Swept Away (14 page)

He wanted desperately to press into her from behind and kiss her neck. He fought the urge to
cup her breasts. He yearned to close his teeth over her earlobe and rake them slowly
downward.

Still rubbing, rubbing, flirting with the edges of her breasts, he wondered if she’d let this
always-present attraction between them finally progress to its natural conclusion, if a little sunscreen on his hands could be the beginning of hot, slow sex on the beach. He’d leapt at the
chance to rub sunscreen on her back, but he hadn’t really expected her to let things get so
heated so fast.

And it was all he could do not to rain a few little kisses over her neck, shoulder—but he didn’t
want to screw up and send her racing away from him. He wanted to play this slow, safe. He
wanted to ease his way there until she couldn’t resist what he wanted to give her. Her tender
sigh said he was on the right track.

He didn’t say a word, and neither did she, the only sounds coming from the sweeping tide and
the rustling palms overhead. The sea breeze cooled them amid the blasting rays from above.
Brock put more lotion in his hand and proceeded to massage it into her lower back, which she
arched for him—instinctually, he thought. He kept the kneading motions slow, rhythmic, and took them all the way down to the edge of her bikini bottom, not breathing for the few seconds
she let his hands linger there, just touching her, curving low over the flesh where her back met
her ass. They both stayed still, so still—he’d never imagined that such stillness could be so
arousing.

He finally eased his palms around the edge of her suit to her hips, fingers splaying onto her
stomach from both sides, and let them glide slowly up, up, over baby-soft skin, until they
rested just beneath her chest, the weight of her breasts brushing overtop his fingers.

His body nearly trembled with want. Her skin was so soft, slick, beckoning—and all he
desired in that moment was to slide his hands up over her breasts and capture them, know
them, explore them. Without those triangles getting in his way.

He didn’t even consider her reaction—just followed an impulse. Never taking his hands off
her, he leaned in, closed his teeth around one of the strings behind her neck, and slowly pulled.

When the top dropped away in front, she gasped gently, but when she turned to look at him,
there was far more heat than surprise in her gaze.

Their eyes locked, close, and he whispered to her. “Let me, kitten.”

He watched her pull in her breath; she looked weak, ready to give in to her desires. Yes, honey.
Good.

As he slowly started to ease his hands upward, though, she grabbed on to them, pushing them
down. She held them tight, at her waist. They both stayed very still, but now stillness meant
tense, frozen, locked in a silent battle with temptation. Kat stared out at the ocean, and he
wondered what she saw, felt. Please, baby, let me.

Yet he knew the moment was passing, that resistance was slowly winning. He released a heavy
breath and leaned his forehead over to rest on her shoulder.

Finally, her voice small, she said, “I can’t, Brock. You know why.”

Yeah, he knew why. He hated it, didn’t believe it was real, wanted to rip it to shreds—this engagement of hers—but he knew why. And he decided that if Kat could stop this now, the magnetic pull between them that was even more powerful and persuasive than he remembered,
then she was a lot stronger than he’d ever given her credit for. “Couldn’t you just pretend,” he
said low, near her ear, “that you really went to Vegas?”

She turned her head, again bringing their faces painfully close. He wanted to kiss her so bad it
hurt. “Why?” she asked.

He delivered his reply without a smile, completely serious. “Because what happens in Vegas
stays in Vegas. You get a free pass there.”

“So you mean what happens on the island stays on the island?” “Something like that.”

She let out a sigh, her voice still whispery, sad. “That’s never made any sense to me. Whatever
you do, you’ve done. It all counts.”

He longed desperately to convince her. Because she was so close to giving in and they both
knew it. And it would be so good—they both knew that, too. He’d make sure she didn’t regret
it—he’d make sure it was the best she’d ever had. Yet she was still managing to hold back
somehow.

“Tell me something, honey,” he said softly. “What exactly would happen that’s so bad if you let me have my way with you?”

She bit her lower lip, her eyes clouded with sorrow, her voice going a little shaky. “I wouldn’t
be able to live with myself. Despite what you may think, I’m not the kind of person who could
have sex with one guy, then marry another a few days later. I can’t think of anything that
would feel more wrong.”

He leaned slightly closer, so close their faces almost touched. She still held his hands tight at
her sides. “But if you want it, and I want it,” he said, “isn’t there something at least a little bit right in that, too?”

Her voice came stronger this time. “If I wasn’t engaged, sure. But I am.”

And he knew the moment, the temptation, had really passed—and the suffering could recommence. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to blot out the frustration, then met her
gaze again. “Does that mean I’m still sleeping on the floor tonight?”

Her nod was emphatic.

He let out another heavy sigh, then drew his hands away.

