To Win Her Trust

by Mackenzie Crowne

  “I would if he was in residence, but he’s not. We have the place to ourselves.” He slowed his steps. “Did you want a tour before we hit the beach?”

  She shot a quick glance over her shoulder and shook her head. “The sun would be down before we finished.”

  He grinned and grabbed her hand.

  They passed through a second gate at the back of the property, and like a postcard, a half mile cove of pristine sand and surf greeted them. A flock of gulls skittered back and forth at the edge of the water. Walter spotted them and raced off to give chase. Far off in the distance, a lone figure cast a line into the churning surf, but otherwise, the beach was empty.

  She glanced around with a frown. “There’s nobody here.”

  “Yeah.” A satisfied sigh lifted his chest. “Ain’t it great?”

  To their left, a glass-fronted bungalow edged the sand. Several lounge chairs occupied the charming wraparound deck. He produced a key from the pocket of his shorts and tugged her up the steps, then paused. His shrill whistle pierced the air. Walter pivoted in a wide arc and raced back.

  The open floor plan included a comfortable seating area, a small kitchen, and a full bar.

  “There’s a bathroom through there where you can change.” He bumped his chin toward a set of double doors at the back of the room and moved behind the granite island to the bar. He bent to open a mini-fridge. “Do you want something to drink?”

  “I’ll take a bottled water if they have it.”

  He straightened with a beer bottle in hand. One sandy blond brow arched over his laughing eyes. “Water?”

  She shrugged. “It’s important to stay hydrated.”

  He shook his head and pulled a water from the fridge. “Puritan.”

  She snatched the bottle from his hand and ignored his chuckle to stalk toward the double doors. Inside the full bathroom, decorated in a beach theme of pale blue and yellow tiles, she blew out a heavy breath and sagged against the closed doors. An afternoon spent alone on a private beach with Tuck wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she proposed her dating theory and, after that bikini fashion show, was far too intimate a prospect for her shaky equilibrium.

  They needed to have another conversation on the fundamentals of her dating theory, but after his whispered comment the other night, she was reluctant to bring up the subject.

  We’ll get to the fucking…soon. That was what she was afraid of or, more precisely, not afraid enough.

  She bumped the back of her head against the wooden door and welcomed the dull lash of pain. With his smiling eyes and broad shoulders, the man was a walking temptation. And, damn it, the irresistible pull of his larger-than-life persona wasn’t just physical. He was also a nice guy.

  The trouble was, he didn’t fit into the self-centered, player’s mold where her experience insisted he belonged. Unlike her father, who demanded every ounce of attention from those who had the misfortune of spending time in his presence, Tuck didn’t seem to have a selfish bone in his body. With each moment they spent together, her lifelong distrust of men battered against those moments of gentleness, caring, and loyalty he displayed.

  She’d willingly waded into uncharted waters. If she didn’t watch out, she was going to drown.

  Nerves danced in her belly as she pushed off the door. She shoved aside the disturbing musing and dug through her bag. Her fingers hesitated on the silky material of the teal bikini.

  Hmm. You think this is sexy, huh?

  Self-preservation reared its head, and she tossed the suit aside. She bypassed the pink one as well and held up her own navy blue one-piece. As armor went, the two-year-old suit was beyond ridiculous, but in an emergency, one used whatever was at hand.

  Five minutes later, false bravado firmly in place, she stalked through the opened doorway. All thought of armor and self-preservation flew from her mind as her feet stumbled to a stop. Across the room at the wall of windows, Tuck faced the panoramic view of the Atlantic. The bright red trunks rode low on his hips, but otherwise, his muscular body was bared to her view. A healthy tan deepened his skin to a light bronze, highlighted by the serrated, barbed wire tattoos wrapped around his thick biceps. The artist in her sighed in appreciation. The woman fought a sensual shiver.

