The Seduction Request (9 page)

If he'd heard an ounce of conviction in her words he would have put her down. Instead he wrapped an arm across her lush behind and tucked her firmly against him. He'd held her this way half a dozen times a year throughout the better part of his childhood, but he couldn't remember it ever feeling this nice. Or having the urge to slide his hand across her firm rear end, between her silky thighs…

“You big dumb jock, let go of me!” she screamed through another fit of laughter.

Ignoring her pleas, he trudged through the sand and down the length of the dock.

She beat at his back with her fists. “You are so dead, Conway. When you least expect it, I'll get my revenge.”

“I'm pretty scared,” he said, and his mild tone said he was anything but. He reached the end of the dock and, with beautiful execution and no hesitation, tossed her into the lake. She landed with an enormous splash and disappeared under the water.

He crouched down, waiting for her to surface. When she didn't he felt a sliver of concern and immediately dismissed it. She'd been on the swim team in high school. If he knew Emily, she was hiding under the dock, waiting for just the right moment to reach up and pull him into the water.

He sat back a little, just in case.

“I know what you're up to and I'm not falling for it,” he called into the water. The words were barely out of his mouth when a shadow passed across him from behind, and he felt a wet hand planted firmly on his back. He looked up to see two perfectly formed breasts with small, dark, erect peaks under a soaked, transparent tank top. And,
aw hell,
the outline of one enticing nipple ring. Then he crashed headfirst into the water.

 

Matt picked his cell phone up from the picnic table where he'd set it out to dry, feeling an eerie sense of panic. The cottage had no phone, and without a phone line he had no Internet hookup. And Emily, to his disbelief, didn't have a cellular. He'd thought that in this day and age everyone had a mobile phone, or at least a pager.

He was, in essence, completely cut off from the outside world. It felt unnatural, as if one of his limbs had been amputated.

Talk about a wake-up call. There was something
seriously wrong with him if he couldn't survive three days without a cell phone.

“Is it dry yet?” Emily asked as she cleared away the paper plates and plastic cutlery from their dinner. The distress in her voice was more than clear. She felt pretty bad for what she'd done, regardless of how many times he'd told her it was okay. If anyone was at fault, it was him. If he hadn't tossed her in the lake, she never would have retaliated by pushing him in. And if not for the lake he never would have gotten a glimpse of that nipple ring. It was worth the hours of sexual torture he'd endured while he imagined what it would be like to take that tiny ring between his teeth and give it a tug.

The torture of not being able to get hold of his secretary was far worse.

“Maybe you should try turning it on,” she said.

“It's only been a couple of hours.” He set it back down, resisting the urge to dial his voice mail. “If I turn it on wet, I'll completely fry the circuits.”

“I'm really sorry, Matt. If I had known you were wearing your phone—”

“I told you before, it's not your fault.”

“If there's any way I can make it up to you.”

Oh, man, how often did a guy get an offer like that? Where should he start? Several ways instantly sprang to mind, but he was pretty sure the things he was thinking weren't exactly what she was thinking. Most involved his mouth on various parts of her anatomy.

Just the thought caused a tightening in his groin.

He gazed at her mouth, his lips tingling in anticipation, not to mention the other parts of him that had begun to tingle as well. He needed to get some
blood flowing back to his brain. He had to keep his focus.

“If it's ruined I'll replace it. Just let me know how much.”

“The cost isn't important,” he said.

“You're worried about work. About your office not being able to get a hold of you.”

Not just the office, but he'd left a message with Emily's parents asking them to call as soon as possible. The sooner he talked to them, the sooner he could get construction up and running. He hoped.

“You can go back,” she said. “If you leave right now you would make it to Chapel by about 1:00 a.m.”

At the mere thought of completely abandoning his business, apprehension gripped his stomach. Sweat beaded his brow and trickled down the side of his face. He was in worse trouble than he'd thought if the idea of a few days away from work triggered a panic attack. Had he chained himself so completely to his company that he'd become obsessed?

