by Nancy Warren
He hung up and looked at the time on the screen. He had two hours to work . . . two hours to wait.
Esme didn’t expect formality, and she wasn’t disappointed. Peggy Street, the woman who ran McCoy’s house and cooked for him, had helped Esme get settled; she’d told her Dane didn’t like the dining room, that he preferred to eat in the breakfast room off the kitchen.
When she looked at the slim silver watch on her wrist, she realized she was a few minutes early and decided to stroll through the rose garden she’d spotted from the kitchen window. She wasn’t looking forward to dinner with a man who’d been coerced into having her here, so she’d resolved to be pleasant—if it killed her—until she could make a graceful exit to the nearest motel.
The blooms were full and alive with color, their scent heady and rich in the strong Louisiana sun. She had her nose buried in a pure white blossom when she heard footsteps behind her, scrunching on the crushed oyster shells that formed a path through the dozens of rosebushes. She turned and straightened.
“You comfortable? Your room okay?” Dane McCoy asked, the words clipped, his eyes cool and hot at the same time.
Esme’s heart hurtled upward to fill her throat. Dane McCoy—wearing a navy shirt and tan dress slacks, a darker tan leather belt circling his lean waist, his skin clear and clean-shaven, his scarily intelligent eyes fixated on her, half angry, half wolf—was blindingly handsome, and the bolt of attraction that made her bones crumble caught her off-guard. She’d felt it earlier today, the second their eyes met. Then it was a gentle wash of warmth that made her tummy curl, but now it was a flash flood affecting a more sensitive part of her anatomy—and God, it felt good.
It had been so long . . .
She waited until her heart settled down to where it belonged, waited for her vision to widen enough to encompass more than Dane McCoy, and said in as measured a voice as she could muster, “Everything’s fine. Thank you.”
His eyes flicked to her mouth, stayed there. Too long. “Good,” he said, finally lifting his gaze to hers. “Dinner’s ready. I hope you like to eat, because Peggy’s gone all out. It’s been a while since she cooked for a woman.”
Dane, only a few steps from the open kitchen door, went to stand beside it, waited for her. Esme followed, surprised and intrigued he’d been so honest about the lack of a woman in his life. She guessed none had called or “showed up” recently, which, according to Marilee, was how the mating game worked for Dane McCoy, the whole thing easy and effortless. No doubt women only rose on his priority list when absolutely necessary—when his body demanded them.
She twisted her lips to restrain a smile, thinking how irritating it must be for a power-hungry, money-obsessed male like Dane to have his work interrupted by an inconveniently demanding libido. Probably a quick and impatient lover, she thought. Not that she intended to confirm that. What she intended was to be polite and controlled until she could make her escape.
When she reached the door, he gestured her in, his hand briefly touching—warming—her bare elbow as she stepped ahead of him into the kitchen.
Peggy bustled around the table, setting down red beans and rice, lamb steaks, asparagus dripping in butter and parmesan, and long thin bread rolls to die for.
After she and Dane agreed on a red wine, Esme, who hadn’t eaten since morning, started on dinner. “Oh,” she breathed, after her first bite of asparagus. “This is beyond heavenly.” After another couple of bites, she realized Dane wasn’t eating. “What’s wrong?” she asked, “Don’t you like it?”
“Peggy’s cooking? What’s not to like?” He sat stone still in the chair across from her, twirling the stem of his wineglass on the white tablecloth, and looking at her as if she were a dissected frog from last week’s biology class. No lust now—only enmity.
Quelling a prickle of unease, Esme set her fork down. “You’re not eating.”
“I’d rather watch you eat.”
She met his gaze. “Why’s that?”
“I like watching your mouth. The way your tongue comes out and sweeps your lips to pick up the last of the flavor.”
“You like . . . my tongue?”
“Ever met a man who didn’t like your tongue?” His chilly expression didn’t so much as flicker.
