by Nika Rhone
She’d been tempted to take a quick peek at the fly of his trousers to see if he was controlling that, too, but she hadn’t been able to work up the nerve.
Remembering that only the nude beach had been a fabrication, not the trip itself, Thea said to Amelia, “I’m sorry my dad’s business problems are delaying everything. I know how much you wanted to get away for a few days.”
Amelia shrugged the apology away. “It’s fine. I’ll probably need the escape even more after the engagement party, anyway.” A gleam entered her eyes. “Besides, I think watching you torment Doyle will be more than enough to distract me for the time being.”
“Speaking of distracting, who do you think Doyle will send with us?” Lillian rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “I hope Daryl makes the team.”
Thea rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed with the man’s shoulders.”
“His shoulders, his arms, his long, strong legs.” Lillian sighed and feigned a swoon back into her chaise. “That man is made just right.” She flicked her sunglasses up and waggled her eyebrows, one of which sported a dainty little diamond barbell. “I wonder how he feels about nude beaches.”
Thea laughed at her friend’s outrageous expression but felt a tingle run through her as she thought of not Daryl but Doyle lounging on the beach under a tropical sun, his skin glistening with sunscreen as he toasted to a golden brown. All over.
She shivered. Doyle in all his naked glory would certainly be a sight to behold. And she planned to behold it, somehow, someway, or hurt herself trying. Some goals were worth all the trouble in the world, and, for her, convincing Doyle that they would be good together was at the top of the list.
“I don’t think Richard would appreciate you drooling all over Daryl’s anything.” Amelia gave Lillian a censuring frown.
Lillian made a pfft sound and flicked her hand. “Richard is over, so he doesn’t get a say.”
“Wow, that was quick.” Thea tried to do a quick count in her head. “What was that, three weeks, or two?”
“More like one and a half, I think,” Amelia replied. “So, Lil, what was wrong with this one?”
“There wasn’t anything wrong with him.” Lillian dropped her sunglasses back over her eyes. “There just wasn’t anything particularly right.” She shrugged as though it meant nothing, but Thea knew better. A lot of not right guys had drifted in and out of Lillian’s life in the past year, and she could tell that her friend was starting to worry that the problem wasn’t with them but with her.
“Who knows,” Lillian said, squaring her shoulders, her body language screaming done talking about it. “Maybe I’ll find Mr. Right playing naked beach volleyball.”
Thea groaned. “Great. Thanks for that mental picture.”
“You wouldn’t actually go to a nude beach, would you?” Amelia asked. “I thought we were just saying that to get a reaction from Doyle.”
Thea considered it. “I don’t know. I might go to see what it was like, but I’m not sure I could really take off my clothes for the whole world to see.”
“It’s not some sordid place where people go to ogle each other, you know,” Lillian said, sounding far too superior. “To Europeans, it’s just a natural way to sunbathe. Since just about everyone is naked, no one notices.”
“Oh, so you’ve been to one, have you?” Thea asked.
“As a matter of fact, when we were in Cannes last year, we spent a few days at the beach.”
“And?” Thea was gratified to see a flush creep up Lillian’s neck that had nothing to do with the sun.
“And…I noticed.” After blurting the admission, she shoved the straw in her mouth and gulped iced tea in an effort to dissuade further questions.
Only Thea wasn’t letting her friend off that easily. She still needed payback for the thong bikini. “And did you join in this oh-so natural way of sunbathing?”
Lillian choked on her tea. Coughing, she looked at Thea in disbelief.
“Are you nuts? I was with my parents!”
Amelia looked horrified. “They didn’t…”
“No!” Lillian dropped back against the chaise, plucked off her sunglasses, and flung an arm over her eyes. “But they wanted to. At least, my mother did. But she wouldn’t because I was there and she wasn’t sure how I would feel about it.”
“Embarrassed?” Thea grinned at her friend’s theatrics. She had said more than once that Lillian had missed her calling when she’d majored in business instead of acting. Her present job as part-time manager of one of the local art galleries was much more suited to her artistic personality than any position at her father’s investment firm.
