by Jianne Carlo
“Check it out yourself if you don’t believe me. Someone baked them and recently too. If he doesn’t have access to the house, who does?”
He poured red wine into two balloon glasses and jerked his head at the long table dominating the center of the large, rectangular room.
She didn’t have to look, but she did anyway and suppressed a groan. Her favorite treat as a little girl and her security blanket in times of emotional instability, cupcakes appeared whenever her control over her witchy powers slipped.
“Here,” he said and gave her one of the wine glasses. His dark eyes scanned her features, and he reached over and traced his finger along the curve of her cheek. “Are you okay, Tee? Sore?”
His words poured a watershed of embarrassment down her neck, and she didn’t know where to look. She gulped down some of the wine and followed the swirling of the ruby liquid as it bounced from rim to rim.
“Ah, heck,” Jake muttered.
He pried her hands away from the stem of the glass, set it on the counter, and drew her into his arms.
“You look like a rabbit about to bolt down its hole.”
He kissed the top of her head, stroked the length of her spine, and tipped her chin up with his finger.
Wary and more than a little bamboozled by his solid form, the heat of his body, the faint smell of the sea clinging to him, Tee melted, drowning in those sable eyes. Temptation ran rampant over logic, and she surrendered to the captivity of his gaze, the adolescent breathlessness of the delicious moment.
“You are the most intriguing mixture of assurance and hesitation. One minute, the bold sea siren standing gloriously nude under a blazing tropical sun, the next a fawn attempting to blend in. Why were you a virgin, Tee?”
Her mind spun with the sucker punch. Damn, damn. Think, think. “My marriage was a huge mistake, and I discovered that before, um, before anything happened.”
Tee concentrated on the pulse under his Adam’s apple, taking solace from its steady beat.
“You found out about Graziella and Tony.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You knew?”
“She came with him to Boca for the opening of our new headquarters.”
Something akin to rage tightened every neck muscle, and she balled her fists trying to contain her explosive temper.
“That’s why you recognized her at the club.”
The line of Jake’s sensuous mouth flattened, and he cocked his head to the right. “I met her before I’d even heard about you.”
“All this time you knew.” Bitterness twisted her insides. “You must’ve gotten a good laugh about how naive I was.”
“Never once found the situation anything but vile. You suspected nothing?”
She winced and stared at his chest, fascinated by the sprinkling of dark hair peeking through the shirt’s neckline. “I think I didn’t want to know. After I found out, it all seemed only too obvious.”
“The clarity of hindsight.”
“I found out about them after the wedding. I had no idea it had gone on for so long. Everyone must have had a field day when he proposed. Graziella was at the dinner. Even dead, he finds new ways to humiliate me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, remembered the cupcakes, and inhaled, struggling to control her rage. No more unplanned conjuring.
“Let’s talk about this now, and then we can move on. Why did you marry him?”
She swallowed. “I’m not sure. It just sort of happened, and it seemed the right thing to do.”
His arms fell away, and one eyebrow lifted, skepticism dominating his expression.
Tee stepped back, cupped the wine glass, lifted it to her mouth, and sipped, playing for time. She moved forward and unlocked the sliding glass doors leading onto the patio. As she hipped one side open, a gust of wind sent a dangling fish-shaped copper chime into a musical frenzy.
“All my life, all I ever wanted was to win a gold medal in the Olympics. You know Tony won a couple a few years ago. Dad contracted him to train me for the tryouts for the British equestrian team.”
She perched on the edge of a white lounge chair and shot him a sideways glance. Although he faced her, those black eyes swept the bay in a careful assessment of the two lavish homes situated at opposite points of the bay’s horseshoe promontories. Deciding a clear mind proved in order, she set her glass on a low, round table.
“We trained for eight months, and I lost the final position by twenty seconds, a huge discrepancy. It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. A total, humiliating failure.”
His piercing coal gaze collided with hers. The constriction in her throat inflated to word-gobbling size.
