by Body, Heart
Body, Heart, and Soul
Devlin Kiersen lives his life in fear of being exactly like his father--at the same time doing everything he can to prove it's true. In his spectacular bid for self-destruction, he never contemplates meeting a woman who would make him long to spend eternity in the comfort of her arms.
Kira Nestor trusts there's more to Dev than the sexy, intense man who awakens her sexuality, introducing her to a whole new world of seduction and desire, but she's out of her depth when it comes to reaching behind his walls and convincing him his heart is safe with her.
When they come together, everything will change. But will Kira be able to convince Dev that his heart still exists and that true love has the power to change everything, or will he continue to live in the barren hell he believes his due and already knows so well?
BODY, HEART, AND SOUL
Samantha Lucas
EROTICA ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
BODY, HEART, AND SOUL
Copyright © 2007 by Samantha Lucas
ISBN: 1-933563-45-1
First Printing 2007
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All cover art and logo copyright © 2007 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
Printed in the U.S.A.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
BODY, HEART, AND SOUL
SAMANTHA LUCAS
Copyright © 2007
Chapter 1
Dev’s breath literally caught in his chest, causing the smoke he’d just inhaled to sear his lungs, demanding release. From under the branches of an enormous wisteria vine, he ran his hand through thick, long hair, holding it back while his eyes examined the woman from head to foot and instantly felt the familiar heat of desire flare.
How does Barbara always manage to find them so young and innocent looking?
Dev took one last, long drag on his cigarette before throwing it off the stone balcony, the bright orange coal flickering in the darkness during its fall to the damp ground below, but his attention was completely snared now by the young woman twenty feet away from him.
She stared into the ballroom with rapt disbelief on her face, and while she was distracted and couldn’t know how lecherously he watched her, he took the time to imprint her image in his mind. The entire time, his fingers fought spasms from the aching need to touch her.
Gold satin caressed her full breasts in a way that left him almost jealous. He wanted it to be his hands holding her, embracing her. He yearned to first slide over the satin, then beneath it, where he knew he’d find her warm satiny skin, her nipples hard and begging for his touch.
Dev couldn’t remember a time in his life when a woman had affected him like this, and if he’d gotten hard at the thought of her breasts, he went granite-hard looking at her hair. Dark blond hair so long it brushed her lower back was tied in a satin ribbon. He instantly imagined running his fingers through it, burying his face in the soft curls.
His cock twitched and begged for freedom. He’d never seen such a glorious mane of hair before and ached to have it spread across his naked body. He wanted to fist his hands in it while he guided her mouth over his rigid cock until he came. He drew a deep breath, gripping the stone railing with a casual air he was far from feeling, while attempting to hold back the surge of testosterone threatening to cripple him.
Barbara has outdone herself this summer.
He patted his tux jacket, looking for another cigarette. He’d stopped smoking on a regular basis five years ago, but a summer at Barbara’s was too much to handle without a few smokes. Sadly, he realized he only allotted himself one for tonight—which would have been enough if the evening had gone the way it was supposed to. Hell, it was only the first night, but he had not expected to encounter a golden goddess on a candle-lit balcony.
Dev continued to watch her. Something about the woman had him spellbound, and he wasn’t physically able to pull his eyes from her. Experience told him she was his for the taking. Under normal circumstances, Dev would have made a seductive suggestion, found a quiet alcove some place, and had her naked up against the wall, but something about her held him back. In fact, more than just not wanting to take this woman, he actually felt a growing need to throw her over his shoulder, haul her sweet little ass back upstairs and help her pack. Get her off this godforsaken island before it was too late and she wasn’t the same woman she was when she arrived.
The air was heavily perfumed with roses and gardenias. Soft light from the candles flickered over her sensuous, curvy body as she gently swayed back and forth in time with one of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos spilling along with laughter and muffled voices from the ballroom.
It would have been very like a dream, if not for the fact that he knew this woman was far from the innocent she pretended to be. Whoever she was, she was here for show, here to be tempted, seduced, but she was no innocent. Dev wondered if there were any innocents left in the world. He knew it had been a damn long time since he’d met one. But then, in his circle, an innocent would have been very like a lamb to the slaughter.
Smart women avoided him. Others craved him. He had his pick, and only played with ones who understood both his need and the score. He shifted his cock, hoping to ease some of the building pressure just the mere sight of this woman triggered.
He had to smile at the way she moved to the music, hanging back in the shadows as if this was all new to her. He chuckled and followed her gaze to the guests, who were putting on quite a show tonight. All of them full of the manners breeding gave them. Manners that hid the depravity lying beneath, but Dev knew it wouldn’t be long before those niceties slipped and the real identity of these people surfaced.
After all, he was one of them.
