Lakeshore Secrets: The McAdams Sisters - Kate McAdams (By The Lake Series Book 1) (13 page)

She stared at him long and hard as if bouncing the question around in her head and then finally shook her head and whispered, “No.”

“I want to kiss you.”

Her lips parted in a quiet gasp. She bit her bottom lip before letting them purse out again.

“I don’t want any mixed signals.” She had made it clear this was going nowhere two weeks ago, but now he saw in her eyes the same desire he’d seen in that sauna. “I want to kiss you Katherine McAdams. Do you want me to kiss you?”

Time stood still as she contemplated his question and it felt like forever. He knew she wanted this as much as he did. He had been with other women and never was the desire between them this thick, this strong and every time it was his bank account they were after and not his heart. And it hadn’t mattered anyway because he had given his heart away a long time ago and when Kate left she had taken it with her. Now that she was back he felt his heart racing off the charts for her.

“Yes,” she finally breathed.

Marc couldn’t have waited another second if he tried, he leaned in and felt her tense body ease under his touch. He bent down and pressed against the forbidden, dangerous desire of her taunting lips. Her wine flavoured tongue pressed deeper into his mouth wanting to explore as much as him. He felt her hand snake around his neck and her legs falling allowing her knees to sink into the sofa in front of her propping her body up. She thrust her body against him and his body moved without instruction onto his knees. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her body harder against him, hungry to feel her every curve. The deliciousness of her mouth was the very cause of their separation, when she spilled the glass of wine she’d awkwardly been holding between them and shrieked pulling away as the liquid began to soak through their robes.

She stared down at the empty glass in her hand and the red stain on the front of her white robe. She looked up at him horrified, her eyes glazed, then burst into laughter.

Marc took the half full glass of wine he’d managed not to spill on her and her empty glass and reached over setting them on the table.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“You don’t look very sorry.”

She covered her mouth. “I am, I swear.”

He grabbed her robe belt and hauled her body back against his. “I don’t know what we are doing Marc,” she said.

He pulled the tie on her robe lose. “I am getting you out of these wet clothes.”

She smiled, the moment of reflection lost as she watched her robe part open. “How thoughtful of you.”

“It’s a very selfish thought,” he said and she laughed snaking her arms around his neck. He balanced one of his feet on the ground and scooped her up into his arms and lifted her up dropping them both backwards on the couch with her landing directly underneath him, her robe flying open in the process. He eyed her naked body.

“Let me show you how thoughtful I can be,” she said reaching down to his robe tie.

He captured her giggle with his mouth and forgot about the meeting at the hotel, the resort, the stress and obligation he had gained from his father’s death and felt only the desire that had never been extinguished.

Hours later sitting on the floor with their backs alongside a pillow hill they had created against the table, they were curled together with one blanket wrapped around them as they watched the fire dim.

Kate snuggled her head against his bare chest trying to ignore the remorse overshadowing her desire to relish in the tenderness between them. When he had asked to kiss her the answer had nothing to do with how they had ended up there but yet this guilt was gnawing away at her and constantly distracting her from this incredible afternoon. Marc had wanted this, she wanted this and if they stayed the night they could have more than just this one afternoon and indulge in the future they planned all those years ago.
What if he finds out? What if his uncle isn’t as honest as he claims?
What if she had to walk away from this again? From him!

“I’m going to need to put more firewood in the fireplace,” his words startled her.

She didn’t want him to go anywhere. What if, all the what ifs, actually happened? She would never get to feel how perfect she fit against him like two adjoining puzzle pieces. She shook her head. “I don’t want you to go.”

He kissed her forehead. “You will when the fire dies.”

She tilted her head and caught his mouth with her own. “I’m sure we can figure out other ways to warm each other,” she said against his already warm delicious lips.

He chuckled, then his mouth travelled alongside her cheek, tracing her jaw line, to her neck and she welcomed him tilting her head back and giving him access to any part of her he sought to run his silky lips across.

He abandoned her suddenly, just when she thought he was going to trail all the way to her toes and slipped into his briefs before adding more wood to the fire.

She wrapped the blanket around her and pouted up at him. With the poker he stirred the coals around with the same fortitude he stirred her life up. She was doomed. She had full intentions of not sleeping with him, at least not here, and she had full intentions of being just friends, afraid of more, afraid of his uncle. But her heart seemed to dismiss the reality overtaken by him.

The phone rang and she jumped. The clock must have read well past mid-afternoon by now, but she wasn’t sure exactly what time it was. It felt like time had stopped as he had caressed and kissed her entire body on the sofa, then the floor and...

