“I’d love to, but there’s a PBS special on about a dig in Egypt,” Nan said apologetically. “I
love
classical archaeology.”
“Indulge yourself, you stick-in-the-mud,” Shelly grumbled.
“I will. Have fun!”
Faulkner waited while Shelly tied a pink knit sweater loosely around her neck in case it got cooler, and found her purse.
She waited until they were in the elevator headed down to the ground floor before she spoke. “Isn’t this sudden?” she queried. “And where’s Ben?”
“He’s staying with some friends of mine for a few hours.”
She lifted both eyebrows.
He chuckled. “You know how I feel about May-December relationships. I’ve already said so. I don’t have anything indiscreet in mind. I thought you might like the impromptu Latin concert on the beach, so I came to get you.”
“Am I substituting?”
He tilted her face up to his and shook his head, holding her eyes. “Oh, no,” he said quietly. “Not you.”
She smiled gently. “That was nice.”
“I am nice,” he replied, letting go of her chin. “It takes some people longer than others to notice it, of course.”
She laughed. “Conceit, yet.”
“I am not conceited. In fact, my modesty often shocks people.”
“I’ll let you know if I feel in danger of being shocked.”
His silver eyes twinkled. “You do that.”
“You aren’t what you seem,” she said with faint curiosity. “I thought bankers were staid and businesslike.”
His powerful shoulders rose and fell. “I am, when I’m in the office.” He glanced down at her. “I’m not in the office tonight, so look out.”
She chuckled. “I can hardly wait.”
The music got louder the closer they got to the beach. A boom box was blasting Latin rhythms and food and beer were being passed around while couples danced in the sand. A crowd of merrymakers had gathered to watch, including some of the students Shelly was travelling with. One of them, unfortunately, was Pete.
“So this is where you went to!” he said impatiently, glancing warily at Faulkner. “Want to join us?”
Faulkner slid a possessive arm around her waist, and smiled at Pete. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “She’s with me,” he said quietly.
“Yes, I am,” Shelly added. “Thanks for the invitation anyway.”
Pete didn’t say another word. He stalked back off to the other group.
“He’s been drinking again,” she said. “Ordinarily he’s very nice.”
“Nan told me that she was barely able to peel him off you last night,” he said curtly. “I don’t like that. A man who’ll take advantage of an intoxicated woman is no man at all.”
She stared at him. “Which means that you wouldn’t seduce me if I got drunk?”
“Of course not. Besides, even cold sober, a college freshman is a little green on the tree for a man my age,” he added, and his voice was unusually soft.
She should have been glad that her subterfuge had been successful. But instead, she was miserable that he thought she was too young for him.
“Will you relax and enjoy the music?” he chided.
“Sorry.” She smiled. “I’m glad you asked me. I love music.”
“So do I.”
“Elevator music and classic rock and roll?” she teased.
He cocked a thick eyebrow. “Axl Rose and Aerosmith,” he shot back.
She chuckled. “Mr. Scott, you are nothing like your image.”
“Thank God for that.”
The music got louder and couples moved into the circle to dance. Because her parents were ballroom dancing fans, she’d grown up knowing how to dance the mambo and tango. Faulkner seemed surprised that someone of her tender years would know how to do a sophisticated tango, but after he gauged her style, they seemed to flow together to the passionate refrain.
The music was wild. What she felt with every sensual brush of his body against hers was wilder. Her heart ran away
with her. There was no tomorrow—only tonight. She began to act as if the moment was all that existed, deliberately tempting him with the brush of her breasts against his broad chest, the soft glide of her thighs beside his, the intoxicating fencing of her steps with his.
She hung beneath his narrowing gaze, feeling the effect she was having on him in his quickened breath, the tightening of his hands on her waist and then, sliding lower, on her hips as he brushed her body against him.
It was arousing and she was too hungry to hide her reaction to him. As the music built to a climax, her eyes found his and held them. By the time it wound down, she was clinging to him, like a life preserver.
They finished the dance with a trembling Shelly draped over one powerful arm. Faulkner’s mouth poised scant inches above her own. The whole crowd applauded, but they were so lost in each other, in the intoxicating magic of aroused awareness, that they barely noticed.