* * * *
Kira was mesmerized.
This was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her, and she was determined to enjoy every bit of it, even if it was from a safe distance. The music moved out of the ballroom, surrounding her almost like a caress. She felt utterly hypnotized, watching the beautifully gowned and tuxed guests of her new boss swirl around like dolls on top of a music box.
She couldn’t believe she’d been lucky enough to get this job in the first place, given her lack of experience in anything, but Barbara seemed to have taken a liking to her. Kira had explained that she would start her senior year at college as an art major in the fall and just hoped for a last taste of summer fun, but that didn’t qualify as entirely true.
She applied for the job as the Personal Assistant to Barbara Folsom-Worthington as a lark, something she and her friends had joked about when they saw the card on the bulletin board in the dorms. The mystery and romance of spending an entire summer on a private island drew her in and—not that she would have shared this with another living soul, in fear they would simply laugh at her—she felt a deeper pull, like destiny waited for her here.
She smiled, forced out a giggle, reminding herself how silly she was. Kira grabbed the full tulle skirt of her ball gown and spread it wide as she looked down at herself, hardly believing the transformation. An entire new wardrobe had been one of the job perks, Barbara had insisted, telling Kira that they would be sociali
zing with a very elite group of people and would need to fit in.
She told Kira that while there would be work to do nearly every day, it would be more like a working vacation and she wanted Kira to feel like a guest at her estate. More, she’d confided she wanted them to be friends.
She smiled to herself now, remembering Barbara’s interest. Kira loved her mother as all good girls do, but they’d never been very close. Kira didn’t agree with many of her mother’s opinions and beliefs, and since no one argued with the woman, Kira distanced herself rather than offend her.
Barbara had sort of fallen into a surrogate-mother position in Kira’s mind since they met a few weeks ago. She took a personal interest in Kira’s grooming and stayed by her side every minute of the three full days it required to purchase and organize her new wardrobe. Barbara hand selected everything, from lingerie to swimsuits, to work clothes, to this ball gown. Kira gave over all her decision-making power almost immediately, knowing she lacked the slightest idea what was appropriate for the new life that awaited her over the summer.
Much to Kira’s surprise, Barbara didn’t insist that Kira cut her hair in a no-nonsense style like the one Barbara herself wore. Instead, she insisted that it stay exactly the way it was and only had the dead ends cut off and a deep-conditioning treatment applied.
Kira was truly coming to like Barbara, and any anxiousness she’d originally felt when given the job was quickly subsiding.
And now this!
She felt like a child on Christmas morning and could still hardly believe it. She was on a private island in a designer gown with a full summer ahead of her, living in luxury she never even imagined before and a woman who had not only taken an interest in her, but seemed to appreciate her ideas and views on things. It was a miracle of sorts, Kira was sure of it.
Absorbed in her own thoughts, Kira didn’t register someone approaching until a masculine voice startled her back to the present.
“Dance with me.”
A large male presence now loomed directly behind her. Though he spoke the command to dance almost directly into her ear, from inside the boundaries of her personal space, she still couldn’t quite believe he meant her. She only knew a few of the household staff so far, and figured none of them would issue such an order, since they’d all been much older and much too dreary to want to dance on a romantic moonlit balcony.
She’d ducked out onto the balcony to avoid most of the guests because—despite the new wardrobe and Barbara’s assurances that her guests would find Kira fascinating—she still felt outclassed and completely out of her depth.
Two fingers touched her shoulder, then slid at a leisurely pace over the top and down her arm. Kira suppressed a shiver as they burned a trail over her skin. Kira started to feel things she never had before. Unsure whether the cause of these new sensations was the night, the man, or the conviction that this whole thing had been a mistake, she couldn’t quite convince herself to simply blame extreme embarrassment.
She held her breath, wanting to look over her shoulder to find out what this man looked like, but was too afraid in case once he saw her face, he’d recognize his mistake—that she obviously wasn’t whomever he thought she was—then they’d both be embarrassed and this brief but wonderful interlude would come to an abrupt end.
“Please, dance with me.”
He asked again as he wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. His mouth began to run over the curve in her neck. The wet heat from his tongue seared her skin, paralyzing her in mid-thought. She had to stop this, but so didn’t want to. Back home, she never had much confidence with guys. Her best date so far—with the president of the chess club one Saturday night—left her suspicious that she hadn’t been his choice, just some sort of bet.
It didn’t always bother her. She had a lot of studying to do after all, but she did spend a lot of time wondering. Her girlfriends all made it seem so easy. For a while there, she started to wonder if something was wrong with her. She always felt as if her hormones weren’t switched on or something, and maybe she’d been right, because no guy had ever made her feel like this before, either. Just the dark timbre of his voice had run over her skin like a physical touch, heating and enticing, making her want things she knew she’d do better not wanting, because this was a man used to getting what he wanted—she felt it in her bones.
