Temptation's Kiss

by Sandra Brown

  “My God,” he grated as at last he pulled away.“You're not making this any easier on my self-control, Megan my love. Let's go.”

  The fresh evening air helped to lift the warm stain from Megan's cheeks. Her own loss of control during Josh's kiss had shocked and shamed her. She welcomed the balm of the sea breeze to clear her head and cool her fevered skin.

  Their stroll through the twilight was leisurely and solitary. The pebbled walkways were lined with flowering plants. Crepe myrtle trees were just beginning to bud. The camelias were glorious.

  “They look nice with your dress,” Josh remarked, indicating one of the shrubs which was loaded with blooms. “Here, wait a minute. Is anyone looking?” he asked mischievously before pinching off one of the vibrantly pink flowers.

  Laughter, unaffected and natural, bubbled out of her throat at his prank. “What are you doing, Josh Bennett? Trying to get us thrown off the premises?”

  “We won't be,” he said, winking. “I've got connections. Turn around.”

  “Why?”

  “Just turn around.”

  She offered him her back and immediately felt his fingers adding the real blossom to the silk one with which she had decorated her hair. “It took me a half hour to perfect that coiffure. If you mess it up—”

  “Be still,” he commanded. He tugged, adjusted, patted, then said a satisfied, “There. That looks great.” His fingers trailed lightly to the nape of her neck. “And this looks scrumptious.” He pressed a kiss onto the velvety skin.

  The damp patch cooled quickly in the night air and contrasted wonderfully to another hot application of his mouth.

  “Josh.” Megan sighed in spite of herself. The gentle swaying of the pine trees surrounding them was somehow sexually symbolic. The air, laden with flowery perfume, and the shadowy private path on which they stood, were a seductive setting. “Josh,” she repeated, hardly aware that she spoke his name aloud.

  “Hmmm?” His lips nibbled, his tongue licked, his teeth raked lightly along her fragile skin. He tasted her like the most lascivious of gourmets indulging lewdly in a sumptuous meal. “Let's forget dinner,” he breathed from behind her. “Nothing could taste as good as you.” His tongue made tiny, quick strikes on her earlobe.

  His hips settled more firmly against her back. She lifted her arms behind her head to caress his hard cheek and masculine jaw. Her fingers teased the dark hair that curled over the tops of his ears and clung to her fingers as if with a life of its own.

  “Sweet … Get closer to me,” he murmured before lowering his hands to her sides. Suddenly he froze. “Good Lord,” he gasped. His fingers had encountered, not the fabric of her dress, but the warm suppleness of her skin. Barely moving his fingertips, he confirmed that he was indeed touching the sides of her breasts.

  He turned her slowly to face him, and bound her eyes with his. Without releasing her from that mesmerizing stare, he slipped the fingers of both hands just beneath the sides of her dress and caressed the plump outer curves of her breasts.

  “I'm liking this dress more and more,” he said thickly. Lifting one of her arms, he studied the structure of the dress, which had been designed with a man's appreciation in mind. The side was open to about two inches above the waist, leaving the tender underside of her arm and torso bare.

  “I—I couldn't wear a bra with it,” she said shakily. She had worn the dress deliberately to entice him, of course, but she had not planned her own reaction to his appreciation. She'd intended for Josh to learn at some point in the evening how her dress was fashioned, but she hadn't planned on its being this early, or on his taking such keen advantage.

  “I can see that,” he said on an unsteady breath. “Better than that, I can feel it.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. Murmuring against it, he said, “I love the dress, but, damn it, I'll be miserable all night. I'll want to kill any man I see glancing in your direction.”

  With a possessive arm around her shoulders and a proprietary air, he escorted her the rest of the way to the main compound. They were to meet the Bishops in the most elite of Seascape's four restaurants. Terry had wisely provided eateries to suit any taste or budget, from hamburgers to Continental cuisine.