  His wasn’t the first bare, male back she’d ever seen. The billboards of Time’s Square flashed advertisements featuring the sculpted bodies of bare-chested men on a regular basis, and she’d been to art school. Granted, she’d been the class freak, slipping in at the last moment to take a seat in the back of the room and leaving long before class ended, but thanks to numerous anatomy lessons with live models, she’d documented the muscle and sinew of the naked male form in numerous mediums. However, none of those gym-sculpted bodies came close to the picture of male perfection that was Tuck.

  A hot fluttering churned low in her belly as she slid her sketchbook and charcoals from her bag. Some temptations weren’t meant to be resisted, after all.

  On bare feet, she crossed the distance to toss her bag on the long couch. “Don’t move.”

  Of course, he didn’t listen. He turned to face her as Walter rose from the rug near the door to pad toward her. She twirled her finger in a turnaround motion, flipped open her pad to a blank page, and sat. “This won’t take long. Turn around and look out at the water for a few minutes.”

  He propped his hands on his hips. “Why would I do that when there’s a much better view right in front of me?” His gaze dropped to the square cut neckline of her suit, then roamed over her breasts and belly to skim down her legs. A crooked smile tweaked his lips when he looked up again. “Very nice.”

  She refused to acknowledge the fingers of pleasure dancing over her skin at his appreciative inspection and rolled her eyes. “Turn around, Tuck.”

  Silent laughter twinkled in his eyes, but he complied.

  She selected a pencil, and without taking her eyes off the line of his shoulder blades, drew the charcoal across the page in swift strokes. Shadows and lines quickly gave form to well-defined deltoids and the deep crevice of his spine.

  “Do you always carry a sketchbook with you?”

  She smudged at the curve of one shoulder joint with the pad of her thumb. “I’m an artist. It’s required.” His shoulders shifted on a soft chuckle, and her pencil paused. “What?”

  “Looks like I’m going to get to see your etchings after all.”

  A smile tugged at her lips. “Who says I’m going to show you?”

  He glanced over his shoulder and blasted her with a boyish grin. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  Her gaze slid down his mostly bare form, and she swallowed. If he showed her any more of his, she’d go under for sure. She pointed a stiff finger at the window, and with a laugh, he turned back to the view.

  Typically, he didn’t remain silent. “Have you always carried pencils and paper with you?”

  She glanced up at the innocent question. Dark memories flooded her mind, and her fingers clenched around the pencil. She stared at his back, all sleek lines and muscled curves. He hadn’t pushed her on the kidnapping or her family since overhearing Curt’s message, and the lack of pressure had made his offer to listen if she wanted to talk oddly tempting.

  Why the idea tugged at her so strongly, she wasn’t sure. She’d never been comfortable speaking about the events of her childhood with anyone, including the countless therapists her mother dragged her to over the years. And yet, for reasons she didn’t understand, she trusted him.

  She chewed at her lip in indecision. Invisible scars shaped her life, but wasn’t that the whole point of her dating theory? Her memories and the debilitating hold they had on her were the reason she was here with him. Would baring her soul to Tuck help heal the scars once and for all, or simply make the bleeding worse?

  Are you going to let fear steal the full life that should be yours?

  Damn it. No, she wasn’t. She’d already stepped outside her self-imposed box with their dating agreemen
t. Maybe it was time she took the next step.

  A deep breath filled her lungs, and nerves tightened her voice. “Not until after the kidnapping.”

  He turned slowly to face her, and his penetrating gaze held her captive. No trace of humor showed on his sober face, and his lips were compressed into a flat line. Silence stretched between them, and she nearly lost her nerve. An embarrassing tremor shook her hands, and she set aside the sketchpad. She held on to the charcoal as if it were a lifeline.

  “You were right the other night when you guessed I was spooked about going into the woods. I don’t venture into the forest. Ever.”

  He dipped his chin in a brief nod. “You were held in the woods?”

  She dropped her gaze to the pencil she held and drew her thumb over the tip, leaving a black smudge behind. “In an old cabin.” A shudder rippled through her as she revisited the trauma of her childhood memories. Her voice rose several octaves, making her sound almost childlike, but she couldn’t help it. “For years I had nightmares about creepy, gnarled trees grabbing at me as I ran through the dark.”

