Guilty Pleasures (9 page)

So his intelligence hadn’t been faulty. He probably shouldn’t feel glad but he did mostly because the man, Sam Dodge, had never had any legal claim to her.

“Does that shock you?” It was a challenge.

“Does it shock me that you had sex with someone you weren’t married to? That’s the question, isn’t it? The answer’s no. I never was into double standards. I’ve never been married. I’m not a virgin, either.”

She smiled. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Because you only had to look at me to know I was that kind of a guy?”

Polly smiled again. “I’m not sure what kind of guy you are—but I can’t seem to stop wanting to find out.”

Reading too much into what she said would be easy. “Then we’re even.” Overreacting could be disastrous.

He pushed back her hair and framed her face lightly. For a long time they just looked at each other.

“What kind of a name is Nasty?”

“A nasty name,” he said flippant before he could regroup. “A name I picked up as a kid when I probably deserved it. It stuck.”

When he didn’t elaborate he saw her decide not to press him.

He looked at her mouth. Soft, pouty—a sensual mouth whether she liked it or not.

Polly folded her hands over his forearms. She had to know
he wanted to kiss her. Was she signaling him to stop? He shifted forward on the seat a fraction.

Abruptly, her eyes closed. She slid her arms around his neck and buried her face there.

For a moment he hesitated, then he held her, eased her close and held her, smoothed her back through thin cotton, crossed his arms around her and hugged as tightly as he dared.

The sensation of her fingers in his hair, on his neck, slipping down his spine and back across his shoulders made him shiver. He was glad he hadn’t put on a shirt. He’d like to pick her up and carry her into his cabin, undress her, stretch her on top of him. She would be all softness to his tough angles.

He’d be happy with that. Hell, he’d be goddamn delirious with that.

It’d be enough for now.

Her smooth fingertips began their trip all over again.

Nasty shivered again.

Getting naked and lying together would be great. It wouldn’t be enough, ever.

With a sigh, she pushed back far enough to see his face again.

He inclined his head to study her. “I want to have a relationship with you, Polly.”

“I know.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m not sure.”

Not exactly the response he’d hoped for. “How can I make you sure?”

The circles she made in the hair on his chest drove him wild inside. He pressed his lips together and willed himself to be patient.

Slowly the circles widened. Then they narrowed. All the time she watched, until she used only her thumbs to trace around his nipples.

Surely she knew what she was doing to him. How could she not know? The rapt concentration on her face made him
unsure. Almost as if she was somewhere else, watching herself touch him, and gauging his reaction to those touches.

Nasty made fists on his thighs. No longer completely calling his own shots, he leaned toward her and pressed a kiss into the soft flesh above the neckline of her dress. He felt her shiver this time.

This wasn’t a one-sided attraction. “We could start really slow,” he said pressing his mouth to the hollow beneath her collarbone, to the pulsing beat above it, to spot, after spot, on the side of her neck and across her jaw to her earlobe.

Gentleness fled. She drove her fingers into his shoulders and clutched.

A whisper was all that separated his lips from hers. He whispered “I’m going to kiss you,” and sealed the promise.

The first joining was a series of glancing brushes. He opened her mouth. Quickly, repeatedly, he slipped the tip of his tongue just inside to moist skin.

Polly kissed him back. For every move he made, she had one of her own.

She wanted him, too.

If he hoped to take this where he wanted it to go, he must help her to have no regrets.
Take it slow.
Shoot, this was what he got for spending most of his adult life alone. A bunch of raw edges and not a lot of finesse.

His breath came in pants
.

So did Polly’s.

“We’re
…
Every word that comes into my head sounds like a line from an old movie.”

Her eyes were closed. He kissed the lids. Keeping his hands off the rest of her should earn him an award.

“Maybe they just sound like old lines, period?” she suggested.

“Maybe. But I mean this. We don’t have to take things fast. I’m a patient man.” He was becoming a routine liar with her.

Warm. Her breasts were warm against his chest. Her hips
fitted snugly between his thighs. If she didn’t feel what she was doing to him, she wasn’t feeling anything.

She felt what she was doing.

Nasty watched Polly glance downward and let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t think too much before I came. I wasn’t sure why, except I knew I wanted to see you. And I wanted you to know I hadn’t lied.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I haven’t thought of anyth
ing but seeing you for weeks.”

“I’m not oblivious to what thi
s is doing. It’s hard on you.”

He
grinned. “Nice girls try not to
notice
things
like
that.
They
certainly don’t mention them.”