“Oh, for a few seconds of privacy,” he murmured huskily, searching her eyes as he slowly drew her back up again, the sensual brush of his hard body against her soft one arousing her suddenly and violently.
The dance had been sensual. She could feel her heart, and his, pounding in rhythm. “What would you do?” she challenged.
“I think that you’re not quite that naive,” he said, and his silver eyes fell to her soft mouth, lingering there until her lips parted and a tiny, frustrated moan escaped them.
His breathing was suddenly audible. “Shelly, stop it!”
She wanted to, she really did. But for the first time in her life, she wasn’t quite in control. The feel of his chest against her soft breasts made them swell and she felt a sweet trembling all through her body. She was young and untried and hungry for her first taste of physical ravishment. All that was in the eyes she lifted bravely to his.
His jaw clenched. He swallowed. “All right. But not here,” he said roughly.
He took her hand in his and drew her along with him. Her head was spinning; he’d read her thoughts as surely as if she’d spoken them. She’d never before experienced that kind of communication. It was frightening, similar to the headlong rush into passion that made her legs tremble.
“People. Damn people!” he muttered under his breath as he searched for a single uncrowded place. There wasn’t one. He looked toward the beach, where the sea oats and sand dunes gave at least the illusion of privacy.
If he’d been thinking rationally, he’d have taken her straight back to the hotel and left her with Nan while there was still time. But she was wearing some sort of tangy perfume that made his senses whirl, and the thought of her softly rounded body in his arms made him reckless.
He led her along the dunes and then helped her down to the level of the beach with him, holding her so that, for an instant, her eyes were even with the aroused glitter of his.
He let her slide gently against his muscular body until her feet touched the sand. Behind him was the roar of the surf with moonlight glistening like diamonds along the waves that ran into the beach. But louder even than that was the frantic beat of her heart as he drew her to him with a self-mocking smile and bent his head.
“Every man is entitled to make a fool of himself once,” he whispered into her mouth as he took it.
CHAPTER FOUR
S
HELLY WASN
’
T MODEL-LOVELY
, but her wealth had guaranteed that she’d had suitors in the past. None of them, not one, had made her mouth ache for his kisses, her body plead to be touched and caressed. But Faulkner did. Her response to him was instant and alarming.
Once, she tried to draw back, but his big hands slid to her hips and pushed them hard into the changing contours of his body while his lips teased around her trembling mouth.
He felt her instinctive withdrawal and checked it expertly. His nose brushed against hers and there was no urgency, no brutality in the touch of his mouth on her face. He was remarkably tender for the level of arousal he’d already reached.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he whispered, his voice gentle, indulgent. “You can stop me whenever you like. Force is for bullies.”
The calm tone pacified her. For just an instant she’d counted her folly in coming out alone with him, when she hardly knew him. There was a very real danger in being secluded with a strange man. The papers were full of tragedies
that a little common sense, caution and wise counsel could have prevented.
“I read too many newspapers, I guess,” she said unsteadily.
“Some women should read more,” he replied flatly. He pushed the hair back from her flushed cheeks and stared down at her in the faint light. “You’re quite safe with me. I wouldn’t advise you to come out here with your friend Pete, though.”
She smiled at the dry tone. “I know that already, thanks.” The smile faded as she studied his broad, rugged face. It had lines that an artist would have loved. She reached up hesitantly, and stroked his thick eyebrows. He had big, deep-set eyes that seemed to see right through people. His nose was a little large, not oversize, and very straight. She traced it down to the wide, sexy line of his mouth, to the chiseled lips that had teased her into reckless response.
“This isn’t wise,” he said quietly, a little regretful. “You taste of green apples, young Shelly.”
She reached up and caught his full lower lip gently in her teeth, acting on pure instinct. His big frame shuddered a little. “Teach me,” she whispered unsteadily.
His hand tightened on her waist. “Teach you what?” he asked roughly.
Her lips opened and brushed against his. “How to…make love.”
“That would be dangerous,” was all he could get out. His body was burning; his heartbeat shook him.