“Mortified.”
“So, they didn’t, you know…” Amelia waved her hand.
“No. Not that day, anyway.” Lillian removed her arm and blinked owlishly in the bright light before slipping her shades back in place. “But I spent the next day out sightseeing with Peter and Theo, and when we came back to the hotel to meet my parents for dinner, they were a bit more sunburned than they’d been the day before. Judging by the way they squirmed all through the meal, it was in some very, ah…unusual places.”
The idea of Lillian’s somewhat staid parents sneaking off for an afternoon of nude sunbathing was just too much for Thea to take. Fight as she might, she couldn’t hold back the wellspring of laughter that bubbled up. Even Amelia, usually too repressed to find such things amusing, let loose with a few timid giggles of her own.
Lillian, however, merely sniffed. “Go ahead and laugh, T. But my parents are going back again this fall, and they’re talking about asking your parents to go with them.”
As intended, that brought Thea’s amusement to an abrupt halt. “No.”
A wicked smile curved the edges of Lillian’s lips. “Oh, yes.”
Groaning, Thea buried her face in her hands. “That would be so, so wrong.” It was one thing to laugh over someone else’s parents doing something as crazy as going to a nude beach but her parents? Thea shuddered. No. That was not an image she wanted in her brain. Ever.
“What about Doyle?” Amelia asked after several minutes of silence.
“What about him?”
“Well, what’s next? I’m assuming there was more to the plan than just you buying a new wardrobe.”
“Well, yeah, actually, there is.” Thea looked at Lillian. “What do you think? Is it time for stage two?”
With a shake of her head, Lillian said, “Oh no, we’re nowhere near done with stage one yet.”
“What’s stage two? And what’s stage one, for that matter?” Amelia harrumphed. “You obviously left out some important parts when you told me about Operation Shakeup.”
Ignoring Thea’s bemused expression at her naming of their campaign against Doyle’s frustrating reticence, Lillian told Amelia, “Stage one is making Doyle notice Thea in the most basic way—her body. It’s the best way to grab his attention in the shortest amount of time. Short of taking a big stick to the side of his head, anyway.”
“Hence the new bikini.” Amelia nodded.
“And the new jogging clothes. And the new dresses, shoes, tops, pants…”
“There was nothing wrong with my old clothes,” Thea said, feeling defensive.
“And most especially lingerie.” Lillian continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Not that he’s going to be seeing my lingerie,” Thea muttered. Her face was suddenly burning, and it had nothing to do with the sun.
“Not until at least stage three, anyway.”
“Which is?”
Lillian ticked off her fingers. “Stage one is noticing her body, acknowledging she’s a woman, not a little girl.”
“Right, got that.”
“Stage two is getting him into a social situation—a movie, dinner, something normal that any normal couple might do to spend time together. That puts them on equal footing as man and woman, instead of as employee and employer.”
“Daughter of employer.” It was a small point b
ut an important one, to Thea anyway.
Amelia nodded. “Check. And stage three?”
The look that crossed Lillian’s face reminded Thea of a cat that had just found the canary cage wide open. This was the part of the plan that worried Thea the most, and she knew that Lillian knew it. “Stage three is contact.”
“Contact?” A small wrinkle of confusion appeared between Amelia’s eyebrows. “What kind of contact?”
“Any kind she can get. Lips, tongues, hands…”
“Okay, I think she gets the picture.” Thea wanted to jump in the pool to get away from Lillian’s smirk, but she was afraid she’d send up a steam cloud if she did. Instead, she rolled her icy glass over her cheeks, blessing the cool trickle of condensation she found there.
“Hence the lingerie,” Amelia said, a light bulb going off.
“Exactly.”
Thea gritted her teeth. “I’m returning it tomorrow.”
“Can’t,” Lillian said. “It’s illegal to return lingerie to the store. Health codes or something.”
