Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (18 page)

Drew firmly quashed that voice and turned his attention to the matter at hand. He needed to turn up Hannah's annoyance heat a little higher. This day was ticking away and she'd be leaving tomorrow. The time had come to quit playing this catch. It was time to bring her to boat.

Drew climbed from the hammock and approached Hannah, silently offering a hand with the laundry. She accepted his assistance with ill-concealed bad humor.

"So," he said, throwing one end of the bed sheet over the rope. "Tell me about your life in San Antonio. Are you happy there?"

Suspicion clouded her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"It's a simple question, really. I thought it would be good to get to know you a little better."

She gave an unladylike snort. "Why would you want to get to know the laundress?"

"Oh, Hannah, you're more than a laundress."

In the middle of pinning his shirt to the line, she paused and sent him a questioning look.

"You're also a cook and a charwoman, are you not?"

"Funny, Coryell. You are very funny."

It was in his mind to say something unpleasant about her father, something to get her hackles up, but instead he was distracted by the purse of her pink, pouty mouth. Reaching out, Drew traced a finger across her luscious lower lip. Words appeared from out of nowhere in his mind, and he allowed them to roll off his tongue. "You, Hannah Mayfield, are as pretty as sunrise after a storm."

And then, dammit, he kissed her.

Really kissed her. Not a brief brush of mouths like before. Completely unplanned, without prior thought, this was a kiss with a capital K.

He put his hands around her shoulders and slowly pulled her toward him. As the inches separating them disappeared, the air surrounding them thickened. Her tongue snaked out and wetted her bottom lip, and all Drew's plans and schemes took flight like seabirds from the shore, leaving behind only the truth that dwelled within his heart.

Lowering his head, he moved his lips against hers, wet and soft and gentle. It was a tender
Helo again, I've missed you
that quickly became more, so much more.

He wrapped his arms around her, their bodies touching, remembering, sighing. Eager and edgy, he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue, seeking entrance. Demanding it. She yielded to him on a little moan of pleasure and he thrust his tongue inside.

Hannah. She smelled of sand and sea and sunshine, of happy days long ago and dreams long denied. She tasted of lemon drops. She must have found his store of candy in the kitchen.

Hannah. Hungry now, Drew deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth, stroking his tongue roughly against hers. Desire, heavy and hot, pooled in his loins and he pulled her closer. Her arms lifted and slipped around his neck. She opened her mouth wider, her tongue dancing with his.

Drew shuddered at her response and clasped her even more tightly. Oh, God, he ached for her. How long had it been? How long since he last experienced this extreme degree of need? Ten years, that's how long. Not since Hannah.

He released her mouth just long enough to steal a breath, then he was back sucking and nipping and nibbling at her lips. His hands swept down her back, cupping the sweet curve of her buttocks and pulling her dose, agonizingly close, but not nearly close enough. Instinctively, he pushed himself against her, seeking, throbbing, needing to claim.

Her hands drifted down from his neck, sweeping across the breadth of his shoulders, drawing circles down his back. When her hips joined in the rhythm, rocking with his, Drew discarded all pretense of control. He gathered her skirts in great, impatient handfuls, pulling upward, desperate to bare her skin to his touch.

Ahh
. She was naked beneath her skirt, and he remembered seeing her laundered chemise and drawers hanging next to the sheets. He slid his fingers across the silk of her skin, touching her, kneading her, teasing her. So intent was he upon the taste of her, the scent of her, the experience of her, that at first he didn't register her resistence. It took her stammered "No!" to break through the sensual fog clouding his mind.

He loosened his hold and Hannah tore away from him, stepping backward. She stared at him, a tormented light haunting her eyes, cutting him like a bowie knife. Then she blinked. Once. Twice. She shut her eyes and visibly shuddered.

Time spun out like spider's silk. Drew's heart pounded; the heat in his loins provided a constant ache.

"You shouldn't have done that," she said softly.

"Hannah," he said in a rough, ragged tone. "I don't know… I didn't mean…" How had things gotten so out of hand so fast? When had he lost all control? Why had he veered so completely from his scheme? What had happened?

Hannah happened.

Oh, hell.

In that moment Drew again heard that nagging voice ask,
Is a wedding night all you need from this woman
? This time, he couldn't deny the answer. No. He did want more from Hannah Mayfield than simple, uncomplicated sex. Damn it all, it was true. Despite the hurt and heartache of years gone by, despite the mistakes they'd both had made, he wanted more than the honeymoon that hadn't happened.

Drew still wanted the life she had promised him a decade ago. He wanted the feeling of completion he'd lost and never found again in another woman's arms. He wanted the laughter and the bickering and the love. Oh, God, the love.

He wanted the marriage.

The realization left him raw and reeling. Wonderful. Just wonderful. Didn't he remember the lessons of the past? Didn't he remember the pain? Only a dolt would want any more of her than what she owed him beneath the sheets. Only a masochistic sap-skull would open himself up to the same pain she'd caused once before.
Damn me for an idiot sonofabitch
. He muttered softly, "To think I thought this was just about sex."

