The Kissing Game (17 page)

The temptation to give in, to turn to him and be enveloped by his familiar, wonderful warmth, was awfully strong. She could still taste his kisses, still feel the thrill of looking into his incredible blue eyes as he took her places she'd never been before.

Hot, erotic places she was likely never again to go—except maybe in her dreams.

“Francine.” Simon's voice sounded low and intimate in her ear.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her. He wasn't smiling, and there was a muscle jumping along the side of his jaw. “Do you want anything to drink?”

Whatever she'd thought he was going to ask her, it certainly wasn't that. But she realized that one of the flight attendants was standing in the aisle with the beverage cart, impatiently waiting to take her order.

Frankie shook her head. “No. Thanks. Nothing, please.”

She didn't want a drink. She wanted Simon to throw himself down at her feet and tell her he couldn't live without her. She wanted him to beg her to reconsider, to confess his undying love. She wanted him to ask her to marry him, to have his children, to share a lifetime filled with nights of white-hot loving and days of sunshine and laughter.

Simon opened his soda and drank directly from the can. “Are you awake?” he asked after the flight attendant had moved down the aisle.

“Mostly,” she admitted.

“About last night—”

“I'd rather not talk about that,” Frankie interrupted. She fluffed the small airline pillow and firmly closed her eyes.

“We
do
need to talk,” Simon said, his voice low
but almost matter-of-fact. “Because, well, frankly, I want more.”

Frankie opened her eyes. He was watching her, that sweet, vulnerable look back in his eyes. He smiled almost apologetically. “Last night wasn't enough,” he added.

The temptation was nearly unbearable. All she had to do was lean forward, and she'd be in Simon's arms again. But she'd be trading short-term heaven for long-term hell.

“What exactly would be ‘enough’?” she asked him, carefully keeping herself distant and cool.

“I don't know,” he admitted. At least he was being honest.

“One night was enough for you and Maia Fox,” Frankie pointed out. “But with what's-her-name, that waitress you were dating a few months ago …. ?”

“Amanda.”

“That's the one. You spent a whopping month and a half with her,” Frankie said. “Perhaps I fall somewhere in between the two?”

“Is that what this is about?” Simon's eyes narrowed.

“No.” Frankie wished desperately that he
weren't sitting so damned close. “Yes. I don't know. All I know is that sleeping with you last night was a mistake that I'm not going to make again.” She leaned toward him, speaking softly, intensely. “We're friends, Si. If we leave last night as a one-night stand—as one wild night of great sex—then we can still be friends. But if we become lovers and turn this into a full-blown affair, then one of us is going to wind up hurt. And then we won't be friends anymore. We'll have awkward, awful uncomfortableness between us. We'll avoid each other, and that'll really suck.”

He touched the side of her face. “Francine …. “

Frankie pulled away. “Simon,
don't.”

“I can't just shut it off this way!”

His voice was low, but his intensity carried far. People were starting to look in their direction. Frankie took a deep breath, and when she spoke her voice betrayed none of her upset.

“You had no trouble in the past,” she told him. “In fact, you're the king when it comes to shutting your feelings down, remember? You can get tired of a woman overnight, and then you're out of there. I'm not going to wait for that to happen—and it's just too bad if you don't like it.

I'm getting out now—before I become emotionally involved.”

“You're telling me you're
not
emotionally involved?”

“That's right. And I'd like to keep it that way.” She lowered her voice to a soft whisper. “Let's leave last night alone. We gave in to our demons, and it was—”

“Fun?” he supplied, his voice rough.

“It was physical, Simon,” she told him. “It was
sex.”

Simon ran his fingers through his hair. His face looked drawn and harsh, his eyes mirroring his pain. He looked tragically handsome and excru ciatingly attractive. Frankie had to look out the window.

“It's my reputation coming back to haunt me, isn't it?” he said, true regret in his voice. “You don't want this to go any further because you think I'll dump you in a week or two.”

“I don't just think it, Simon.” She studied the cotton-puff tops of the clouds. “I know it.”

