Temptation's Kiss

by Sandra Brown

  “Yes. He's a genius at a drafting board, with a pencil in his hand and visions in his head, but as a businessman he needs constant guidance. He's created a virtual paradise on Hilton Head and he's been granted unlimited funds to promote it. Money's no problem, but I've had to spoon-feed him every step of the way on marketing the total-resort concept.”

  “If you're personally in charge on his account, Mr. Bennett, I'm sure there can't be any serious problems.”

  Irritation thinned his lips before he forced another grin. “Thank you, but Mr. Bishop needs a second opinion. A consultation, if you will.” He leaned forward in his chair, all business now. “I want you personally to handle the account for Seascape.”

  Their eyes locked and held over the soft patina of her desk top, and for a moment they were no longer talking about Seascape. Instead Megan was drawn back in time to the night he had pinned her against the latticed wall of a gazebo and said, “I want you to kiss me and then tell me that you love James Lambert.”

  “I can't,” she said now with the same uncertainty with which she had answered him then. She licked her lips and tore her eyes away from the seductive power of his gaze. “I can't. This account means a big commission to Ms. Hampson. She's doing well. I can't just pull her off the account for no valid reason.”

  He sat back in his chair. “I'm not asking you to. I only want you to oversee it more closely. I want Jo to check every decision with you before she acts on it. I want you to meet Terry Bishop and reassure him that the commercials already produced are superb.”

  “If he doesn't trust your opinion, why should he trust mine?”

  “Because I've told him how damn good you are,” he said sharply, finally giving vent to the impatience she had known lay close to the surface.

  His words took her aback, and she jumped to her feet, going to the window for the second time that morning. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud, and the city suddenly looked dreary. How apropos, she thought. The day had started badly, with her confrontation with Barnes. Now Josh Bennett had further disturbed her peace. Still, she couldn't help but bask in a small light of pride that he considered her opinion worth so much. “Why would you tell him I'm so good?” she asked.

  “Because it's true. He trusts your judgment. As do I. At least in business matters.” She heard him stand up, and panicked when his footsteps came close behind her. “I'm proud of what you've accomplished.”

  “Well, don't be,” she said waspishly, whirling around. It alarmed her to find him standing so close. She had to tilt her head up to look at him. She'd forgotten just how tall he was. He always seemed to tower over her. Her husband, James, had been short, much more complementary to her petite height. If nothing else, Josh's sheer size terrified her. “I don't want to hear any patronizing praise for the poor little widow struggling in the cold cruel world,” she said. “Especially not from you.”

  “I'm not patronizing you, damn it. My people tell me that if they always worked with a sales force as competent as yours, they'd have no problems.”

  “Thank you,” she said stiffly, conceding to let him flatter the people working under her.

  “Why wouldn't you consent to see me after the funeral?” The unexpected question struck her in the heart like a bullet, opening up a wound that had refused to heal in three years. “You wouldn't return my calls. You didn't answer my notes. Why?” he demanded.

  She stepped away and glared up at him with undisguised hatred. “I didn't want to, that's why. I found your insincere bereavement at James's funeral ludicrous and wanted no part of your hypocrisy.”

  The muscles in his jaw flexed and hardened. The irises of his eyes glinted like amber glass. “When James collapsed in his office, I administered CPR myself. When that didn't work, I drove him to the hospital, not even waiting for an ambulance. I did everything possible to save his life. He was my good friend, my best employee. How can you reasonably say that I wasn't grieved by his death?”

  “Because you did your best to kill him.”

  “You know better than that, Megan.”

  “No, I don't. The long hours you demanded, brought on his coronary. He was thirty-five years old!” she shouted. “Men that age don't drop dead of heart attacks unless they're under intense, insurmountable pressure. I would think guilt alone would have made you too ashamed to come to the funeral, much less mouth your insincere platitudes to me afterward.”