It ended here, dammit. Maybe it was time he reevaluated his priorities. Maybe it was time he started to live a little. He'd promised himself a vacation and if that meant cutting himself off from the world, he'd try like hell to relax and have a good time.

“No,” he told Emily. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“You're an important man, Matt. I understand that you have responsibilities. I'll be okay up here alone.”

“I'll try my cell phone in the morning. If it doesn't work, I'll drive into town and call my secretary. She'll take care of it.”

Through the last traces of daylight she eyed him doubtfully. “You're sure?”

About as sure as he could be in his present state of mind. “Finish up in the kitchen and meet me down at the beach.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Gather wood. We're having a bonfire.”

B
y the time Emily made her way down the dark path to the beach, equipped with the fixings for s'mores, Matt had the fire blazing. When she saw the blanket he'd brought down with him, she stopped dead in her tracks. It wasn't the presence of the blanket that gave her pause, but its placement. He'd spread it in the sand in the exact spot they'd sat that night. No way it wasn't deliberate.

She should have been damned angry about it, but all she could do was picture herself and Matt lying there, bodies intertwined. This time the boundaries of their relationship were drawn. Friendship, with a little hot sex thrown in to spice things up. There were pros and cons, of course. And honestly, she was beginning to believe the pros greatly outweighed the cons. She'd already mostly decided that if he made another move on her, she might not fight it. She
might let nature take its course and see what happened.

She walked to the blanket and sat down. Crickets chirped in the woods and she heard the rush of the waves as they slapped against the shore. The fire crackled and hissed and sent plumes of smoke drifting up into the trees. It felt peaceful, serene—until Matt tossed one more log into the fire, the orange glow accentuating the muscle tone in his arms and thighs, and she was flooded with an overload of female hormones. She felt the same giddy nervousness as she had on the last night they'd spent here. Would he kiss her? Would he touch her? Would she have the courage to make the first move if he didn't?

Matt dropped down on the blanket beside her. Close enough to be friendly, and far enough away to be frustrating. “I think that's enough fire to last awhile.”

“I brought stuff for s'mores.” She opened the bag of marshmallows, loaded the skewers, and handed one to Matt.

“I haven't done this in years,” he said, holding his close to the flame.

Emily held her own beside Matt's. She wasn't really in the mood for sweets—not unless she was licking them off his body. What she was really craving was the taste of his mouth, the saltiness of his skin.

Any time now you can try to seduce me, she thought. Instead he stared into the fire, slowly twirling his skewer, and asked, “I noticed that you never answered my question.”

“What question was that?”

“I asked if you're in love with Alex.”

“I am,” she said. “But not in the way you think. The truth is, we see other people.”

She could swear she saw relief in his eyes.

“But you can't tell my parents,” she added. “Or my brother.”

“Why not?”

“To preserve my sanity.” At his quizzical look, she added, “My parents are determined to get me married off. I won't sit through one more dinner with some employee of my father's, or the son of a family friend. Having a boyfriend is the only way to get them off my back.”

“Why don't you just tell them to stop?”

“Matt, you of all people should know that would never work. They just don't listen.”

“Would it hurt to try?”

“
Try?
I've spent my entire life trying.” A familiar rush of resentment swelled to the surface. “I've had to fight for my independence. As long as I can remember, they've been making decisions based on what they think is good for me. When I wanted to play T-ball, my mom signed me up for ballet. Instead of letting me play soccer, my parents put me in gymnastics. In kindergarten, my mom decided wearing jeans like Ty wasn't appropriate for a girl and forced me to wear dresses.”

“I don't remember ever seeing you wear a dress, so you must have won that battle.”

“Yeah, because I started lifting my dress and showing boys my underpants.”

Matt laughed. “You didn't.”

“Don't you think it's sad that at six years old I had to go to such an extreme? It was like they just
couldn't accept me for the person I was supposed to be. They still don't.”

“They just want what's best for you.”

“But who are
they
to decide what's best for me? Suppose I'm not ready to settle down?”

