by Sandra Brown
When he finally released her and stepped back, he glanced down at her high heels, which had sunk into the sand. “You won't get very far like that,” he said, laughing. “Put your foot up here.” He patted his thigh.
Caught up in his lighthearted mood, she wiggled her high heel out of the sand and lifted her foot to his thigh just above his bent knee. His strong, slender fingers closed firmly around her ankle, and he unbuckled the strap. The breeze billowed her skirt, providing him with an enticing view of smooth, trim thigh. It was funny how the elements were working with her to aid in Josh's downfall. The wind was tearing through his hair, and the irregular angle of that one eyebrow added to his devilish appeal.
Once she was rid of her shoes, they took a few steps along the beach. “I can't resist it,” he said, sitting down on the sand, heedless of his expensive suit. He slipped out of his shoes and socks and rolled a double cuff on his pants legs. Standing up again, he shrugged out of his coat and unknotted his tie.
“You don't intend to go any further, do you?” she asked, teasingly.
“Only if you will too,” he said suggestively.
“No way. I'd freeze.”
His eyes slid down her body and, if she hadn't already been chilled, his gaze would have made her shiver. The crepe de chine was plastered to her, and the cool wind had brought her nipples to hard distention. “You wouldn't hear me complaining,” he said boldly. She gave him a discomfited look that made him laugh, and he wrapped his free arm around her. Her shoes dangled from his fingers. “I want to walk in the surf.”
“But I can't,” she said, stopping again.
“Why? Too cold?”
“No, I'm wearing panty hose.”
“So?”
“So? So that would feel terrible, and besides, they'll get wet.”
“Not if you take them off.”
“Josh!” She glanced quickly around. The beach was still deserted except for them. “I can't do that.”
“Why?”
“Are we going through that routine again? I just can't, that's why. Someone might see me.”
“There's no one to see you,” he said, spreading his arms wide to make his point. “Except me. And I certainly wouldn't jeopardize my reputation as a gentleman and peep.”
She eyed him warily. “You're not a gentleman.”
“Oh? Well, then, I need to become one. Come on,” he urged, “take them off.” When she hesitated, he bent toward her and asked, “What's the matter? Don't you trust me?”
“Not a bit.”
He only laughed, the wind carrying the sound away, but not before it sent chills of expectation down Megan's spine. Was anything about him not attractive? “Please,” he said like a little boy asking for a second cookie, “I have my heart set on walking in the surf on this beautiful moonlit night. Please.”
“Turn around,” she said, resigned. When he complied, she reached rapidly under her skirt, hooked her thumbs under each side of the panty hose, and peeled them down her legs. “Okay,” she said when she was free of them.
Before she knew what he was about, Josh had snatched the garment out of her unsuspecting hand. “Thanks for the souvenir,” he said flippantly.
“Give those back,” she demanded, hands on hips.
“Unh-unh,” he retorted, stuffing the panty hose into his shirt.
“That's … that's perverted,” she sputtered. Despite her feigned anger, the thought of so intimate a garment lying on his furred chest made her light-headed.
He wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her against him once again. “I confess. Where you're concerned, I'm crazy. Now,” he said with less patience, “can we walk in the surf?”
The water was cool, but not alarmingly cold, as it tumbled over their bare feet before returning to the sea. The capricious swirling of Megan's skirt against her bare legs intensified the sensations rioting through her body. Her blood seemed to pump with the impetuous tempo of the tide.
Josh matched his longer stride to her shorter one, and they walked in companionable silence until the lights of the compound became less distinct, looking like a cache of jewels that had been spilled onto black velvet.
“I didn't know you were once engaged to Laura Wray,” Megan said at last, voicing the thought that had been uppermost in her mind all evening.
Josh's footsteps faltered only momentarily before he said, “Few people did. It didn't last very long.”
