Going Deep (Coastal Heat #1)

by Maggie Wells

  The dismissive greeting pissed Brian off more than the People magazine article calling him ‘the Earth Channel’s sexy shark stalker.’ First of all, he didn’t stalk sharks or any other aquatic predator. He was a highly-trained marine biologist and oceanographer. Second, if the sexy label held any water, he was going to use every ounce of it to pry Jack Tucker’s hand off Brooke’s tiny waist and claim it as his own.

  “It’s going great.” Turning to Brooke, Brian dropped a slow, deliberate wink. “I’m glad your mama called to invite me. I figured I’d show up and drop off a check. I didn’t know I’d get a chance to catch up with the old…gang. Nice to see not much has changed since I moved away.”

  She turned to him with a smile set to stun and an edgy gleam in her eyes. “Brian and I were about to dance. Weren’t we, Brian?”

  He held it together. Barely. He couldn’t have been more surprised if she announced she’d seduced Brad Pitt in the Winn-Dixie and was carrying the movie star’s quintuplets.

  But she hadn’t.

  She said she wanted to dance. With him. His inner geek did an awkward dance-step-spin thing, but the rest of him stayed stock-still. He ignored the annoying, incessantly rational part of his brain when it chimed in to remind him this event wasn’t set up for dancing. Recorded pipers played a relentless stream of jaunty reels through a discretely hidden sound system, but there was barely enough room to walk, much less dance. Still, if Brooke wasn’t concerned with the plausibility of her excuse, he wouldn’t be either.

  “Yes, we were.” With Brooke’s hand secure in the crook of his left arm, he couldn’t resist the impulse to rub a little salt in Superjock’s gaping wounds. Offering his hand, he stared the other man straight in the eye and told the biggest lie of his life. “Good to see you again.”

  Jack scowled. “Yeah. See ya.” The ice in his glass rattled as he drained the last of his drink then turned away without taking the proffered hand.

  Brooke stiffened as they watched Jack stalk toward the bar. Brian didn’t need to read her mind to know the faux pas was unforgivable. One thing a gently-reared Southern woman took seriously was the appearance of good manners.

  “Horse’s ass.”

  She drawled the epithet, her lips pursed with enough taut displeasure to warm Brian straight down to the bone. Anxious to claim his chance at getting his hands on the Homecoming Queen at last, he covered her hand with his and started leading her from the room.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he steered her toward the narrow hall.

  “To dance.”

  Chapter 3

  Brooke shot Brian a sidelong glance as they approached the kitchen, but her footsteps never slowed. “You know as well as I do that was bullshit.”

  He raised one eyebrow as he held open the swinging door. “The mouth on you. Does your mama know you swear like a Biloxi doxie?”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “Did you just call me a dog?”

  Her spirited retort made his heart pound with anticipation. “Not quite.”

  The catering staff barely spared them a glance as they wove their way through the hustle and bustle. The cool spring evening greeted them as they slipped out the back door. Holding her hand tight, he skirted the cases of champagne stacked on the veranda. The moon whitewashed the manicured gardens. Fueled by one white lie and two fingers of scotch, he grabbed a bottle as he led her down the shallow steps and onto the dewy lawn.

  He released his hold on her long enough to plant the bottle in the damp grass. When he straightened, he found Brooke rubbing her arms briskly. “Oh! Here.”

  Brian shed his suit coat and held it out for her. Settling the heavy wool on her delicate shoulders gave him a moment of pause. The length of his jacket stretched well beyond her hemline. She pulled at the lapels, holding the fabric close and erasing any hint of the clingy black dress she wore beneath. Forever imprinting the image of Brooke Hastings wearing nothing but his discarded clothing in his brain.

  Her smile blossomed sweet and a tad shy. “Thank you.”

  He dismissed her gratitude and his more ungentlemanly thoughts with a brisk shake of his head. She’d never been anything but friendly to him, and he repaid her with petty jealousies and the irrational competition he’d created between them. He’d wanted her to want him. She only had to ask, and he would have handed over his heart. It hurt to realize she wanted his chemistry notes and nothing more.

