by Lisa Cach
As they entered an area of flattened grass, he picked a broken wooden stake with a fluorescent pink streamer from the ground. “What the—?” he muttered, then looked out over the field around them, which dropped away down a long, gradual slope to the valley below. “Stay here a minute, will you?” he asked, and jogged off.
Standing motionless and alone, Grace finally became aware of the countryside around her. The vineyards and farms through which they’d driven stretched across the rolling valley and up the lower slopes of hills, their man-made regularity blending easily into the softness of nature. Sounds enfolded her in quiet layers: the sough of the faint breeze over the grass, crickets chirping, the scratching of a bird that landed on the flattened grass and poked for food; the distant, fading rumble of a tractor. It was a beautiful, peaceful place, and she wished she were in a better mood to appreciate it.
Declan was halfway down the slope, picking another broken stake out of the grass. He tossed it aside and took out his cell phone.
Grace could feel sweat trickling down her temple and between her breasts and prickling on her upper lip. Her hands were getting the tight, overstuffed-sausage feeling that always came with heat. Hunger, thirst, the bright light, and her high ponytail conspired to threaten her with a monster headache, and in hopes of defeating at least one of them she reached up and pulled the elastic from her hair, letting the red waves fall around her shoulders. Her scalp thanked her even as her nape protested the warmth.
She found a safe-looking patch of flattened grass and sat down, unbuckling the torturous shoes and setting them aside. Ticks and snakes be damned, her poor suffering body couldn’t take it anymore.
She stretched her legs in front of her and leaned back on her hands, the relaxed posture giving her a bit of space in her corset. A breeze swept over her, cooling the moisture on her face, and she closed her eyes. If she sat very still, maybe she wouldn’t melt.
Declan’s voice carried to her, a deep, irritated murmur as he talked to someone on the phone. A few minutes later she heard him approaching, but didn’t open her eyes until he sat beside her on the grass. “So what’s going on?” she asked.
“Bored kids, I hope,” he said. He was sitting with his knees up, his arms resting atop them. “All the survey stakes have been pulled up and scattered.”
“Scattering stakes doesn’t sound very entertaining, even for bored kids. What is this place?”
“It’s the future home of a hundred and twenty middle-income families, if I can pull it together, and if wrongheaded environmentalists don’t muck it up.”
“A housing development, here?” she asked, appalled. “But it’s so beautiful! Why would you destroy it?”
“People need homes.”
“Let them live closer to town! Why erase an open space like this?” Aunt Sophia’s voice was in the back of her head, scolding her for her negative tone, but she couldn’t hold back the words.
“It’s relatively cheap land.”
“So you’ll make a bigger profit, at the expense of the environment?” she cried.
“No … ,” he said with exaggerated slowness, as if speaking to a dim-witted child. “Because middle-income families cannot afford homes built on expensive land. The people who work in the Monterey area can’t afford to live there.”
She shook her head. “There has to be a better solution.”
“I welcome you to try to find it. In the meantime, I trust you won’t stick your nose into business you don’t understand.”
She made a noise of disgust. “So why did you bring me here, anyway? You had to have guessed what I would think.”
“I thought you might enjoy the view,” he said flatly.
“Oh.” He’d been trying to be nice and, she realized belatedly, he had been showing her a part of his life. She swallowed further argument, though the taste was bitter, and tried to think flattering thoughts. “It is a lovely view. I wouldn’t mind having a house that looked out on it myself.”
He slanted an assessing look at her. “It’s not going to be a bunch of tract homes, you know. If all the funding and approval come through, we’re going to build a sustainable community with shared common spaces and vegetable gardens. There will be gray-water recapture, solar-heated water, we’re investigating innovative building materials like straw bales … all things that will bite into profit, but will result in a model community that could be emulated throughout the country.”
“So why are environmentalists on your case, when it’s such a green project?” she asked.
“Because they’re zealots who think it’s a sin to build a house!”
Grace murmured noncommittally, suspecting there was more to it than that. However green the development, it would still mean that this quiet hillside would be covered in a crusty scab of houses. “Well, whatever the case, I’m sure you’re more than a match for them.”
“Your friend Dr. Andrew is one of them.”
“Really?” she squeaked, perking up, then catching herself. The last thing she wanted was for Declan to sense her interest in Dr. Andrew. “But he’s not my friend. I’ve only seen him once since the day I arrived, and he was in serious doctor mode, costume and all.”
Declan chuckled and shook his head. “Sophia.”
“What does she make you wear?”
“I don’t do costumes.”
“Maybe a pin-striped suit and a pocket watch?”
“I don’t make a fool of myself to curry favor.”
“That’s hardly fair; pleasing someone isn’t the same as currying their favor. There’s such a thing as kindness.”
“Either way, the ass gets kissed. I’m surprised Andrew hasn’t been hanging around more.”
“Does he usually?” she asked, playing with a blade of grass, afraid to meet his eyes.
“Only when he wants something.”
“Then I guess there’s nothing he wants.”
“You don’t think he might be interested in you?”