“I didn’t mean—” Outrage blossomed and died before she dealt him a playful poke.

“Can we see if it would work with us?” he asked, seeing an advantage and deciding to push it. “I mean, will you let me?
…
Could we spend time together?”

“My life isn’t simple. I come with baggage.”

“I don’t care what you come with, as long as you come—to me,” he finished weakly.

She ran her nails delicately along his thighs.

Every move she made imprinted itself on his brain. He wanted a chance to have all the moves again, and then he wanted to return the favor. “We’d start
really
slow, Polly. We wouldn’t jump right into bed.”
Hell.

Her crossed arms and hunched shoulders confronted him. He’d either angered or shocked her. Probably some of both. “Seriously, I’m not the kind of guy to rush a woman.”

“You’re not?” She took a backward step. “Are you joking?”

Women. How could any man know how they’d react to an honest attempt at tact? At least, he’d thought he was being tactful. He leaned toward her. “Maybe I’m misreading the signals here. Have I offended you? Do you want to go to bed?
…
Do you? We can, of course.” Boy, could they.

Polly spun around. Her laughter first puzzled, then mortified
him. Frustration hovered a hair away.

A thud sounded from the deck, followed by rapid footsteps. “No one ever bo
thers me here,” Nasty grumbled.

Polly’s laughter subsided to a chuckle. “Until today.”

Sharp rapping on the hatch set his teeth on edge.

“Mr. Ferrito?” A rich female voice bellowed down the stairs. “This nice Mr. Miller told me to come here.”

“Venus?” Polly said her eyes screwed up.

Nasty walked past her. “What did you say?”

“Venus. My mother. It sounds like her.”

The hatch doors swung open and sunlight flowed in. Feet clad in bead-studded gold sandals appeared then ankles in leopard-patte
rn
ed tights and draped about with many pointed lengths of floating, black-and-gold skirts. The rest of the woman came rapidly into sight.

She clinked.

Coins and bells strung around her waist and hips, more coins at the neck of her cropped gold silk top—they all rustled and rang and clinked. Crowned with a curly chignon of red curls, the woman’s florid face was handsome.

“Venus,” Polly said again, sounding resigned.

The woman approached gracefully, her ample hips swaying. “There you are,” she said to Polly. “That lovely man said he thought you might be here. And he insisted on bringing me all the way here himself.”

So, Dusty was “lovely” to opulent ladies dressed for a little belly dancing. Nasty noted that Dusty had opted to remain on deck—not a good sign.

“Why are you here, Mother?”

Nasty wasn’t disappointed
to note that Polly didn’t sound
happy at the intrusion.

“I’ve done my best,” Polly’s parent said. “I wasn't always perfect, but I learned. I worked hard.”

“Mother, what—”

“And I’ve been a good grandmother.”

“You’re a wonderful grandmother,” Polly said.

“You can’t imagine how I felt when I got back. There I was with a bag of junk food and two videos, just like I’d promised.”

“What
is
it, Mother?”

“It’s taken me two hours to catch up with you, my girl.” Nasty braced his feet apart and crossed his arms. The newcomer tilted her head to examine him very thoroughly. “I suppose this was why you did it, Polly. I’m not saying I can’t see the attraction, but really, you might have some consideration.”

“Make sense!” Polly said so sharply her mother flinched. Just as quickly, the woman produced a daunting scowl.

“There are many boats. There is only one Venus Crow. Just because you met one of these”—she swept a hand in Nasty’s direction—“these
film
stars of yours with fancy boats, you forget to respect your own mother.”

Nasty sympathized with Polly’s obvious confusion.

“Well,” Venus said sighing gustily, “I suppose I shouldn’t expect any better. Children never do appreciate their parents.”

Polly scrubbed at her face. “Please, Mother, what have I done to upset you like this?”

“Oh, don’t give it another thought. I shall get over it. But you might ask yourself if it’s kind—or if it shows simple gratitude, and courtesy—to use me, but to keep the most intimately important things in your life secret from me.”

“Where’s Bobby?” Polly asked her voice strained. “You got junk food and videos for you and Bobby?”

“Whom else should I get them for?”

Polly took a step toward the stairs. “This is something to do with Bobby. Something’s happened to him.”

“Nothing’s happened to him.” Venus Crow’s tone was tart, but her gray eyes shone—anxiously, Nasty decided. “He’s up there with that nice Mr. Miller. Bobby’s never been on a big boat before. Listen to him up there.”