  His bare feet appeared in her field of vision, and he crouched in front of her. She lifted her gaze and locked on to the steady security in his blue eyes.

  “Th-the m-men who took me kept me locked in a closet. It was very dark, but sometimes, light would creep beneath the crack under the door. Enough to see my surroundings. I found a broken crayon in the corner, and whenever I got really scared, I drew pictures on the back of the door.”

  “Sunshine.” His tortured whisper pierced the menacing fog swirling through her mind like a malevolent wraith. He rested his palm over the top of her hand to still its slashing movements as if she marked the door of her prison even now.

  A jagged whimper racked her body, and she struggled to return to the present. His hands came to her arms, but she reared back. When he would have dropped his hands to bracket her hips on the couch, she grabbed one and squeezed his fingers and hoped he understood. What she needed was a lifeline, not a rescue. If she was going to escape the past and its ghosts, she’d have to do so on her own.

  She shuddered on a cleansing breath and shook her head. “I never saw their faces. They wore masks and left me alone for the most part, but whenever I heard one of them coming to check on me, I hid the crayon in my sock so they wouldn’t take it.”

  She dropped her gaze to the pencil in her clenched fingers. “I don’t remember a lot about the night the FBI found me. Mostly, it’s just blurred images and fear, but the crayon was on the nightstand when I woke up in the hospital the next morning.” She looked up. “It’s blue.”

  The warm palm he cupped over her cheek heated her chilled skin. “It is, as in you kept it?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded and scalding tears stung her eyes. Her laugh came out as a wry cough. “Weird, huh? But the thing is, more than the thousands of people who were searching for me, more than the FBI agent who discovered the cabin, and the men who got me out”—she squeezed her eyes shut as the tears welled and overflowed—”that crayon saved my life.”

  The pad of his thumb brushed through the salty trail on her cheek in a gentle caress, and he dipped his head until only their mingled breath separated their lips. “Not weird. Brave.”

  Chapter 14

  A pleasured sigh shivered through CC as Tuck covered her mouth with his. The slide of his lips over hers wasn’t gentle. Need and urgency accompanied the deep plunge of his tongue. A blast of fire heated her from the inside, and she answered the call, tangling her tongue with his in a desperate plea for more.

  The world tipped as he surged up and forward. A strong arm bracketed her waist, and she thrilled to the friction of his hard chest against her peaked nipples. Warm fingers spread over the skin of her back, left bare by the low dip of her suit, and guided her down until she lay sprawled on the couch. He joined her, all tangled arms and legs, and the weight of him, solid and delicious and covering her from chest to knees, dragged forth a moan.

  He ended the kiss, lifting his head, and the breath caught in her throat. Shaggy, sun-dipped hair fell forward to frame the tight lines of his face. Dark and stormy, his eyes gleamed with sensual intent, but there was a question in them as well.

  Did he think she wasn’t with him? Completely and without reserve?

  Like the mist after a summer storm, her doubts evaporated beneath the heat of his study. The question of whether or not she was making a colossal mistake by opening herself to him, emotionally or physically, no longer mattered. Nothing this strong could be wrong.

  She answered his silent question by tangling her fingers in his hair and dragging his mouth back to hers. His low groan shimmered through his chest to hers and awoke a hunger she’d never known. Her nipples, already tight with need, prickled with a painful urgency as they rasped against the hard plains of his chest. Her body surged upward in a feline arch as if it had a mind of its own. The move shifted his weight and ground his erection against her mound.

  Her senses went flying.

  She gasped into his mouth and swiveled her hips. The contact sent shards of unbearable pleasure ricocheting outward from her clit. Adrenaline, thick and strangely numbing, oozed through her bloodstream and left a languid heaviness behind. Who knew the simple press of male flesh on her sensitive nerve endings would feel this good?

  “Oh my God.”

  He lifted his head. A grin tweaked his lips. “Like that, do you?”

  She swallowed but couldn’t find the words to describe her surprise and pleasure. A nod was all she could manage.