“I saw you dancing tonight. You seemed very … close.” The words cost Megan a vast amount of pride, but some unknown impulse demanded that she ask about the extent of Josh's feelings for the newspaper editor.
“Laura's a lovely, intelligent woman. I like her. She's a good friend now.”
Pangs of jealousy jousted in Megan's heart, and she tried desperately to quell them. She didn't want him. This moon-charted, star-studded stroll along the beach was only part of her plan. Events were falling nicely into place. People were seeing them together. An Atlanta photographer had taken their picture with the Bishops at dinner. It would be in the morning paper. In a few days she'd have Josh Bennett exactly where she wanted him—thinking that she loved him, when she really didn't. She put down her insane rash of jealousy as a side effect of becoming involved in the role she was playing.
“You seemed captivated by each other,” she remarked with affected indifference. “Are you sure the flames aren't still burning?”
Josh stopped and turned to face her. “Not even a flicker,” he said quietly. “Megan?” When she lifted her face cautiously to his, he went on, “There's only one woman who captivates me.” His lips came down on hers firmly and surely, eliciting aftershocks that left her weak and trembling.
“You're cold,” he said, mistaking the shivering of her body. “We'd better start back.”
They changed direction, not having as far to go since their bungalow was between them and the main cluster of buildings.
“I called the office this afternoon. The Dixieland people couldn't be happier,” Josh told her.
“Good. I feel guilty. I haven't given my staff a thought today. I suppose I should call them in the morning.”
“You're on vacation.”
“So are you, but you checked in. Your business means everything to you, doesn't it?” She knew better than anyone the unreasonable demands he made on his employees, though now that wasn't her reason for asking. She wanted to know what motivated him.
“My business means a lot to me, yes. I started with nothing and have made something. It's all I have to show for my adult life.”
He sounded almost regretful, but she shoved that thought aside as ludicrous. Everyone knew Joshua Bennett was a man of driving ambition, to the exclusion of everything else. “Where did you grow up?”
“West Virginia. My father worked in a coal mine and died when I was ten. Black lung, a man-made disease. I swore that even if I had to starve, I'd never go into a damn mine.”
Megan heard the iron determination in his voice and could visualize him as a boy, wild, embittered, unruly, and hostile. Yes, that description fit the man he had grown up to be. It came as a mild surprise to her to realize she hadn't known anything about his upbringing, yet she had known instinctively it hadn't been a privileged one.
“You were an only child?”
“Yes, thank goodness. Mother had a hard enough time keeping me fed. She cooked and waited on tables at a diner. Most nights she brought home leftovers for my supper.”
They had reached the lawn in front of the bungalow. By tacit agreement, Josh dropped his coat and their shoes onto the grass. Leaning his back against the trunk of a pine tree, he pulled Megan into the circle of his arms. His chin rested on the top of her head as he continued.
“One day between school and my job at a gas station, I went to the diner. One of the mine boss's sons was giving my mother a hard time about there not being enough catsup on his cheeseburger. He was a real jerk, a bully who lorded it over everybody. He was older and bigger than I was, but I hauled his tail
off that stool and pounded the hell out of him.” He chuckled softly, causing Megan's breasts to vibrate against his chest. “Nothing will ever give me as much pleasure.” Placing a finger beneath her chin, he tilted her head up. “Nothing except making love to you,” he whispered, and kissed her deeply.
“Where is your mother now?” she asked in a breathless whisper when at last her mouth was freed. Marveling over the sensuous talent of his lips, she outlined them with her fingertip.
The lips beneath her gliding finger became thin and hard with bitterness. “She died two weeks before I graduated from high school.” He laughed sadly. “It was her life's ambition, to see me graduate.”
“What did you do then?” Suddenly Megan was starved for information about him. She knew nothing about his life before the night she met him. Even the years since then were a wasteland of information. Every time James had begun to tell her something about the man who employed him, she had adroitly changed the subject. Now, inexplicably, she was eager to know everything.
