T is for Temptation (11 page)

“I can’t wait to tell my mother. Oooh, this will kill her. I’m so happy for you.”

For the first time, she took the lead in their relationship, cradling his face in her warm palms and kissing him. A chaste, closed-lip brushing. Every humiliation about his origins flushed away with the sweet caress.

Stay with me
, he thought, and pictured her in the new waterfront mansion he purchased a month ago. Vulnerability swamped him, and Jake buried the notion.

“Can you get away for two weeks?”

Her brown eyebrows lifted. “Two weeks?”

“You’re right, let’s make it three,” he amended, swiftly analyzing options to extend the time.

“I thought you’d, um . . .” She shook her head. “I expected maybe three days. I can’t do it. I mean, I’ll barely manage three days. Three weeks is impossible.”

Jerking off his lap, Tee stood, and the horrified expression dominating her elegant features ripped at his gut. The aroma of rich, dark chocolate fissured his seduction-bent thoughts and rattled his concentration. He frowned, shook his head, and re-focused.

“How about you staying here for a couple of days instead?”

“I can definitely do that, but if you think that’s going to satisfy either of us, you’re dead wrong. Why does that chocolate smell come and go?”

He didn’t know there were so many shades of pink, but her cheeks stained a deep rose, and her dark eyelashes did a sweet, rapid flutter. Pure feminine bewitchment, his lungs stuttered.

“
Dee
left a note saying dinner was in the oven, and the timer went off ages ago. It’s probably that. Why don’t you unpack and have a shower while I’ll get the food on the table?”

A shower. He went hard.

“Dinner can wait, babe. Let’s shower together.”

An anticipatory grin claimed his mouth as he stood, snagged her palm, and tugged her in the direction of the bedroom. The giant mahogany bed drew him like a magnet, and the tangy scent of salty ocean air seeped into the cottage through open French doors. He nuzzled the fascinating curve of her nape, and lavender and rose tickled his nose as Jake drew in a deep breath and grew drunk on her scent, and closed his eyes.

He nudged her against the frame of the bed. They fell into a spooning position on the soft mattress, and Jake wrapped her in his arms. Trailing burning lips across her collarbone to her jawline, he flicked his tongue up to her ear, and nibbled on the lobe. Her bottom arced into his pelvis.

His arousal thickened. Lust, passion, and desire conquered anything nearing lucidity. He nipped his way to her mouth and slanted his lips over hers. She opened for him. Jake sighed into her mouth. He speared his tongue inside and drank hungrily, tasting every luscious crevice, drowning in her sugary, hot flavor.

A balmy breeze wrapped around their bodies, enfolding them in a world of their own. She touched her tongue to his in a tentative exploration. It detonated his passion. Clothes flew left and right, both of them pulling and yanking in frenzied urgency, until they were skin to skin.

“You drive me crazy.” He bit her shoulder, rolled Tee onto her back, and covered her body with his. “I can’t wait.”

His hands kneaded and caressed, fingers exploring the underside of her breasts. He tugged at her nipples and rolled them between his fingers.

“Oh my,” she mewled.

He took her mouth in a deep, soul-destroying kiss, their tongues dueling in a scorching, feverish mating.

Hard, icy-cold, slippery objects pounded his naked back. Jake’s eyes flew open. Lightning crackled, and a white-hot bolt landed to his right. Flames erupted, whooshing across the dry grass. Still fused at the lips, he froze as Tee’s eyelids snapped upwards, the look of horror on her face mirrored in her dilated pupils.

She tore her mouth away from his and beat her fists against his bare chest.

“Damn, damn,” she wailed. “What have I done?”

“What?”

His dazed senses failed him.

“Oh no.” She clamped a hand over her mouth and pointed a finger over his left shoulder.

“What?” he repeated.

“G-g-gladiators,” she stammered, “hundreds of Roman gladiators.”

Jake’s head snapped around.

Pain pierced the vertebra at the base of his neck, slicing node by node, all the way down his spine.

Gladiators.

He blinked.

Half a mile away, six columns of men dressed in full gladiator regalia marched in precisely orchestrated patterns. Their stomping threw up a cloud of dust about three feet high. The spikes on their metal helmets glistened in the watery morning sunlight, forming a long flickering silver ribbon, which danced against the emerald leaves of a thick forest.

“Kiss me quickly,” Tee squawked. She tugged his head down. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

“What?” Jake pushed away from her and onto his elbows.

He swiveled automatically to the soldiers. They were still there. Now, mounted men with shields joined them, forming a rear flank. Four outriders trotted in their direction.

“Oh God, they’re heading straight for us.” Tee stuck her fingers in his hair and pulled him back down. She mimicked his actions of a few minutes earlier, slanting her lips over his, and slipped her tongue into his mouth.

Her sweetness dizzied him for a moment. He remembered the gladiators, tore his lips away, and rolled over. She held onto his waist and ended up on top of him, sliding down his wet, slippery skin. He couldn’t take his eyes off the fierce wild men galloping towards them, spears pointed directly at their bodies.