  Truth be told, he still wanted her. He came to the stupid fundraiser for the chance of seeing her. He’d been all over the world, conquered great depths and climbed to great heights, but she was the woman he’d never been able to forget. The flare of interest he’d seen in her eyes drew him in like a net. Memories of the hot, urgent kiss he’d planted on her knocked into him, persistent as waves against the shore. He needed to find out once and for all if Brooke might possibly want him, too.

  He stared at her, searching her face for the answers he wanted. “For what, exactly?”

  Brooke shrugged and the collar of his coat gaped, exposing a tantalizing strip of her slender neck. “The coat? Helping me ditch Jack?”

  “Once upon a time you and Jack were inseparable.”

  He should know. He’d plotted and planned a thousand different scenarios in which she’d chosen him over Jack, though he knew the odds were statistically improbable. Not many girls would trade the captain of the football team for the president of the science club. But Brooke never treated him the way the others had.

  She shivered as she looked back at the house. “A long time ago.”

  A strip of pale gold spilled from a window, bathing her in a halo of light, but the expression on her face was anything but angelic when she turned back.

  “I can’t believe I wasted five years of my life on a complete moron.” She flicked a wry glance in his direction before fixating on the bottle at his feet. “You’re a smart guy, Brian. Surely you saw it.” He gave a slight nod and she huffed in exasperation. “And yet, you let me make a fool of myself.” Gesturing to the bottle, she raised both eyebrows. “I think you owe me a drink. Don’t you?”

  Amused by her spin on their history, he stooped, snagged the bottle by its neck, and set to work. “Funny how you see things a little differently after a decade or so.”

  “I’m trying to decide if it’s better to be bitter or embarrassed.”

  He let the grin out as he applied enough pressure to the cork to ease the seal then gave it a deft twist. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was sixteen. My friends thought I should be with him, so I was.”

  The cork punctuated the sentiment with a muffled pop. Brooke’s pink tongue darted out to wet her lips. She looked up and caught him staring at her mouth, mesmerized. Turning his attention to the bottle in his hand, he shoved the white-hot shaft of desire down deep and focused on the laws of thermodynamics instead. Adiabatic cooling. A sudden change in temperature caused the water vapor trapped in the sparkling wine’s fizzing bubbles to condense. Vapor rose from the lip of the bottle, curling like smoke on the cool spring breeze.

  “You should be embarrassed.”

  “Consider me mortified.”

  Brooke’s throaty whisper enveloped him. Unwilling to risk releasing the stream of gibberish from his head, he clamped his mouth shut and offered her the champagne. He forced himself not to fixate on the sight of her pink lips wrapping around the mouth of the bottle or the sensual pull of her throat muscles as she took a greedy gulp. Moonlight streaked her skin, highlighting the pulse fluttering beneath her jaw. She was pale as alabaster but alive and tempting. Over a decade and a world of experience later, the impulse to drop to his knees in front of her was still just as powerful. Except now he wanted to worship her up close and personal.

  His gaze locked on hers as she lowered the bottle. He took a half-step closer, testing the waters. “We’ve all made fools of ourselves over someone.”

  Her lips shone wet and ripe, the pale light making them appear much deeper and darker than he kn
ew them to be. Brian couldn’t decide which he found more intoxicating—the petal pink of light or the wanton ruby of the night. Or maybe the silver-green glow of her unflinching stare. He’d always loved her directness.

  She licked the wine from her lips then tipped her chin up in blatant defiance. “Or someone makes you look foolish in front of everyone you know.”

  He didn’t need a hundred-page dissertation to follow her logic. “I never meant to embarrass you.”

  “You….” She trailed off, breaking the connection by turning to look out over the darkened grounds. “My family, my friends…my boyfriend,” she added with a derisive huff. Shaking her head, she shot him a speculative glance then thrust the bottle at him. He took it with pure reflex. “I had to tell them I had no idea why the boy who hated me kissed me in front of God and everyone. With tongue.”

  “That part just happened.” Why he rushed to qualify the last, he had no idea, but it seemed like a salient point in the argument. Delving down into the heart of the matter, he gave her the best answer he had. “And you know I never hated you.”

