Oh, my God, Leah, you have got to get a life!
Crimson color rose in her face at the inexplicable, erotic turn her thoughts had taken. Yet, still she stood there, immobile, as his dark, heated gaze wandered lower still, skimming over the firm, ripe globes of her breasts, and the hard peaks of her nipples poking against the silk of her blouse in blatant invitation. Her skin prickled and instinctively she knew that those piercing eyes were not seeing the clothes she was wearing, but rather, picturing what lay beneath.
Good God!
She shut her eyes on a sudden wave of embarrassment and turned her head away. A shudder passed through her. Had she gone completely mad? Had dealing with Richard taught her nothing? Despite what had happened on that stretch of beach three years ago, this man was a total stranger, and here she was sending out signals like some…some…tramp! What on earth was the matter with her? Where was her common sense? Where was her self-respect?
Scarlet with humiliation, she bit her lip and moved away, pushing through the crowd toward the taxi stand. To hell with waiting for Julio Rodriguez. If he wasn’t here by now, he obviously wasn’t coming and she was not going to wait in this sweltering heat one second longer. Her knees were wobbling and she fought an insane urge to laugh hysterically. Even though she was no longer looking at the man, she was still acutely aware of him. Never, ever had she been so affected by a man…any man. And with nothing more than a look, for crying out loud! Never had a man…any man stirred her to this fever-pitch of arousal. Not even Richard. Especially not Richard. And Richard had been her husband for God’s sake!
She did laugh then, a short, mirthless bark that caused several people in the taxi queue to turn their heads and look at her curiously. Oh, God, what was she doing? What was there about this man…Her heart lurched. Her body still felt scorched where his eyes had touched her. He made her feel…her mind groped for the right words…swallowed up. Out of control. Completely isolated from everything except the two of them and the primitive, pulsating rhythms sparking between them.
The thought terrified her.
She licked her lips, wiping her hands nervously on her rumpled linen slacks. She had to get out of here, away from this stranger and the disturbing impact he had on her. She didn’t know if he was still there or not and she certainly wasn’t about to look. As far as she was concerned, the brief, unsettling encounter was over. And the sooner she pushed it—and him—from her mind, the better off she’d be.
Finally, she was next. As a yellow cab pulled up to the curb, she reached down for the handle of her suitcase. A dark, sinewy arm brushed past hers and a large hand closed around the handle. “Here, let me get that for you.”
She swallowed. Hard. His voice was exactly as she remembered, deep, with a thick, molasses-like smoothness to it that made her think of cool, foggy autumn mornings on the bay. He was so close, disturbingly close. His warm breath fluttered against her ear, sending her pulses leaping. Her heart gave a jerk then stumbled forward erratically. Every nerve in her body leaped to agonizing life as the heat from his body soaked into hers. His scent was exactly as she remembered, too, musky, clean, and totally masculine.
As he easily lifted her heavy suitcase in his left hand, he curved his right hand around her waist, and before she could utter a word of protest, he was turning her away from the curb and down the sidewalk. Where he touched her, her skin erupted into flames. “This way,” he murmured, urging her forward with the pressure of his hand, his big, hard body right beside her.
Wait. Wait! This is madness, sheer and utter madness! What was she thinking? “Wait!” she cried out, as reality suddenly asserted itself, slapping her face with a cold splash of sanity. Coming to an abrupt stop, she spun gracefully away from him, managing a small, shaky laugh. “I’m sorry—oh, God, this is so awkward. I recognize you, from that day on the beach three years ago. I had my uncle try to find you so I could thank you for being so nice to me, but he told me his private investigator couldn’t find you.”
The man didn’t say anything, just stood there looking at her, as if expecting her to say more. That rattled her. So she said more. Not one of her better ideas. “I-um-thank you for-for carrying my bag, but you’re going—I’m waiting—I need to go that way,” she gestured vaguely over her shoulder. “Someone was supposed to meet me, but he seems to, um, have been delayed, so I-um-I was going to take a cab.” She would have taken the suitcase from him, but that would have meant touching his hand, and she didn’t want to risk that. So she just stood there, waiting for him to release it, feeling awkward and ridiculous.