  The latter restaurant was located on the second floor and provided a breathtaking view of the Atlantic at dusk. Black lacquered tables were covered with starched white cloths. The chairs were upholstered in either royal blue or burgundy velour. Crystal shimmered in the candlelight; silver place settings sparkled; a sedate sextet played soft music from a small dais rising from a parqueted dance floor.

  As they entered through etched glass doors, Terry rushed forward to greet them. “Megan, you look beautiful. Josh, how do you like it? Are your rooms sufficient? Are you having a good time?”

  Megan and Josh glanced at each other and burst out laughing at Terry's nervous enthusiasm. “Yes, we love Seascape. Yes, the rooms are superlative,” Josh assured him.

  “And yes, we're having a good time,” Megan contributed. “But we're hungry,” she teased.

  He smiled shyly. “I know I'm being ridiculous. Gayla told me as much. She says if I don't calm down she's going to lock me in our room. Come on, she's anxious to meet you.”

  Gayla Bishop was as contentedly calm as her husband was harried. Perhaps her serenity had been acquired after having borne four children, Megan speculated. She would never have survived otherwise, if all the stories with which she regaled Megan were true. The plumpish woman seemed not in the least affected by the size of her bank account and looked upon Seascape as only one of her husband's many outstanding achievements. That they adored each other was obvious as they all chatted amiably and sipped drinks.

  When Josh had automatically ordered Megan white wine on the rocks, she had smiled at him privately. Without the least bit of self-consciousness, he covered her hand with his and gently stroked her fingers, even as he conversed with Terry about Seascape's three golf courses.

  “I was even more anxious to meet you when I heard you were coming here with Josh,” Gayla Bishop told Megan frankly. She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “He's so damned good-looking. Of course I love my Terry to death, but I'm not blind or dead!” She laughed lightly.

  “I'm here at your husband's invitation, not Josh's,” Megan clarified. “Seascape commercials are running on the television station I work for. I'm overseeing the account.”

  “Oh, I understand, I understand,” Gayla said with an impish grin that told Megan she didn't understand at all. Did everyone think she was only Josh's date for the weekend? For her plan to work, they must suspect much more.

  “I really think it's time someone lassoed Josh Bennett. It's time he settled down. Terry says I'm naive, but I'm so happily married I can't understand why anyone wouldn't want to be. I couldn't live alone, absolutely could not.” She covered her mouth with a hand that was heavy with diamonds. “There I go shooting off my big mouth,” she said abjectly. “I'm sorry, Megan. Terry told me your husband just dropped dead one day. You poor thing.”

  The loquacious woman's apology was so apparently heartfelt that Megan didn't take offense. “It's all right. Living alone's not so bad once you get used to it.”

  Gayla's brows arched expressively. “Well, if the way Josh looks at you is any sign, I'd say your days of living alone are numbered.”

  “But—”

  “I've been telling that man for years, ever since he visited Terry and me on the boat one summer, that he'd better watch out. ‘One day a woman is going to come along and knock you right out of your shoes.’ That's what I told him. And, honey, you're the most likely candidate I've seen.” Gayla paused to study Josh as he spoke quietly to her husband.

  Megan had been rendered speechless. She didn't think it would do any good to try to set the record straight. She had the impression that once Gayla Bishop made up her mind about something, she didn't change it no matter what.

  Gayla took a sip of her champagne cocktail and continued.
“I'll admit I've been worried about Josh. Ever since he broke it off with—”

  “George, Ms. Wray,” Terry said, interrupting Gayla's recital just when it had commanded Megan's full attention.

  The developer stood up, as did Josh, to shake hands with a man Terry introduced to Megan as one of Seascape's investors, an industrialist from Savannah. They also greeted Laura Wray, who looked stunning in a floor-length sheath of ice-blue satin. It clung to her willowy figure and accented her fair coloring. She spoke to everyone in a refined, modulated voice and tilted her head up when Josh kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  “Laura, as beautiful as ever,” Megan heard him say.

  “Thank you, Josh.”

  After they exchanged pleasantries, the couple moved away to join a larger group at another table. Terry and Josh excused themselves to circulate around the room, Terry asking Josh nervously to accompany him on greeting his guests. “I'm terrible at remembering names,” he said, mopping his brow with a wrinkled handkerchief.

