Intent to Seduce & a Glimpse of Fire (11 page)

“The good doctor is very distracting, I take it,” Tracker said.

“No. Yes.” He had to get a grip. And the best way he knew how to do that was to put a stop to the fantasies she seemed bound and determined to ensnare him in. “Call me as soon as you can confirm anything.”

T
HE SUN HAD MOVED
nearly an hour closer to the horizon by the time Lucas let himself out onto the balcony of his suite. He’d urged Mac to use the larger of the two bathrooms, then taken his own shower in the smaller one. It had been a test—to see if he could stay away from her.

He wasn’t sure he could pass it.

And that worried him.

The time he’d spent with Mac in the lagoon should have sated him. Making love to her in the cave had been risky enough, but what had happened afterward in the lagoon… He couldn’t prevent his gaze from drifting down to the blue ribbon of water that snaked its way around the hotel. Even now he couldn’t believe what they’d done, what might have happened if Yancey had come upon them a few minutes earlier. Never had he been that desperate, that reckless, not even when he was a teenager.

No other woman had ever driven him to do something that…crazy. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of another word to describe it.

And there’d certainly been other women. He’d been quite young—only midway through his teens—when he’d discovered women were attracted to him. The realization that this had a lot to do with the Wainright name and wealth came later. By that time, his father had gone through three of his five marriages.

Lucas had no intention of ever following in his father’s
footsteps. He’d always made sure that he was in control of any relationship he had with a woman.

Until MacKenzie Lloyd. And it wasn’t just his control that she was sapping. Each time he made love with her, he was losing parts of himself. Maybe forever.

A ripple of fear moved through him. Then, dragging his gaze away from the lagoon, he paced down the length of the balcony. No woman had ever frightened him before either.

How could she have that kind of power over him? She might believe that he was buying into the fantasies, but he knew better. It was always MacKenzie Lloyd he was making love to, whoever she was.

A kaleidoscope of images poured into his mind. The shy, young girl he’d met at Sophie’s party was only one facet of MacKenzie Lloyd. There’d been nothing of that woman in the way she’d looked on the tarmac when he’d demanded to know where Sophie was. That MacKenzie Lloyd had met his eyes with her chin lifted, determined to shield Jill Roberts from his anger. And she’d been yet another woman on his boat. He could still recall the excitement in her eyes and the recklessness of her laughter as the wind snatched it away.

And there was the doc, so intent and focused, aiming one of her killer serves across the net, or giving him that slow appraising look as if she were going to smear him on a slide and figure him out no matter how long it took.

Stopping suddenly, he stared back down at the lagoon. Then there were the fantasy women she’d created for him—the shy Lania, the exuberant and fun-loving Sally, and the brave and determined Fiona. They were all facets of MacKenzie Lloyd.

How many more women did she have inside her? He wanted to know—and he wanted to learn how to handle
each one of them. To do that, he needed to get to know them better.

Turning, he looked back at the sliding glass doors he’d just stepped through. Not here. He knew exactly what would happen if they stayed in the suite. Incredibly, he felt fresh desire ripple through him. All he had to do was open the doors and go to her.

She was probably stepping out of the shower, pulling a towel around her and tucking the ends in at her breasts. He could slip his hands beneath the towel. There’d be no chance for her to think. He would make sure of that. Then he could lift her onto the vanity and gently separate her legs to make a place for himself between them. There would be no time for her to slip into one of those fantasies. No time for her to pretend that they were anyone else but who they really were—not with their images reflected on two walls.

And there wouldn’t be the pressure to rush. No one would interrupt them. This time he would take her very slowly, drawing out the pleasure for them both. His hand had closed around the door handle before he stopped himself.

Turning, he paced down the length of the balcony again. He’d come out here to distance himself, and the desire he felt now was just as fierce as it had been in that damn rock cave. He was caught up in it as surely as if he were caught in one of the dangerous riptides that lurked beneath the surface of those seemingly gentle waves pushing onto the shore.

It was just as he focused his gaze on the sea that the idea came to him. Of course. He would take the doc out on a date. That would be very familiar territory for him. Thoughtfully, he considered his options. It would have to be someplace she’d like, someplace that would keep that
very agile mind of hers occupied so that she wouldn’t come up with a new fantasy.