Lost in her own thoughts she’d missed her opportunity to pull him down to her and convince him they didn’t need to answer that phone. He trailed into the kitchen and picked up the phone. They were probably offering to send someone out.

She heard him say hello, agree, thank, agree again with the caller all the while her gut was tightening like a twisting wrench around a sink pipe. Her breathing wound down like the dimming fire. Her body stilled as she analyzed the one-sided conversation. How important was this meeting? More important than this? His uncle was sure putting a big chance on it that it wasn’t. But surely Marc would assume they could continue this after the meeting. Only she knew better.

“Kate?”

She modified her anxious face into a seductive grin as she twisted toward him allowing the blanket to completely drop from her shoulders leaning her naked arms over the pillow hill and propping her face down on her hands, trying her damn hardest to achieve provocative. She arched her eyebrows at him as her reply. It not only hopefulness added to her provocation, but she doubted her voice was going to speak without an uneasy tremble. “They can arrange for someone to pick us up now,” he said. He was holding the phone low with one hand covering the receiver.

She pouted her lips into an over-exaggerated frown. He was across the entire room and she wanted him to see it.

His grin rose. “Do you want to leave?”

Slowly, keeping her eyes locked on his like the jaw of a vicious shark latching onto its prey and slowly shook her head.

“Should I leave?”

Was he serious! Get back here and wrestle with me under these blankets!
And that had nothing to do with any arrangement. She shook her head again.

“Should we take advantage of their offer and spend the night?” Then he flashed her a seductive smile and she nearly melted into the blanket like a snowman built beside the roaring fire.

She nodded and her voice produced a weak “Yes.”

He put the phone back to his ear and let them know they would be keeping the cabin for the night.
Thank goodness!

She turned, rolling her eyes towards the heavens and thanking cupid for darting them together rather than apart. She stood on her shaky feet and grabbed one of the smaller afghans, wrapping it around her body.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Famished was a better word for her rumbling stomach. Was it hunger rumbling in her stomach or nerves? It didn’t matter either way.

She climbed onto one of the stools. Marc was rummaging through the basket again. She watched. There was a little bag of pancake mix with a mini bottle of syrup or pasta sauce and noodles. A little “keep them over for the night” basket, just as she ordered. Sneaking groceries into the resort would have looked suspicious and been a little difficult to hide.

Marc decided on pasta. Kate just sat back while he pulled cooking supplies from the cupboards. She remembered him rummaging around her kitchen looking for cooking supplies, showing off amazing skills his mother had taught him.

He stopped in front of her with two wine glasses. “I’m going to mention this idea to my family,” he said pouring them each a glass.

“What idea?”

“The sleigh rides they offer here.”

“For the resort?”

He nodded, sliding her glass across the counter towards her.

“Thanks,” she said before taking a sip.

He began explaining what the benefits of having sleigh rides at the resort would be if they added them. She listened. He was serious as he spoke about his idea, ever the professional businessman, just as he’d transpired earlier giving her pointers on Peyton’s business adventure. She was getting excited listening to his idea. It sounded fabulous, just like the ride they had taken. When he was all finished she asked, “Do you like working at the resort?”

“I do.”

“Are all your siblings working there?”

He shook his head. “Violet runs the wedding planning. Emma runs daily events like yoga, exercise, game tournaments that sort of thing. Anya used to manage the kitchens and was a top chef but she left after dad died and left me scrambling to replace her. Then there is Izzy.” He shook his head. “She’s not currently employed with us.”

“Does she work somewhere else?”

“She doesn’t work.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly my thoughts but currently not shared with the rest of the family, including my mother.”

“Maybe she needs some time after your dad. Abby is going through some things with Gran just passing. I mean she basically tricked us all into coming here for a free vacation and some quality time.”

“Maybe.”

“So, what about Melissa?”

“What about her?”

Did he really have to make her ask? “What does she do at the resort?”
Yeah, that’s what you want to know
.

He sent her a grin over his shoulder. “She’s my secretary.”

“
Your
secretary?” Secretary’s generally sleep with their bosses, look at the pretty little blonde in Derek’s office. He was definitely banging her.

He nodded looking away again to focus on stirring the sauce he was heating.

“You hired her?”

“Are you jealous?” She wasn’t jealous. She was curious. There was a huge difference.

“No. Should I be?”

“No. She’s been working for my father, right out of University.”

