He’d just climbed out of his car, grabbed his briefcase, slung his jacket over his shoulder and started to walk up the path to the house, when he heard a sleek, powerful engine rev behind him. Turning, he saw a cute little red Toyota Prius hybrid, headlights blazing, dart up the driveway and stop. To his utter astonishment, Maria was behind the wheel.
Shell-shocked, he was dimly aware of the door to the house opening and Ellis appearing beside him. The men exchanged drop-jawed glances, then watched as Maria emerged, triumphant, from the car. She hitched her purse over her shoulder and strutted toward them with the long-legged confidence of a runway model.
“Like my new car?” she asked, a fire in her eye and a cocky half smile on her lips.
David and Ellis gaped at her.
Laughing, she tossed the keys high in the air as she brushed past them and through the door. “Feel free to take it for a spin, okay? It’s a lot of fun to drive.”
She disappeared into the house and David recovered enough to snatch the keys from midair before they impaled him through the skull. He and Ellis stared at each other for an arrested moment. Ellis looked so wide-eyed and flabbergasted that David couldn’t help it. He exploded with laughter.
Ellis blinked slowly, and then he laughed, too. “Shoulda known,” he said, shaking his head.
David hadknown. Maria couldn’t be kept down. Not for long, anyway. Awe swelled in his chest, and he only hoped she’d left the poor salesman at the dealership with the shirt on his back when she was done with him. David didn’t doubt that she’d driven a hard bargain for herself, and he couldn’t wait to ask about her adventure. She was some woman. The only woman for him.
Happy again, he tossed and caught the keys as he headed toward the Prius, which he’d always wanted to drive. “Come on,” he told Ellis. “I’ll drive first.”
Once again, Maria skipped dinner, much to David’s disappointment. He kept his ears peeled, though, and when she went out to the spotlit pool at about nine-thirty, he threw on his swimming trunks and T-shirt and followed her as far as the veranda. Frozen with excitement, he stood out of her line of sight and watched her swim laps. He breathed deeply, allowing himself to relax and enjoy the grounds for the beautiful slice of heaven that they were.
The full moon bathed him with enough light to read by. A gentle breeze, fragrant with more flowers than he could name, fluttered the leaves on the trees. Strategically placed pots overflowed with flowers, and classical piano music—Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” he thought—piped in through invisible speakers and soothed his scared soul.
He was about to put his feelings on the line here, to give Maria enormous power over him and his future, and he couldn’t remember when he’d felt this nervous and edgy. What if he told her how he felt, she nodded politely, looked at him with those cool eyes and said no thanks?His guts roiled at the thought. What the hell would he do then? He’d rather take a self-guided tour of Baghdad than face Maria’s rejection. But he’d do anything—anything—he needed to do to get her back. If that meant enduring her scorn and rejection a few times, well, that was the price he’d have to pay for being stupid enough to let her go in the first place. This whole screwed-up situation was his fault, anyway. It was about time he started rectifying things.
Saying a quick, silent prayer, he trotted down the steps, threw his towel on a lounge chair and waited while Maria swam back from the far end of the pool, her powerful butterfly stoke slicing rhythmically through the water. Maybe she’d finally worn herself out, because she slowed and then stopped, resting her elbows on the pool’s ledge as she smoothed her hair out of her face and tried to catch her breath. When she didn’t see him right away, he cleared his throat and she jumped.
“Hey,” he said.
Not since that poor drunk skinny-dipper encountered the shark in Jawshad he seen a woman look so terrified in the water. For the longest time she didn’t move, just stared up at him with wide, shocked eyes.
“Hi.”
Well, she’d spoken to him, so that was good. Maybe he should press his luck a little and see whether it held. “How’s the water?”
“Still wet. What’re you doing here?”
“Swimming. Duh.”
Holding her gaze, he grabbed the bottom edge of his T-shirt and pulled it off over his head. His exhibitionist tendencies were rewarded when he heard her sharp gasp over the lapping water. She stared, as he’d known she would. Those flashing eyes slid over his shoulders and chest, down past his belly to his crotch and legs, and suddenly all those early mornings at the gym seemed like the best investment he’d ever made. Taking advantage of her distraction, he walked to the edge of the pool and sat right next to her, his thighs brushing her upper arms as he dangled his legs in the water.
She didn’t like the contact, or maybe she liked it too much. Either way, she moved down a little, out of touching range. “Since when do you swim?” she snapped.
“Maria, Maria,” he said, tsking. “Are you always this rude to guests?”
Glaring, she crossed her arms over her chest and blocked what had been a truly spectacular view of full breasts and the tantalizing outline of nipples down the front of her black tank suit.
“When, ah, when are you moving, anyway? Anytime soon?”
He shrugged. “Funny you should ask. I stopped by my house on the way home from work, and it’s almost ready. But I’m not so anxious to move away from here.”
Something in his deadly serious expression must have thrown her off guard, because she froze, barely breathing as she watched him. Taking advantage again, he slid into the cool water, his side gently brushing past hers as he did.
This seemed to be too much for her. Flattening her palms on the concrete, she heaved herself out of the pool. “I’m getting in the spa,” she said over her shoulder.