  This time her laugh packed enough edge to make him think—hope—the resentment she felt toward him might stem from something more than being flustered. Embedding the bottle in the grass once more, he closed the distance between them. The wind toyed with a lock of her hair. Hooking it with one finger, he dragged it away from those wine-dampened lips and tucked it safely behind her ear. Someplace it wouldn’t tempt him overmuch.

  Turning his hand palm up, he looked her straight in the eye. “I believe this is my dance.”

  She blinked once, but effectively. A slow sweep of mascara-darkened lashes accompanied another one of those alluring pink blushes. He could imagine the heat rising from her skin.

  “This might get complicated.”

  The intensity of her gaze amused him. He wanted to tell her there was nothing complicated about what he wanted from her. His need stemmed from the most basic, natural, and unquestionably necessary of functions. He should know; he was an expert when it came to biology.

  The rise and fall of her chest didn’t go unnoticed. Neither did the dilation of her pupils. Truth in science. Bone-deep honesty lived in her body’s visceral reactions. Virtue in knowing she wanted him to act out every one of the decidedly unvirtuous thoughts racing through his head. No matter what justification her facile mind conjured in the next thirty seconds, they both knew what was happening in the moonlight.

  “I’m not afraid of complex problems.”

  She glanced back at the house. “No music.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Slowly she straightened her shoulders and lifted her head. Bracing his feet wide, Brian prepared for the rejection he feared. Surprise almost knocked him on his ass when she placed her hand in his.

  She stared at him as he folded her into his arms. “Can you sing?”

  “Not on a bet.”

  “Whistle?”

  Raising one eyebrow, he stepped into her space, forcing her to follow him into the smooth glide of a waltz. “Do you need me to hail you a cab?”

  “I haven’t actually waltzed since the junior high cotillion,” she murmured, nostalgia curving her lips. “Do you hum?”

  “I’ve been humming every second since I saw you tonight.”

  Her sharp intake of breath made him want to thrust a fist into the air, but his hand fit the delectable curve at the small of her back to perfection and her hair smelled like flowers. No way he could pry himself away.

  “You were the only one who could make me dance,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “At cotillion. We were required to ask someone to dance. I asked you.”

  “Why?”

  “You were the girl I wanted to dance with.”

  She clenched his shoulder, her fingers bunching his shirt. Her breath blew hot against his neck. “I find that hard to believe. You didn’t like me. You mocked me incessantly. Everything I did.”

  “I was jealous.”

  The simple statement of fact seemed to weaken the bedrock of her denial. She leaned her head back to look at him. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. He wanted to kiss it away, but before he could act on the impulse, it fled.

  “Jealous?”

  She wore her toothpaste ad grin again. And the same wide-eyed, guileless gaze she’d used to bamboozle people since they were kids. But he wasn’t as easily dazzled as most people. Not by her beauty. He’d had Brooke Hastings’s number since the day they went head-to-head in the third grade spelling bee. If he wanted to get to her, he had to find a way to beat her at her own game. He’d learned his lesson when she stole the science fair ribbon out from under him mere weeks after their first and last dance.

  “You hated me.”

  His chuckle was weak, but he had the facts and she was dealing in pure conjecture. Driven by the need to disprove her hypothesis, he brushed the barest of kisses to her temple and pulled her flush against him. “You keep saying so, but we both know I never hated you.”

  “You were merciless after I won the science fair.”

  “Solar oven pizza.” He reared back and glared down at her, his disbelief every bit as potent as it had been then.

  The heat in her eyes faded to a sultry glow. It was almost enough to make him forget the weeks he’d spent studying phytoplankton and zooplankton in vain. The lapels of his too-big jacket puckered as she pressed against him. Ditching the last of his chivalrous impulses, he slipped his hand under the suit coat, desperate to touch any bit of her he could reach. “Your data collection was shoddy.”

  “You were mad because everyone likes pizza and not plankton.” Her raised eyebrows helped to drive the point home, but the sway of her hips guaranteed his defeat.