“Never met one who admitted it so openly within”—she looked at her watch—“four hours of meeting me. A woman might consider a remark like that a bit suggestive at this point, even insulting.” Esme wasn’t sure what he’d meant by it. It certainly wasn’t a come-on. And if it was intended as a put-down, he’d seriously miscalculated. Esme Shane was not put-downable.
He nodded his dark head once. “Some women would, but not you. You didn’t blush, didn’t turn away, and you didn’t stand and walk out of the room.”
“And that means what? I failed some kind of test?”
“It means you’re not easily intimidated.”
She wondered how he’d react if he knew she’d spent years talking about tongues, penises, and vaginas for a living. She decided to find out. “I’m not,” she said. “At least not when it comes to sexuality, which is the category I’d put that remark of yours into.” She picked up her knife and fork and started in on her steak. “I was a sex therapist for six years before I decided to follow my bliss, as they say.”
“A sex therapist,” he repeated and raised a brow. “Do I even want to know what that means?”
“You would if you needed help getting an erection, or couldn’t satisfy either yourself or your partner.” She looked at him, held back her smile, and adopted her clinical persona. “Do you? Because if so, while I’m here . . .” She cocked a brow in question. Yes, definitely the faintest of blushes warmed those remarkable cheekbones of his.
“I do fine, thanks.”
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
“Yeah . . . in the bedroom across the hall from mine.”
She put her eating utensils down and smiled at him through her confusion. This conversation was twisting and turning a bit faster than she could handle. “Why are we having this . . . intimate a conversation when we hardly know each other?”
“We can talk about sex or we can talk about money. For now I figured sex was the simpler of the two.”
She still didn’t get it. “What are you talking about?”
He leaned forward. “I know why you’re here, Esme Patience Shane.” He enunciated her name clearly and, she thought, with obvious distaste.
She hid her bewilderment, or at least hoped she did, by taking some deep breaths and ignoring the ripple of alarm in her stomach. “Hardly a secret. I came here to draw Delacroix Island and this house, and—”
“—beg for money. For a sex shop.”
“Beg for—Sex shop!” Esme tossed her napkin on the table and stood. “You’ve got an awful lot of things wrong, McCoy.”
He leaned back in his chair, made no move to get up. “So, set me straight. Or are you more comfortable on the field of erectile dysfunction than in the arena of high finance?”
Esme stared at him, quelled her shock, the simmer of anger contracting her chest. It looked as though her exit would be a hell of lot less gracious than she’d planned, and she’d be looking for a motel room tonight instead of tomorrow. But she wasn’t going anywhere until she straightened things out with this money-obsessed, tight-fisted, sister-controlling, arrogant son of a bitch she was currently having dinner with.
“All right, I will ‘set you straight.’” She fixed her gaze on him, crossed her arms. “I came here to draw, not beg you for your precious money. And because your sister asked me to drop off a business proposal.”
“So far we’re on the same track, darlin’. A business proposal usually being a request for money. In this case, five million dollars for a sex shop.”
“Five million”—Esme’s jaw loosened, and she dropped her hands to her sides—“dollars?” she repeated, her voice uncomfortably close to a squeak.
“Last I heard,
that was still the legal currency in the U.S. of A.”
“I had no idea.” She’d never gone into the financial end of things with either Marilee or Leonardo—hadn’t even thought about it. She knew their plans were ambitious, but she’d never dreamed they needed so much money.
“I’ve got to hand it to them,” Dane said. “They think big. Five mil will stock a lot of dildoes and rubber Bettys.”
“Dildoes and rubber—” She was mad again, and it felt good. “That is definitely not what they have in mind. My brother is a respected psychologist, and—” She stopped. One look told her McCoy was unmoved, and any further defense of Leonardo was wasted. She arched a brow. “But if they did want one of those things, so what? There are people who need—”
“To get laid, and are willing to pay good money for a reasonable facsimile when the real thing isn’t handy.” He nodded. “That, I know. I also know my sister doesn’t know squat about business and that your brother, from what I’ve learned, is on a par with her.” He took a drink of his wine, set the glass back on the table, and again twirled the stem, not for a moment taking those brilliant, fiercely speculative eyes of his from her face.