  “Me, too.”

  He dipped his head to cover her lips in a blazing kiss, nipping, sucking. His tongue sunk deep, and his fingers trailed a warm path from her lower thigh to her hip. Every part of her clamored for more. Beneath closed lids, her eyes rolled back in her head.

  Oh dear Lord. The devil has magic hands and a freaking magical mouth.

  He proved her silent claim true a moment later when his lips left hers and traveled in a sensual tour over her cheek. A gentle bite on her earlobe and her eyes flew open. Moist heat bathed the shell of her ear as he soothed the lobe with his tongue. She stared at the ceiling and welcomed her body’s natural response. A much hotter moistness swelled the secret folds between her thighs.

  Need, primal and instinctive, demanded she move, and she desperately wanted to touch. Since the moment she’d left the bathroom and her gaze had fallen on his beautiful back, her fingers had itched to explore the adorable twin dimples peaking just above the low cut of his suit.

  She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and slid her palms down the smooth muscles of his back. He was so big. So solid. So warm. Frustration nearly made her growl as her fingertips encountered material where those dimples should be. She dipped her hand beneath his waistband but never reached her goal.

  She froze and lost track of her thoughts. How was a woman supposed to think with a man’s callused hand riding up her thigh, over her waist to the underside of her breast? Tiny shivers of excited anticipation raised bumps on her skin, and her nipples puckered painfully. A low moan vibrated in her chest as he shifted his upper body and cupped her mound with his wide palm. The moan became a tortured gasp at the press of his thumb on the hardened bud beneath her suit.

  Piercing, white-hot lightning shot through her, and her hips jerked in reaction. Her breath came in pants. “Tuck!”

  Eyes glittering, he smiled, though tension rode his features. “It’s okay, sunshine. This is part of that petting you were curious about.” The tip of one finger dipped beneath the silky material of her suit at her left breast. He tugged until the strap slipped down her arm and her breast was exposed. The cobalt blue of his irises deepened as he stared at the plump mound. He swept his thumb across the bottom curve, and a dark smile curved his lips. “You’re beautiful.”

  Shifting on one muscled arm, he lowered his head until his lips hovered a breath away from her straining nipple. “So beautiful.”

  He stabbed at t
he tightened bud with the tip of his tongue. Balanced on a knife edge of pleasure and pain, she jerked convulsively. A rumble of encouragement vibrated in his throat as he laved the oversensitive tip with wet heat.

  Tugging at the other strap, he dragged the suit farther down her body. His hand continued lower, slipping beneath the material, and his long fingers spread over the bare skin of her belly.

  Hot! She was freaking hot, and watching what he was doing didn’t help. She was an artist. Her work often manifested itself in sensual lines, but she’d never seen anything as erotic as the sight of his gilded head against her pale skin. His wide mouth and firm lips paying sweet homage to her breast. His large hand buried beneath her suit while his talented fingers slowly approached the junction of her thighs.

  He turned his head, and his heated gaze locked with hers. She panted and anticipation tightened her stomach muscles. A wicked grin curved his mouth as he lowered his head and closed his lips around the fullness of her breast and sucked. Hard.

  Sensations she’d never known, never knew existed, tumbled through her like crashing waves. She squirmed beneath him. “Please.”

  His throaty hum pulsed against her flesh as his fingers slid into the tight nest of curls between her thighs. A buzzing began in her ears. She might be a virgin, but she wasn’t a stranger to the forerunners of orgasm. A woman had needs, after all, even one with a natural distrust of men, but nothing she’d ever experienced on her own could have prepared her for Tuck’s touch.

  Disappointment surged through her when her nipple popped free of his lips and his fingers stilled in their quest. He turned his head, and frustration burned hot in his eyes.

  She pushed up on her elbows. Why had he stopped, and why was he glaring at her bag?

  Confusion cooled the haze of lust, and as if a switch was flipped, the buzzing in her ears became a distinctive ringtone. Her eyes slid shut, and she flopped back to the couch.

  Oh, Mom. Your timing is terrible. As usual.