“And Tony was there to pick up the pieces?”
He sat facing her and leaned forward, one elbow braced on his thigh, swirling the crystal container. Wine circled and eddied in the glass in a peculiar hypnotic rhythm.
She saw only concern in those sable eyes and plunged, surrendering to her impetuous nature. “Not exactly. My mother thought Tony was a perfect catch with his royal connections. I’m not sure if you knew, but he played polo with Prince Charles regularly. Tricia and I are not exactly close. She wanted a sweet, feminine replica of herself, and she got me, a tomboy obsessed with horses.”
Jake’s dark eyebrows met, and he snorted. “Tee, you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met, and your remarkable equestrian talents only add to that. The first time I saw you correct that stallion of yours after he threw you.” He shook his head and grazed a thumb over his chin. “Let’s just say, it was incredibly arousing.”
She blinked, once, twice and wet her lips, her Tony-bruised ego ratcheting up a nudge or two.
His mouth curved, and he slid one knee between hers. One hot, muscle-bound thigh gave her a slight graze. It took a few seconds before she realized he wanted her to continue.
“Tricia threw Tony and me together and kept telling me I was wasting my life, it was time to settle down. I think she’s hoping a granddaughter might turn out more in her image.”
Shadows crossed the patio, creeping up the wide ivory floor inch by inch, ensnaring a complete rectangle. The chimes hanging behind tinkled an intermittent jingle in correspondence with the half-hearted breeze, attempting to gentle the stalwart tropical afternoon heat.
“Were you in love with him?”
Potent tension electrified the moist sea air, and he met her eyes with a fierce intentness as if some important fate rode upon her answer.
“No, never,” she said, and her jaw clenched. “He proposed in the middle of one of my mother’s dinner parties, the whole romantic bit, with a violinist in the background. All of a sudden, everyone was congratulating us, and the next thing I knew, a date had been set.” She shrugged. “You know the rest.”
A loud, old-fashioned ringy-dingy rent nature’s musical background, the tone vulgar and abrasive above a gentle ocean lapping at the rocky beach, leaves rustling in the slight breeze, and the soft warbling of gulls having settled territorial fights. When the ringing repeated, Jake frowned, and Tee stood.
“Probably my mother,” she said and strolled over to the ancient rotary instrument with a separate, tubular earpiece.
“Hello.”
She listened to the caretaker’s problem and promised to help while doing a quick check of the room. Giving Jake her back, she whizzed away the platter of cupcakes, sending it to some magical purgatory. A good thing this interruption, she couldn’t risk losing control again. After disconnecting, Tee spun around, straight into Jake’s solid chest.
“Something wrong?”
His low rumble strung shivers down her chest, a delicious intimate caress and a deep yearning to have the right to demand this, anytime, anyplace, stoked her penduluming emotions.
“That was the caretaker. His engine’s flooded, and he’s stranded in the bay next to this one. I have to go and get him. I’ll probably have to tow him to the club.”
“Did you plan this with him?” A rough grittiness edged h
is deep voice and tightness strained the corners of his mouth.
“Pardon me?”
The thumping of her heart hammered in Tee’s ears, and guilt, prompted by the secret witchy part of her, made her normal agility falter. She stumbled backwards. Certain she hadn’t heard correctly, she asked, “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“Did I plan his boat breaking down? Of course not. Why on earth would you think that?”
“Why are you so relieved about the interruption, then? Just how well do you know this caretaker? Someone was in this house before us.”
A wash of remorse made her groan aloud, and she pressed her fist against her mouth. Then temper flared. “Is this typical after-sex protocol, an interrogation?”
“You have to admit after this morning, with the burglary and the drug accusations, I have reason to be suspicious.”
“Of a caretaker’s boat breaking down? Of me planning something with him?” She jabbed her hands on her hips. “You, of all people, know I can’t be having an affair with him.”