Keeping his eyes on the water, Lucas began to sift through the possibilities.

U
SING A TOWEL
to wipe steam off the bathroom mirror, Mac finally faced her reflection. As far as she could see, she looked exactly like the old MacKenzie Lloyd. But she certainly didn’t feel like her. She felt wonderful, wild and frightened, all at the same time. Pressing a hand against her stomach, she drew in a deep breath.

Wonderful and wild, she understood. She’d done it! She’d brought three fantasies alive for Lucas. And his response had been more than she’d hoped for, more than she had ever imagined.

So why wasn’t she feeling satisfied, the way she did in the lab when an experiment went even better than she’d hoped it could?

Why was there a bubble of fear in her stomach instead?

Foolish question. She knew exactly why it was there. It had to do with what had happened when they’d come out of the rock cave. She couldn’t rid her mind of the way it had felt when he’d kissed her underwater—as if he was determined to know every secret she had. And she was sure she’d given them all away. Any kind of defenses she’d managed to build up had streamed away in the water. She’d felt parts of herself slipping away too.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she met her gaze steadily in the mirror. Years from now she’d remember what it had felt like to be wanted so much that he’d taken her right there at the side of the lagoon.

Correction, she reminded herself. He’d taken Fiona. It had been part of the fantasy. She’d had the whole time she’d spent in the shower to analyze it. When they’d been
under the water, he’d looked like some kind of sea god to her. She must have looked the same to him. He’d been thinking about Fiona the whole time. She couldn’t afford to let herself forget that.

She couldn’t let herself want—

No. She blocked the rest of the thought from her mind, but she couldn’t prevent the fear in her stomach from expanding. Why did she always have to want the one thing she couldn’t have? Lucas had been right about one thing. Fantasies were dangerous.

At the sound of the phone ringing in the other room, she tucked the towel around herself and opened the bathroom door.

Another ring had her moving toward the phone on the desk.

Lucas wasn’t in the bedroom. She told herself the sinking sensation in her stomach wasn’t disappointment. Just as it hadn’t been disappointment when he’d told her to go ahead and use the larger bathroom for her shower and he’d use a different one.

That one small suggestion had told her quite clearly that she wasn’t Fiona to him any longer. She was just Mac. And that was fine—just as it should be.

As she picked up the extension of the hotel phone, she met her own gaze in the mirror.
Who was she kidding?

Another insistent ring told her it wasn’t the hotel phone that was making the racket. She raced to her purse and fished out Sophie’s cell phone. “Hello?”

“I hope I’m interrupting a very erotic fantasy.”

“Sophie.” Smiling, Mac sank onto the foot of the bed.

There was a muffled groan. “I sincerely hope Lucas is not there. I would prefer not to have to talk to him.”

“No, he’s not here.”

“What’s wrong? And for that matter, why
isn’t
he there? You did take my advice, didn’t you? You’ve tested a few of those fantasies?”

“Yes.”

“They didn’t work?”

The astonishment in Sophie’s voice nearly had Mac smiling again. She tried to force some enthusiasm into her voice. “Everything worked perfectly.”
Too perfectly.
“I’ve turned a man who didn’t like fantasies into a fantasy-aholic.”

“You don’t sound very enthused. Or triumphant. That
was
the purpose of your little experiment, wasn’t it?”

“Of course.” It was exactly what she’d wanted. Mac glanced down at her red-painted toenails. They were Sally’s toes, and Lucas was totally fascinated by “Sally.” She shifted her glance to her reflection in the mirror. Her hair, still mussed from the quick toweling she’d given it, was a tumble of locks around her head—the perfect mermaid do.

“You may be a brilliant scientist, but you’re a lousy liar. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

“Things can’t be that boring at the spa.”

This time Sophie’s reply was a sigh.

“That bad, huh? I thought you liked it. What happened to riding in a hot-air balloon?”

“This place…let’s just say it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe I ought to borrow one of your fantasies.”

Mac blinked and thought. “I’m not sure I have anything appropriate for an all-women spa.”