She knew it.
She didn’t need to see his face, know his line of work or have a long conversation—some things were just elemental. Power rolled off him in buckets. For one brief second, Kira truly wished she was what he wanted.
She drew a breath, preparing herself to let him know his mistake before things went too far. But as she turned to him, his deep sapphire eyes—filled with passions never before experienced in her short life—captured her. The bottom seemed to drop out of her stomach.
A second later, his hand caressed her neck where his mouth had been only moments before. She liked his hands. They were big and powerful, a ring on his thumb and middle finger on one hand, the index finger and pinkie of his other. When they slid up her neck to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing the skin beneath her eye, touching her lashes, Kira not only discovered how gentle they could be, but found herself awash in desire.
“Dance. With. Me.”
Her brow furrowed. Had he really meant her all along? Because he was still insisting and it had to be very obvious who she was, or wasn’t, at this point. If only she’d spent more time in charm school and less time with her horses, she might not be completely out of her depth with a man like this.
She drew another breath, the deep breathing she’d mastered over her nine semesters in college which usually calmed her while giving her courage. Tonight, the breaths only seemed to cause her breasts to rise and this man was obviously very interested in that. She blushed scarlet before stuttering, “I…I can’t.” Then her eyes fluttered quickly away, studying the pale gray stone beneath her feet, lest he realize just how naive she was and lose whatever interest it was he had at the moment.
“Husband?” Humor invaded his dark tone as she glanced up shyly. Catching his wicked smile left her feeling weak and aroused and messed with her controlled breathing in a serious way. “Madly possessive boyfriend?”
She nearly laughed. Things like this did not happen to Kira Kimberlynn Nestor. And she had twenty-four years of experience to back that up. “No, I mean I can’t dance. I don’t know how.”
Her eyes quickly left his, embarrassed at having to make that admission. Would the secrets to life really have been revealed if only she’d spent more time learning to dance like her mother had wanted and less time in a barn?
“I see. Well…” He tipped her chin up. His light touch felt shockingly intimate and forced her to meet his gaze once more. “There’s a difference between ‘I can’t,’ and ‘I don’t know how.’”
His words were soft and slow. They caressed her senses right before they melted into a beautiful smile, which traveled to his fathomless eyes, leaving them sparkling with some secret ingredient and causing her senses to incinerate, her breath to desert her entirely, and her inner muscles to clench.
“You nearly broke my heart.”
She swallowed hard at his entirely serious expression and the hint of possessiveness she saw there. This man wanted her.
Freaking unbelievable.
“It’s not brain surgery, beautiful.”
Soft laughter rumbled through his chest as he reached for her. Kira almost flinched—almost shoved both her hands behind her back—but something stopped her, even though she knew what he was about to do. Grabbing her hand, he effortlessly had her swirling in a spin that ended with her securely strapped to his chest by his big powerful arms.
“Fortunately for you, I do know how. And I’ve been told I’m an excellent teacher.”
Before she could decline or accept, he pressed the palm of his hand into the middle of her back so she couldn’t move farther away than the too-close area she
was already in. He was so close now that his scent, a blend of musk and citrus and cinnamon, rivaled that of the garden.
He was so incredibly beautiful that he made her hurt. She knew he’d probably cringe to hear her say that, but with long dark hair that brushed his shoulders in waves and thick black lashes so long any woman would kill for them, he had definite beauty. Only his big muscular body, the fact that he towered over her, and his rugged chiseled jaw saved him from feminine beauty, but he left her drooling all the same.
“It’s not rocket science. Just feel my body. Move with me. My leg moves forward, yours moves back. Can you feel my thigh press against yours?”
Kira only nodded. She felt it, all right. She felt all of his body pressed against hers. It was as close as any man had ever been to her, and it caused her palms to sweat, her heart to beat faster, and a definite moisture to begin developing between her legs. Before she knew how it happened, he had her twirling around the balcony that only they shared.
“You’re a fast learner, beautiful. Or did you lie to me?”
He smiled at her then, and Kira lost all conscious thought. There had to be a website out there that warned women about a smile like that and eyes that sparkled and about losing your senses on a balcony in summer when a gorgeous man held you in his arms. Maybe when she got back home, she’d look for it.
He didn’t lead her into the ballroom the way she expected. Instead, they simply danced there on the balcony, swirling around and around to the music the same way the dancers inside had been doing. Kira was happily surprised that the man who currently held her with such care had been right. She was able to follow his lead easily enough. She only stumbled once or twice in the beginning, thankfully managing to miss his toes.