“Okay, maybe I’m off base there, but why the consistent flashes of guilt? When I mentioned those cupcakes, you looked like a condemned woman. Were you involved in Tony’s schemes?”
Crochet Clubs & Rose Petals
Hell, he wanted Tee to be innocent, but every gut-wrenching intuition told him she was hiding something.
Something vital.
A secret she was both ashamed of and one related to her marriage to Tony. Not Graziella, although a slice of true venom sparked when she spat out the other woman’s name.
The look on her sweet face earlier when he mentioned those cupcakes scrambled his smoke alarms and set his teeth on edge. Forged predatory traits so predominant in his makeup provoked a barrage of staccato questions, and he went for the gusto.
“What are you hiding, Tee? Who was in this house before we got here? Where did those cakes come from, and how did they conveniently disappear in the few minutes we were on the patio? Did you really come here for those stupid decorations, or was this house part of Tony’s drug-running operations?”
Her full lower lip trembled for such a brief instant he wasn’t certain he hadn’t imagined the movement. Then a dart of sheer rage flared in those widening big browns, arresting any further investigative intent on his part. He recognized the expression lighting her face and retreated, putting a good two feet between them.
She wore the same look the day her stallion had reacted to a command with a frenzied bucking and thrown her to the ground. He’d never seen the likes of such a furious, instinctive reaction. Nothing could’ve stopped her.
With a flying leap, Tee mounted the horse like a Native American Indian, grabbed the reins, and kneed the animal into a tight circle, around and around, until the steed trembled and frothed at the mouth. Then, she’d led the stallion through the same paces, which had sparked his defiance over and over, until he accepted her domination.
Now she aimed that precise wrath at him.
“Go to hell.” She splayed each word out in a ferocious snarl and bounded to her feet.
With a rueful grimace, Jake acknowledged her genuine reflexive response with not a minute hint of deception. A wash of immediate regret swamped him, and his first thought was he’d never get inside her again.
Fierce need brought the blood to his prick, engorging it and slapping his testicles tight. Blast, the woman spurred conflicting responses in him, destroying the years of logical restraint he’d honed to perfection building his company.
She glared and stomped one bare foot, knocking the wine glass off the table, and sending scarlet liquid splashing over the pale tiles. Snatching the glass up before it hit the floor, she twisted and shot him a look of pure rage.
“Hell,” he said as he stood. “That was out of line.”
The words fell on thick, empty air, and he followed her angry strides into the house until the shadowed interior hid her form. Doors slammed, a glass connected with a hard surface, and she reappeared, whizzing by him with the boat keys clanking from a hooked forefinger.
Blast, blast, blast. She seemed incensed enough to strand him on the tiny islet. He retrieved his deck shoes from where he’d left them in the kitchen and rushed after her, snagging through the thick cobwebs filling the space between the sliding glass doors.
Cobwebs?
The sticky translucent mass coating his hands served as a brief impediment, and he spun around to investigate the peculiar phenomenon when the loud thrumming of powerful engines met his ears. Jake spotted Tee in the boat, hopping over a tackle box to unsnarl the docking ropes. A quick choice had to be made, so he jogged down the wooden pier and barely jumped onto the boat’s deck before the cruiser blasted into full throttle.
Strong whipping air slicked the hair back from his face, renting his skin with stinging licks. With considerable difficulty, he made his way to where Tee stood behind the wheel, almost losing his balance as the boat slapped through the Remous current she described earlier. As they rounded the craggy promontory, Jake spotted the fishing trawler listing in the waves, sliding close to shipwreck-dangerous gray boulders.
“What can I do?” he shouted into her ear, realizing the urgency of the situation.
“I’ll line the boat up as close as I can to him,” she yelled as she squinted at the other vessel.
Foam-crested waves walloped the gleaming yellow sides of the boat, and he grabbed the metal rail near the curved plastic windshield to stabilize his unsteady strides.
“Twist the towing line in the back into the grappling hook and tie both ropes together. You can do a sailor’s knot?”
He nodded.