Sophie laughed. “You have such a wonderfully literal mind. But you can relax. If I were going to actually field-test one of your fantasies, I’d definitely go AWOL.”

“Sophie—”

“Just kidding. After all this effort and subterfuge, I’m at
least going to stay the week out. But if you want to make sure I don’t do something desperate, you’re going to have to keep me entertained by telling me what’s really going on.”

Leaning back against the bed, Mac tried to find words for the thoughts that had been tumbling around in her head while she’d showered.

“Or maybe I should just take a wild guess. Lucas likes the research, but you’d rather he liked you.”

Sophie’s succinct summary of the situation had Mac bolting upright. “No.”

“Denying the truth is never an effective way of dealing with reality.”

The bubble of fear she’d felt before was sharpening, tightening in her stomach. “But I don’t…he doesn’t…I can’t…”

Sophie laughed. “I love to hear the preciseness of a scientific mind at work.”

Mac sank onto the bed again. “Lucas is not interested in me as me.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“Island girls, mermaids and hookers are much more exciting. He’s making love to them not me.”

“Hookers I can figure out. Maybe even the island girls. But mermaids? When we have more time, you are definitely going to have to tell me about that one. In the meantime, there’s one way to find out if Lucas wants you as you. Take a night off from the fantasies and be yourself. Seduce him all by yourself.”

Mac glanced quickly at the closed door to the bedroom. “But I’m sure Lucas is expecting—”

“Don’t give him what he expects. Surprise him. Surely your Madame Gervais included that piece of advice in her instructions.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“The problem is you have no confidence in yourself. And the only way to build confidence is to practice. What have you got to lose, Mac?”

Everything.

“Just do it,” Sophie said.

Once again, Mac stared at her reflection in the mirror. Did she have the courage to take that kind of risk?

“And for once in your life, don’t plan it all out. Not that there would be much to plan on that island of my grandfather’s.”

“We’re not on the island,” Mac explained. “We’re at the Wainright Casa Marina.”

“You’re what?”

“It was Lucas’s idea to come here.”

“Don’t say anything else for a minute. I’m trying to picture in my mind hookers and mermaids in a public setting where Lucas could be seen and recognized.” Sophie began to laugh. “This is just too delicious.”

Mac found herself smiling in response. “I don’t think Yancey, the pool man, recognized him at first, but Lucas told the manager in the lounge that we were married.”

There were two beats of silence before Sophie said, “I don’t think you need my advice, Mac. You seem to be doing fine on your own. Plus, I think I see the room service golf cart wending its way toward my door. Just tell Lucas I called and that I’m having the time of my life.”

For a full minute after Sophie cut the connection, Mac stared at her cell phone. She could have sworn that Sophie was not having the time of her life. She was about to call her back when a knock at the door had her shooting to her feet. “Yes?”

“Are you decent?” Lucas asked.

Decent? This from the man she was becoming addicted to being indecent with?

“Yes.”

Later she would wonder if Lania, Sally and Fiona had become permanent facets of her personality—or perhaps it was just one of those moments of perfect timing. But the moment that Lucas stepped into the room, the towel she’d wrapped herself in slipped silently to the floor.

T
RACKER SWORE SILENTLY
as he shifted in the tree he’d selected for his long vigil. It had taken him three hours and a lot of sweet-talking to get himself smuggled into the Serenity Spa. But he was beginning to believe he’d wasted five hours of his life dressed as a woman for nothing.

The Princess was going to pay for this.

He glanced down at the outfit he’d carefully selected at the general store in town—pale, stone-washed jeans, a pink shirt and a jean jacket. He didn’t regret buying them. His pretty little informant, Millie Jean, had been right on the money. She’d sworn she couldn’t smuggle him in on the floor of her van, and she’d been correct. The two amazons at the gate had searched it. But the wig and the makeup he’d worn had earned him only a cursory glance from the two guards before they’d waved them through. According to Millie Jean, they never bothered to check the van on the way out.

He shifted his attention to the main building that housed the kitchen, dining rooms and administration offices. Women were still drifting toward it in twos and threes, heading for dinner. So far, none of them walked with that confident, ground-covering stride that seemed to be so much a part of Princess Sophie.