  “Well, I almost got in trouble with my big trap again,” Gayla said with a gushing sigh of relief. This time she gulped down her cocktail. “I was just about to speak that woman's name, and all of a sudden, there she was!”

  Megan's hand shook slightly as she brought the slender-stemmed wineglass to her lips. “Ms. Wray?” she asked on a high note.

  Gayla was apparently too caught up in her own tale to notice Megan's agitation. “Yes. You knew, of course, that Josh was engaged to her.”

  Megan shook her head before she found enough voice to croak, “No.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “No.”

  Gayla's cheerful, round face collapsed. “Damn! Terry's going to kill me. Kill me. He always cautions me about flapping my jaws. Well, shoot, you should know.” She caught Megan's hand and squeezed it tightly. “They were engaged about three years ago. Then, out of the blue and for no reason I could ever I see, he told us it was off. Just like that.” She snapped beringed fingers.

  “I don't recall seeing anything about it in the papers.” The muscles of Megan's throat were playing tug-o’-war with each other, making it painful to speak and breathe.

  “No. It was one of those brief affairs that died before it ever got started. Anyway, I was glad when Terry told me Josh had a new girl. A man like that shouldn't go to waste.” She patted Megan's hand again before hailing her husband across the room. “Terry Bishop, come back and order me some dinner.”

  There were titters of laughter as Terry rushed back to his wife, apologizing profusely to her and Megan for keeping them waiting.

  Josh slid his lean body into his chair and reached beneath the table to squeeze Megan's knee. “Miss me?” he asked, bending so close that his breath wafted over her lips.

  Deeply distressed by what Gayla had blithely told her, she answered, honestly and almost inaudibly, “Yes.” Could the tears welling in her eyes be detected in the candlelight?

  Josh's index finger traced the delicate sculpture of her jaw. Eyes with more facets than cut topaz blazed into hers, then dropped to her chest as though he would burn through the cloth that dared to shield her breasts from his avid gaze.

  She felt herself gravitating toward him and was saved from embarrassment only by Gayla's imperious, “What should we eat?”

  Josh had the pressed duck, Megan the chicken with lemon sauce. Both voiced accolades to the chef, who had been lured away from a prohibitively expensive hotel in Nice, France. “Want to sample a bite of mine?” Josh asked Megan. He lifted a forkful of the succulent meat toward her mouth.

  “I was hoping you'd ask.”

  He guided the fork to her lips, and she closed them around the tines of the fork. Slowly, her eyes glued to Josh's, she moved her head back until the fork came away clean. His eyes stayed riveted on her mouth as she chewed languidly. She didn't realize until she saw the dangerous glint in his eyes how clearly sexual her behavior had been.

  Her tongue darted out nervously, fleetingly, to lick the corners of her lips. Josh's breath hissed through his teeth as his eyes came flying back to hers. She read the passion lurking in their golden depths, and her heart beat a triumphant tattoo. Or was it pounding out of fear?

  The meal was pleasant. She enjoyed the Bishops’ company. The only thing that marred the perfection of the evening was the wistful glances she saw Laura Wray sending Josh. He seemed to be oblivious of her, never, to Megan's knowledge, glancing at her. Yet each time Megan looked at the woman across the room, she was staring at Josh.

  “Would you like to dance, Megan?” Terry asked as they were sipping liqueurs and coffee.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said enthusiastically. The melodic strains of the small orchestra had been haunting her throughout dinner, and more than once she had found herself swaying to the slow rhythm. She loved to dance and didn't have much opportunity to do so.

  Josh returned the favor by asking a flustered Gayla to join him on the dance floor. As soon as another song started, Megan was claimed by a television executive from Charleston whom she had met at a sales conference the year before.

  She was laughing at his story about one of their colleagues, when she glimpsed Josh dancing with Laura Wray. The laughter was trapped in her throat as though a cork had been pushed into it. A knife of jealousy ripped through her. The fierceness of her jealousy frightened her. She'd never known an emotion to poison her this way.

