“Sara,” he said, shaking his head. “‘Strapping figures.’ What am I supposed to do with you when you talk in that prim, Brit voice?”
Something we’ll both regret.
Alarmed at how intriguing she found the thought, she decided a retreat was in order.
“I should go,” she said, sliding her mug back onto the tray. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and her awareness of him, of the very male essence of him, was disordering her ordered world. That signaled danger. She wasn’t an overtly sexual being, despite what the tabloids had said, and she couldn’t risk being seen as such by Joaquin.
Your master.
“Shut up, Emmaline,” she muttered.
“What’s that?” Joaquin asked, one brow quirking.
“Nothing, nothing. I’m just tired. I think I should turn in.” She realized she was babbling, but couldn’t help herself. “It’s been a long day, and I should go.”
“Not yet.”
She’d half risen, but at the directive she automatically re-perched herself on the cushions. “Not yet?”
He sighed. “Not before I stop stalling and spit out the apology I owe you.”
Sara froze. Oh, God. Was he going to apologize for the kiss? Were they going to discuss it? Then she’d have to acknowledge that she’d taken the friendly, simple peck one step further by actually stroking her wet tongue over the surface of his bottom lip. She’d explored long enough to register the softness of the skin there and then the sexy, comparative roughness of the line where his whiskers began.
She thought she could draw the shape of the lower edge of his mouth from that tactile memory now rooted into her brain.
Joaquin scooted closer until the denim of his jeans brushed her pant leg. “I shouldn’t have left you at the school this afternoon,” he said. “Please know I’m very sorry about that.”
Surprise had her blinking. “What? No. It’s nothing—”
“It’s everything to me. I made a vow a long time ago that I wouldn’t abandon anyone anywhere ever again.”
Relief that this wasn’t about the kiss coursed through Sara, making her almost giddy. “I wasn’t abandoned. You had places to go. Charlie didn’t mind being my ride.”
“Still, it was wrong—I was supposed to be your ride.” His fingers forked through his hair, his expression revealing he was sincerely troubled. “Forgive me?”
Though she didn’t understand the source of his upset, it grabbed at her heart. “Joaquin.” Leaning nearer, she put her palm on one of his thighs. “It’s fine.” She looked into his face and gave his leg a little squeeze. “Honest. Just fine.”
He stared at her, that glacial gray-blue of his eyes mesmerizing her even as she realized that the muscle beneath her hand was morphing from simply solid to rock-hard. It indicated flight was in order, immediate escape, but she couldn’t get her limbs to behave.
Instead, her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip.
His gaze followed the movement, and she felt herself begin to quiver inside her hot skin. Hot, because the temperature in the room was suddenly blazing, making it fierier than the beach on TV, more blazing than the Sahara.
“Do we need to talk about something else?” Joaquin asked, his voice quiet. “You’re trembling, Sara. Have I made you afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, fast. Too fast.
One corner of his mouth quirked. “Then why the shivers?”
She swallowed, preparing herself to address the subject she couldn’t forget. Maybe getting it out in the open would clear the heat from the air and steady her jittering nerves. It hadn’t caused an earthquake. “Um… That kiss at the school…it was no big deal, right?”
He hesitated, then his lips quirked again. “Right. No big deal.”
His assurance didn’t calm her. Instead, she was now more avidly aware of that long muscle beneath her palm, of the breadth of his shoulders, of the rise and fall of his chest, and they put her own breathing, thoughts, and priorities in even wilder disarray. Her heart pounded against her ribs as excitement pulsed through her bloodstream, hardening her nipples and softening her sex.
She pressed her thighs together to hold on to the sweet promise of pleasure there.
“Sara…”
He nearly groaned her name, and the deep sound of it made her gaze focus on his lips, surrounded by an evening growth of whiskers. The stubble would blur the edges of a woman’s mouth, leave a faint rash on her jaw. She could almost feel the slight tenderness that would be left behind by the abrasion.
