Her Insatiable Scot (8 page)

“I’ve done my fair share of fucking. Hasn’t lost its appeal by any means. Sex just doesn’t mean the same thing to me anymore. It’s not a race or something to rack up like points.”

She curled her fingers into his shirt. “So…it used to be?”

He tensed and no answer was forthcoming. She looked up. His eyes were closed, but she held her breath, so scared he’d ignore the question. In context, the answer didn’t matter, but up until now it had felt she could ask him anything. He lay open and willing to her exploration, both physically and mentally. She didn’t want that to change, not yet.

“I sometimes used sex to get what I wanted.” He exhaled and then his Adam’s apple bobbed before he looked at her again.

She expected an honest answer, but this made her want to reel back from him and ask more questions. Sex was different for her. She’d never had one-night stands, because she figured what would be the use? She’d gone for relationships where she could, maybe, feel okay about her condition and, maybe, she’d orgasm.

What did sex mean to a man who had likely traveled the world, conned for a living until he took up a hammer to become a carpenter? What did a man like Tristan want?

She’d have asked, but they had four more days together. What did his past matter to her? Tristan was there now. His hands still cushioned his head. His cock still pressed at his boxers. She could touch him, kiss him, caress him to her heart’s content. He needed nothing in return. She didn’t have to somehow make up for being defective. There was a power in that.

So much of it, her head buzzed with lightness. And if she was actually the woman she was portraying, she might have taken full advantage. Still… “Are you sure?”

Tristan grasped her hand, pushed it down so it rested just above his pelvic bone and then resumed his position. His brow lifted in challenge. Did she have the balls?

“I’m thinking we should go mingle,” she said, chickening out, but Keri narrowed her gaze on his face to catch his true reaction.

He didn’t flinch. “A day out?”

“Sounds ideal. I live in this general area, so I know all the haunts. You’re from Scotland so you can play tourist. California must be like a different world for you.”

“Mostly.” He moved a hand to scratch at his five o’clock shadow. “I’ve worked in America long enough to be here legally. First time near the water, though.”

His confession kept her shoulders tight, but she tried to shake it off. He wasn’t using her, right? She had nothing to offer him. Not in a tangible sense. Even if it was to just have sex, there was no high horse for her to ride on, was there? No.

Letting go of the anxiety, she ran through a list of tourist spots in her head and then smiled. “I know just the place. It’s off the beaten path. We might need to take a cab to it, but later in the afternoon.”

“Aye? Where?”

She smiled. His genuine curiosity eased any nerves and soothed any doubts. He wasn’t playing with her. “First we have to do our job and schmooze the association. After that we can play.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“All work and no play makes Tristan an unhappy boy?”

He chuckled. “I learned a long time ago, you have to make the fun wherever you are. Otherwise, it’s all work.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant—he was never unhappy or he always played. The man was a mystery, a puzzle. She did her best to not wonder what actually made him tick. This was sex. This was something fluffy, without meaning, but she became a scientist, a conservator to plug in the holes in history and tell a story. She couldn’t help but want his too.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The ice in the cooler sloshed when Tristan faced her. He gave her a quick once-over. “Do you get seasick?”

The second-youngest couple in the association made their way down the dock. After everyone for the conference met up in the breakfast room, it hadn’t taken long for their day’s duty to be mapped out.

“That’s not why I look queasy,” she answered.

He followed her gaze. The man and woman had that bleached-blond look of having spent their life in the sun. She moisturized and he didn’t, but their smiles were as bright as their platinum hair.

“You’ll do fine,” he said. “They’re nice.”

Since she was a scientist and not a grifter or a con, she didn’t buy his lies. “Just look like I want to bite you?”

He wagged his brows before shifting the cooler onto the motorboat’s bench in front of the seats. She knew nothing about boats, just knew it looked like it cost more than the hotel room. Maybe that was where they put most of their money for the conference—the perks.

“Be yourself,” he told her.

Herself? She wasn’t herself with him. Outside of the nerves and sex. Okay. She wasn’t herself for the most part, but enough to make him believe she could con this couple. Or any couple while spending one-on-one time together. She could fake it, barely, in groups, but this was a different animal.