He wondered if he should tell Emily what her family was up to, and immediately decided it would be a bad idea. He didn't want to give her the idea that his feelings for her weren't genuine, that they'd put him up to it. Even though technically they had. And there was no way he could mention any of what she'd just said to her family. He would never betray her trust that way. In other words, he was caught in the middle.

This also meant she wouldn't be quitting her job, which presented him with a entirely new problem—how to find out what Alex was up to. Maybe he should just come right out and tell her his suspicions. Maybe she'd seen something fishy and would put two and two together. If he said nothing, and she found herself in trouble with the law because of it, he would never forgive himself.

“How, um, trustworthy is Alex?”

She mushed a piece of chocolate and a golden brown marshmallow between two crackers. “I would trust him with my life. Why do you ask?”

“It's just that, I've heard things.”

“What things?” She took a bite, warm chocolate and marshmallow dripping down her chin. Oh, man, did he want to lick it away for her.

“He goes out of the country a lot?”

She sucked chocolate off her fingers. “A couple of times a year. He travels with friends.”

“You get shipments from other countries?”

“Now and then. Most are domestic. Uh, Matt?” She nodded toward the fire, and he realized his marshmallow had gone up in flames.

He shook it off the skewer and it landed with a sizzling splat in the embers.

“Here, take a bite of mine.” She held it out for him, chocolate oozing down his chin as he bit off a piece.

“Messy,” she said, wiping it off with her thumb and holding it up to his mouth. She wanted him to…
oh, man.
He opened his mouth and she slid her thumb over his tongue. He couldn't speak. He couldn't even breathe.

What had they been talking about?

“Why are you suddenly so interested in Alex?” she asked, reminding him. Only he didn't want to talk about her boyfriend now. He wanted to lick melted chocolate off her entire body.

Focus, Conway. This is important. “Do you know what he does when he leaves the country?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“Are you sure?”

“Matt, why don't you tell me what you're insinuating?”

“Word is circulating that he might be involved in something…shady.”

“Shady?”

“Drugs, Em.”

Instead of looking concerned, Emily snorted out a laugh. “
Drugs?
You're kidding, right?”

“You could be putting yourself in trouble just working for him.”

“I'm not in danger of anything.”

“How can you be sure?”

She tossed what was left of her s'more into the fire. “I see every shipment that goes in or out of that nursery. I track every penny. There's no way he could be running drugs through without me knowing about it. I mean, the guy can't even remember to pay the electric bill on time. Who could possibly have had a harebrained idea like—no wait. Don't tell me.
Ty
told you.”

His expression must have said it all.

She shook her head. “He's such an idiot.”

“He's genuinely worried about you, Em.”

“No, he doesn't like Alex, and he doesn't want anyone else to like him either.” She started gathering the food. “It's late. If we're going to get up early to fish we should get to bed.”

“Em—”

“I'm angry, Conway. Not at you. Just ticked off in general and I wouldn't be very good company. I'll see you in the morning.”

He watched as she disappeared through the woods.

He'd blown it. A minute ago she'd been taking the initiative, letting him suck chocolate off her fingers. She would have been his, if he'd just kept quiet.

She was wrong about Ty. He wasn't an idiot.

Matt
was.

 

Emily lay in bed staring at the wood beams above her, unable to sleep, so angry she could spit nails. The small fan on the dresser across the room just circulated the hot, muggy air. Dressed in only panties and a tank top, her skin was slick with sweat, making the sheets stick to her like fly paper. She grabbed her watch off the night table and checked the time. One-ten in the morning.

It was one thing for Ty to tell people he didn't care for Alex. She'd gotten used to that. But to spread rumors that he was peddling
drugs?
That was over the top even for Ty. And as badly as Emily wanted to throttle him, if she let on that Matt told her, it could drive a wedge between Ty and Matt. She just had to be angry until she wasn't angry anymore.

Too hot and sticky even to consider sleep, she rolled out of bed and tugged on a pair of shorts. Maybe it would be cooler by the water. She shoved her feet into her flip-flops and tiptoed into the hall, stopping outside Matt's room.