“I moved around, working at odd jobs until I had saved enough money to enroll in one semester of college. I talked a minister into letting me live in the basement of the church in exchange for doing janitorial and yard work. If there's a shred of decency in me, it's because of him and his wife, who fed me one meal a day and loved me in spite of my meanness. Anyway”—he sighed—“I managed to get through school, obtain a loan, and start my company.”
“You're glossing over the difficulties. It couldn't have been as easy as that,” she said gently, combing back a shock of dark hair from his forehead.
“It wasn't. I worked like hell.” His grin split the dark shadows of his face with a white slash.
“What made you interested in advertising? A creative mind? An artistic nature?”
“Hardly,” he said with a short burst of laughter. “I just learned by accident that I was a born promoter. I came up with ideas that worked, to publicize upcoming events on campus, even at the church I lived in. I'd get an idea, and describe it to an artist, who would make the signs and posters. I'd come up with the theme but delegate the busy work to someone else.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “That's what I'm still doing.”
“And it's paid off. You're very rich.”
“Wealthy? Yes, I suppose so. But money never mattered much to me. It wasn't the lack of funds that galled me. It was the indignity one has to suffer because of being poor. When I looked down into the mess I'd made of that bastard's face—the guy who was insulting my mother in the diner—I swore to him and to myself that I wasn't going to let anyone run roughshod over me and mine again.”
“There's hardly any danger of that. You're too strong.” She knew that from experience. “You're the embodiment of the American dream. You have everything you want.”
He grasped her face between his hands and raised it to his. “No, Megan. The thing I wanted most I've had to do without and only because I had no choice.”
His mouth came down on hers ravenously, twisting, bruising, until he seemed to realize that she was all too willing to accept his kiss. Her fingers tangled in his hair and drew his head down closer to hers. Their bodies came together with unleashed desire.
While their mouths sought to appease insatiable appetites, Josh's hand smoothed down the underside of her arm until he found the sides of her breasts.
She moaned his name with a beseeching sound and, having that endorsement, he waited no longer to slip his hand beneath the airy material. Closing his hand over her breast, he kneaded it gently. He weighed it in his palm, measured its fullness, tested its sensitivity by gradually working his way to the crest that strained toward his caressing fingers.
“Let me love you, Megan. I want to see what I'm touching. I want to hold it in my mouth.”
“Oh, Josh,” she groaned. Her hands groped for the buttons of his shirt and pulled them from the holes. She inhaled his intoxicating scent and granted the wish of her fingertips to touch him. His hair was springy, his skin warm, his muscles firm.
She craved him. As his hands grew bolder in their seeking caresses, her senses clamored for fulfillment of the raging desire he'd sparked to life four long years ago. His lips as they branded her neck with kisses, his hands that had aroused her nipples to aching need, the love words he poured in her ear—all threatened to defeat her purpose.
Knowing she had to retreat now or be lost forever, she backed gradually away from him. Her hands were still on his chest, but they were pushing against it.
“Josh, no more, please.”
His head thumped against the bark of the tree, and his panting breaths vied with the wind's impetus as he seemed to slowly come back to earth. His arms fell listlessly to his sides. His eyes were shuttered by thickly fringed lashes.
Suddenly Megan felt an overwhelming need to comfort him. She struggled to conquer it. He was the enemy. She had set out to defeat him the only way she knew how, by using the only weapon she possessed. Sad stories of his youth couldn't alter her determination or color her opinion. He was a responsible man. No longer the victim of unfortunate circumstances, he made his own choices. He used and abused people. He deserved a comeuppance, and she was determined to give him one.
Yet all that was hard to remember when he opened his eyes and grinned crookedly at her. “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't try to persuade you, after what happened earlier today. Why I made such a stupid promise, I'll never know.”
The smile she gave him in return was wooden, but he seemed not to notice as he said, “You ought to be in bed. I've got a big day planned for us tomorrow.”