  “Guilt?” His irregular eyebrow cocked over his eye. “Guilt over what? What's the real issue here, Megan?” Spoken softly, the question was all the more deadly. “I didn't force James to smoke five packs of cigarettes a day. I didn't insist that he take a different client to a three-martini lunch five times a week. It wasn't my fault that he didn't exercise. What do I have to feel guilty about?”

  Lord, she wished she'd never broached the subject. She couldn't—wouldn't—look at him. Did he know that her heart was thudding painfully against her ribs, that only part of her agitation was due to her anger over what they were discussing? He was standing so damn close! He smelled so healthfully masculine. Each time he spoke, she drew his breath into her body like a disciple of hedonism.

  “Nothing,” she said. “You don't have anything to feel guilty about. I only want you to leave me alone.”

  He leaned toward her like a jungle cat moving in for the kill. “What do I have to feel guilty about, Megan? We're not talking about the work James did for me, and we both know it. We're talking about the night before you married him.”

  “No!”

  “Yes,” he said, grasping her upper arm before she could turn away from him. “That's what all this animosity boils down to: those few stolen minutes in the summerhouse. After you and James were married, you avoided me like the plague. If you could help it at all, we never even saw each other. You've been angry ever since that night, Megan.”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “Why shouldn't I avoid you after the despicable thing you did to me and to your friend, James?”

  He leaned over her until his mouth was mere inches from hers. His warm breath was a fragrant, moisture-laden vapor that taunted her lips. “You're not angry with me because I kissed you. You're angry because you liked it so much.”

  Blinding rage stunned her into immobility. For ponderous seconds she only stared mutely up at him. Then the import of his words registered with full force, and she yanked her arm free of his strong fingers and shoved herself away.

  “Get out of my office, Mr. Bennett. Get out of my life.” Her chest was heaving, and, to her further outrage, he seemed fascinated by the movement of her breasts beneath the fragile cloth covering them.

  When at last he dragged his eyes to her face, he said, “I'll go. For now. But be honest with yourself, Megan, and admit that I'm right. You've been nursing this insane anger for years. You'd better be careful of it. Since it's self-directed, it could also be self-destructive.”

  Long, unhurried strides carried him to the door. With one hand on the knob, he turned back. She stood rigid, her fists balled at her sides, her spine as stiff and straight as a crowbar. “I'll be in touch,” he said, and he stepped out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

  When Megan relaxed her rigidly held muscles long minutes later, she had to catch herself to keep from crumpling onto the floor. She staggered toward her desk and, propping herself over it with one arm, fumbled with the buttons on the intercom with the other trembling hand. “Arlene, please hold my calls. I … headache. I'm going to rest for a while.”

  “Are you all right?” Arlene asked with immediate concern.

  “Yes, yes,” Megan hurried to assure her. She didn't want anyone to know how much Josh's visit had upset her. “I'm going to take an aspirin. I'll be fine.”

  “That's the first time you've met Mr. Bennett, isn't it?”

  “No,” she said slowly, after considering telling a lie. “My husband worked for him.”

  “I didn't know that. He's something, isn't he?” Arlene asked breathlessly.

&
nbsp; Megan's lips hardened bitterly. “Yes, he's something.”

  Her knees felt rubbery as she walked toward the long sofa that took up a portion of the wall opposite her desk. Slipping off her sandals, she lay down on the nubby, oatmeal-colored upholstery and closed her eyes, trying to block out the image of Josh's face and everything he'd said.

  Her thoughts were random and nebulous, but eventually they merged and came into sharp focus around the night she wished could be erased from her life—the night before she married James Lambert.

  Her mother and stepfather had rented a large room at the country club for the party in honor of their daughter's marriage to James, a young advertising agent she had met while selling commercial time for a local radio station. He worked for the Bennett Agency, and the future looked bright for the young couple, who happily greeted their guests between turns around the dance floor and trips to the champagne fountain.