She was gone in a flash of movement and a splash of water, leaving him to stare after her and wonder when anyone had ever been quite this anxious to get away from him. But soon the staring overtook the wondering, and he watched her, his blood heating despite the cool water, and his groin, apparently unaware of the shrinkagefactor, throbbing to life.
David kept waiting for the day when he looked at Maria and no longer wanted her, but he doubted that day would ever come. Right now, for example, she wasn’t looking her best in that utilitarian and unsexy bathing suit, which was no doubt designed for Olympic swimmers and lifeguards. The ugly suit didn’t matter one iota to his overheated flesh, though. She wore no makeup, but her skin still glowed like gold. She currently had drowned-rat hair, but he still wanted it fisted in his hands. Her butt and thighs were a little lusher than they’d been four years ago, but he would still give his right arm to bury himself between those sweet thighs and squeeze that round butt.
Maria’s hypnotic allure was stronger than it’d ever been before.
She marched several feet to the spa’s raised platform, shot him a death glare and climbed in. He waited until she’d settled into the swirling water, leaned her head back against the ledge, closed her eyes and sighed deeply, before he got out of the pool and followed her.
Those dark eyes—panicked now—flew open, no doubt ruining whatever momentary relaxation she may have felt, not that he cared. Openmouthed, she watched his approach, her gaze drifting lower…and lower…not that he cared about that, either, although he doubted she could see much considering how baggy his black board shorts were. Settling into the warm, pulsing water—ah, nirvana—he gave her a half smile, which was all he could manage with his senses on overload.
“I thought you were taking a swim,” she said in a strangled voice.
Acutely—agonizingly—aware of the bubbling water as it churned around her heaving bosom, hiding and revealing it, hiding and revealing, he opened his mouth with no real hope that any sound would come out of his dry throat.
“I changed my mind,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately.”
The words seemed to galvanize—and terrorize—her
. She shot up, snatched her towel off the ledge and started to climb out. “It’s too hot for me, so—”
“What’stoo hot?”
“The water,” she cried, fumbling with the towel and refusing to look at him.
He hadn’t meant to overwhelm her, but he couldn’t let her go. Not now, not again. He grabbed her wrist, holding her in place with a light grip she could have broken if she’d wanted to.
“Maria.”
Frozen, half in the spa and half out, Maria stared at his hand on her and didn’t answer for the longest ten seconds of his life. Finally she looked up at him, and in those wide, dark eyes he saw the same emotion that currently throbbed in his own chest: torment.
“Can’t we sit and talk like civilized people for five minutes?” he asked softly.
Their gazes fused and he stared, willing her to understand—without him actually having to say those momentous words—that he wanted her. Again. Breathless, desperate for her to meet him halfway, as terrified and enthralled as a moth flying straight into the hottest flames of a torch, he waited.
David’s warm, gentle fingers circled her hand, and Maria couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think and couldn’t move. Not with that intense gaze boring into hers, not with that thumb stroking the sensitive flesh of her wrist.
The world as she’d known it seemed to be shifting and changing, and it suddenly made no sense. Nothing in her life had ever scared her as much as this new uncertainty. The old rules in the old world made perfect sense: their relationship, whatever it had been, was over forever, never to be revived, and they, by mutual but unspoken agreement, avoided each other whenever possible. These absolute truths were central to her existence, and she knew and understood them.
But now…could there be a new world? One where David spoke nicely to her and actually looked at her without open malevolence? Where he occasionally even smiled at her? Oh, sure, he’d been reasonably nice today at work, and there’d been that delicious moment when they laughed together, but that was just his professional demeanor. Wasn’t it?
“Can you stay for a minute?” he asked.
No.Staying here—or anywhere—with himwas dangerous. She shouldn’t stay here any more than a recovering pyromaniac should stay in a dynamite factory. How many times did she need to get burned before she put two and two together and realized she shouldn’t play with fire? She’d have to be too stupid to live if she couldn’t connect these few simple dots, wouldn’t she?
Apparently she was, because when she opened her mouth, one word came out without hesitation:
“Okay.”
Those two syllables did something strange to David. Tension seemed to melt away from him, right before her eyes. His rigid shoulders relaxed a little, and his face shone with a bright, mysterious new light. He didn’t smile, but that didn’t matter.
He also didn’t let go of her.
Staying was one thing, but staying in physical contact with him was out of the question. She gently pulled her arm free—he seemed reluctant to let go, but she wouldn’t think about that—stepped back into the spa, moved to the other side, as far away from him as she could get, dropped the towel and sat down.
A quiet moment passed.
Maria fidgeted, settling more comfortably on the bench.
Now what? Afraid to open her mouth and say anything lest she give him some fresh new reason to hate her guts, she kept quiet. So did he. The silence stretched, making this the most unrelaxing soak she’d ever had. Finally she decided she was being ridiculous. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes so she didn’t have to look at that beautiful, unreadable face, and willed herself to appear relaxed even though she was ready to jump out of her skin.