He climbed onto the boat. It rocked softly, but he moved with ease. Watching him over the past two days she realized that was just the way he moved. Since that morning, she’d spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if he was born that way or had learned to be so damn calm about everything from conning. She didn’t know and it started to matter. What they did in bed didn’t mean hearts and romance. She still needed the…intimacy, or maybe the openness they had. But could he fake that with ease? Who was he when he was a con man? Who was he now? The questions vexed her, because it shouldn’t have mattered.

He put out his hand to help her onto the boat. Heels were not the ideal footwear for this kind of outing but she hadn’t brought anything else. She hesitated at the foothold and suddenly she was weightless. A surprised yelp escaped her.

Tristan’s arms wrapped around her waist. Her head was still spinning by the time he placed her on the deck. His thick arms were warm around her. The heat of him and the steel of his chest felt like a dichotomy against her soft breasts. She’d never felt so feminine until she met him. She never imagined there was ever any appeal to fragility. She had to take such care in her job with relics but this was different.

His lips brushed over her cheekbone to her ear. “You don’t look like you want to bite me.”

Was this pretend or could she be honest? It felt right to go with her gut. “You were treating me like I’m fragile. You sort of surprised me.”

“I worry I might break you.” The answer sounded honest.

She frowned, pulled back to read the truth on his face.

“Cool your jets.” A man’s voice came from their left.

Tristan loosened his hold but kept one arm just above her hips. “Ron?” At the man’s nod, he offered his hand. “Good to meet you and your lovely wife, Janet.”

Seamlessly he’d given her their names. She plastered on a smile and nodded to them both. They were dressed for the day. Janet’s sarong wrapped loosely around her hips and the one-piece bathing suit showed off her tanned skin. Ron’s sandal-clad feet looked plucked of any hair, along with his chest that peeked through a low-cut V-neck shirt.

Janet elbowed her husband once on the boat. “They haven’t reached bickering-is-their-foreplay part of their marriage. Let the newlyweds have their honeymoon. Jocelyn, right?”

Keri made a noise that sounded like a yes.

Ron had already moved on. “Motored? They should have coughed up the money for a real boat. You sail?” he tossed over his shoulder to Tristan.

Men tended to talk to the other available male as though a woman wasn’t standing there. She bit into her lip to keep the observation and her irritation to herself.

“I have a time or two,” Tristan said. “It’s been a while. Unlike you I see the beauty in motored boats. Let me show you.”

And then he left her alone with Janet.

Shit.

The other woman sprawled on the seat next to the cooler. She cracked it open and pulled out two beers. She gestured to the red vinyl seat beside her. “Next hour or three will involve a lot of man talk. We’ll need these to get through it.”

Think like a modern, hip woman. Keri plopped down beside her and opened her beer. Before she could ramble into small talk, Tristan throttled something that pushed her back in the vinyl seats, sloshing her beer on her fingers. Ron let out a whoop of excitement. Janet steadied the cooler. Tristan showed no sign of unease. His full concentration was on their maiden voyage into the bay.

Capable.

The sun beat down into the compact ship, but the spring breeze lessened the intensity of the mid-afternoon heat.

“So tell me how you met?” Janet asked.

Her mind froze on the truth and it started to spill out until Tristan glanced back. What had he said? He’d told her a little about conning before they left the hotel room. Use your truth and what they believe is true. Ian and Jocelyn had met at work. Her cousin had shied away from the exact details. Keri stole a glance at Tristan. If the brothers were remotely the same then yeah…Jocelyn had already told some half-truths about their “romance.”

“We met in the parking lot. At…” Did she consider this a job? Sort of. “Work. We meshed. Despite everything, he felt…right.”

Janet’s smile warmed before she took a swig of beer. “Yeah, that’s how it is.”

“What is?”

“Finding the man you’re going to marry.” She nodded to Ron. “He’s my second.”

Keri took in the woman. Well, she could believe that. Not by the woman’s appearance or demeanor, but the woman gave off the feeling of being around the block a few times. Then once more.

