Sinful Seduction

by Ann Christopher

  “No,” she said. Was there a trace of reluctance in her voice, or did he imagine it? “Thanks.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said again, and he knew he wasn’t imagining the stab of disappointment he felt. This time, he actually turned to go, which was progress. “Have a good night.”

  “Unless—”

  He wheeled back around, his entire body on alert even before the whole word was out of her mouth.

  “Unless?”

  “Unless you’re good with advice.”

  Honesty forced him to shake his head and warn her away.

  “The best advice I can give you is that you should ignore my advice.”

  She grinned again. He stared again. He couldn’t help it.

  It was her eyes, he thought, transfixed.

  There was something extraordinary about her eyes.

  And then her grin faded, leaving only a woman with a problem and him with broad shoulders that didn’t get much of a workout these days.

  “You could try me, though. I help people every now and then. Usually by accident, but still.”

  She hesitated. He waited, breath held, because this moment felt important even if he couldn’t identify why. He was afraid that anything he did, any wrong move, could tip things in the wrong direction, which was any direction that took her away from him.

  He wanted her, this crying woman whose name he didn’t know.

  He wanted her bad.

  She stepped closer, raising her chin and nailing him right between the eyes with her earnest urgency.

  “I woke up this morning, and I didn’t recognize my life anymore. I’m heading down a path I didn’t mean to take. And I can’t figure out how I got here.”

  Sandro waited for more, but there wasn’t anything else.

  That was it? The big problem that made her cry? Was he missing something?

  “Take a different path,” he told her.

  “It’s not that easy—”

  “It is that easy. Take a different path. You can do it.”

  She faltered, the beginnings of a frown creasing her forehead.

  A beat or two passed, during which the world shrank around them.

  Was she drifting closer? Was he? When had her eyes become the only thing in his field of vision? When had he gotten close enough to feel the warmth of her skin?

  “But…I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said quietly.

  He had an impulse to touch her. He didn’t try to resist it. Reaching out, he used his thumb to swipe a lingering tear off her cheek.

  Once that was done, he discovered that he didn’t want to move his fingers away from the sweet satin of her skin.

  When she should have moved away, she didn’t.

  When he should have dropped his hand, he couldn’t.

  His attention was riveted on her sparkling eyes…her dewy lips…her words…her.

  Only when he caught himself leaning in and lowering his head did he stop. His body, which was taut with sexual tension, didn’t appreciate this late display of gentlemanly behavior. But kissing this woman now wouldn’t be the right thing, and he always tried to do the right thing, even when it hurt.

  Especially when it hurt.

  “If you were on the right path,” he said, stepping back and letting her go, “you wouldn’t be out here crying. Would you?”

  She shook her head, her gaze still locked with his.

  When she spoke again, her voice was throaty bordering on hoarse.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alessandro. Davies.”

  There was a pause.

  A long, awful pause.

  Her expression rearranged itself into one of dawning comprehension and…dismay. “Alessandro?”

  He, meanwhile, experienced his own unwanted epiphany.

  He tried to ease into the knowledge, but it was already overwhelming him and congealing into a leaden ball in the pit of his gut.

  Pistons fired in his overheated brain; dots connected; phrases replayed.

  I’m heading down a path I didn’t mean to take. I don’t want to hurt anyone—

  “What’s your name?” he asked, but he knew, even before an unwelcome male voice, the confident voice of his brother, Tony, the man who’d bested him every day of his life, called out.

  Tony emerged from the shadows, grinning, flushed and happy.

  “Skylar! Where’d you get off to? You’re not hiding from me, are you— Ah, I see you met my worse half. You’ll notice I got all the looks in the family. Sandro, this is Skylar, my fiancée.”

  Tony hooked an arm around Skylar’s waist, reeled her in, ran his hand through her hair and kissed her on the very same mouth that Sandro had just been lusting after. Sandro watched it all happen, sickened by a feeling of loss that he couldn’t justify and the sudden realization that he was the biggest and stupidest punk in the world.

