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, andâ”
“âbeg for money. For a sex shop.”
“Beg forâSex 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 âset 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”âEsme's jaw loosened, and she dropped her hands to her sidesâ“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 Leonardoâhadn'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 rubberâ” She was mad again, and it felt good. “That is definitely
not
what they have in mind. My brother is a respected psychologist, andâ” 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 needâ”
“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'sâ” 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 characterâflaws! 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.
“ âIssues?'” 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 âissues' 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 notâ”
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 thinkâ” 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, clearedâsomewhat. 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 workâto making more and more money when he already had enough for a hundred lifetimesânot 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 upâor as they used to say in the locker room, pole-vaultedâout 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 saidâhe rubbed his hand over his beard-stubbled jawâthe 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 ripplesâand 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.
The wind caught her hat and sent it flying, leaving her long raven-colored hair to blow wildly, shine darkly in the brilliant morning sun. She turned, took a step toward the hat now rolling across his lawn, then looked at her watch, hesitated, and again headed for the beach.
Every muscle, tendon, and sinew in Dane's body tightened, shot to a sexual alert he hadn't felt in too long to remember.
He draped the towel around his neck and tried to ignore the board-stiff erection between his legs. Feeling voyeuristic and painfully aroused, he watched Esme until she disappeared along the path to the beach, watched until her head bobbed up farther along the shore, watched until she spread a blanket on the sand and kicked off her shoes. When she'd done that, she raised a hand to cover her eyes, first scanning the ocean and shoreline, then swiveling to look back at the house.
He wondered what her reaction would be if she knew a buck-naked male with a massive hard-on watched her through an upstairs window.
As if in response to his thought, she raised her eyes and appeared to gaze straight at him. About the time he started to wonder about the effectiveness of one-way glass, she sat down on the blanket and took a large drawing pad from her case. She centered it on her lap, bent her dark head, and started to draw. She didn't look back.
Dane studied her a few seconds longer and made his decision. Whether or not it was one of his sane and logical ones was yet to be determined. But Esme Shane had captured his interest, and what captured his interest, he pursued. Relentlessly.
Hell, he'd already made love to her all night in his mind; why not go for the real thing?
Plus, he could use the diversion.
Twenty minutes later he headed for the beach. The morning, all bright sun and warm gusts of wind rippling the water, seemed lost on the woman rapt in the drawing of sand and curves of seagrass the ocean had gifted the shore with during the night's high tide.
She didn't notice his arrival until his shadow flowed across the surface of her pad, which gave him ample time to study the glossy darkness of her hair, the enticing curve of her neck, and the dedication she gave to her work.
She blinked, shielded her eyes from the sun, and looked up at him. “Oh, good morning.” She frowned, but didn't drop her gaze. “Did you want to leave early?”
He shook his head, lifted the thermos. “Coffee with chicory. And Peggy's handmade beignets. You in?” He waved the sack of beignets in front of her, not above using the aroma of Peggy's fresh baking to gain points.
She hesitated, looked momentarily confused, then moved her drawing to her side and patted the empty blanket beside her. “I'm in.”
He sat, poured them two coffees, and handed her heaven with sugar on it.
Thank you, Peggy.
“These are incredible,” she said after her second bite of beignet.
Dane used his thumb to brush some sugar from beside her lip. When he touched her she froze in place. Then, in an unusually awkward movementâfor herâshe looped her hair behind her ear, and turned away from him to look at the glistening ocean. “You live in a breathtakingly beautiful place,” she said.
“Yes, I do,” he agreed, following her gaze. “I'm a lucky man.”
And I've decided to get luckier.
“That's nice.”
“Nice?”
“Nice that you know that. Sometimes people don't, uh, appreciate the things they have.” She took another bite of her beignet and brushed some crumbs off her skirt. She looked uneasy under his gaze. “Although I can't imagine not appreciating this. Have you lived here long?”
“Five years. I built it before I sold the business. I'd owned the property for years and finally decided to do something with it.”
With the property and my life,
he amended silently.
“It's a big houseâyou must haveâ” She stopped, straightened, and shot him a piercing glance. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” He drank some coffee.
“Like . . .” She lifted her beignet. “Like I'm one of these and you've been on a month-long fast.”
He leaned back and propped himself on an elbow. “You're much more interesting than that”âhe gestured toward the pastry in her still-raised handâ“and if we make the beignet a metaphor for sex, it's been a lot longer than a month.”
She settled her gaze on him with ferocious curiosity. “And you're telling me this because?”
“Could be because you're a therapist and I need help with those sexuality issues you mentioned.” He smiled and arched a brow. “Or it could be a lot less complicated.”
“Go on.”
“That as beignets go, you're proving hard to resist.”
“You want to have sex with me?” she said, not hiding her surprise. “And here I had the impression you didn't much like meâworse than that, you distrust me.”