  Data validity questions stood little chance up against this fuller, softer, infinitely more knowledgeable Brooke.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be a popularity contest.”

  “Life is a popularity contest,” she retorted. “Surely you’ve figured that out. Haven’t you, Mr. Television Star?”

  He stiffened, but Brooke curled into him. “The show was a fluke.”

  Her fingers unfurled. The warmth of her palm permeated his shirt. He wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find she’d branded him with it. “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  One slender shoulder rose and fell. “Hard to resist fame and fortune—”

  “I worked for a cable network. Not much in the way of fortune.”

  “Women throwing themselves at you.”

  He smiled down at her. “That part wasn’t bad.”

  “And even if you didn’t get movie-star-rich, I’d bet it paid better than a research fellowship.”

  He couldn’t deny the pay differential, so he kept his mouth shut.

  “I know the endorsements pay well. I really ought to get a set of those flippers.” Long, graceful fingers stroked his collar.

  “I’ll get you a pink pair.”

  Instead of taking the sexist comment as bait, she heaved a reverberating sigh. “I’m sorry for what happened. It was crappy and I’m sorry you got the grief for it.”

  The hint at the humiliation he’d suffered turned his stomach. He started to step back, but Brooke snuggled deeper into him.

  “I understand why you walked away.”

  The sweet tea and sympathy made his sonar ping. Unlike every fool they’d gone to high school with, he’d never underestimated her before. He needed to remember how sharp she was, despite the proximity of her sweet, round ass. His mind raced nearly as fast as his heart, but still he kept dancing, powerless against the siren song of her soft body close to his. The soles of his shoes squeaked against damp blades of grass. Brooke danced on her toes. His grip tightened on her hand. He drew her snug against him. At long last, their need to meet and beat one another head-on played to his favor. He got to hold her close, and for a few precious moments he allowed her nearness to be enough.

  She hummed softly, some
random, unidentifiable song designed to validate the slow sway of their bodies in the moonlight. But her questions and implications told him she wasn’t here just for the dance. Fearing he’d lose his grip if he couldn’t find the solutions soon, he swept her into a smooth turn and cut to the chase.

  “What do you want, Brooke?”

  Peeling herself from his chest, she met gaze. “Well, I came out here to seduce you into an interview, but then I got distracted.”

  “I’ve seen you study for a calculus exam with the marching band warming up next door. You’re not easily distracted.”

  She blinked once but didn’t flinch. “I never had a thing for the guys in band.”

  He scoffed. The implication seemed too ridiculous to be considered. Up until the day they graduated, Brooke had never given him anything more than the friendly smiles she passed out like candy tossed from a parade float. And after he kissed her, after he’d stood up and taken what he wanted most after years of suffering in silence, she had the audacity to beam at the crowd. But she wouldn’t look him in the eye. He could still see her swaying like a sapling in the wind, her cheeks flushed and a bright sheen of tears filling her eyes.

  Like the nursery rhyme his mother read to him as a boy, he’d kissed a girl and made her cry—a bit of cause and effect a guy found hard to forget. “You never had a thing for me, either.”

  Elegant eyebrows arched. “Didn’t I?”

  “Stop.” His circling steps halted as the order left his mouth. His head swiveled in an unconscious metronome of denial. “What do you want, Brooke?”

  She answered with another shrug as her hand slid from his shoulder. “I told you. I want an interview.”

  “That’s it? You’re willing to come out here and snuggle up to me to get me to answer a few stupid questions?” He lowered his hands to his side, his fingers curling into loose fists. “I wouldn’t think a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist would have to stoop to seducing her subjects.”

  Her jaw hardened and she waved a dismissive hand. “A figure of speech.”

  “Felt like much more.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he tried not to think about how much he liked seeing her wrapped up in his suit coat. Awash in frustration, he clamped his teeth together but resisted the urge to grind. They stared at one another, neither willing to concede an inch. Brooke ducked her head in a brief nod, but the upward curve of her mouth caught him up short. Either she’d learned to take rejection remarkably well over the years or he’d somehow stumbled upon the right answer.