  Skylar broke the kiss first, looking flustered.

  “Tony—”

  “Come on, baby.” Tony steered her toward the house and out of Sandro’s life. “They want us to cut the cake.”

  Then they disappeared up the path and were gone, leaving only Skylar’s white flower on the gravel at Sandro’s feet. Naturally, he picked it up and kept it.

  Oh, he hated her, but he kept the damn flower.

  The day after that, Skylar broke up with Tony.

  A month after that, Sandro and Tony were back in Afghanistan.

  A person could die in a firefight, or in a car accident or in a plane crash. Those were the usual ways. But could memories choke the life out of a person? Could longing? Could frustrated desire?

  Hands shaking, he reached for the desk drawer and pulled it open. Reached inside. And pulled out Skylar’s flower, which was dried and pressed between the folded note card that had kept it safe when he’d carried it overseas, to the war.

  He raised it to his nose, remembering. Yearning.

  That was the thing about Skylar: she was with him. She was always with him.

  Chapter Seven

  “Hey, hey, hey!” called a voice behind Skylar early the next morning. “What the hell’re you doing there? You trying to get yourself into trouble, or what?”

  Damn. And she’d almost made a clean getaway. Not that she’d hoped to get far with her bad leg, which was merely achy today rather than outright painful, but still.

  Skylar adjusted her scarf a little higher around her neck and turned to see Mickey rolling down the path toward her, arms pumping and eyes glinting. She’d hoped to sneak out for her little walk and back in again before anyone could warn her against it, but so much for that plan.

  “Good morning,” she said, flashing him a smile that she hoped looked convincingly innocent. “What a beautiful day.”

  Mickey, who was wearing fingerless gloves along with his black knit cap and puffy jacket, jabbed his index finger at her.

  “Don’t even try it. I will not be sweet-talked. What the hell are you trying to do to your stitches there? You know I’m not an M.D. Those things could pop any second with you roaming around out here like you’re on a freaking hike. Why can’t you stay put? What’s the matter with you?”

  “Wow. Lotta questions there. I’m getting a little exercise. And my leg is fine.”

  “Yeah, well don’t expect me to go fixing you up again when you topple over and crack your thick skull. Just so we’re clear.”

  “I understand. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “The Cap would kill me. I don’t get paid for strolling and chatting.”

  “What, ah, do you get paid for?”

  “Groundskeeping. And whatever else he cooks up for me to do.”

  “Well, the gardens are beautiful. What I can see of them, anyway.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, looking suspicious. “Thanks.”

  “How did you wind up working here?”

  “The Cap didn’t approve of me trying to drink myself to death after I lost my legs. So he hauled my ass up by the scruff of my neck and
put me to work.” He shrugged. “Now I got something to do.”

  “He’d be lost without you. I can tell.”

  Mickey blinked, frowning.

  “So…why don’t I make breakfast this morning?” she suggested.

  “There ain’t nothing to make.”

  “Didn’t you mention you had some milk and eggs in a cooler on ice?”

  “Lady, we ain’t got no power.”

  “Don’t we have fires in the fireplaces? Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  His bottom jaw hit his lap. “What do I look like—a camper?”

  “Okay, well, look. You can sit there and argue with me, or you can show up at chow time. I’ve got a taste for French toast and eggs. Assuming you bachelors have some syrup around here somewhere.”

  He shrugged, his eyes showing a flare of begrudging interest. “I’ll get you some syrup.”

  “Great! I’ll meet you in the kitchen in half an hour.”

  “You got it.” He wheeled around to go, but then snapped his fingers and turned back. “The crews’re getting closer, clearing the trees and whatnot. They should have the roads clear soon. You hear ’em?”

  The relentless buzzing of chainsaws had woken her, even though her room was on the back side of the house. She’d done her best to ignore it. Possibly because she knew that if the roads were cleared, then her days here were numbered, if not over. And she didn’t want to leave the Hamptons yet.