“How would you know anything about my brother? You’ve never even met him, and he’s—” Light dawned. “You had him investigated!” More light dawned. “And probably me, too.”
“I investigate everything, and that includes people, places, or things, that touch my home and family.” He stood.
“There are some who’d call that paranoid.” A part of her understood his caution, another part stung as if violated.
“And there are those who don’t give a damn what it’s called.”
Especially when they’re safely cocooned behind a wall of cash. Marilee might have been subverting the truth when she described her brother’s physical appearance, but she’d sure pegged his character—flaws! Except she’d missed one. Chronic egotism.
Esme walked toward him, stood directly in his line of verbal fire, and said, “And then there are those who don’t give a damn, period. My guess, McCoy, is that you’re one of those. You don’t want to help your sister, you’ve judged my brother without so much as shaking his hand, and . . . you’ve obviously got sexual issues.” She met his eyes, coolly, unblinkingly. Two could play the big-time macho game. No penis required.
“ ‘Issues?’” He looked as if he might choke.
Score a hit for the female brigade.
He found his voice, and oddly, a thin smile that disappeared as quickly as a puff of smoke. “I’m not sure how my sexuality got in the mix,” he said, his eyes a hot unreadable blue. “But as ‘issues’ go, it isn’t one of them.” He took a step closer to her. “Although I admit I’ve never tried the therapeutic approach to making love.” He drew a line with his index finger down her cheek, his touch feather-light. “A man can always learn something to improve his technique.”
Esme, who’d swim to Mobile buck-naked and without flippers, before she yielded him an inch, ignored the heat from his hand, the way it seeped under her skin to run up, then down her exposed throat. “There’s more to making love than technique.”
He ran his knuckles across her jaw. “Like what?” he asked, his voice lower.
“Feelings. You know . . . those things that get in the way of rational thought.” Like they were doing right now!
“Uh,” he said, his gaze slipping from hers to the strands of hair he was rolling between his thumb and forefinger. “Tell me more about these things, these feelings.”
“You’re not—”
His mouth cut her off, taking hers in a soft, compelling kiss. The scent of him entered her, a fragrance of evening forest and ruby wine.
Delicious, intoxicating. Paralyzing.
He slid his hand to her nape and ringed her neck with deft strong fingers, held her in place. When he ended the kiss, he brushed his mouth over hers and murmured, “I knew you’d taste good.”
“I think—” Of course, she wasn’t thinking at all, and when his mouth again settled over hers, only one hazy idea surfaced: if this man had sexuality issues . . . bring ’em on.
He ran his tongue along her lower lip, and she opened to it, offered her own. He pulled her to him, rougher now, more demanding, and her nipples hardened against his straining chest, the pounding of his heart.
And her nipples weren’t the only thing getting hard . . .
“Jesus!” Dane jerked his head up, pulled back abruptly, but continued to hold her by the shoulders. His eyes were dark, shocked.
Esme, when she gained control over her legs, took a breath, and stepped back. “I think . . . you should let go of me.”
He dropped his hands as if her skin had combusted, then stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. Then he rubbed at the lines in his forehead. “I don’t know why I did that.”
Esme looked at him, and her head, until now a kaleidoscope of colors and broken thoughts, cleared—somewhat. Determined to sound sane, alert, and sensible, she said, in what she hoped was a level voice, “And I don’t know why I let you.”
Those were the truest of all the words she could summon up. She was freaked! She’d spent less than an hour with this man; she didn’t know him, didn’t particularly like him, and considered his addiction to work—to making more and more money when he already had enough for a hundred lifetimes—not only less than admirable, but a serious character deficiency. He was the last man on earth who should make her heart race, her pulse jump, and her head fill with images of naked tangled limbs and mind-numbing sex.