“No need to take a cab,” he said pleasantly, unperturbed. He took her elbow and guided her into the crosswalk toward the parking garage. “My car’s right over here.”
“Wait a minute!” She dug in her heels, snatching her arm angrily out of his grasp. “I can’t just…go with you! I told you I was meeting someone! Just because you were nice to me once, doesn’t give you any right to manhandle me!” She drew herself up to her full height. Five feet, two inches. Very impressive. If he held his arm straight out to the side, she could walk under it.
One of his eyebrows hiked up toward his hairline. “Manhandle you?”
“Yes,” she said haughtily, “Manhandle. It’s a noun meaning—”
“Verb.”
“Huh?”
“Manhandle,” he repeated patiently, once again taking her elbow, “it’s a verb meaning to handle roughly. If I truly was manhandling you, it was merely to keep you from being run over by those cars that we’re holding up.” He nodded to his left. “Or from being arrested by that traffic cop,” he nodded to his right, “at two o’clock and heading straight toward us. Apparently airports frown upon anyone violating the principle of linear flow.”
She turned to follow the direction of his gaze. A very large black man wearing a lemon yellow safety vest was striding toward them like a man on a mission.
Uh-oh.
“You folks need to move it along.”
“Right. Sorry, officer.”
This time she let the man lead her the rest of the way through the crosswalk. When they stepped up onto the sidewalk, he moved his hand from her elbow to her chin, lifting it up so that she had to look directly into his eyes. “Was I really handling you roughly, Miss Stanhope?”
“It’s Doctor Stanhope and I—”Oh. My. God! She simply stood there, staring up at him in shock. Oh, my God! He’d called her by name! He knows my name! “You know my n-name?” she stammered, stunned by this revelation. “How-how—”
“Everett Burke.”
“Everett…huh?”
“He hired me—actually, my landscaping firm—to handle the general upkeep around the estate while Julio Rodriguez is in the hospital.”
“He’s in the hospital?”
“Yeah, last night. He had to have emergency quintuple bypass surgery and is still in Intensive Care at Good Samaritan Hospital. I was deputized to pick you up in his place.”
She just continued to stare at him blankly, blissfully unaware that they were taking up the entire middle of the sidewalk, like a rock in the middle of a stream, being buffeted by people trying to squeeze past with their luggage.
“Obviously you’re not a doctor of Physics”, he said with a quirk of his lips. “Because once again we seem to be violating the laws of linear flow. Come on. My car’s right over here. I’m sorry I was late getting here. I got caught by the drawbridge across the Intracoastal. I would have phoned you to let you know I was on my way, but,” he shrugged, “I didn’t have your phone number.”
“My phone number,” she repeated dazedly as she sank beneath the dark, glittering surface of his inky black eyes into a warmth unlike anything she had ever known.
He chuckled and she felt her breath being snatched away. Good Lord, the man’s smile was devastating! White, even teeth flashed in his dark face. Deep, unexpected dimples on both sides of his upturned mouth softened the harsh angularity of his jaw, giving his face an impish sparkle. He turne
d her toward a row of parked cars and she just…went with him. Then stopped again. “Wait. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“Clay,” he said truthfully, because if Rosemary had talked about him at all, she would have referred to him as Raven. “Clay Knight,” he added, not so truthfully, because he and Rosemary had the same last name and, if she heard it, Leah Stanhope would certainly be smart enough to put two and two together and put a swift end to Everett Burke’s little “subterfuge,” as he’d called it. “Pleased to meet you, Leah Stanhope.” He held out his hand.
Leah’s pulses leaped in alarm. She was going to have to touch him, take his hand. Considering the amount of electricity that was already sparking between them, touching him could be a huge mistake. Biting her lip, she reached out her hand and let it be swallowed up by his. Oh. Migod. It felt like her hand had been plugged into a light socket. Sharp, spiky tingles raced up and down her arm. Clay Knight continued holding her hand long after Miss Manners would have rapped his knuckles with a ruler. But Leah didn’t have time to care about that now. It was taking all her effort just to breathe. Good God Almighty, what is wrong with me? He’s just a man, for crying out loud! Just like every other man. Okay, that’s a lie. He’s not like any other man. He’s—oh, for God’s sake, Leah, get a hold of yourself! Let go of his hand! Try to stop drooling!