“Then I’ll give it away.” Not that she would. She loved the beautiful silk and lace garments she’d picked out, and she was looking forward to seeing if they felt as good as they looked. But daydreaming about Doyle seeing her in them and speculating about it out loud were two different things. In fact, it embarrassed the hell out of her.
Huh. She frowned over the unhappy possibility that maybe she wasn’t as grown-up and sophisticated as she thought she was after all.
“Oh, stop pouting,” Lillian said, misinterpreting Thea’s pensive expression. “I won’t tease you any more about your sexy new undies. Sheesh, what a baby.”
The offhanded tease pricked at her confidence even more. “I’m not pouting. I just don’t want to talk about my underwear. It’s…it’s stupid.”
“I was just teasing,” Lillian muttered, doing a little pouting of her own.
“I can understand why you’re nervous about, ah, stage three,” Amelia said. “It’s a big step. Possibly an irrevocable one. You need to be sure you really want to do this before you go ahead with it.”
“Oh, I really want to.” Thea grimaced. “I’m just not sure that I can. What if I make a fool out of myself?” She’d done it before. Caught by Doyle on her eighteenth birthday during a midnight skinny-dip, she’d taken a chance and asked him if he wanted to join her. He hadn’t even declined. He’d just turned and walked away without a word.
It had been the most mortifying experience of her life, and it was almost a year before she felt comfortable in Doyle’s presence again. She didn’t think she could bear a repeat.
Her voice dropped to a horrified whisper as she considered a worse alternative to Doyle’s disapproving silence. “What if he laughs at me?” The mere thought sent cold tendrils of fear into her stomach. She would die if he laughed at her; she just knew she would.
“First off, Doyle would never laugh at you,” Amelia said. “He’s too much of a gentleman. Second, if and when you get to stage three and whatever comes with it, it’ll be because stages one and two were a success, and Doyle will see you as a woman and as someone he wants to be with. It’s not like you’re going to bonk him over the head, tie him up, and stash him in the pool house so you can have your way with him whenever you want to.”
That surprised a laugh out of Thea, as she guessed it was meant to. “Yeah, but—”
“And lastly,” Amelia said with a quelling look worthy of her mother, “I don’t think Doyle is anywhere near as oblivious to you as you believe. I think once you get him past the hurdles of stages one and two, he might take stage three right out of your hands.”
Heat at the thought of Doyle taking the initiative in advancing their relationship into the physical seared away all of her earlier nervous chill. It would be magical, to have Doyle take her in his arms, lay his lips to hers, put his strong hands on her…
“Earth to Thea!”
With a start, Thea realized both her friends were watching with identical amused expressions. Laughing at herself, she lifted her glass in salute. “To sexy lingerie.”
Chapter Four
She was driving him crazy.
Barricaded in his office with a pile of paperwork as a bulwark between him and whoever came through the door, Doyle applied himself to the task of not thinking about Thea Fordham. Not thinking about her long legs and the incredible ass they were attached to as she’d sashayed out of the pool three days before; not thinking about her taut, tan tummy slicked with oil that reflected the sun like diamond dust; not thinking about the way her nipples tightened under that tiny scrap of a bathing suit as he’d watched her stroking herself—
Damn! He had to do a better job of not thinking than that, or he would be trapped behind his desk for the rest of the day hiding the erection that threatened to tent his pants. Again. What he needed to do was consider all the reasons he shouldn’t be thinking about Thea’s many glorious body parts. Her many glorious off-limits body parts. There were lots of reasons. Dozens. Hundreds. If he could just come up with one of them. Soon.
She was too young. There, that was one. True, there were only twelve years between them, but they were like dog years when it came to experience. He’d traveled the world, been a member of one of the most elite units in the Corps, seen and done things that no one his age outside of the military or law enforcement would ever understand. Or accept. No, compared to him, Thea was no more than a baby.
The baby of a millionaire. Couldn’t forget that one. Doyle might bring in a more than comfortable salary, but he was still a working man. Thea was an heiress. He had to work, whereas she simply wanted to. For all Frank Fordham treated him like a member of the family, it wasn’t hard to imagine how the man would react if he ever aspired to become the real thing.