“How long do you want?” he asked, his voice low, imploring.

She glanced at him. “What?”

“A month and a half's not long enough, right? You want longer, right? How long?”

Frankie laughed in disbelief. “You're kidding.”

“I'm dead serious.”

“You're going to sign your name in blood to some contract or something that promises me you won't walk away before a set amount of time?”

“No, but I'll give you my word.”

He was actually serious. He wanted her to set some arbitrary date before which he wouldn't leave her. “That's really stupid, Si. What am I supposed to say? A year? Two? Shoot, I'd feel as if I were signing a lease for a lover. That's not what I want.”

He took her hand, lacing their fingers together. His touch was seductive, sensuous. He'd touched her all over with those same fingers last night. Frankie prayed he couldn't feel her accelerated heartbeat.

“What
do
you want?” he asked.

“Forever.” The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it. Her first reaction was to squeeze her eyes shut, to deny that she had ad mitted such foolishness. But instead she found
herself gazing up into Simon's crystal-blue eyes, hoping…

She found herself wishing she
had
looked away. His pupils shrank to a pinpoint as he stared out the window at the blinding white of the clouds. His gaze became unfocused, almost glazed, and the dancing muscle in the side of his jaw stopped moving. She imagined he looked pale under his tan and his grip loosened on her hand enough for her to slip free.

At her movement, he glanced at her, unable to fully meet her gaze. He tried to smile, but it looked pained, sickly. “Frankie …. “ He laughed, a small gasp of air, and shook his head very slightly. He clearly didn't know what to say.

“Yeah, that's what I thought.” Frankie stood up, pushing her way past his knees to the aisle. “I want the man I'm in a relationship with at least to be able to consider the possibility of something permanent. And that's why I'm not going to touch you again, my friend, even with a ten-foot pole. That's why I won't even consider last night as anything more than a one-time event.” She opened the overhead compartment and took out her carry-on
bag. “So, in that case, what I want is space. A little time and distance, please.”

She walked toward the back of the plane to several rows of empty seats.

Simon didn't call her name, didn't follow her.

She hadn't expected that he would.

SIMON STOOD ON
the front porch of the house on Pelican Street and rang the bell for the fifth time that afternoon.

Dammit, he knew Frankie was in there.

They'd been back on the key for nearly a week, and she was doing her best to avoid him. And her best was very, very good.

He stood absolutely still, waiting, listening for any sounds from inside the big old house, but heard nothing. Of course not. She was sitting just as still, waiting for him to leave before she got back to work packing up Alice Winfield's things.

He'd cornered her the day before outside Millie's Market and invited her to dinner. She'd refused. Her brown eyes had been cool, her body language detached, aloof, and her words polite. Her message was clear: She wasn't interested. Yet she'd managed to stall her car four times on the way out of the parking lot.

Simon simply couldn't believe that Frankie felt absolutely nothing for him. He didn't buy it, he refused to accept it.

She was lying to him, and she was lying to herself, and he was going to prove it to her—if he could only get her alone.

He was a master at seduction, and he intended to use his skills shamelessly if he had to. Because once he had her in his arms, once the power of their combined passion took effect, there was no way in hell she could claim that what they shared was casual or insignificant. And then he would convince her that there was a happy medium between all and nothing.

He wasn't quite so confident about his ability to overcome the little problem with “forever.” The concept was not one he'd worked with. Ever. The truth was, he hadn't given it very much
thought over the past few days. He was focusing on his immediate need to see Frankie again. That was his first priority. He'd worry about the other stuff when the time came.

If only he could find her ….

What he needed was a private detective.

Simon smiled. He had a private detective.
Frankie
was a private detective. Suddenly the pieces all fell neatly into place and he had a plan.

It would no doubt make her mad, and she'd come in search of him, spitting fire. But he'd make sure that when she found him, he'd be alone.