Their gazes met, locked, and the air between them, thick and hot, vibrated with promise and peril. They stared at one another, the only sound two pairs of lungs struggling toward normalcy. When the quiet between them lengthened, heat coursed up Esme’s neck; she couldn’t find her voice. Neither, it seemed, could Dane. Mutely, they considered one another as if in thrall. As if words would kill the magic or whatever it was that had entered the room on that kiss.
“I apologize,” Dane finally said, his tone low, his expression thoughtful. “I was out of line.”
“And I’ll leave tonight.”
“No.” He raised a hand. “That’s not necessary.”
“In the morning, then,” she stated, then glanced away and attempted to reclaim her poise, which had drained away the second Dane’s mouth had touched hers.
He looked as if he would argue but nodded instead.
Another layer of awkward silence tripped over the last, before he said, “Then I suggest we eat.” He gestured toward the table. “Unless you feel obliged to run off immediately and start packing.”
Run off? No way. She gave him an arch look. “The wounded virgin act would be overkill, I think. Besides, I’m as hungry as a she-wolf,” she lied. “The packing can wait.” She sat.
He sat.
Both picked up their forks. Both ate in silence, until Dane broke it. “Where will you go?”
“It’s a pretty big island. There must be a decent motel. I’m not fussy.” Esme had no idea where to go, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to be gone, out from under his laser blue gaze that made her hormones hopscotch and her skin quiver. She knew what this was, lust, pure and simple, and she’d counseled enough people to know it was uncertain territory. She also knew she was vulnerable. God, she could scarcely remember the last time she’d made love.
He appeared to consider her comments about the motel but offered no suggestions. “I’ve got a couple of calls to make in the morning, but if you can wait until nine, I’ll drive you.”
She thought of doing the don’t-bother-I’ll-manage routine, and tossing her hair, but decided against it. He didn’t want her here, so damn it, he shouldn’t have let her come, but he had, so let him be inconvenienced. Having nicely made the entire nonevent of their meeting his fault gave her strange comfort. “Nine will be perfect,” she said.
Esme went back to her meal. She wanted to gobble her food, get up, and run to her room, but somewhere along
the way, she’d lost her appetite, but she made a determined play of eating, until finally pushing her plate back. “The dinner was wonderful,” she said. “Thank you. If I don’t see Peggy before I leave, please tell her how much I enjoyed it.”
He stood as well, glanced at her half-eaten meal. “She won’t believe me.”
“Nine. I’ll be ready.” She walked out of the room.
Regally, she hoped.
Three
Dane finally gave up on sleeping, make that trying to sleep, by rolling over every sixty seconds, counting a herd of all-black sheep, and pummeling his innocent pillow into violent submission. At six-fifteen, the sun barreled in his window and ended the whole lousy exercise, and he got up—or as they used to say in the locker room, pole-vaulted—out of bed with the mother of all morning erections.
He’d been over-the-top rude last night. Acted like a real shit.
Marilee accused him of being a “crabby, miserable hermit” with no life. She might be right, but, damn it, the kind of deals he was working on took time and were a hell of lot more complicated than he’d imagined. With so much on the line he couldn’t afford to screw up.
Although . . . like Janzen said—he rubbed his hand over his beard-stubbled jaw—the opportunities to invest weren’t going away any time soon. Probably never.
And there were other opportunities. Of the female kind. Of the Esme Shane kind . . .
He strode naked to his shower, told himself if there had been an opportunity, he’d blown it, which was probably just as well. Not only did he not want to get up close and personal with one of his sister’s friends, the woman was too . . . smooth for his taste, anyway. Too much into control. She probably spent all her time in bed analyzing a guy’s technique against some checklist, then, when the sex was over, grading it in her journal.
Dane stepped out of the shower to towel off in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in his bathroom. One-way glass, it offered him a panoramic view down to his private beach, boat dock, and the ocean beyond. This morning the Gulf waters were bright with sun-lightened ripples—and a woman was striding purposefully toward the seashore, wearing a billowy skirt, one of those funny fisherman-style hats that travelers wore, and carrying what looked to be an artist’s case. Esme Shane.