoped wasn’t sour, because God knew how often this motley crew made it to the grocery store.

  “Good. It was either that or the leftover pizza from the other night.”

  “Take-out pizza? I’d have thought people living in a house like this would have a housekeeper and cook or something.”

  Another shrug. “We did, but she retired at the beginning of the year. Dad hasn’t found anyone else yet. So let’s just say we’re not gaining a lot of weight around here.”

  “Well, that stinks. Oh, hang on. The power’s still out, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. The whole area’s dark. And we haven’t seen sign of repair crews or anything yet—”

  “Which means my car is still buried under that monster tree.”

  “You got it.”

  “What time is it, by the way?”

  “Almost two.”

  “In the afternoon?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow.” She took a bite of cereal, feeling the zing of sugar shoot straight to her brain. “Hey, this is pretty good. I might need another bowl.”

  “You got it.”