Hmm, that wasn’t the life she had envisioned for Melissa. That wasn’t the life Melissa had led everyone to believe would be hers. Marrying into a wealthy family worth equal or more value than her own and never having to actually work was more her vision. It was an odd trait for a woman so keen on being better than everyone else. That her father, the mayor of Willow Valley, even allowed it, surprised her.

“Have you slept with her?” The words were out of her mouth before she could double think them.

She caught his head shift at her bluntness but if he was shocked or surprised he didn’t let it show. “No.”

That was an awful quick answer. In ways he reminded her of Derek, who always thought before he spoke but charmed you into believing anything. He was always sweet and flirtatious, talking his way into her pants and then straight into the maids.

“Ever?” she pried.

“No.”

“Not even right after I left?”

He turned then crossing his legs in front of him and leaning against the cupboard with his arms crossed over his bare chest still holding the wooden spoon. She wondered when he had grabbed his slacks from by the fire and how she hadn’t noticed. “Do you understand the definition of the word no?”

“Depends who’s saying it.” Derek and his lies, lies and more lies.

He nodded taking her words in. “Is this an ex you’re referring to?”

A very recent ex.

“I would never lie to you,” he said as a matter of fact in his serious no-nonsense tone. That struck a chord so deep she could have slipped from the stool and melted into a puddle of lies and deceit of her very own. It was more like a never-ending ravine. In a way she was just like Derek because it seemed every time she opened her mouth to Marc it was a lie or deception to hide other lies and deception. She held a one-sided shield of spikes between them. Karma. Maybe she deserved a man like Derek in her life and Marc deserved someone who was honest with him.

She needed to move away from this subject before he asked her for the truth. “I am going to slip my robe on.” She couldn’t sneak away faster than a metal slinky slinking down the stairs.

Her robe had landed over the couch kissed by wine, but she moved past it to Marc’s button up shirt and found it was dry so she slipped into it instead and pulled her underwear on. She figured if she was in his shirt, then she would get to stare at that chest all throughout supper. She had to keep it together. She was tempted to run out that door and out of his life and let him find an honest happiness she couldn’t provide. Being so selfishly close to having her own happiness gave her feet a mind of their own right over to the kitchen where he was dishing the finished food onto plates.

He glanced over and grinned looking her up and down with approval. “Better than a robe.”

She moved beside him and glanced at the plates of food. “That smells delicious.”

“They say you can win a man through his stomach but I believe this is the way to win your heart.”

She chuckled and nudged his side. “Oh you think so.” He spun around and wrapped one arm around her waist picking her partially up dragging her backwards her toes sliding across the floor until her rump hit the counter behind.

A low surprised and pleasurable moan escaped her lips as Marc bent down and captured it with his mouth. Her groan was louder. She loved the taste of his mouth. She couldn’t get enough. She trailed her arms around the back of his neck combing her hands through his hair. A mouth she recognized and filled an emptiness inside her that she had tried to ignore all these very long years. He picked her rump up and onto the counter and she encircled his waist with her legs and pulled him against her. His warm hands slipped under her shirt sliding up her back to her neck where he grasped and lightly pulled her head away.

“Are you hungry?” he asked

“For you.”

He groaned and kissed her again deep, hard and full of a lust that was so mutually heated between them they could flame the deadest coal bed together. He pulled her hands from around his neck and pressed her palms against the counter then he was gone.

It took Kate a few seconds to open her eyes to find a grinning sexy Marcus walking away with their bowls. He passed the kitchen table and headed straight into the living room. How did he do that? Just stop midpoint and move on as though his adrenaline wasn’t pumping from head to toe? “Come on,” he said. “We missed lunch, it’s almost supper and you had a terrible breakfast.” Almost supper? And she had enjoyed her breakfast, even if it was part of the ploy of getting him out of the hotel.

She rested her back against the cupboard regaining her composure with a few very deeply inhaled, needed breaths of air before she slid down and made her way to him. How did he have such composure after
that?

She glared at him playfully sliding the bowl across the table and purposely sitting on the opposite side of the table.

“That’s cruel,” he said.

She picked the bowl up and curled onto the chair pulling her bare legs against her chest and blowing on the bowl of warm food. “You’re one to talk.”

“I wanted to snuggle.”

She almost laughed out loud at his term
snuggle
but managed to keep a somewhat straight face. “After that kiss you initiated I want more than snuggling.”

He looked like he wanted to laugh too but instead said, “You better stay on that side of the table then.” He twirled his fork in the pasta and brought it to his mouth. Before he bit down on it he said, “When you’re finished eating I will give you much more than snuggling.”