  The woman's head was tilted back, her blond hair sweeping the tapering hand that was pressed against her back. They talked, smiled, and laughed lightly. When the song ended on a poignant refrain, Megan saw Josh lean down and kiss Laura softly on the mouth. To hide her feelings, Megan chatted volubly with her partner as he escorted her back to her table, hoping what she said made sense.

  Before she had a chance to sit down, she was pulled into a pair of arms, the strength and possessiveness of which couldn't be mistaken. Hate for the woman he'd just danced with so consumed her that Megan held herself rigid against him.

  Soon, however, the spiciness of his cologne, the strength of the muscles that rippled against her body, and the lulling notes of the music all soothed her. She was caught up again in Josh's web of sensuality, and for the moment she didn't want to escape.

  Driven by an irrational need to prove to him that she was as much a woman as the one he'd once asked to marry him, she adjusted the curves of her body to harmonize with his.

  “I thought dinner would never end.” His lips moved on her temple. “I couldn't wait to get my hands on you.” Smiling with secret pleasure, she began to lift her arms around his neck. “Please, Megan, put your arms down. I don't want to fight off a gang of would-be attackers.” He flattened her hand on his lapel, folding her arm between them and holding her other hand in his. She knew it was no accident that it lay against her breast.

  Magically they moved with the music. The room, bathed in candlelight from brass sconces mounted on the walls and hurricane lamps on the tables, was filled with romantic ambiance.

  Lazily, Josh's thumb honored Megan's full breast. The caress brought a tickling sensation feathering up from the pit of her stomach to the back of her throat and down again, deeper this time, to the very heart of what made her a woman. Her cheek rested against his hard chest, where she could hear the thudding of his heart.

  She should be angry with him for not telling her about Laura Wray. She should scorn him for the indifferent way he cast women aside once he was through with them. But her arsenal of vituperations had been sealed up when he took her in his arms and held her to him as though she belonged there.

  “It feels so good to hold you this way,” he whispered, letting his mouth linger at the top of her ear. “To do this.” The caress of his thumb on her breast was subtle, invisible to anyone else, yet from the currents it sent sizzling through her body, he could have been touching her in the most intimate way possible.

  “It's driving me to distraction to think that one mere scrap of cloth is all that's keeping your breasts from my eyes.”
His other hand slipped to her waist and drew her closer still. “From my hands.” He kissed her just below the ear. “From my mouth.”

  She trembled and pressed her face against his shirt-front. “Josh, you shouldn't say things like that to me here.”

  “You're right,” he said, suddenly disengaging her. He braced her when she reeled slightly from the loss of support. “Since I intend to say a lot of things like that to you, I guess we'd better get out of here.”

  Seven

  She was virtually dragged off the dance floor. They said a hurried good night and thank you to the bewildered Bishops and hastily left the restaurant.

  “Let's walk on the beach.”

  Josh took her hand, and they strolled around the Olympic-sized swimming pool, where a few of the guests were still cavorting. To those they recognized, they called out rushed greetings. Others were up to their necks in the churning bubbles of the outdoor hot tub. Neither appealed to Megan at the moment. She sought only to be alone with Josh.

  Nearly all the paths of the compound led eventually to the beach. Josh took the nearest one, which sliced across the broad stretch of manicured lawn, through the tall grass left growing on the gently swelling dunes, and down to the expanse of white shore.

  “Oh, how lovely,” Megan said reverently. They'd left the lights far behind and found the deserted beach in its natural state. With the surging tide, the moonlight kissing each foaming wave, and the wind carrying the ocean's roar, the scene seemed primitive, elemental, and unchanging.

  “You're lovely,” Josh cupped her head with one hand while the other closed around her throat. His mouth fused with hers, his tongue pushing through her yielding lips to nestle in the pliant moistness of her mouth.

  The wind ripped strands of hair out of her neat chignon and whipped her dress wildly, but Megan was hardly aware of it. The heat of Josh's mouth, the hard strength of his body, were all the protection she required.