Joaquin shifted beneath her hand and edged closer to her. “That kiss was no big deal,” he repeated, contradicting the new tension she sensed infusing his big body.
Fine. The little unexpected voice of mischief in Sara’s head popped up again. But this next one might be a problem.
And, even as good judgement and self-preservation protested in the background, she obeyed undeniable impulse and lifted up to fit her mouth to his.
Chapter 4
Joaquin sank into the kiss, aware there was no gaggle of parents and groups of little kids lurking nearby. No, it was only Sara and her soft, delectable rosebud mouth, and this time it was his tongue that managed the first move.
He slid it between her lips, and the slick heat he found sent an instant, intoxicating buzz through his body. That should be warning enough to put on the brakes, but then he cupped Sara’s shoulders, and the little responsive shudder that wracked her body set a match to any notion of caution.
Christ, she did something to him.
He shifted her closer, not quite onto his lap, but close enough that she could throw a slender arm around his neck. He lifted his mouth to kiss his way down to her throat, and he sipped at her fragile skin, tonguing the flesh there, tasting the flavor of her.
Flowers and talcum and female desire.
Lust jolted through him again, a heavy bolt of jagged want, and his grip tightened on her shoulders as he shifted back to her mouth. This time, her tongue wrapped around his, as silky as her legs would be about his hips. Joaquin groaned, low in his throat, and moved one hand lower, tracing the side of her breast and the delicate line of her ribcage with his fingertips until he reached the hem of her shirt. Burrowing beneath it, his palm found the sleek, bare skin at her waist.
She moaned at the touch, and he took it as implicit acquiescence to further exploration. His drew his hand upward, his fingers splayed wide on her back. He urged her closer with it, and she melted into him with another moan.
God. Sara.
He’d run away from her that afternoon because his dick acted like an animal around her. It was aching with need now, so hard he hurt, and chemistry could only explain why it was this woman at this time.
When they both knew it was wrong.
Wrong.
That word had him breaking the kiss.
Squeezing shut his eyes, he fought against the urge to swoop back in. He’d gone with a wrong decision when he’d been under the influence of lust before, and it had led to the defining tragedy of his life. Surely, surely he’d learned.
His breath sawing in and out of his lungs, he reopened his eyes to see Sara staring up at him, her expression dazed.
Yeah, chemistry. Damn it all.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said, his hand sliding from beneath her shirt. His fingers clenched into a fist. He forced himself to lose his hold on her shoulder, too.
She licked her swollen lips. “I know. I…” A shrug.
“Yeah.” Chemistry.
Her arm dropped to her side, and she scooted away from him, then dropped her elbows to her knees and her face to her hands.
“Brilliant, Sara,” she muttered. “Just brilliant.”
For some reason her self-castigation stung. The same as when she’d refused to eat with him until he’d expressed it like an order.
Did she know him well enough to have that reluctance and this regret?
But hell, if she knew him any better, she’d probab
ly feel even worse.
She gusted out a sigh, then glanced over at him, her eyes bright in her flushed face. “I don’t even know where to begin…what I was thinking…”
“Not with your brain,” he said. “Me either.”
With a grimace, Sara sat up. “I’m practical, not impulsive. I’m cautious, not reckless.”
He smiled a little. “Could have fooled me.”
“Yes. Well.” She blew out another long breath. “Should I quit, or should you fire me?”
His brows drew together. “Now wait a minute—”
“You know it must be one or the other.” She stood, execution squad-straight. “Should I resign, or should you let me go?”
A doorbell chimed in the near distance. They both looked toward the front entrance, then Sara took a step in its direction. “I’ll get that.”
It was dark. It took a passcode to get through the gates by the highway. He’d only given it to his assistant—who was wrapping things up in Portland—and to his mother. Which meant…
Shit. Renata. He shot to his feet and caught Sara’s arm to halt her progress. “Let me take care of this.”