She hurriedly pulled her top back up and retied it behind her neck, then rushed to her feet. “I’m
going for a swim,” she announced with just a quick glance. “And don’t come with me. I need a
few minutes by myself.”

“Okay,” he said. Then, just automatically, “Be careful.”
“Don’t worry—I can take care of myself.”

As he watched her go, her lovely body swaying toward the water, he thought, Can you, kitten?
He’d always seen her as perfectly capable, but if she was marrying the wrong person for the
wrong reasons well, now he wasn’t so sure.

He knew this was none of his business—he knew that in a few days he’d go back to his life and she’d go back to hers, and that meant he should sure as hell leave hers alone. But Kat
couldn’t marry a guy who didn’t excite her, thrill her, make her crazy with passion. Like he just
had. He’d have bet all the Mayan artifacts in the world that Ian whatever-his-name-was had
never made her want the way he’d just made her want.

Brock strongly suspected Clark Spencer was behind this whole farce of a marriage somehow.
He knew Spencer loved his daughter and that she loved him back, but they were two very
different people, and Brock could easily envision the guy still trying to mold Kat in his image
after all these years. Maybe he’d worn her down over time. And maybe she didn’t even realize it.

All the more reason why Brock couldn’t just sit idly by and let her marry the wrong guy. He
couldn’t watch her travel down the wrong path if he could possibly do something to turn her in
the right direction.

He could seduce her.

He could keep right on chipping away at her defenses until she gave in.

And then, if what she’d just told him was true—if she really couldn’t have sex with one guy
and then marry another—then she’d have to call off the wedding.

He plopped back down in his lounge chair as Blondie sang “One Way or Another” on the
radio, and he vowed, just as the song said, that he would get her—right where he longed to
have her. He still had four long island nights left for seduction.

Chapter Five

Clark Spencer backed his Jaguar XJR carefully from the five-car garage, then eased onto the circular brick drive that fronted his large stucco home. He never quite managed to make those particular moves in the car without being intensely aware of it all. The Jag’s sleek comforts, the old-world charm of the brick he drove across, the way the house towered over him like a Mediterranean fortress as he rolled past. He glanced at the well-manicured lawn and ornamental
trees, pleased the gardener had come on Friday. To know he’d given his family the best
possible life was his greatest source of satisfaction.

Of course, Debra was miffed at him for working this afternoon. “On a Sunday, Clark—a freaking Sunday?”

Why couldn’t she understand? This stuff didn’t grow on trees.

Maybe she thought it did. She’d never wanted for much, even as a girl. Her family hadn’t been
wealthy, but they’d been comfortable. She didn’t realize what it took to keep this kind of
lifestyle afloat.

The last year had been the most trying of his life, and she didn’t even know it. All that money
from the early days in the art business was slowly dwindling. They were far from broke, but
any fool could look at the calculations of his net worth over the last few years and see the
downward trend.

“Do you realize the pressures I’m up against lately, Debra?” he’d snapped. “Do you have any
idea what it takes to pay for all this?” He’d motioned around him—they’d been standing amid
all the modern stainless steel of the recently remodeled kitchen, which happened to be about the
size of a small apartment he’d once lived in.

“We don’t need it all,” she’d said.

And his heart had skipped a beat. What the hell was she talking about? “What?”

“I said we don’t need it all. We’d have a perfectly lovely life with half of what we have, Clark.
So what if we were to have to scale back a little, give a few things up? That wouldn’t matter to
me.”

She didn’t see it, he thought now, taking one last look back at their home as he exited the drive.
She didn’t see that every grain of stucco in that house, every blade of grass in that yard, everything they owned—was him. It was what he’d done with his life, what he’d made of himself from next to nothing, his legacy. When he died, it was what he had to leave behind.

It wounded him to realize she didn’t understand that, and he’d tried to let her know. “Maybe
you don’t appreciate how hard I work, maybe you don’t care about our life—but I do. I want
all this, Debra, okay? I want it.”

“I just don’t understand what you’re going to do in that gallery this afternoon that couldn’t wait
until tomorrow.”

Of course she didn’t. But why couldn’t she just trust and respect him enough to admire his
work ethic? The fact was, he had a lot of new business going on via his connection with Ian,
and it was taking up a great deal of time. He’d even been neglecting the gallery—and when all
was said and done, that was his first love. He’d had the gallery before Debra, before Kat—and he couldn’t let that business crumble just because of the opportunities Ian had brought his way.

As the first melodic notes of Elton John’s “Levon” came trickling from the car’s speakers, he
reached to turn it up. The intro made him picture a young Elton’s hands flowing magically
across the piano keys, a moving work of art. The song always had the uncanny ability to at
once relax him and depress him just a little. But it was too beautiful not to absorb, even if it
made him a little sad. Some art was like that.