After checking to make sure Simon wasn't hanging around, Frankie let herself out of Alice Winfield's old house. She'd been going there every day for the past week, boxing up Alice's clothes and dishes and books and seeing they got delivered to various charitable organizations both on the island and on the mainland. The books went to the local nursing home. The clothes to the Salvation Army. The dishes to the church for a future rummage sale.

Alice's photo albums went onto a specially cleared shelf in Frankie's living room.

And Frankie went outside only when the coast was clear and Simon wasn't around.

Every day, two or three or sometimes even four times a day, he would show up at the big old house on Pelican Street and ring the doorbell. She would stay very, very still, like a sailor on a submarine, afraid that the least little noise would give away her location and start a barrage of emotional depth charges.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could last.

It was getting very old, very fast. And the cool distance she struggled to maintain the few times Simon did manage to catch up with her was getting harder and harder to pull off.

He treated her almost the same as he had before they'd spent the night together. He smiled and joked and even teased. Only the content of his words was different. He was relentless in his invitations. He invited her to dinner, to the movies, for a walk along the beach. He wanted to see her again. He needed to talk to her. He asked her out for a cup of coffee, a soda, a glass of water and an Alka-Seltzer. He suggested they start slowly, stand on the corner, and simply breathe air together. He
was upbeat and charming and funny. But he couldn't hide the hurt in his eyes. It was always there, lurking underneath his smile, even when he laughed.

That hurt made her feel awful, like some kind of terrible, cold monster. If he only knew how much she missed him ….

She missed his cheerful smile, his wicked grin. She missed the way he'd drink cup after cup after cup of coffee in the morning until he fully woke up, until his eyes turned from sleepy blue to sharp, neon turquoise. She missed his sarcastic humor and cutting remarks. She missed the way his eyes sparkled like the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, deceptively refreshing and pure. And she missed the soft tenderness of his kisses, sweet kisses that could turn to a blazing inferno of desire in the space of a single heartbeat.

She had to get away from the key soon, or he
would
know.

According to Clay Quinn, her payment and bonus money for finding John Marshall would arrive via bank transfer on Friday. She'd already decided that she was going to make an immediate withdrawal, and take a long-needed vacation.

Where? She didn't know yet. Maybe New York City. Maybe New Orleans. Maybe someplace as close as Disney World. It didn't really matter
where
she went—as long as it was far enough away from Simon Hunt.

She pulled her car up in front of her house, idling for a moment to make sure Simon wasn't in the bushes, waiting to pop out the moment she cut the engine. But there was no sign of him.

She almost wished there were.

Shaking her head in disgust at herself, Frankie climbed wearily out of her car. She hadn't been sleeping well since she'd returned to Sunrise Key. Maybe tonight she'd finally get some rest and she wouldn't feel so worn down, so ready to give in to Simon's persistence.

She saw it before she even reached the porch. It stood out in the deepening twilight—a bright white envelope taped to the inside of her screen door.

The door screeched as she pulled it open and detached the envelope from the screen. The flap hadn't been sealed, and Frankie opened it, pulling out two pieces of paper.

The first was a check for one thousand dollars,
from the account of Antiques, Art, and Alligators, Inc., Simon's company, and it was signed with Simon's familiar flourish. On the line marked “For” he'd written the word
Retainer.

Frankie looked at the other piece of paper. It was blank. She turned it over. There were only two words written on it, again in Simon's big, bold handwriting.

It said, “Find me.”

The thousand dollars was indeed a retainer for her services. Simon was hiring her—to find
him.

Frankie would have laughed at the absurdity of it all if she hadn't felt so much like crying.

All the lights were on inside Simon's sprawling beach house. Frankie pulled up out front and sat gazing at the place. The circular drive was filled with cars and the windows were open, and strains of music—it sounded like Garth Brooks's new CD—spilled out.

Simon was having a party.

It figured he'd plan something like this, that there'd be some reason she wouldn't be able to take his retainer check and tear it into a hundred
tiny pieces and throw it into his face the way she wanted. Because as much as she wanted to do that, she wouldn't do it with an audience looking on.