  She didn’t want to leave Sandro yet.

  “I heard them,” she said, trying to act like this was good news.

  “I thought that would make you happy.”

  With that, Mickey disappeared toward the house, and she continued her slow hobble down the curve in the path toward the short boardwalk. Not that she was dumb enough to risk the crutches on the sand, but she did want a glimpse of the water.

  Hang on. What was that? Was she imagining things, or—

  No, there it was again—a glimpse of black among the grasses…the twitches of a long and skinny tail, tipped with white…oh, and look at that face! It was a kitten. No, wait. Two kittens! They peered at her, wide-eyed and skittish behind the shoots of dried grass. Poor little guys. Were they hungry? Where was mama cat? Had they gotten separated during the storm?

  She bent at the waist, not daring to test her bad leg by squatting, and held out a welcoming hand.

  “Hello, kitties,” she sang. “Hell-ooo.”

  The kittens froze. One of them opened its mouth in a high-pitched mewl that sounded like an accusation.

  “Well, excuse me.” Skylar took one slow step forward, trying not to scare them away. “I didn’t do anything to you. I’m trying to help—”

  The next step was one too many, and they scampered accordingly.

  “Wait,” she called after them, but they were long gone by the time she made it to their hiding place, and their little footprints in the sand disappeared into dense undergrowth.

  “Well, that stinks,” she muttered.

  Making up her mind to keep an eye out for them, she resumed her hobbling progress. The dried grasses tapered off, letting her see farther ahead, and there, stooped over something fluttering on the boardwalk, was Nikolas.

  Today he wore a dark hoodie (hood pulled up, of course) with baggy shorts that revealed skinny legs and those gunboat-size shoes. Why his teeth weren’t chattering with the cold, she had no idea. Maybe today’s blue skies and bright sunlight had made him more optimistic about the advent of spring than she was prepared to be just yet.

  “Hey,” she called, keeping a tight grip on the white planks as she hopped up the four stairs to the walkway. “What’s going on? Not another animal? I just saw a couple kittens.”

  He glanced over his shoulder and scowled at the sight of her. “You’re going to land right on your butt.”

  “I know,” she said cheerfully, looking at the squirming pile of feathers at his feet. “What’s that? Seagull? No, wait. That’s a kingfisher.”

  His eyes widened. “A kingfisher?”

  She leaned closer, checking. It was a handsome bird, about the size of a pigeon, with beady black eyes, a long and sharp black bill, a gray crest and a horizontal gray stripe and wings to contrast with its white belly. There was no brown, which meant—

  “Yeah. A male. With a broken wing. That’s why his feathers look all crazy.”

  “All crazy? Is that the medical term for it?”

  “Yep.” She grinned and reached to pick up the bird, giving that sharp beak a wide berth. The bird did not approve and squawked accordingly. “Poor little guy. The storm probably tossed him around. It’s okay, little fella. It’s o-kaaaay.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. What’re you doing?”

  “I’m going to take him inside and set his wing. We can’t just leave him here.”

  “You know what you’re doing, right?”

  She straightened, cradling the bird between her palms and trying to soothe him without suffering a puncture wound from that lethal beak.

  “I worked at a zoo one summer when I was in veterinary school. Took care of an ostrich. So I think I can manage this guy.”

  “Yeah, but ostriches can’t fly.”

  Laughing, she turned to lead the way back toward the house. “Come on. I’ll show you how to make a splint. Will you grab my crutches for me and maybe take my arm so I don’t fall? Thanks.”

  Nikolas complied and held her in his firm grip as she hopped back down the steps, but he didn’t look happy about it. “Dad’s not going to like this—”

  “Oh, so what?” she muttered. “What does your dad like, exactly?”