He didn't know he'd said it aloud until he saw her body stiffen. Her chin came up, her shoulders went back. Fire lit her. eyes.

"What is this all about, Drew?" she asked, her voice icy and betraying a slight tremble. "Tell me. It's about more than a silly honeymoon, isn't it? You have some secret agenda, so tell me what it is."

He all but quit listening after the words
silly honeymoon
. How could she deny what they'd had together that way? His temper flared, red-hot and steaming, and he struck out, wanting to hurt her as she had hurt him. "I told you what I wanted, dammit. Sex. That's it. Nothing more. Just sex."

The words echoed on the breeze swirling between them. Hannah's eyes went wide and wounded. "I don't believe that," she whispered.

Now Drew was running on pure emotion, thought having little to do with anything that came out of his mouth. "Well, you should, because it's the truth. You hurt me when you left. I wanted to get back at you. I'm a damn fine lover, Hannah Mayfield, and I intend to ruin you for any other man. You'll look back on leaving me as the biggest mistake of your life."

She sucked in an audible breath. "Revenge. That's what this was—the contest, the kiss. It was a game for you, wasn't it? A mean-spirited game of Pay Hannah Back." Before he could respond, she added, "I never thought you could be so cruel."

Then she turned and fled to the cabin, slamming the door shut behind her.

Drew's stomach sank like a Brass Minnow bait and he pushed both hands through his hair in exasperation. What the hell had just happened? How had everything gone so awry so quickly? If marriage to Hannah Mayfield was what he wanted, he and his vile temper had just set it back at least a dozen years. "You are smooth as a starfish, Coryell."

He stood staring at the cabin door, his heart pounding, his breathing hard. Damn him for his lies, curse him for speaking from emotion rather than thought.

If he had taken a moment to think about it, he could have told her the truth. He could have explained what a fishing trip, a kiss, and a bowl of hoop stew had taught him.

"I could have told her that I've never stopped loving her."

Hannah shut the cabin door behind her, then leaned back against it and exhaled a shaky sigh. Her knees went watery and the tremble in her heart worked its way out to her arms and legs, and she slid to the floor in an undignified heap.

Curse Drew Coryell. He had fooled her hook, line, and sinker. "That slimy eel. That barnacle. The man belongs on the sea floor sucking up silt like the other bottom feeders."

And she should be boiled in fish oil for letting him get the better of her.

As quickly as it came, her temper dissipated, leaving despair in its wake. He'd never had any intention of handing over the declaration. He'd set out to seduce her from the start. The Peck, the gentlemanly behavior, the hoop stew, the fishing contest, his goading superiority guaranteed to stir her passions—he'd formatted a battle plan and set it into motion like a West Point general. And she, fish-brained woman that she was, fell without a fight.

Agitated, Hannah pushed to her feet and started pacing the room, her mind spinning like a whirlpool. What should she do now? Should she stand and fight back? What did she want?

His love.

"No!" The denial burst from her lips like a cry of pain. She wouldn't think that. She would not allow her mind to go in that direction.

She had come to Wild Horse Island as a representative of the Texas Historical Preservation Society. She'd made this trip for one reason alone: to obtain on behalf of the citizens of Texas the only known surviving copy of the Republic of Texas's Declaration of Independence.

If that's the case
, whispered that wicked little voice in her head,
then why did you lie to your father about where you were going
?

Hannah shut her eyes and pressed her palms hard against her forehead. "No. No. No. No. I won't. I won't think that." Drew admitted to being out for revenge. He was nothing more than a predator. He was a shark who did his swimming on land, and she'd better remember it.

Seconds ticked by as she debated what to do. Until now she hadn't believed he'd send her away from here without the declaration—contest or no. The young man she'd married had been proud of his heritage, proud to be a Texan, and she had felt in her bones that he'd be honored to present the document to the State of Texas on behalf of the Coryell family.

Apparently, she'd been wrong. Apparently, the man cared more about avenging the blow she'd dealt to his masculinity by recognizing him for the beach ne'er-do-well he was, than about preserving the history of Texas, of honoring the men who fought and died for the ideal of independence.

Or did he?

The question whispered through her mind like a gentle ocean breeze. As the minutes ticked by, Hannah stopped trying to ignore it.

Was
Drew being truthful when he made those hurtful claims? Did he feel nothing for her but lust? If so, why all the passion in his kiss, in his words? Why all the emotion?

Maybe his attempted seduction was more than coldblooded revenge.

Hannah pondered the question a moment, then shrugged. Her mind was a muddle. She needed to clear it before she could do any proper thinking. To that end, she decided she'd finish up the laundry and then go swimming. She also decided Drew deserved to donate a shirt to the cause.

Hannah crossed the room to Drew's trunk and threw open the lid. She dug to the bottom for the pristine white silk businessman's shirt she'd spied and wondered over earlier. Removing it, she held it up before her. Saltwater would ruin this beautiful cloth.

Hannah smiled. Sometimes a girl simply had to take her pleasures wherever she could find them.