She pressed the cool glass to her throat and considered what the woman was offering—conversation. Well, that wasn’t scary as long as she kept the focus away from herself. “What happened with the first?”

Janet chuckled. “We were young and not willing to give when we needed to.” She pointed with her glass bottle. “But him, I was sure he’d last maybe a month.” She laughed. “I’m his second too.”

How nosy could she be? She wouldn’t know until she asked the wrong question. “What happened with him?”

“He cheated.”

Keri took in Ron this time. He didn’t give off the ladies’ man vibe. But the moment she saw Tristan she definitely hadn’t thought carpenter, much less con man. “And you trust him?”

“It is and isn’t logical. That’s faith. He wanted to be a better man. For himself first, and then we met.” She took a long pull on her drink. “And that was about fifteen years ago. So I feel safe in saying my gut was right.”

Keri sipped her beer and then closed her eyes. The bay smelled like fresh water, fish and sun. What did her gut say about Tristan? She couldn’t tell. So much of what she felt for him was wrapped up in lust. He confused the hell out of her, but she’d yet to feel like there was anything wrong with her. Yes, the knee-jerk insecurities hadn’t faded, but he didn’t make her feel like she was broken and needed fixing. Hell, she muttered questions during oral sex and he answered, not missing a damn step. He asked for nothing and she was starting to want to do something, anything, for him in return.

“Just a tip,” Janet said.

She opened her eyes. “Yeah?” She braced herself for more marital advice that she couldn’t use given she wasn’t really married.

“Take off your shoes.”

“Oh,” she said on a laugh, having not expected that. “I didn’t pack for this.”

Still she slipped out of her heels on a sigh. The strap had left an indentation across her pinkie toe.

Janet nodded. “Now you’re ready to have fun.”

The engine quieted and as best she could tell they’d “parked” in the middle of the bay. Looking out, she could see the same kind of boats not far from them. Some circled around the shores. Mostly, the others had stopped too. Their day was to lounge on the water, eat whatever Tristan had packed in the cooler and spend time with this seemingly nice couple. If not for the last part, the tension in her shoulders would have ebbed. She wondered about that and Tristan.

How many times had he had to pretend to be someone he wasn’t? What did that do to a man? Despite the obvious moral issue, what made him finally walk away? Questions she shouldn’t even ponder, but… She took another swig of beer and reminded herself the answers didn’t matter.

*****

Ron didn’t take much stock in letting someone get a word in. That was fine with Tristan. The less he had the say, the better. No more lies needed to be added to keep up the con. If that wasn’t proof enough, he needed to stay out of the game; he never once thought of whether his brother sailed too.

More telling, he would have been annoyed at Keri. She was green—not that the boat made her sick, but she couldn’t con to save her life. That probably had more to do with her not being a people person. The second beer had relaxed her, but that simply made her act like any person in the same situation.

Ron continued to jabber and point at buttons to ask what they did. In the past Tristan would have endured it, for hours on end, but he didn’t owe his brother that much. His endgame was to simply make sure these people liked them and didn’t stand in the way of the application getting approved.

He sent a glance over his shoulder to Keri and prayed she could read the plea on his face. “Aye,” he said, noting the sudden ebb in the litany of Ron’s words.

“I’ve been doing nothing but talking at you.”

He thought of his brother. “I’m a man of few words.” Since he’d turned off the engine he couldn’t even pretend like he needed to concentrate.

Just then the heavens opened. Keri rose from her seat and walked over to him. He sighed in relief. She must have toed off her heels earlier, because she came up to his chin, barely.

“Ah. I see,” Ron said. “I’ll excuse myself. Janet’s looking restless anyway.”

Keri didn’t curl into his embrace like he wanted, but she definitely warmed his left side. She smiled at him and his heart thudded. She kept her voice low and said, “You looked like you wanted to be shot so I came over.”

Best not to laugh, but he smiled back. “Was it the glazed eyes or the expression that screamed ’help me’? Either one should have cued you in fifteen minutes ago.”

Her shoulders shook and she sipped her beer for a second. “I did see the look fifteen minutes ago but you didn’t look like you wanted to bite me. Figured I should let you flounder.”