Easier said than done, when everything that was feminine in her was being pulled by everything that was masculine in him, like the tide being pulled by the moon. Moisture gushed from her core onto her cotton panties. She’d never been so aroused in her life. Had never reacted this way to any man before, and the fact that she was about to take a ride in the close, intimate confines of a car with this particular man was wreaking havoc with her ability to think straight.
“Mr. Knight,” she acknowledged, injecting a note of coolness into her voice as she pulled her hand free. “Thank you for your kind offer, but I have no wish to trouble you. I’ll just take a cab.”
“Nonsense.” His reply was brisk. “I’m here specifically to fetch you. Consider yourself fetched. Besides, I wouldn’t dream of leaving you to the tender mercies of the local cabbies.”
This time she didn’t resist when he led her over to a sporty red BMW and assisted her into the sweltering interior. Oh, my God! How do people live in this heat? While he stowed her suitcase in the trunk and went around to the driver’s side, she heaved a sigh. Obviously her encounter with this man was not over yet. And if he had taken over as head groundskeeper in Julio Rodriguez’s place, he was obviously going to be around the estate. Well, she’d simply have to get through this as best she could. After all, she was a grown woman, for heaven’s sake, not some silly, adolescent schoolgirl with her first crush.
Except that’s exactly how she felt. How he made her feel. She’d never encountered such potent masculinity before. An appeal that made all her girl parts sit up and take notice and made every cell in her body tingle with awareness. Okay, so he’s drop-dead gorgeous! Get over it! Stop being such a wimp! Didn’t your marriage to Richard teach you anything about men?
Leah knew without a doubt that the blatant invitation Clay Knight had been issuing with his eyes and body was purely sexual. And she was neither stupid enough nor desperate enough to get involved in a casual affair with anybody—no matter how responsive her body was. Thinking of her ex-husband’s sordid, one-night-stands with so many other women suddenly stiffened her spine and made her square her chin in determination. No, she was definitely not going to indulge in a casual affair, a sexual fling. As for her body’s reactions to Clay Knight…she would simply have to clamp down on her hormones and keep herself under control, that’s all.
Ha! Easier said than done, she realized as the man she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about folded his long length into the driver’s seat, filling the cramped space with his body’s warmth and his heady, male scent. Now that he was even closer, she became even more aware that his arms and legs were bare, and the sight of all that exposed skin, dusky and glistening with a sheen of sweat as though it had been oiled, caused an odd, breathless flutter at the pit of her stomach.
He started the powerful engine, put the car in gear, and backed out of the parking space. His scent, clean and masculine, unmasked with perfumes of any kind, engulfed her and she closed her eyes, pulling it into her lungs. It was a scent her memory recognized, one she had been trying to find again for the last three years.
As he negotiated the traffic leaving the airport, Leah watched him out of the corner of her eye, fascinated by his long, lean fingers on the steering wheel, the bulging muscles of his thighs and arms, flexing beneath the smooth, bronze satin of his skin every time he shifted gears. She remembered those arms, and how they’d felt around her as she had cried against his chest. Just holding her. Never restricting her movement in any way. Giving her the safety and the freedom she’d needed to just let go and give in to her despair. That’s how they’d felt holding her in comfort. How would they feel holding her in passion?
Oh, for God’s sake, Leah, get a grip!
Chiding herself for being so foolish, she took a determined breath, pressing her hands together in her lap. His hand reached toward her and she jerked away, realizing belatedly that he was merely turning up the air conditioner. He didn’t look at her, but his tiny smile told her that he was completely aware of her reaction to him. He adjusted the vents so the cool, refreshing air was miraculously blowing directly on her. Her car in San Francisco had air conditioning, but she’d never used it. She had always been cold in San Francisco.