  Megan would always remember her dress. She'd never worn it again but had hung it in the corner of a closet in her mother's house. She'd never wanted to see it after that night, though it had been beautiful. The sea-green color reflected her green eyes. The soft fabric clung alluringly to the gentle curves of her petite figure, hanging straight from a halter neckline. Jeweled combs had held her hair in a soft topknot, and she'd worn her diamond engagement ring on the third finger of her left hand.

  “James, for heaven's sake calm down,” she chided laughingly as he paced the room before the party began, checking this and that, pestering the hired help by constantly getting in their way.

  He hugged her enthusiastically. “How can I calm down? Tomorrow I'm going to marry the most beautiful girl in the world.” She smiled, pleased, but her grin collapsed when he added, “Besides, I haven't had a cigarette in three days.”

  “Oh, James, you're doing so well,” she said encouragingly. “And you promised to quit.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, kissing her quickly. “I will. But if I find a smoker here tonight, I may stand beside him and breathe in real deep.”

  She had tolerated his hyperactivity that night. He drank too many glasses of champagne, but she didn't scold him, knowing he was drinking to compensate for not smoking. She loved his smiling face, his exuberance, his unflagging enthusiasm for life, his boundless energy, his ambition.

  She had thought the tributes he paid to the owner of the Bennett Agency a trifle overblown, but when Joshua Bennett walked into the flower-bedecked room, Megan had to admit that James's acclaim wasn't unwarranted. The man certainly made a startling first impression. Tall, slender, and distinguished in his tuxedo, he exuded confidence and charm.

  She felt the first tinglings of sensation when, at James's introduction, Josh Bennett's amber eyes subjected her to a thorough appraisal. But those tinglings were only harbingers of the currents that sizzled along her nerves when he took her hand and pressed her fingers lightly. She all but jerked her hand out of his electrifying clasp.

  “I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Bennett. James has told me so much about you.” Somehow she had squeezed the words past her constricting throat.

  “Not nearly as much as he's told me about you,” he said in a confidential whisper. “And my name's Josh.”

  If voices could have color, his would be whiskey-colored, like his eyes. His voice was husky, mellow, and rich, like the finest bourbon.

  Lulled by the sound and drawn into the maelstrom of his eyes, she all but forgot James, who was boisterously greeting a group of his former fraternity brothers.

  “Say, Josh, will you dance with my girl while I show these degenerates where the real booze is kept?” James asked his employer.

  Panicked, Megan watched James's neglectful retreat, knowing even then that she shouldn't be alone with Josh Bennett. Strong intuition telegraphed disaster. She didn't heed it. Had she minded her instincts then, she might not have had to pay so dearly later.

  “Shall we?” he asked. His brow lifted in query, and she noticed the scar for the first time.

  Before she verbalized a reply, she was pulled into the circle of his arms, and speech became impossible. He maneuvered them around the dance floor with animal grace, never faltering in matching his steps to the beat of the music.

  Megan could never recall afterward what tune they had danced to. Her thoughts were centered on the hand pressing, not against her lower back, where the fabric of her dress would have provided some protection, but higher, where her skin was naked and vulnerable beneath the gentle pressure of his hand. Instead of holding her hand indifferently, he had laced their fingers loosely together. His thumb lazily stroked the side of her index finger.

  He didn't hold her inappropriately close, but each time she brushed against him, her body reacted shamelessly. She hoped fervently that he didn't notice the tightening of her nipples beneath the clinging gown, or the way her thigh had found it so amenable to nest between his, or the sudden rushing of her breath in and out of her body. Not daring to meet his eyes, she stared at the onyx studs between the starched pleats of his white shirtfront.

  When the song was over and Josh returned her to her fiancé, she all but fell into James's arms. Had he been rescuing her from cruel, violent ravishment, she couldn't have been more relieved to see him.

  But she had been violated in a far different and much more subtle way than rape. Her heart had been debauched.

  She'd wanted so badly to enjoy the evening of celebration, but Joshua Bennett's presence had ruined it for her. She was tense and nervous. Every time she ventured to glance around the room, she found his eyes drilling into her. Never able to disregard their hypnotism, she stared back at him while unthinkably erotic pictures were being painted on her mind.

