Real Men Do It Better

by Lora Leigh, Susan Donovan, Lori Wilde, Carrie Alexander

  Once upon a time, the ruggedly handsome Scot had been not only her closest confidant and surrogate big brother, but also the object of her unrequited teenaged affections. That was what had ruined it all. Annie’s desperate need for something more than Duncan could give.

  An insouciant smile graced his lips, and the closer he came, the tighter her chest constricted. Suppressing the instinct to flee, she did the mature thing and simply refused to make eye contact with him. Instead, she glowered at the bimbos in itsy-bitsy bikinis giggling and touching Duncan’s sun-bronzed, rock-slab biceps, and begging him to autograph their ample cleavages with felt-tip markers.

  Possessiveness gripped her like a fist, but she shrugged it off with a determined roll of her shoulders. Some things never changed. Duncan’s charm with women was legendary. She ought to know. Annie had been singed firsthand.

  I don’t care with whom he chooses to fritter his time. It’s none of my business.

  She had enough problems. Like how she was going to care for her ailing grandfather and keep his dive shop open after she ran out of vacation time and had to return to her job as a Wall Street stockbroker. Not to mention what she planned to do about the very important question her boyfriend, Eric Hammond, had told her he wanted to ask her when she got back home.

  A question she didn’t want to answer.

  She and Eric had dated for three years and he was exactly what she needed—calm, steady, reliable, unemotional. So why did the thought that he was going to pop the question unsettle her?

  The reason, Annie was forced to acknowledge, was standing right in front of her. Here was the man who had stolen her good-girl heart with his bad-boy ways and had never given it back. There’d been no closure between them, and that, she assured herself, was why she couldn’t forget him. Not because she was still in love with him.

  Oh yeah? demanded her aching heart. If you’re not in love with him, how come it still hurts so damned much?

  “Sorry ladies, no more autographs,” Duncan told his bevy of lovelies. “I’ve business to transact.”

  With disappointed sighs, his fan club dispersed throughout the store. The women pretended to be interested in pressure valve regulators and wet suits and weight belts, but all the while they sneaked adoring glances at Duncan before angling suspicious glares at Annie. She censored a childish urge to stick out her tongue at them.

  “Hello, Harvard. I didn’t know you’d come home.” Duncan’s voice was deeper than she remembered, but the faint hint of Scottish brogue was still there. The sound of it curled her toes and cemented her tongue to the roof of her mouth. He leaned across the counter, encroaching upon her personal space and leaving her little choice except to meet his insistent gaze.

  “I’m not home,” she replied, more tartly than necessary. “My home is in Manhattan, and don’t call me Harvard.”

  His calling her Harvard irritated Annie. Like he thought, that she thought, she was better than he was because of where she’d attended university.

  “Manhattan may be the place where you sleep, but your heart will forever belong in St. Augustine.”

  “Where I choose to sleep, or for that matter with whom I choose to sleep, is none of your business.”

  Duncan’s eyes crinkled. He threw back his head and let loose a hearty laugh. The sound, so wickedly familiar it hurt, unraveled something inside her.

  “Ah, Annie. I’ve missed your feistiness. You’re a fine sight for sore eyes and more beautiful than ever.”

  Not wanting to draw attention to her physical imperfection, Annie resisted the urge to reach up and finger the deep scar at her chin, courtesy of a childhood accident. She had a tendency to touch the scar whenever she was feeling fragile, and the fact that he’d called her beautiful made her feel very fragile indeed.

  Duncan was so full of shit. The ego of the man. He was boldly flirting with her when a half-dozen gorgeous, unscarred women were lurking in the back of her store just waiting to pounce on him. In comparison, with her short stature, well-rounded body, and damaged chin, she felt like a chubby little field mouse who’d suffered a near-death experience at the paws of an evil tabby.

  “I see you didn’t get lost in the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “Nay.” With a impish gleam in his eyes, he patted his chest with both palms. “It’s all me. Safe and sound.”

  “Damn the luck. I had a fiver riding on your disappearance,” she quipped, denying what she was really feeling—supreme relief that he’d made it home uninjured.