“You know that old saying, âyou never get a second chance to make a first impression' . . . ?”
She eyed him noncommittally. Waited.
“It's not true,” he finished.
“And have I somehow done something to indicate I
actually
want to impress you?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you usually so full of yourself, McCoy, or is it something I bring out in you?” Now she looked annoyed, seriously annoyed.
Okay, so he was a little rusty at the old mating game.
He studied her a moment, thought about what she'd said. “You. Definitely.” He picked up a handful of sand from beside the blanket, let it sift through his fingers. “Truth is, I'm not too fond of women with agendasâeven if they are initiated by my sister. So last night I wanted your butt out of here. This morning. . .”
Watching the sway of your hips when you walked to the beach, seeing the sun on your hair, remembering your nipples hard against meâ
“I changed my mind.”
Her mouth slackened. “You really are . . . stunningly arrogant.”
“So I'm told.” He got up, stood over her, and looked down at her. When she didn't say anything more, he offered her his hand to help her up.
When she was standing in front of him, he touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “Stay or go, Esme. Your call.” He gestured at the arc of beach fronting his home. “But now that we understand each other, you might as well make use of the place, take the two weeks and finish what you started.”
“Understand each other? You and me?” Looking puzzled, she added, “Maybe you should explain that.”
He lifted her chin. “You understand I'm not interested in Marilee and your brother's business venture. You understand I want you.” He stroked her jawline. “And I know you want me.”
“You know Iâ” Her expression showed equal parts shock and amazement. “I don't know what to say.”
He took his hand from her face. “Nothing to say. Unless, of course, you'd like to deny what came across in that kiss last night.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, then turned away from him. When she turned back, she shook her head. “Now I
really
don't know what to say.”
“Easy. Say yes. We'll have dinner tonight, try not to insult each other, and see where things lead.”
That intensely curious look again claimed her face. “Do I need to lock my bedroom door?”
“No. What you need to do is decide when to open it . . . to me. Until you do, nothing happens.”
“Nothing?”
He nodded.
“This conversation is utterly bizarre.”
“This conversation is honest.”
“And that's something that matters to you? Honesty.”
“That and not wasting a lot of time going after what I want.” He touched her hair. “Which doesn't mean I don't know how to go slow . . . when slow is needed.”
“You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?”
“Of myself? Yes. But not of you.” Another truth, because something told him Esme was a natural born challenge.
“Marilee says you're âunstoppable' when you go after something you want.”
Dane thought a moment. “She's right, but in this case all it will take is a two-letter word. No.”
She studied him for a long time, then a strange, enticing smile played across her mouth. “This could be fun.”
He bent his head to be sure their eyes met. “Seduction should be fun. Isn't that what you tell your clients?”
She gestured toward her sketch book, raised a brow. “I don't have clients. Not anymore. Remember?”
He brushed his lips across hers, once, lightly, because he couldn't stop himself. She tasted like sea salt and sun, and he had so much adrenaline pumping through him at the thought of what was to come, he could damn well swim in it. “You do now.”
Dane headed toward the house, turned to say over his shoulder, “If the weather holds, we'll eat on the patio. The sunset's worth the wait.”
Two days, I'll have her in two days.
Â
Esme, her fingertips touching her lips where Dane had kissed her, stared after him in utter amazement. Amazed at him. And herself, because she was still standing there, like the village idiot after a lobotomy.
She was crazy. She should shake the sand out of her shoes and run at top speed to the nearest airport. She was insane if she stayed within a hundred miles of Dane McCoy.
Instead, she plunked herself on the blanket, hugged her knees, and stared at the Gulf, not moving a muscle. Her mind, on the other hand, boiled with confusion and the shivery possibilities that had arrived gift-wrapped in that kiss she'd shared with Dane last night.
Not possibilities, Esme. Lust.
Of course . . . what was happening here was pure textbook. Going back to when the female of the tribe instinctively sought out the strongest, most dominant male to mate with, believing him the one most likely to provide healthy children and protection in a harsh and hungry world.
Sexuality 101.
Nice intellectual try, but it didn't wash.
She didn't live in a harsh and hungry world, and she'd never lacked for male attention. She liked men, she loved sexâand didn't game-play to hide either factâbut she'd never met a male specimen quite like Dane McCoy, either. One who felt so . . . oddly unsettling.
Her breathing turned as choppy as the sun-crested waves she stared at. She wasn't sure she even liked Dane, let alone wanted him, sexually speaking. Did she?
She couldn't . . .
Damn it, she did want him.
Some of him.
For a while.
What she didn't want was the mess of a relationship. Her divorce, ugly and rancorous, still scabbed her psyche. She didn't relish the idea of living her life alone, but she liked the idea of walking over the flame pit of divorce even less.