The big day he had planned started at 7:00 A.M., when he knocked loudly on the glass door of her terrace. “Wake up, sleepyhead. The day's getting away from us.”
“You've gotta be kiddin’,” she muttered, opening one eye to confirm what she thought—it was much too early to get up. After all, she was on vacation!
“Megan!” Josh roared from behind the sheer curtains that were the only drapes she had drawn over the wide window.
She slung off the light covers, disentangled her arms and legs, stretched, and went to the window. Pauling the curtains aside, she glowered at him. “You've got your nerve,” she mouthed through the sliding glass door.
“So do you, coming to the door dressed like that,” he said with a lazy insolence that matched his stance against the glass. His amber eyes roved over her body, pausing at places that responded as if called to attention. The batiste, thigh-length nightgown couldn't hide the pouting of her nipples, which, she realized, showed as twin dusky shadows beneath the apricot fabric. She was further appalled to see that the matching bikini panties, rather than hiding her most private parts, only lured his eyes to them. “May I come in?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
She could no more have refused him than she could have sprouted wings and taken flight. Her eyes remained locked with his as she fumbled with the latch and slid open the door. He stepped inside and, with the sea breeze circulating around them, making a sail of the curtains, they continued to stare greedily at each other.
He was dressed to jog in a tank top and shorts. What man but Josh Bennett could get by with wearing bright red? she wondered. Yet the color heightened the nut-brown hue of his skin, while the scooping neckline of the tank top revealed his thick, dark chest hair in a blatant display of raw masculinity.
Megan longed to touch the hard curves of his biceps, naked but for the thin straps of his top. His long thighs, bulging calves, and finely formed feet were bare except for well-worn white running shoes. He wasn't a once-a-month runner. She knew he took it seriously.
“Good morning, little girl. Wanna go out and play?” he asked. His eyes traveled over her tousled head, an affectionate smile on his lips.
“My mother told me not to play with older boys,” she said, taking up the game. Saucily, she spun on her heels and tossed her head, her nose in the air.
“You should have minded your mother,” he said, grabbing the back o
f her nightgown and yanking her to a halt. His hand closed around her upper arm, and she was hauled against his chest with an impact that left them both breathless. Or was it the closeness of their bodies, which were dressed too scantily for them not to notice the prominent differences that made their eyes go cloudy? “Playing with boys my age can be downright foolhardy,” Josh whispered.
His mouth met hers with a savagery tempered by tenderness. Lips gazed each other, clung, meshed. His tongue breached her teeth and touched the tip of her tongue teasingly, then skirmished with it until he was declared the victor and granted ail the privileges that went with the title. Skillfully, leisurely, and thoroughly he investigated his conquered territory.
He lifted his head reluctantly, stringing tiny, wet kisses like a soothing lotion along her swollen lips. His hands slid down her arms, and he rubbed his palms on the sides of her breasts.
“I intended to exercise this morning,” he murmured.
“And you should.” Her lips were lying against the strong column of his neck, delighting in the scent of his after-shave lotion and the taste of his skin.
His hands clasped behind her waist, and he leaned back to look down at her. “But if I don't get out of here, and if you don't wipe that sultry expression off your face and put on a few more clothes, by the time I get through with you I won't have the energy it takes to crawl, much less run a few miles.” He kissed her on the tip of the nose and dropped his hands. “You're coming with me, aren't you?”
“For a few miles?”
He laughed. “One mile?”
“Half,” she conceded.
“That won't get you into a marathon.”
“Thank goodness. Wait here and I'll change.”
She hurried into the dressing room and closed the louvered door behind her. “How did you sleep?” she called as she peeled off her nightgown and panties. It made her giddy to think that she was naked just a few feet away from him. What would he do if…? What a stupid question. She knew exactly what he'd do.
“I had a rotten night. Only a pair of panty hose to keep me company.” She heard the springs of the bed creak, and assumed he was sitting down on it.