  Duncan had just returned from guiding a team of National Geographic photojournalists on a rigorous dive through the mysterious section of the Atlantic. They had recovered the remains of a two-hundred-year-old pirate clipper ship in the Triangle, and Duncan was the talk of St. Augustine. That explained the groupies waiting to have their boobs autographed.

  He pinned her to the spot with his hot gaze. “Would you have cried if I’d died?”

  “Not for a second,” she lied.

  They breathed in tandem. Their eyes were locked. Stances identical. Hands on hips, chests outthrust.

  She could hear the wall clock behind her ticking loudly. Tock. Tock. Tock. Annie did not flinch or squirm. She dealt with multimillion dollar trust funds on a daily basis. She knew real pressure. She could handle one rugged, slightly arrogant seafaring man.

  Ha! Who you trying to kid?

  Annie struggled not to notice how good he looked. His dark brown, wind-tousled hair was streaked with lighter shades of sun-bleached strands. He had a heavy five-o’clock shadow that enhanced his natural rakishness. His shoulders were so broad they strained the seams of his white T-shirt, emblazoned with WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT, the slogan for a company that manufactured diving lanterns. He was so overtly masculine, so dominantly sexual that she couldn’t really blame the bimbos for falling all over him.

  He was big. He was strong. He was sexy. And he was not a man you could ignore.

  “Harvard hardened you,” he murmured. “Or maybe it’s living in New York City.”

  Don’t blame Harvard or Manhattan. You’re the one who hardened me.

  Unbidden, her thought tumbled back to the past. To the first reckless, headlong moment when she’d thrown caution to the wind and dared him to kiss her. In lucid detail she recalled the shock of his lips the first time they’d claimed hers. How the power of it entered her like a bolt of electricity. How her body tingled when his rough, calloused palms had pushed up underneath her yellow cotton blouse to rub against the hard buds of her straining nipples.

  The urgency in his kiss had stunned and excited her. She’d dared to act on her long-restrained impulses, never guessing that he’d been lusting after her just as much as she’d been lusting after him.

  Annie hadn’t believed it possible, but Duncan was even more attractive now than he’d been the one and only night they’d slept together. Unfortunately, that one and only time had become the yardstick to which she measured every encounter with all other men, and no one else had ever seemed to measure up.

  Either literally or figuratively.

  She resented him for being so good in bed that even five years later she could still vividly recall their lovemaking.

  “What do you and your harem want, Stewart?” She laced her voice with sarcasm. She was in no mood for his highlander charm.

  Or her weak-kneed reaction to it.

  His laugh was genuine, his dark eyes dancing in amusement. No one on earth could irritate her quicker or cause her heart to beat harder. What was this unshakeable hold he held over her emotions?

  “Jealous, Annie?” His eyes latched onto hers as she tried her best not to become spellbound.

  “Of you?” She snorted. “Not damned likely.”

  “Liar. But don’t worry. You have nothing to be jealous over. I’m not seeing anyone at present.”

  “Honestly, I couldn’t care less.”

  “Liar.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Then stop lying.�
��

  “What do you want?” she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest. He was staring so intently at her mouth, it was all she could do to keep from licking her lips.

  Duncan’s heated gaze drifted to her breasts at the same time she realized her posture was enhancing her cleavage. She straightened, dropping her arms to her side, and glared at him.

  Annie noticed one of his groupies monkeying with a top-of-the-line aluminum diving tank. She snapped her fingers at the blonde woman. “You there, put that down, unless you’re going to buy it.”

  “Shiny.” The blonde smiled vacantly and settled the tank back in its slot.

  Annie shot Duncan a pointed look.

  “I’ll get rid of them,” he said conspiratorially. “So we can be alone.”

  So we can be alone.

  She hated the way that made her feel, all excited and hot and edgy. No matter how much she told herself she disliked the man, just one look from him, one turn of phrase, and she was pudding.

  Damn him. Damn her. Damn them both.