Stalking to the door, Joaquin cursed the blonde butler. Of course it wasn’t fair to blame Sara, but now he was keyed-up, blue-balled, and seriously annoyed on the way to facing down his mother.
Should I resign, or should you let me go?
He didn’t want to let the butler go.
But of course it must be done.
Because, after all, he couldn’t truly believe they could manage to put all that kissing out of mind and continue living in the same place without once again succumbing to lust.
More succumbing wasn’t wise. His purpose in Malibu wasn’t to start an affair with a woman whose paycheck he signed.
Well, that Patrick signed.
On Joaquin’s behalf.
Still…it was a degree of separation, right?
Joaquin glanced over his shoulder to see efficient Sara gathering their mugs and the cookies. If she left, he’d miss her cooking. But fending for himself had been his way of life long before now. After their mother went away, their father would throw packets of cheese and crackers and handfuls of candy bars into the room he shared with Felipe as if they were bones for the family dogs.
They’d made do on processed foods and each other’s companionship.
Until Felipe had found other people and developed other needs.
Shit. He hoped Renata wasn’t on his doorstep to report another “sighting.”
How many times would he have to remind her his brother was dead? That Joaquin had held Felipe in his arms as he took his last breath?
With his hand on the front door, he paused, gathering his resolve and his good sense. Okay. Fine. He’d get rid of Renata, and then he’d tell Sara she should resign.
The tempting butler would be out of his life.
His world would be woman-free. And uncomplicated by personal relationships—the kind he was careful to avoid because he wasn’t any good at them.
It was a relief, really, to think of the serenity he’d find without the beautiful—and God yes, so tempting—blonde moving about the house.
But first he must dispense with the unexpected visitor.
With that thought foremost in his brain, he turned the knob and flung open the door only to stare at the figure revealed by the porch light.
The petite, dark-haired person squealed and then launched herself into his arms.
Joaquin’s hands automatically came up to pat the air around her as she squeezed. Then she bounced away and smiled up at him. “Surprise, Big Brother! It’s me! I’ve come to stay!”
Fifteen minutes later he found Sara in one of the guest rooms, in the process of slipping a pink dress onto a hanger. She hung it beside a dozen others on the closet pole. He glanced at the near-full suitcase open on a luggage rack beside the bed.
“Where’s Essie? And how many clothes did she bring?”
“She went to the kitchen to find a snack. I offered to make her one, but she said she wanted to help herself. As to how many clothes…” Sara shrugged. “I haven’t yet unzipped the third suitcase.”
Groaning, Joaquin crossed to the easy chair in the corner of the room. He dropped into it and forked both hands through his hair. “I don’t know what happened.”
But of course he knew what happened. He’d been unable to say no to that face. Staring down at his half-sister, he’d been staggered by how much she looked like Felipe. A feminine version, of course, but his brother’s features were clearly stamped on Essie. It had been a couple of years since he’d seen her last, and then she’d been a chubby-cheeked imp with a mouthful of braces and spiky bangs that she’d cut herself, to Renata’s dismay. Now, near grown-up, Essie had the lustrous, long dark hair of their mother and the fine bones and warm brown eyes of Felipe.
He’d had a non-threatening, pretty kind of handsomeness, an almost androgynous look that served him well to his slavering audience of young girls.
Though Joaquin wasn’t dissimilar from his brother in appearance, his extra height and bigger build—even though he was two years younger—had always made him feel less like his brother’s doppelganger and more like his brother’s bodyguard.
Joaquin had failed in that role, too.
“I checked with our mother,” he told Sara now. “She’s fine with it since the girlfriend’s family Essie was supposed to be staying with had to fly out to visit an ailing grandma in Colorado. Renata and Martin are at their Mexican villa for the next three weeks, and Essie swears she’ll ‘expire of ennui’ if made to go there.”
“Your sister didn’t want to check with you first before driving over?” The butler efficiently clipped a pair of jeans onto another hanger. “What if you hadn’t been home?”