Footfalls overhead wiped away some of Polly’s apprehension.

Venus’s eyes continued to gleam. Skin puckered between her thin, red brows. “I had a phone call,” she said. “Such
strangeness in the world. To one such as
I
, these bizarre people are a mystery.”

Polly said nothing. What Nasty might have said about people like Venus wouldn’t help.

“The police…
Hah, the police. We know how little you can expect from them at such times. They told me they can’t help.
Yet.
Not unless someone’s actually been killed.”

Polly’s face turned cha
lk white and she said, “Mother!
” with her blue eyes wide open.

“It’s something to do with all this,” Venus Crow said, indicating the boat, and Nasty again.

He said, “Mrs. Crow,” gently, and touched her arm. “Something’s upset you.”

She sniffed and drew herself up. “I should say it has. The police said a single threat doesn’t mean a thing. Not without a body.”

Polly’s fear was palpable. Nasty caught her eye and winked. She didn’t wink back.

“This is number one, and the fun will soon be done!” Venus’s breathing grew short. She wound and unwound her hands. “On the phone. That was it. I answered the phone, and that’s what I heard. Then they said, tell Polly her new friends are bad for her health. They’ll make her sick if she doesn’t get rid of them.”

Polly touched her lips. “Who said this to you?”

“I don’t know,” Venus told her breathlessly. “But you know what a memory I’ve got. I remember every word. She said if you weren’t careful, your new friends would kill you. Then she hung up.”

F
ive

R
eality had a way of smacking the unwary. So much for a brief fling, a careless brush with Passion. While she’d indulged desire, the rest of her life had flirted with disaster.

“Hurry up, Polly.” With Dusty’s help, Venus had already clambered from the boat to the dock.

Nasty followed and offered Polly his hand. She shook her head and put Bobby ashore before hopping from the gunwale herself.

“You doing okay?” she asked Bobby.

“Okay.” He sucked in a cheek. “That’s his boat?” He hung back and jerked his head toward the
April.

“You know it belongs to Mr. Ferrito,” Polly said. “When he brought you here, Mr. Miller told you it was Nasty’s boat.”

Bobby’s tow hair stood on end. The worry in his brown eyes twisted Polly’s stomach.

“What’s up?” she said. “Can you tell your old mom?”

He pushed his thin hands into the pockets of his jeans and avoided Polly’s eyes. “Nothing’s up.” He peered at Nasty, who stared ahead, expressionless, as if he couldn’t hear every word. Bobby said, “Who’s he, anyway? Nasty? That’s weird, Mom.”

“And that’s rude,” she told him.

Shifting the gum he was rarely without, Nasty looked un-smilingly at the boy. “Nickname,” he said. “I got it when I was a bit older than you. When I grew up I went into the Navy. I was in one of those special forces. We all had nicknames then, too, so I’m really stuck with mine.”

Bobby frowned. “If you didn’t like it, you could make people call you something else.”

“Geez, outta the mouths,” Dusty Miller said with his barking laugh. “You got it, Bobby. Nasty here’s a pretty scary dude. You’d have to be crazy to mess with him. Know what I think?”—he didn’t wait for a response—“I think Nasty likes his name because he’s really a softy, but he doesn’t want anyone to know.”

Bobby sucked in the other cheek and thought about that.

“Right,” Nasty said, very softly, gifting his wiry, white-haired buddy with a mildly amused look. “Soft. That’s me.”

Holding the arm Dusty Miller had gallantly offered, Venus hurried along at his side. A fit woman, she puffed nevertheless, a sign that she was deeply agitated. “I want you to call the police yourself, Polly,” she said. “Put your foot down. Insist they do something at once.”

Another second and her mother would be spilling the exact details of the nuisance phone calls. “We’ll go back to my place,” she said, planning rapidly “Don’t worry. These things happen.”

“Not to me!” Venus checked her stride. “Not to Venus Cro
w
or her daughters. Not before you insisted on this—this flimflam existence of yours, my girl.”

“Of course not.” Anything to keep Venus from revealing everything. “I’m sure Mr. Miller needs to get back to his shop. And Nasty must have things to do.” She couldn’t look at him.

“Dusty,” Dusty Miller said. “Call me Dusty.” He had to be younger than the white hair suggested. He exuded energy. “I gotta get back, but we’re gonna go to my place first and make sure you ladies are taken care of.”

Nasty coughed. Polly expected to see him grin at his partner’s old-world chivalry. He didn’t.