As if he’d conjured her, the object of his chaotic thoughts appeared through his door with a perfunctory knock. One look and Doyle couldn’t remember a single one of those reasons he shouldn’t be thinking about Thea and all her parts. He also knew he wouldn’t be getting up from his desk any time soon.
“Good morning!” Thea’s smile collapsed into a frown. “You’re not ready for our run.” She looked at her watch. “Am I early?”
“No, I, uh, forgot to call up to the house to tell you I couldn’t make it today.” Which, in hindsight, might have been an easier way to decline joining her. At least then he wouldn’t have had to see her in another one of those shiny, stretchy outfits she’d taken to wearing instead of her usual sweat shorts and baggy T-shirt. It was blue today. A deep cobalt blue that almost matched the color of her eyes, which were right now looking at him expectantly, reminding him that he hadn’t given her a reason why he was backing out of their usual twice weekly run.
“Work.” He made an abrupt gesture at the papers in front of him as if to provide proof for his claim. “I have to catch up.” Even to his ears it sounded like what it was—an excuse rather than a reason, and a rather lame one at that. He braced himself for Thea’s objections, her arguments, her gentle cajoling, all her usual tactics when he didn’t fall into line with her plans. But she surprised him.
“No problem,” Thea said with a shrug. Just when Doyle was congratulating himself for having dodged a dangerous bullet, even as a small part of him was hurt by the ease with which Thea had accepted his withdrawal, she blindsided him by saying, “I can get one of the other guys to go with me instead.”
One of the other guys? One of his men? Jogging with Thea while she was encased in that spandex outfit that hugged every curve like a lover’s touch? Smelling like a combination of ripe strawberries and a hint of something spicy?
Something flared inside Doyle’s gut, hot and angry. Although he refused to put a name or reason to the sudden feeling, he knew he didn’t like it. Not the feeling, and not the reason he had it.
More gruff than he intended, Doyle said, “There’s enough security around the property. You don’t need anyone to go with you.” It was true, since he h
ad never accompanied her in any capacity other than fellow runner, and yet it was a lie as well. There were several wooded areas on the estate grounds that would put her out of sight for long minutes at a time, and with the letter sender possibly in the area—something they still hadn’t been able to verify, dammit—those blind spots constituted danger areas. So, of course, she needed someone with her. What had made him say that she didn’t?
Jealousy.
The ugly word popped into his head without warning or invitation. Jealous? No. Protective. That was the better word. He was feeling protective of her, just as he always had. It had nothing to do with this sudden fascination she’d developed for inappropriate clothing. Inappropriate tight clothing that revealed way too much of her womanly curves.
Womanly? No, no, no. Girlish. Girlish curves. Because if Thea had womanly curves, that would mean he could think of her as a woman, and he most definitely didn’t want to think of her as that. So, girlish curves it was. Lush ones, to be sure, but not womanly. Curves in all the right places for a man to grab hold of and hang onto while he was—
“Doyle, are you even listening to me?”
Jerked from a train of thought he was grateful to leave behind, Doyle realized that he hadn’t a clue as to what Thea had been saying. The expression on his face must have revealed that fact because she heaved a very put-upon sigh and crossed her arms, something Doyle wished she hadn’t done, since it made her full spandex-encased breasts plump even fuller.
“I said I wasn’t planning to run on the estate today since it rained last night and the trails are probably muddy. I was going to use the indoor track at Fit. If that’s okay with you.” That last held a slight sarcastic edge he chose to ignore while he considered his options.
An upscale gym on the edge of the downtown area, Fit was a private members-only establishment. There was little chance of their letter writer sneaking in unnoticed. Even better, being early morning on a weekday, the gym wouldn’t be crowded. Doyle told himself that made him feel better because it made guarding Thea easier. But the truth was, part of him was just glad there wouldn’t be too many young gym studs around to see her in that outfit.