The door was open and she could see the outline of his body sprawled across the twin-size mattress. He was so large and the mattress so small it was almost comical. It had to be a major step down from the luxury he was accustomed to. She had offered her parents' room, but he had said he wouldn't feel right sleeping there.

So here he was cramped into a bed he'd dwarfed even in high school. She couldn't hear his breathing over the hum of the fan, but his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. His
bare
chest, she noticed with a giddy, light-headed feeling. He was covered to the waist with a sheet and she had to wonder what, if anything, he wore underneath. In high school he'd worn boxers to bed. At least, when he'd spent the night at their house he had. She would sometimes walk by Ty's room in the morning and get a glimpse of Matt on the spare bed, sprawled out much as he was now, wearing boxers.

Back then, considering her pathetic lack of experience with the opposite sex, she'd lived for moments
like that. She'd felt naughty for spying on him, but it had thrilled her no end to see him that way. So vulnerable. So peaceful. Once she'd peeked in and had gotten more than she'd bargained for when she'd realized his boxers were fitting tighter than usual. A
lot
tighter.

She'd gone beet red with embarrassment and something else, a breathless feeling that had drained all the energy from her muscles and made them quiver. She hadn't been able to pull herself away. She wanted to know what he was hiding under his shorts. Only when she heard her mother coming up the stairs had she dashed down the hall and closed herself into the bathroom.

The feeling she hadn't recognized back then had become more than clear that night on the beach. It had been pure lust. The same thing she was feeling now.

Matt sighed in his sleep and rolled away from her, dragging the sheet with him. From the looks of it, he didn't wear boxers to bed anymore. Now, he didn't wear
anything.

Her estrogen production instantly went hyperactive.

She gazed at the smooth contour of his bare muscular behind, wishing she could crawl into bed with him. Things had been moving along so well by the fire. When she'd slipped her thumb in his mouth she'd thought for sure his eyes would bulge right out of his head, and she'd nearly melted into a puddle when she'd run her thumb across his tongue. Licking what was left off his chin would have been her next move, had he not dropped the bomb.

Alex running drugs. Ridiculous.

No, not just ridiculous—laughable.

She backed away from Matt's room and headed to the kitchen. She grabbed a beer from the fridge and a beach blanket from the porch on her way out and headed down to the water, feeling her way through the thick underbrush alongside the path. The stifling heat was only slightly less oppressive outside, and the idea of a midnight swim held even greater appeal. On the beach, the fire had just about burned itself out, so she grabbed a few logs and tossed them on the embers. Instantly the parched wood ignited and flames licked up to encompass them.

Emily spread the blanket out, kicked off her shoes and walked down to the water sipping her beer. Across the lake fires dotted the beach and if she strained hard enough she could hear the faintest sound of music and laughter. That should have been her and Matt. Sitting up half the night, laughing and talking about old times. Then reliving them in vivid detail.

Emotion burned the back of her throat and left a bitter taste in her mouth. Tomorrow night, she promised herself. She'd make it up to him. To herself.

Away from the fire, it was so dark she had to keep a hand stretched out in front of her to feel her way to the dock. She stepped into the cool water, instantly feeling soothed. Maybe a swim would ease the restlessness in her muscles, in her soul.

She set her beer down and slipped her clothes off, leaving them on the dock. It's not as if anyone was going to happen by this time of night, and even if they did it was too dark to see anything. She'd thought the same thing this afternoon on the beach
just before Matt had happened by. But he was sound asleep now.

She walked several feet out, then dove in, the cool water working her body loose. She swam out several yards, until her muscles began to burn from the exertion, then rolled over and floated on her back for a while. Her body lifted and swelled with the gentle waves, and above her the sky was a showcase of twinkling lights. She closed her eyes and sighed, letting herself sink down until the water covered her head. She surfaced, disoriented in the dark, then spotted the fire and headed in that direction until the shadowy outline of the dock became clear. She followed it up until she was waist-high, feeling her way, looking for the beer she'd set there. Her hand instead collided with a muscular, hairy leg.

She shrieked and yanked her arm away and heard a rumble of laughter from Matt.