“Get going on it, and then throw it to him. Hurry, we don’t have much time.”
They worked in unison, Tee giving cryptic, concise instructions while he relayed them to the caretaker. It took neck-bunching minutes before they secured the two ships together, and Tee edged the engine’s speed up a notch at a time as the trawler swung away from the rocks and followed in their wake.
The cruiser drew a semicircle in the rough waters, a wave trough dipped the boat, and he stumbled. Regaining his balance as they completed the U-turn, out of the corner of one eye, Jake caught the caretaker’s gaze, and he recoiled at the blaze of seething rancor the man barely kept in check. Not fifteen feet separated the two vessels, and the flash of insolent malice from the caretaker couldn’t be mistaken. The man had it in for him for some reason, or maybe for Tee. He followed the caretaker’s gaze. Since they stood parallel to each other, it could be either of them. Jake filed the observation for further analysis.
They conducted the twenty-minute ride back to the yacht club in complete silence. Hostility radiated with Tee’s every abrupt movement, and distracted by her sullen mood, Jake focused on regaining lost momentum, making up with her. Uncertain, unconvinced she and the caretaker didn’t have some sort of connection, he had to admit one salient, intractable fact; she’d been a virgin scant minutes ago, so they couldn’t be involved physically.
Jesus, thinking about Tee’s reactions to his lovemaking had him hard from inhale to exhale, one breath, one second. In his fantasies, they made slow, luxurious love, and he brought her to the point over and over until she begged, pleaded for release.
He snorted. She’d climaxed upon penetration, mewling, “Oh my,” but the words echoed around the bay, and he’d lost control.
By the time a huge trailer dragged the caretaker’s boat onto dry land, his tension matched Tee’s collected anger, and not a single brilliant resolution to their impasse came to mind.
“I need to get back to the Main House,” she said, marching through the club’s opening glass doors. “I’ll call a cab. I’m sure you have business matters to deal with.”
Tee disappeared past wooden doors with the words Ladies’ Lockers carved into them.
He followed her in.
At the far right end of the locker room, three women in various stages of undress emitte
d a sequence of shrieks, gasps, and squeals. A swift survey to the left showed a low bench opposite shower curtains and farther down a series of gleaming metal toilet stalls. Jake propped one foot on a burnished wooden bench away from the women’s direction, giving the three females his back and the privacy to finish dressing.
“Excuse me, ladies, I’m waiting for someone. Won’t be a minute.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell, Jake Mathews.” The terse mutter came from a stall two doors down, and he spied Tee’s strappy white sandals. She had pretty feet and wore red, really red, paint on her toenails.
The impudent color had him hard again, and for brief seconds he thought it might be a fun way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, painting those toes. From limp to full arousal in less than ten seconds, hell, she’d bewitched him.
“Then I might as well get comfortable.”
He turned to face the now-dressed fascinated women at the other end of the sumptuous room. “Would you three ladies mind if I relocated that chair to this end?”
In mute, bewildered unison, they shook their heads and followed his movements as he grasped the padded arm of a gold upholstered chair, lifted it over his head, walked to the corner opposite Tee’s stall, and set it down. He slouched into the luxurious fabric and crossed his long legs at the ankles, mulling various strategies.
“By the way, I have your mother’s crystal things. When did you say she needed them by?”
A muffled curse spewed out from the stall.
“I’m positive part of finishing school training eschews swearing of any sort.”
Delicate laughter erupted from the three ladies who had all edged closer, wearing beaming smiles.
Another expletive, this one clearer.
“Come on out, darlin’,” one of the old biddies coaxed. “He can’t have done anything so unforgivable.”
“Dearie, if I had a handsome young man like this waiting to say sorry and make up, I’d give in—soon.”
The blue-haired woman flashed Jake a flirty smile, and he sent her a corresponding conspiratorial one. All three women wore cheeky expressions and, as one unit, they edged closer, sandaled feet shuffling over the marble floor.