“A lack of impulse control clearly runs in our family,” he said drily.
Sara shot him a quick look over her shoulder, giving him a view of the flush high on her cheekbones. “And how’d she get the passcode?”
“We’re a sneaky lot as well,” he replied, shrugging. “Though for years Renata has kept all the family passwords and key codes in plain sight on a paper taped to her desk.”
He cocked his head. In the distance but coming closer he heard excited chatter. Then Essie came into view, her cell phone glued to her ear. In her other hand she held a tray on which she balanced a plate of fruit, a glass of milk, a can of soda, and a bag of chips. The items slid like deck chairs on the Titanic as she bopped into the room.
Joaquin shot to his feet and rescued the ship before disaster struck.
His half-sister smiled at him. His heart flopped over.
“R.J. and Lulu can come over tomorrow, right?” she asked. “They want to see the house, and I told them they could.”
“Um…sure.”
“He says sure,” she repeated into her phone. “Bring stuff to stay the night, ′kay?”
Stay the night?
“Or stay a couple of days,” Essie trilled without a single glance in his direction. “It’s going to be so cool without any ′rents around!”
′Rents as in parents? Did the kids these days still use that term? And wait, was she putting together a teenage house party or something?
Panic clutched at his gut. This couldn’t be happening. He carefully set the tray on the dresser and crossed his arms over his chest. “Essie, we need to talk.”
She waved a little hand toward him. “After my bath,” she said, crossing toward the en suite, all the while still continuing her conversation, punctuated with gasps and giggles and an amazed, “No way!”
Frustrated, Joaquin frowned as he watched her begin to swing shut the door. Then, at the very last second, she shot him another grin.
Felipe’s grin.
At the click of the latch, he flopped back into the chair and held his head with his hands.
“What have I done?” he muttered.
Control was spiraling away from him at the exact time of
year he needed to lock down on his emotions. He needed calm, not chaos…it was coming on the fifteenth anniversary, for fuck’s sake!
From the bathroom he heard Essie’s continuing conversation and the roar of water from a spout, confirming that what was supposed to be his private retreat for the month was definitely invaded by another female—the sister he didn’t know. Christ, how many ways could he screw up this situation?
Then the butler approached, distracting him. Thoughts of his half-sister fled as his fingertips recalled the silky heat of the bare skin at the small of her back. His mouth remembered her taste and the sweet glide of her tongue against his. For a moment he took a mini-vacation and lost himself in the memory and the beauty of her blue, blue eyes.
Sara cleared her throat. “I see your life’s a little more complicated now,” she said. “So tomorrow morning I’ll leave straightaway. That should simplify things.”
Gobsmacked, he stared up at her. “Are you kidding me?”
His expression must have communicated his bewilderment, because she cleared her throat again and made a vague gesture in the direction of the living room where the latest kissing had taken place.
“Well, it’s best…because…” She swallowed. “I’ll resign, you can let me go, whatever works.”
“Oh, no. Oh, hell no.” Getting to his feet, Joaquin glared down at the butler. Essie’s unexpected arrival wasn’t Sara’s fault, of course, but she could damn well take part in the handling of it. “You’re not going anywhere, my girl, not as long as I have a teenager in the house.”
“What are you doing here?” Charlie asked, letting Sara in the door that led from the beach into the Archer family’s sun room.
It was 8:30 on a weekday morning and with Wells at school, his father at work, and the nanny still absent, Sara had known her friend would be alone. So after making a pot of coffee and setting out a bowl of fruit and the bagels and cream cheese on the counter, she’d left Nueva Vida while the other occupants remained asleep.
“I went for a run,” Sara said.
Her friend’s eyebrows shot high. She knew Sara had never “run” a day in her life. She didn’t mind walking, hiking, or biking, enjoyed them all, actually, but the idea of rushing as a form of exercise seemed…unwise.
The Scandal (Billionaire's Beach Book 4) Page 6