As usual, her body was on fire for David. She could handle it, though. All she had to do was block a few images from her writhing mind’s eye: David, mostly naked and within arm’s reach, the bare, hard, ridged slabs of David’s chest and shoulders, David’s muscular thighs and shapely calves, David’s tight butt. Anything else? Oh, yes…what she could have sworn was an interesting bulge in the front of his trunks.
That about covered it. As long as she ignored all that, she would be fine.
“I want to tell you something,” he said out of the blue. “It’s about…my parents.”
Maria uttered a vicious, silent curse.
She’d forgotten about the voice. At the best of times, that deep, resonant voice vibrated under her skin and along her nerve endings like the beat from timpani. The additional huskiness she heard in it now would no doubt prove fatal if she listened to it much longer. More dangerous than the actual voice was what the voice said. David was sharing something personal with her—about a subject he’d always avoided before—and someone should really notify the Vatican that a miracle had just occurred.
Weeping with gratitude would be ridiculous, she knew, but she still felt the urge. David was the strong, silent type at the best of times, which these weren’t, so she’d put her chances of him warming up and talking to her to be somewhere between when pigs fly and when donkeys roost in trees.
Keeping her eyes closed, she spoke softly and tried to sound like she was only marginally interested in this unknown chapter of his life. “What about them?”
“They never got married.”
“I know that,” she said gently.
“They split up when I was eleven.”
“I know that, too.”
He was silent for so long she opened her eyes to make sure he was okay. She knew there was much more to this painful story, and she wanted to hear it, but only if he wanted to tell. Raising a dripping hand from the water, he ran it down his strained face as though he needed to wipe some of his discomfort away.
“It was really bad. My mother had been sleeping with my dad’s boss, the guy who owned the auto-parts shop where he worked. That guy was rich, at least compared to our standards. Mama kept turning up with new clothes and stuff we couldn’t afford, and then one day she came home with a gold necklace. That was the last straw. My father went wild. She…was pregnant. He threw her out. One day she was there, that night they had a huge blowup, and the next day she was gone. So were all her clothes. I didn’t see her for two years. She lost that baby, and then she died a couple years after that. Car accident.”
Right there in the hundred-degree spa, Maria’s blood ran cold with horror. She could not believe something that terrible had happened to him and she’d never known it; she could not believe that neither parent had protected their son any better than that.
“Oh, God,” she said helplessly.
His troubled gaze swung back to her and he managed a wry smile. “Sometimes I wonder…whether what happened with my mother made me…do stupid things at times.” He paused. “With relationships, I mean. I wonder if I…might have…walked out rather than take the risk of someone walking out on me.”
He stared at her, his intense gaze heavy with significance.
Stunned comprehension took a while to come to Maria, but it finally arrived. She blinked. Hope, a foolish phoenix, rose in her chest, and the world shifted a little more, throwing her so far off balance she wondered if she would just slip away and hurtle through space.
A beat passed, and then another. His glittering gaze held hers and paralysis fused her in place. In the end her instinct for self-protection kicked into overdrive and demanded that she run. Escape.She couldn’t take this—any of this—anymore. Not the romantic setting, or his husky voice, or the hot gleam in his eyes and answering throb in her breasts and high up between her thighs, or especially the hope where there should be no hope.
She simply could not live if David broke her heart again.
“I—I’m tired,” she cried.
Abandoning all efforts to appear calm, cool and collected, she got out of the spa as fast as she possibly could, splashing out of the water like Shamu the whale. She looked wildly around for her towel but didn’t see it and wasn’t certain she’d recognize it anyway in her agitation.
&nbs
p; The water splashed again, and then something terrible happened.
David came up behind her, wrapped her in a fluffy towel and rested his hands on her shoulders, massaging gently.
Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Maria froze. The scalding heat from his big body, a thousand times hotter than the water in the spa, burned every aching inch of her flesh from her shoulders to her heels. That primitive flight response screamed at her again to run,but moving away from David was impossible.
She waited, trembling, and he shifted closer, wrapping one arm across her chest and gripping her shoulder. He slid his other hand under the towel and pressed, low on her quivering belly, until her butt was spooned against his heavy groin and there was no mistaking the bulge she’d thought she’d seen.
The contact was too excruciating, too exquisite,and she cried out, trying to pull away. His muscles tightened, hardening into steel. He lowered his head and whispered in her ear.
“Shh, Ree-Ree.”
That palm on her belly circled, massaging and gentling her, creating a hot, pleasurable flow between her legs. Against her will she felt herself relaxing and becoming pliant in his arms.
“I want to tell you something.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she whimpered, more terrified than she could ever remember being.
“You need to hear it.”
Somehow his whispers against her ear had become nuzzles, and the nuzzles became kisses. He paused, kissing her ear and cheek now, tasting her, and she trembled against him, on the razor’s edge between agony and ecstasy, with ecstasy edging closer.
“I want you back, Ree-Ree.”
“No.”
Two things happened at once, both equally devastating: his hips thrust against her, his hard length coming home to rest in the groove that had obviously been designed just for it, and the hand on her belly slid up and, hidden by the towel, rubbed over first one breast, then the other.
Sweeter Than Revenge Page 17