  The next time he asked her to dance, she accepted under the duress of James's coaxing. Her fiancé's eyes were unusually bright, and Megan knew he'd made several trips to the bar with his fraternity brothers. She gave him a disappointed look when she saw the cigarette dangling from his lips.

  He shrugged engagingly. “After the wedding, I promise. Now go dance with my boss. He might give me a raise.”

  The band played a vigorous number that didn't require her and her partner to touch. Caught up in the drumming rhythm of the music, she smiled easily at Josh, who took to this kind of dancing with the same agility as he had the slower rhythm. Only when their hips bumped together accidentally did Megan's feet miss a beat—at the same time that her heart did. For a split second she stood stock still.

  “Are you all right?” Josh asked, placing a concerned hand on her bare shoulder.

  She nodded dumbly just as the band went into a slow ballad. Without asking her permission, he drew her into a warm embrace. “This is more to my liking,” he murmured. His lips moved against her hair. “I like to feel a woman's body against mine … when I'm dancing.”

  Right then, then, with that first innuendo, she should have pulled away from him, politely excused herself, and not had anything more to do with him for the rest of the evening.

  But she hadn't. Instead she had obeyed the imperceptible encouragement of his hand on her back and moved closer. It did feel good dancing body to body, especially if the other body was like this one, hard and taut, virile and warm. They swayed to the music. Megan's eyes closed languidly. Their hearts beat together. His powerful thighs moved against hers. His hips … Oh, God!

  “I … excuse me,” she said hoarsely. His startled arms fell away as she slipped out of them.

  With what she knew was a grotesque parody of a smile plastered on her face, she wended her way through the dim room, dodging her mother, her fiancé, and anyone else who might read her guilty expression.

  She needed air. She rarely drank, and she'd had too many glasses of champagne. They had gone straight to her head and made her a little crazy. Night air would clear up her head and she'd stop having these ridiculous fantasies about the man with the dark hair, golden eyes, and magnificent body, who stirred her like no man ever had.

  She reveled in the c
ool night breeze as she circumnavigated the subtly lit swimming pool and sought privacy in the white lattice gazebo. She sank onto the bench inside the octagonally shaped structure.

  Covering her face with shaking hands, she tried vainly to get a grip on herself. If only her heart would stop racing. She felt each pounding pulse at her temples, in her earlobes, in the tips of her breasts, and in the region that felt heavy and swollen and hot between her thighs.

  But her heart didn't slow. Rather, it lurched and came to a dead standstill when she heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel walkway outside. There was no doubt in her mind who the looming silhouette in the moonlit opening of the gazebo belonged to. He passed under the arch and came to her slowly through the shadows.

  Galvanized by her fear of the man and her reactions to him, she bolted off the bench and tried to slip past him, but he caught her against his solid length. “Why are you marrying James Lambert?”

  “I love him,” she cried desperately.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, of course. Yes.”

  “You don't sound sure.”

  I was. I was sure until an hour ago. “I love him. I'm marrying him tomorrow. Now, please let me go.”

  He did just the opposite. He held her tighter to him and walked her backward, until she was against the filagreed wall of the summerhouse. Moonlight seeping through the narrow slats cast waffle patterns on his features. “I want you to kiss me and then tell me that you love James Lambert.”

  “I can't,” she said hoarsely. Even then she didn't know if she was saying she couldn't kiss him, or if, once she did, she wouldn't be able to tell him she loved James. She had no time to reason it through before his mouth claimed hers with heart-stopping precision.

  Now, more than four years later, lying on the couch of her executive office and recalling that night, she could still vividly remember how effortlessly he'd taken possession of her mouth. His lips had been ardent but tender as they moved over her less-skilled ones. How sweetly his tongue had broken the barrier of her lips and teeth. How wonderfully thorough it had been as it explored her mouth, performing a mating dance with her own tongue.