“No, of course not!” She felt a blush blooming on her cheeks. After their last encounter, it would be the furthest thing from his mind.
“You underestimate your appeal.”
She raised her eyes, surprised by the compliment.
“Although … ,” he said, looking her up and down, “I’m not sure that this spruced-up version of yourself will be to his taste.”
She looked down at her dress. “What’s wrong with it?”
“You’ll intimidate him. His type doesn’t do well with overt sexuality. It scares them.”
“What nonsense. Besides, this is not a sexy dress. It’s perfectly decent.”
“Not on you it isn’t,” he drawled.
Her blush deepened. “At any rate, I’d think that a medical doctor would be at home with the human body and sex. It’s a perfectly normal biological function.”
Declan laughed. “Just because he knows how to give you a pelvic exam doesn’t mean he’d have a clue as to how to give you an orgasm. You can’t learn it from a textbook.”
“So you’re the expert on that?”
“Damn right.”
“Riiiight.”
“Hey, a hundred satisfied customers can’t be wrong.”
“The type of women you sleep with, they’re all probably a bunch of fakers.”
His grin was devilish. “Want to find out for yourself?”
“No,” she sniffed.
He leaned close, his mouth near her ear. “Try me,” he whispered, sending shivers down her neck.
“You’re disgusting,” she said, heart thumping. “Never.”
“The lady doth protest too much.”
“The lady’s stomach turns.”
He tsked and sat back, a devilish grin on his lips. “And here we were having such a nice outing. I knew it was too good to last.”
“Not on my account,” she said. “Seriously, do you behave this way all the time with women? Because if you do, it’s beyond me how anyone ever lets you score.”
; He shrugged, untroubled. “A lot of them seem to like it. Be honest. Even you like a bit of caddish come-on, a bit of naughty innuendo.”
“It makes my skin crawl.”
“I’d be more convinced if you said you were indifferent,” he said.
“You’re sicker than I thought if you prefer loathing to indifference.”
“Ah, but loathing means you’re affected. And that you’re appalled at your own reactions. You’re attracted despite yourself.” He leaned close again, his torso almost, but not quite, touching her own. He took his sunglasses off, then slid hers down her nose. Electric turquoise blue gazed intently into her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, trying and utterly failing to sound severe. Her heart was thumping.
“Looking.”
“At what?”
“Not at what. For.”
“For what, then?” she asked.
“Hatred.”
She gave him her hardest look. “See it yet?”
“Nope.” He leaned back.
Grace slid her sunglasses back up, her hands shaking. “I hide it well.”
“Nah. You’re too attracted to me to hate me, that’s all.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Unbelievable.”
“How long’s it been since you’ve been laid?”
“Excuse me?”
He put his fingertips to his lips, raised his brows, and in a Queen Victoria accent said, “Oh my, oh dear, we musn’t speak of such things!”
“It’s not prudish to refuse to answer such a rude question. You’re … you’re … being vulgar.”
“I’m a man. What did you expect?”
“A bit of gentlemanliness.”
“‘Gentlemanliness.’ Haven’t heard that one for a while. Sure you wouldn’t rather have sex?”
Grace rubbed the spot between her eyebrows, feeling the strain of keeping up her end of this conversation. “I’d rather have lunch.”
“Hunger is a sublimated desire for sex.”
She groaned in frustration. “Or maybe I’m hungry.”
“Okay, I’ll ask something a little less intrusive. When was the last time you had an orgasm?”
She gaped at him.
“I assume you’ve had one, at least once?” he asked. “Maybe you gave it to yourself. I can’t see you letting a guy do it.”
“Why do you insist on tormenting me?” she wailed.
“So you think talking about sex is equal to torture. Interesting.”
“I do like talking about it—with the right person.” She gave him a pointed look.
“I don’t mean talking about the politics of it. I mean talking about the nuts and bolts. The physical reality. You and your type are all talk, no action.” He added almost as an afterthought, “Worse yet, it’s boring talk.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, what type of juvenile manipulation technique is that supposed to be?” she said. “Now you think I’m going to unfasten my dress and get all melty for you, just to ‘prove’ that I’m not a sexually frozen, intellectualizing feminist?”
The corner of his mouth twitched in a shamed-dog grin. “I was hoping.”
He’d just been egging her on this whole time? She laughed. “Keep right on hoping.”
They sat in silence, and gradually the chirping of the crickets and the gentle breeze soothed away Grace’s annoyance. The most troubling part of the whole conversation—if she’d admit it to herself—was that talking about sex brought sex to the forefront of her mind, and what the mind thought, the body readied itself for. Declan was a horndog who didn’t belong in her life, and yet … and yet, her body had become “melty” at the thought that maybe, just maybe, he might touch her.
How pathetic.
“You know … ,” Declan said into the quiet, “I could give you an orgasm without laying a single finger on you.”
“We’re back to that topic, are we?”
“Bet your precious Dr. Andrew couldn’t do that to you.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “What is wrong with you? I mean, really? Were you weaned too early? Were you traumatized by walking in on your parents having sex? What?”
“Not a single point of contact, my body to yours.”