  Diplomatically Duncan sent the women away. The bell over the door tinkled as he ushered them out. Then he turned around and ambled back toward her, all manly swagger and burgeoning testosterone.

  Annie’s pulse kicked.

  “Sorry about that. I’m giving them diving lessons this afternoon.”

  She glowered. “I just bet you are.”

  “Prickly as always, eh, Harvard? Nice to see some things never change.”

  “Go away, Stewart.” She waved a dismissive hand. “You bother me.”

  “I’m here to see your grandfather. Is Jock about?”

  “Do you see him?”

  Duncan craned his neck, glanced around the shop. “Nay.”

  “There you go.”

  “Annie, why are you so mean to me?”

  “Because you deserve someone in your life who doesn’t fall at your feet. Cruel to be kind, so the saying goes.”

  “You have a point. So are you saying that you’re back in my life?”

  “Over my dead corpse.”

  “Playing hard to get. Do you have any idea how much of a turn-on that is?” He started around the side of the counter, eyes glittering darkly.

  Annie grabbed the harpoon off the wall behind her and swished it through the air between them. “Stay back, Stewart. I’m warning you.”

  “As if you would poke me with that thing.” Undeterred he moved closer.

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Tempting you was always my favorite activity. Remember when I dared you to go skinny-dipping off the pier and we got caught by a pack of Japanese tourists with flash photography?”

  Annie blushed. She remembered.

  Mischievously, he lowered his eyelids, assessing her with frank appraisal. She wore a cobalt blue spaghetti-strap tank top and low-rise blue jean shorts. There was a gap between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her blue jeans, revealing her bare belly and the pearl navel ring nestled there. One corner of his lip curled up in amusement when he spied the pearl.

  Trust him to admire the navel ring. She’d gotten it on an impulse, on an uncharacteristic whim, when she was feeling stuck in a rut. She thought it might help jazz up her sex life with Eric, but he hadn’t approved. He’d said it wasn’t dignified or appropriate for a woman of her distinguished accomplishments. But Annie liked the piercing. It reminded her of the beach, of the life she’d left behind.

  Annie could tell by the expression in Duncan’s eyes that he admired the navel ring. His look was as powerful as a caress. She could almost feel his lips against her skin, his fingertips grazing her bare belly.

  She dropped her gaze, then wished she hadn’t as she noticed the erection bulging against the zipper of his cargo shorts. Tried not to wish that he was poking her with his spear.

  “You never know. I might jab you.” She scowled against the warmth rolling stickily through her body. “I could mortally wound you. I’m unpredictable.”

  He burst out laughing. “Oh, right. You’re unpredictable as heat in summer.”

  “Shows how little you know me.”

  “Annie Marie Graves, I know you better than you know yourself.” He placed a hand on top of the harpoon and took another step closer until the razor-sharp tip of it was almost touching his flat, taut abdomen.

  Annie’s hands trembled. She had to clench them around the harpoon to keep him from discovering just how aroused she was.

  Her skin tingled. Her nipples drew up hard and tight under her lace bra. A hot slickness filled her aching pussy. In her head she heard the strains of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.”

  “You’re wearing white cotton panties,” he said. “Bikini style, not a thong. You had cereal for breakfast, some sort of muesli. You took a three-mile jog on the beach at six A.M. You brown-bagged your lunch, either tuna fish on rye or all-natural peanut butter on whole wheat. But, in spite of all that healthy stuff, you’ve got a stash of Ding Dongs and Ho Hos and chocolate chip cookies under the counter for when you get nervous or bored and need a dose of comfort food. How am I doing so far?”

  He was right on every count. At that very moment she was seriously jonesing for a Twinkie, and it certainly wasn’t from boredom. God, she was predictable. She loosened her grip on the harpoon.

  Duncan took it from her and settled the spear back on the wall mount.

  “There now. That’s better.” His voice was low and even, his black scoundrel eyes shimmering with blatant sexuality. He reached over to toy with a curl that had fallen over her shoulder. His touch sent blood rushing through her veins, hotly suffusing her pelvis. “Where were we?”

  “You were leaving.”

