Temptation's Kiss (13 page)

“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

S
he 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.

When he finally released her and stepped back, he glanced down at her high heels, which had sunk into the sand. “You won't get very far like that,” he said, laughing. “Put your foot up here.” He patted his thigh.

Caught up in his lighthearted mood, she wiggled her high heel out of the sand and lifted her foot to his thigh just above his bent knee. His strong, slender fingers closed firmly around her ankle, and he unbuckled the strap. The breeze billowed her skirt, providing him with an enticing view of smooth, trim thigh. It was funny how the elements were working with her to aid in Josh's downfall. The wind was tearing through his hair, and the irregular angle of that one eyebrow added to his devilish appeal.

Once she was rid of her shoes, they took a few steps along the beach. “I can't resist it,” he said, sitting down on the sand, heedless of his expensive suit. He slipped out of his shoes and socks and rolled a double cuff on his pants legs. Standing up again, he shrugged out of his coat and unknotted his tie.

“You don't intend to go any further, do you?” she asked, teasingly.

“Only if you will too,” he said suggestively.

“No way. I'd freeze.”

His eyes slid down her body and, if she hadn't already been chilled, his gaze would have made her shiver. The crepe de chine was plastered to her, and the cool wind had brought her nipples to hard distention. “You wouldn't hear me complaining,” he said boldly. She gave him a discomfited look that made him laugh, and he wrapped his free arm around her. Her shoes dangled from his fingers. “I want to walk in the surf.”

“But I can't,” she said, stopping again.

“Why? Too cold?”

“No, I'm wearing panty hose.”

“So?”

“
So?
So that would feel terrible, and besides, they'll get wet.”

“Not if you take them off.”

“Josh!” She glanced quickly around. The beach was still deserted except for them. “I can't do that.”

“Why?”

“Are we going through that routine again? I just can't, that's why. Someone might see me.”

“There's no one to see you,” he said, spreading his arms wide to make his point. “Except me. And I certainly wouldn't jeopardize my reputation as a gentleman and peep.”

She eyed him warily. “You're not a gentleman.”

“Oh? Well, then, I need to become one. Come on,” he urged, “take them off.” When she hesitated, he bent toward her and asked, “What's the matter? Don't you trust me?”