  That got a grin out of him. “You’re subversive. I like that in a person. I’m still going to throw you under the bus when he demands to know why there’s a wild bird in the house, though.”

  “Honey, I’ve been attacked by a tree. I’m not scared of your dad.”

  “You will be,” he said in a pretty good Yoda imitation. “You will be. What should we name him?”

  The Yoda reference made her think of Star Wars, which made her think—

  “How about Skywalker?”

  Nikolas nodded thoughtfully. “That could work.” He peered down at the bird’s face. “You like that?”

  The bird screeched, looking as threatening as he possibly could when only his ruffled head showed above Skylar’s fists.

  “Skywalker it is,” Nikolas said happily.

  * * *

  The smell of coffee and bacon lured Sandro into the kitchen, where he stood at the threshold and watched the buzz of activity, frozen with stupefaction.

  Nikolas and Mickey scurried back and forth around the granite island, shuttling plates, silverware and syrup to the weathered oak table, upon which already sat a glass pitcher of orange juice.

  There was a…a…yes, his eyes were not deceiving him…a live bird with a bandaged wing sitting atop the mantelpiece and squawking its fool head off. And there at the stone hearth, stooped over the roaring fire with an iron skillet, was the cause of all this uproar, the thorn in his side and the cross he had to bear, at least for a little while longer—Skylar.

  Smiling and pink-faced with excitement, she used a spatula to flip something in the skillet. Was that French toast? Also perched over the fire was a blue enamel coffee pot he’d had no idea they even owned. A stack of bacon, crispy the way he liked it, drained on some paper towels on the counter.

  His stomach, which had subsisted on PB and Js and protein bars for the last couple days, rumbled with approval and anticipation.

  So Skylar had managed to make a breakfast feast with no power.

  That was unusual.

  Stranger still? Mickey, who was suspicious of strangers and had never met anyone he wasn’t happy to curse out, was cheerfully folding napkins and arranging plates. Meanwhile, Nikolas, he of the perpetual sulky moods, bad attitude and general surliness, was—wait for it—humming.

  Yes, humming.

  Sandro had seen enough. He stepped all the way
into the room.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  Much to his annoyance, they all gave a little start and stilled, looking around at him with wide eyes, like three little mice who’d been happily playing until the big bad cat came back.

  Which made him the big bad cat.

  He didn’t get it. He was quiet and had high expectations of himself and others, which meant that he didn’t suffer fools. And, yeah, he probably still had that commanding air about him, which came from years of commanding.

  But seriously. Did he bring that much gloom with him when he walked into the room?

  Why were they all looking at him as though he’d just shot Bambi?

  “We’re having breakfast,” Skylar informed him. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  The if you’re nice was implied, but he still heard it.

  “Why, thank you,” he replied. “It’s always nice to be invited to sit at my own table.”

  “Make sure you wash your hands,” Skylar said, now flipping the French toast.

  “I’m familiar with basic hygiene procedures.” He went to the sink and lathered up. “Which reminds me. What the hell is that bird doing on the mantel?”

  Skylar, who had moved on to transferring the finished French toast to a platter, shot the bird a fond glance.

  “This is Skywalker. He’s a belted kingfisher. His wing is broken from the storm.”

  Sandro slid into his place on the bench at the table, opposite Nikolas.

  “I didn’t ask about his demographics. I’m wondering who installed him in the house and why.”

  Shrugging, Skylar gave him a sweet smile that was at complete odds with the subtle defiance flashing in her eyes.

  “I figured that you were the kind of guy who’d want to help a vulnerable creature. Was I wrong?”

  Well, now what the hell was he supposed to say to that?

  He stared at her, wondering how much strategic training she’d had to outflank him so easily. With his four years at West Point and lengthy army career, he’d thought he’d be a match for one small woman, but apparently he’d miscalculated.

  “And how long will this vulnerable creature be pooping on the mantel?” he wondered.

  “Not too long. Unless you have a cage? I didn’t see a cage.”