“Put it down to training,” Dusty continued, settling a bony, deeply tanned hand on top of Venus’s on his arm. “Nasty and me have spent a lot of years taking charge in this sort of situation. Must have been fate sent you our way.”

“Fate,” Nasty murmured, his cool brown eyes making fleeting contact with Polly’s. “D’you think that’s what it was?” Rather than answer, she made a great deal of locating her keys.

“
I
called Fabiola,” Venus said. To Dusty and Nasty she remarked, “My other daughter. Polly’s twin. She’s a model. She’s as worried as I am. She said she’ll meet you this evening, as planned, Polly. I told her
I
didn’t think you should go anywhere while there’s a maniac after you, but she—”

“Please, Mom,” Polly said, too aware of Bobby’s tension. “Later, okay?”

Undeterred, Venus continued. “Fabiola insisted she’d meet you as planned. Seven at Park Place. TGIFriday’s. Something about public places being safest. I’m sure I don’t know that I agree with her. But who cares what I think? I’m just a mother who worries about her children.”

“And a very good mother, too,” Dusty said, patting her hand. “I’m sure your girls think the world of you.”

They hurried from the dock, where Nasty’s was the only boat moored, to the lakefront gardens behind Dusty’s home on Lake Drive.

“Can I come back to the condo now, Mom?” Bobby asked. “I want to come back.”

She settled a hand on the nape of his neck. “We’ll talk about it.”

“I can’t think of a
worse
time for him to be here,” Venus said, puffing even louder. “Dangerous. I won’t sleep a wink if he’s in this place. You ought to walk away from it all, Polly Come back to Hole Point. Bliss and Sebastian would be tickled to know you were helping me.”

“Stop it, Mother, please. If I walk away, this isn’t going to stop, don’t you understand that?” The rush of blood to her head ebbed. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be boring other people with our problems.” And Bobby shouldn’t be loaded up with reasons to worry. He worried too easily, and too much inside himself.

“Why isn’t Bobby with you anyway?” Nasty asked. He didn’t have to hurry to keep up.

Polly saw Bobby’s face pinch.

“Not because I’m a bad mother,” she snapped. “Bobby likes it at the Point.”

“We’re getting overwrought,” Nasty said, so reasonably she felt furious. “You and your mother have had an unpleasant experience. As you once told me—some of this goes with the world you live in. We’ll work it through.”

His take-charge, take-over attitude silenced Polly. Almost anything she said would sound defensive.

Venus clung to Dusty as if they were old friends. “I always told you it was a mistake to be so much in the public eye, Polly. But did you listen to me? No, of course not. I’m only your mother. Why would you listen to your mother? She doesn’t know anything. She hasn’t lived in this world long enough to know even a smidge more than you do.”

Venus had suffered a shock, Polly told herself. Now wasn’t the time to tell her mother to put a sock in it. And Venus had never been good at worrying about more than her own flamboyant existence.

Polly stood still. She kept a firm grip on Bobby’s neck while she told Nasty, “Thank you. Don’t worry. We’ll take it from here.”

“What exactly will you take from here?” His eyes were as remote as they were cool now. Gone was the heat she knew could flare. “You need help. I can give you some. Dusty can give you some. Take it.”

Venus labored up crazy-paved steps between terraces in the gardens. She said, “We’ll just have to think this through. Surely you’ve got some idea who this woman is. Maybe she’s a friend of the man who’s been—”

“Don’t make guesses,” Polly said, trying, and failing to catch Venus’s eye.

Windows in Dusty Miller’s canary yellow, two-story house
glittered in the sunlight. Geraniums and blue lobelia still bloomed in boxes lining a big patio.

“Home, sweet home
,
” Dusty said cheerfully. “Come on in. We’ll find a soda f
or
Bobby, and whatever you ladies would like.” He produced keys and unlocked a side door.

With a sense of doom, Polly scrambled for an out and failed to find one. Venus followed Dusty through the door, and Nasty stood back to usher Bobby and Polly before him.

Inside, a combination mud and laundry room opened into a big, overwhelmingly yellow kitchen.

Venus clapped, her countenance one of ecstasy. “Dusty, this is beautiful. Such an expression of inner self. You are a sunshine man in a sunshine home. Truly, truly beautiful.”

Dusty’s smile was pure satisfaction.

Nasty passed his partner, and said, “Excuse me, sunshine,” on his way to the refrigerator. “Come and get what you want, Bobby.”