“If that gets too cold, just let me know and I’ll turn it down.”
“No, it feels wonderful,” she exclaimed, adjusting the side vents to direct even more of the wonderful coolness directly onto her face. “Is it always this hot here?”
He just chuckled. “This is nothing. It’s only April. Wait until July and August when the temperatures hit the mid-nineties, with humidity to match.”
“How do people stand it?” she asked, plucking the neckline of her silk shirt away from her clammy skin and shaking it to try and increase the cooling effect. “It’s like living in a swamp.”
Another chuckle. “Well, since that’s what a lot of this land used to be, that would be appropriate.”
“Who in their right mind comes to a swamp and says, ‘By golly, Maude, why don’t we just settle down right here?’”
“You’ll see why very shortly,” Clay promised, turning onto a broad boulevard. “In fact, I’m going to go just a little bit out of our way so you can get a really good look at what makes this place so special.” He turned left onto I-95 and headed north.
Now that Leah had cooled off, she could admire the beauty of the day. The sun was shining as fat white clouds drifted across an achingly blue sky. Clay exited at Okeechobee Boulevard, turning right onto the wide street that had large, gorgeous blue lakes on either side of it.
“Oh, my,” Leah breathed. It was a tropical paradise with palm trees, hibiscus bushes laden with large red and orange flowers, and purple bougainvillea everywhere. “It’s beautiful.” They passed the performing arts center, the Palm Beach convention center, City Place, an upscale residential and shopping mecca, and lots of ritzy, high-rise residences, before swinging up onto a bridge and stopping at the light. “This is the Intracoastal Waterway,” Clay said, “also known as Lake Worth. The land you see ahead of you is the island of Palm Beach.”
The Intracoastal was full of people in boats and on jet skis. Yachts of all sizes, including one large enough to have a car on the rear deck, were anchored at a marina to her left. Other boats, large and small, including a tall-masted schooner that had just passed through the drawbridge the BMW was about to cross over, were motoring slowly north toward the Palm Beach Inlet, the closest access point to the Atlantic. As soon as the drawbridge was completely closed, they crossed the rest of the bridge, emerging onto Royal Palm Way, a street lined on each side with investment firms and yacht brokerages, and do
wn the middle with tall, stately Royal Palm trees. “Okay,” Leah said, “I take back what I said about the wisdom of living here. This,” she spread her hands, “is worth it. Maude would totally approve.”
Clay laughed. “Just wait,” he teased with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
Damn, that’s sexy!
Really, the man was maddening. How could he remain so calm and detached while she was achingly aware of him with every cell in her body? The electric tension that had been pulsing between them all along filled the tiny space with its heavy charge. Her fingers tightened their stranglehold on her purse as she tried to appear nonchalant. Geez, how could she be the only one feeling this?
Royal Palm Way ended at the Atlantic Ocean, making Leah gasp. The water was a beautiful, glassy blue-green color, with darker patches where it was shaded by the clouds. It looked warm and inviting, not like the perpetually gray, frigid water of San Francisco Bay. As Clay turned to the right, she leaned forward to watch the ocean, which was so calm only the tiniest of wavelets caressed the shore. Off in the middle distance, a catamaran skimmed easily across the smooth surface, its orange and red-striped sail making a brilliant splash of color against the shining turquoise water. Another large sailboat was even farther out. Businesses and high-rise apartments on Leah’s right gave way to estate homes, growing ever larger and more sumptuous as they progressed southward. “Yep. Definitely worth slogging through a swamp to get to this.”
Clay smiled. His hand reached out again, this time to turn on the radio. And this time she managed not to flinch. As the strains of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A filled the space between them, she actually began to relax. She even grew brave enough to slant him a glance from underneath her lashes, admiring the sure touch of his lean hands on the BMW’s leather-covered steering wheel. He drove as she knew instinctively he’d do everything else, with skill and self-assurance and a smooth cat-like grace that sent the now-familiar tingling sensation curling through her belly. Her hands clenched convulsively around her purse. Good grief, you have to stop reacting to him like this! You just have to!
Passion's Dream (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 1) Page 4