  “I meant to ask,” he said, ignoring her comment—he was good at ignoring the things he did not want to hear—“are you still dating that lawyer? What’s his name?”

  “Eric. And we’re getting married.”

  Duncan’s face dropped with shock. Suddenly, all his brashness was gone, and instead there was a stark, naked expression in his eyes she’d rarely seen, and his vulnerability rattled her to the core. If he was going to look at her like that she was in deep trouble.

  “You’re engaged?” he whispered, his gaze snapping to her bare ring finger.

  “Yes.” She raised her chin.

  “Where’s the rock?” The haunted expression disappeared and the old, cocky tilt was back on his lips. It was the same practiced grin that once upon a time could bring her to her knees.

  But no more.

  Annie jerked her left hand behind her back. “Well, it’s not official. Not yet. We’re going to be, we’re almost engaged.”

  “But you’re not engaged.”

  “Yes. No. Stop looking at me that way.”

  “What way?”

  “You know.”

  As if you’ve got another shot with me. Not after what you pulled.

  She scowled, but her heart was reeling. She was not going to let this man get under her skin again. It had taken her months to get over him.

  Ha! You’re still not over him.

  Which was precisely why she wanted him out of her shop, out of her life for good.

  His gaze met hers and the rueful expression in his eyes was so intense she had to look away. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  “Jock’s in a rehab hospital,” she blurted, anxious to get out of this conversation and shake off these feelings. “He fell at the pier two weeks ago, broke his hip, and had to have hip replacement surgery. That’s why I’m home.”

  “Jock’s bedridden?” Duncan sounded stunned.

  Annie understood. The news had stunned her, too. She shrugged, trying her best not to let her emotions show. The thought of losing Jock, the last family she had left, terrified her. “He is seventy-four.”

  “He’s one of the toughest men I’ve ever known. Jock’s a fighter. He’ll come through this thing.”

  The vulnerability was back, tingeing his voice with anxiety. He and her grandfather
had once been very close, and she was the cause of the rift between them. Jock had loved Duncan like a grandson, but he couldn’t condone the way he’d treated Annie and they’d quarreled bitterly. For the first time Annie realized exactly how much their ill-fated fling had cost Duncan.

  “What did you want to see him about?” she asked.

  He paused for the longest moment, studying her with eyes the color of a turbulent midnight sea. There was something different about him. His face seemed wiser, more grounded, as if at twenty-eight he’d finally grown into the man he was supposed to be. Had his trip to Bermuda changed him? Or was it something else?

  His mouth seemed different, too. Less carefree, more prudent. As if it no longer kissed impulsively. She wondered if he tasted differently and if the texture of his lips had changed. Rougher now, perhaps, than they’d been, but gentler, less cavalier.

  Knock it off. You’re imagining things. He’s the same self-absorbed flirt he’s always been. You’re susceptible, lonely, and no one’s ever tripped your sexual trigger the way he did. You’re ripe for the picking. Don’t you dare let him pluck you.

  Duncan shifted his weight, scrutinizing her for a moment that stretched long and fiery, the sultry look in his eyes deepening, kindling the flammable tension. He stood so near, if she reached out a hand she could brush her fingertips along his tanned cheek.

  The heat of awareness intensified, spreading throughout her entire body, lodging deep within her belly, growing heavy with longing. The very core of her burned for him, churned her juices, aroused her most feminine instincts.

  Forget the Twinkies. He made her so nervous she craved mainlining double-fudge brownies.

  “I discovered something on that clipper ship we found in Bermuda,” he murmured at last. “The Lorelei.”

  “Oh?” She wanted to tell him she couldn’t care less, but some small, twisted part of her couldn’t help imagining he was going to say he’d discovered what a big jerk he’d been five years ago, beg her forgiveness, and vow his undying love. In which case, she’d laugh in his face and walk away.

  “A very special treasure map.”

  His words filled her with hope and dismay. Thrill, trepidation, euphoria, and fear tangled into a hard knot inside her. Annie’s heart careened against her chest. She sucked in her breath.