Grace snorted. “Your conceit knows no bounds,” she said, even as she squirmed a little, her curiosity sparked. “How?”
“I won’t tell you unless you agree to let me do it.”
“You know I won’t.”
“On the contrary,” he said.
His look of smug certainty made her want to smack him. “Why on earth would you think I’d go for it?”
“It’s win-win for you. If I can’t do it, you get to laugh at me. If I can, you … well, you get an orgasm.”
“With you watching.”
“I’ve got to get some benefit.”
“And if you failed, you’d blame me,” she pointed out. “You’d use it as proof that I’m what you think I am, a joyless prude. Sounds lose-lose to me.”
“Aren’t you at least curious?”
He wanted to make a fool out of her again. It could be his only motivation. “Why would you even suggest such a stunt to me?” she asked.
“The truth? Thinking of you doing it turns me on.”
She blinked, surprised. Absurdly, insanely, she was flattered, and a little aroused herself. “So where your penis leads, you follow.”
“You say that like it’s bad.”
She shook her head. “I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ll give you that, Declan. You are a unique piece of work.”
“Glad to hear it. My offer is sincere, by the way. I could give you an orgasm without touching you.”
She felt tingling over her skin, and for a moment she didn’t doubt him. She looked him in the face, trying to gauge what was going on in his head. Maybe he had some sort of personality disorder, or an Asperger’s-like social disability that made him unaware of how far over the line he’d gone.
Or he was joking.
She narrowed her eyes behind her shades. No, not joking. Bluffing. He didn’t expect her to take the offer, and when she refused, he’d have fodder for 101 new insults and accusations. No way he could do what he said. And he knew it.
It was time to turn the tables.
Grace put back on her mask of sweetness and curiosity. “So you truly can do that, give a woman an orgasm with just mind power or your voice or something? Since I am so prone to intellectualizing sex, it sounds like something worthy of study. I’d like to see if you really can do it.”
His face went still. “You’re saying yes?”
Ha! She knew he’d been bluffing. “Give me your best shot,” she dared. With all this blather about following his penis and being so freewheeling about sex, she was beginning to suspect that he was the one who was all talk, no action. No way on earth could he have predicted she’d take him up on his offer.
“You’d have to play along. I can’t do it if you’re fighting me.”
She could sense him trying to buy time. He was desperately seeking a way out of his own trap.
“You’ll do it, really?”
She felt mirth bubbling up inside, and forced it down. He looked so stunned! “I said yes.”
He looked intently at her for several long seconds. “You swear,” he finally said, “you’ll do whatever I say.”
She felt a quiver of unease. That intent look of his, could he really be considering—No, no way. “What the hell. I’m on vacation,” she said blithely, and crossed her arms over her chest and waited, her lips pursed and eyes open wide in obvious expectation of the nothing that was to come. “Go for it.”
“You could at least act like you were turned on by the idea,” he grumbled.
Grace smothered her smile of victory. Score one for Team Grace. “That’s your job, isn’t it? Turning me on? Of course, if you know you can’t …”
“Oh, I can.”
“There’s not too much dishonor in a forfeit …”
He stared at her for another endless moment, then spoke. “Lie back.”
Grace flinched. “Wha—?”
“You said you’d obey me. Lie back.”
“I don’t like the word ‘obey.’”
“Call it ‘collaboration’ if that pleases you more.”
“Does that please you?” she said, buying time as her stomach fluttered. What was going on here? He was supposed to back down.
“To know that you so badly want me to bring you pleasure that you’re willing to help?” His voice dropped. “Oh yes, that pleases me.”
“That’s not what—”
“Shhhh,” he whispered, and held his index finger a hairbreadth above her lips. “Allow me the fantasy. And lie back.”
Confusing thoughts crowded her head. He couldn’t mean to try it. And he couldn’t mean he really was turned on by the thought of watching her reach a climax. Most confusing of all, why was her body tingling, enjoying the shock of what he’d said he’d do?
Don’t fall for his games, Grace, she warned herself. Make him fall for yours. Sophia had warned her that she’d need to engage his sexual side if she was going to hook him. This was part of the hunt.
“Don’t let me touch you,” he said, leaning so close to her that she was forced to lower herself onto her elbows. He kept coming, forcing her to lie back in the grass, and propped his hands on either side of her head, holding himself above her. His turquoise eyes were dark with emotion, his face strangely serious. She caught the flicker of his gaze over her face, as if he was searching for some clue of what she was thinking, and she felt a sudden certainty that he’d never done this before.
He doesn’t know if it’s going to work.
A smile curved on Grace’s lips. A deep feminine instinct told her to go ahead. She sensed that all her power lay inside that flicker of uncertainty.
“Take off your sunglasses,” he said.
Grace did as he bid.
Holding her gaze, Declan lowered his mouth toward hers, stopping so close that she could feel the heat of his lips above her own. He hovered there for a moment, then moved over her cheek, her temple, tracing in the air above her skin the path that his lips would have taken upon her skin. Grace held herself motionless, tense with the possibility that at any moment he would break through that invisible wall and make contact.