“Yes.” Her hands went to the front of his shirt. Holding his eyes, she gently undid the top button. He didn’t say a word. Encouraged, she opened the next, and the next, and the next, until she’d bared his hair-covered chest to her fascinated gaze.
“Oh, my!” she whispered. She pressed both hands into the thickness of the hair and felt the hard, warm muscle through it. He was strong. She could feel it. He indulged
her, letting her explore him, until the needs she kindled became unmanageable.
“That’s enough,” he said softly, stilling her hands against him.
“Why?”
“Because I’ll want equal time.”
Her eyes met his; her gaze was curious, a little shy. “I haven’t let anyone see me like that. Not yet.”
His eyes fell to her pink blouse and he saw the hardness of her nipples through it.
“I didn’t have time to put on anything under it,” she whispered softly.
“Oh, my God!” He ground out the words.
That deep groan, she decided, was pure frustration. As she thought it, he looked around to make sure they were still isolated. Then, with a total disregard for sanity, he dropped her sweater to the beach and began to unfasten her blouse.
His lips parted, as if he was finding it hard to breathe while he worked the tiny pearl buttons. So was she. But she wanted his gaze on her so badly that she banished common sense. When he pulled the edges of the blouse apart and looked at her, it seemed that she wasn’t the only one with that terrible need. His eyes were narrow and hot with admiration as he savored the firm, beautiful curve of her pink breasts.
“You said you liked…small women,” she whispered unsteadily.
“Did I? I must have been out of my mind! Shelly,” he whispered. “Oh, Shelly…!”
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t the sudden descent of his dark head and the warm moistness of his open mouth on her breast. His tongue pressed against her while she cried out in a strangled voice and clutched his head closer. Her whole body throbbed, ached, shook with an avalanche of uncontrollable need. She whispered
to him, pleaded with him for more, more, her eyes closed, her body in anguish.
Vaguely she felt the cool sand at her back and the weight of Faulkner’s body as he lifted his head to find her mouth. He kissed her with open passion, his tongue pushing deep inside her mouth while his hair-roughened chest rubbed over her bare breasts and made the ache intolerable.
Her hands found his hips and pulled him to her, trembling as she pleaded for something she’d never experienced. As far gone as she, he indulged her for one brief ecstatic second, levering down between her soft thighs to press himself hard against the very core of her hunger. She cried out and shifted to accommodate him, and the stars seemed to crash down on her.
But he groaned and threw himself over onto his back, shuddering, openly vulnerable to her hungry, fascinated eyes.
She looked at him as if he belonged to her already, sketching him with eyes that adored the power and sensuality of his aroused body. He seemed to be in agony and she wished she were more sophisticated, that she knew what to do for him.
She sat up, hugging her knees to her bare breasts. Probably she should fasten her blouse, she thought dazedly, but everything seemed a bit unreal now.
He sat up beside her and glanced sideways, noticing the open blouse. “Put your knees down,” he said quietly. “I want to look at you.”
She obeyed him, watching his eyes stroke her with pure pleasure, feeling sensations that made her tingle.
“You make my head spin,” he said, leaning close to put his lips softly over her breast. “Do you like this?” he whispered, teasing the nipple with his tongue. “Or is it better for you…like this?” His mouth opened and suckled her with tender ferocity.
“Faulkner.” She lay back on the sand, her arms spread, her eyes welcoming, her body completely open to him. She
wanted him so badly that nothing else mattered for the moment.
He studied her with banked-down hunger for a long time while he fought his better judgment and lost. “It would be the first time, wouldn’t it, Shelly?”
“Yes.”
“If you’ve said no to men before—and I must assume that you have—why are you saying yes to me?”
She didn’t want to think about that. She felt uncertain, when she’d been out of her mind with need of him only seconds before. Embarrassed now, she sat up and tugged the edges of her blouse together, buttoning them up in an excruciating silence.
She had to say something. Words were difficult in the cold sanity of the aftermath. “Listen, I want you to know…I don’t go around doing things like this…” She faltered. “I’m sorry. I feel…rather ashamed.”