“What the—,” he muttered, and all of his thought processes stopped dead.

He looked down. Her mouth covered the head of his prick. The light, tentative sucking fried his brain, and his lungs burned.

“Jesus, Tee.”

She glided up and kissed him. Her hands tightened around his shaft as she slithered and strained to reach his lips. Her tongue waltzed a cautious journey of discovery in his mouth, an unbearable butterfly caress. Her grasp loosened, and her lithe fingertips fluttered over the top of his penis.

Jake caught her hand and held it there. He broke the kiss.

“Hold that thought. We have stuff to deal with.” He rolled over again, shifting onto his forearms as he did so.

“What?” She had a dreamy expression on her face.

The gladiators had vanished. No longer could he smell manure and the sky had morphed into a timbered roof. Jake shook his head.

Something hot connected with his back. He craned his neck and the blazing fire in the shale fireplace danced and spat embers up the flue. He felt like the little girl in
The Exorcist
. His stomach rolled over. Jake squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them, one at a time. He twisted back to Tee, his eyes zipping around the room. They were in Harbor Lodge.

“Tee,” he roared. “What the hell just happened?”

Their mud-streaked, nude bodies presented a macabre contrast with the white sheepskin rug before the fireplace. Cakes of brown dirt fell onto the snowy fur, incongruous in such a tropical setting. Two brittle dried leaves fluttered to the decorative carpet.

“Tee.” His bellow echoed in the tiny living room. “Gladiators, gladiators, explain.”

His brain threatened spontaneous combustion—hail, spears, gladiators. He glared at her and shoved her off him.

Her face turned ashen. She grabbed a chenille throw from the chair and wrapped it around her body. “Here.” She held out a blue cotton blanket.

He heaved it back at her.

“I don’t want it. Where the hell did that come from? Who are you? What are you?”

Tee flinched, and the color drained from her face. She averted her eyes, stood up in one lissome, elegant motion, and faced the fireplace.

“I’m a witch. I understand if it repulses you. It did Tony.” Her voice sounded like a musical tinkle.

The whisper-soft words exploded in his brain. Jake saw red. For a brief moment, he wondered if she had a history of mental instability. He needed explanations. Now.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He blinked. Tee was no longer on the rug, but huddled in the chair by the fireplace. She shrank against the upholstery, her back to him with the brown material wrapped around her body, and buried her face in the cloth-covered furniture.

“I was mad to even think I could do this.” Her muffled voice held an edge of desperation.

Dozens of tiny, rich brown cakes peppered the coffee table, more appearing as he stared in absolute disbelief. The tempting aroma of hot chocolate filled the room.

“Where are the little cakes coming from?” Each uttered word raised his fear level to new heights.

“If you stop yelling, I can make them disappear.” Her shoulders slumped, and despair wracked Tee’s face.

“Are they real?”

“Oh yes.”

“They look like the ones from Eight Bells,” he said, and a whole bunch of pinballs fell into place.

“I know. They appear when I lose control.”

He thumped onto the sofa and fought to reclaim reality. Reaching out a tentative hand, he picked one up and popped it into his mouth. The warm morsel dissolved, coating his tongue in a delicious chocoholic heaven.

“This is what you were hiding from me,” he stated, more to reassure himself than for her confirmation.

A lone tear dripped down her left cheek, and she nodded, chewing on her lower lip.

“Don’t cry. I can’t handle a woman crying.” He edged onto the chair and pulled her into his lap. “I won’t yell anymore. I’ll try not to anyway. What do you mean you’re a witch?”

“I . . .”

He patted her back as she strained through a fit of hiccups.

“I am,” she said. A sob burst out. “I am.”

He held her, and she collapsed on his chest. At least no gladiators made their appearance. Jake dug his fingers through the knots in his hair. It was a dream, it must have been. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, he caught a glimpse of a patch of mud caked on his upper thigh.

“Tee, were we just in a field surrounded by Roman gladiators?”

A tic under his eye jumped at machine-gun speed. His mind reeled.

She nodded against his shoulder. Seemingly insignificant Tee details flooded Jake’s mind: the sudden appearance of cobwebs at Eight Bells, her quick and complete disappearance from
Trinidad
before the blasted Bastille dinner, her parents’ reactions when he’d inquired about evening flights to
Barbados
, the coming and going of the aroma of chocolate, the swirling rose petals in the yacht club’s parking lot.

A rose petal flitted onto his nose, and he brushed it aside. The woman thought she was a witch. He shot a glance at her.

She believed her words.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered reading about people like her who believed in witches and warlocks. He stopped his shiver of revulsion before it began. This seemed so simple weeks ago. Once he learned of Tony’s death, he grabbed at the chance to get her out of his system and plotted this whole scenario—a brief, torrid affair to satisfy the peculiar sexual cravings she incited. Then he could go back to the world he’d built, not needing anyone, not craving anyone.