“I don’t want anything.” Bobby stood just inside the kitchen. “When can we get Spike and go home, Mom?”

“You don’t want anything,
thank you,”
Polly said, on automatic pilot. To the room in general, she commented, “Spike’s our dog. I told you we’ll talk about all that later, Bobby. We ought to get going, Mom. We’ve taken enough of Dusty and Nasty’s time.”

“Crap,” Dusty said, with feeling. “I mean, garbage. Lovely ladies like you could never take enough of our time, could they, Nasty?”

"Oh, no, never.” The kettle clattered on the stove, and Nasty set out cups. “Where’s the tea?”

“Tea?” Dusty’s nose, with its crooked bridge, folded into ridges. “Who the hell drinks that swill? Nah. I’m gonna celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

The older man glared at his friend. “You don’t
have any”— he waved his hands—“y
ou just don’t have it, buddy. No
savoir faire,"
he finished, looking satisfied.

“That’s me," Nasty said, popping the top of a Coke can.
"Savoir faire
-
less.
Must have gone to all the wrong finishing schools.”

“
I’m gonna break out the Wild Tu
rkey,” Dusty said, his frown ominous. “You’ll join me, won’t you, ladies?”

Venus fluttered her fingers. “I suppose I could have just a teensy bit—for my nerves.”

“Not for me, thank you,” Polly said, her mind in turmoil. If she brought Bobby back to Kirkland, she’d have to watch him every minute. A
woman?
A woman calling Venus to make death threats? Someone who made references to ‘new friends.’ Did she mean Nasty? Was this person jealous of Polly and Nasty being together?

The answer was almost definitely, yes. And surely it all meant that Nasty couldn’t have anything to do with the calls.

Venus accepted a hefty glass of bourbon, and said, “Oh, this has been a terrible day. I don’t even remember driving here. I’m so frightened.”

“There’s nothing to be frightened about,” Polly said, ever conscious of Bobby. “Cranks are everywhere.”

“No, they aren’t. Even the police said I should call at once if you were attacked.”

“For cryin’ out loud,” Dusty muttered.

Polly went to Bobby and put an arm over his shoulders. She was grateful when, instead of shrugging away, he slipped a hand around her waist. “It’s okay, Bob,” she told him. “You and me, together, just like it’s always been. We’ll be fine.”

“So I can come back?”

She’d fallen into that one. “We’re going to work it out. I want you with me just as much as you want to be with me.”

“He can’t be on his own,” Venus said, smacking her lips. “Not for a moment.”

Nasty had become a still, silent presence. He sat on a high stool, one heel hooked over a rung, the opposite leg—the one with the terribly scarred ankle—stretched out. She shouldn’t find it so impossible not to stare at him.

It was impossible not to stare at him.

They’d known each other, been speaking to each other for only a few days.

And they’d kissed—and so much more than kissed. She was right to regret that. She’d been
wrong to give in to lust. What
did she know about him? Virtually nothing.

But, how they’d kissed
…

And he’d told her he could love her. The flush she felt was inside, a building pressure in places made for sensations that were so good, and so dangerous.

Venus talked. So did Dusty. Polly heard their voices, but not the words. Bobby seemed contented to stand beside her.

If Nasty Ferrito was a foe, what a foe he was. Formidable in every way. The more terrifying because he’d touched her as she hadn’t been touched, perhaps ever.

He watched her. She felt him watch her.

Yellow tile countertops, yellow appliances, yellow chintz curtains at the windows, and yellow chintz cushions on chairs. Even the floor tile was yellow. In an attempt not to meet Nasty’s eyes, Polly studied every inch of the overpoweringly cheerful kitchen.

Then she met his eyes anyway.

Cool. So cool. So distant. He snapped his gum between his strong teeth. Not a blink. Arms crossed over that very nice chest with which she had far too intimate an acquaintance. The hair on his chest had different textures depending on
where…

She couldn’t look away. He drew her, pulled her inside himself where the still, cold center waited. The coldest things burned.

He’d been hard. She’d felt him hard, and heavy, and ready against her pelvis. Polly couldn’t stop herself from glancing downward again.

She swallowed and heard her throat contract.

His erection pressed against the soft jean fabric of his shorts.

When she slowly, unwillingly, raised her eyes to his face
again, he stared back without expression. As if he didn’t care that she knew he wanted
…
Polly swallowed again. He looked at her, and wanted her—wanted to be inside her.

“Dusty’s right, Polly,” Venus said loudly. “We’re going to have to take precautions.”