Luring Lucy (2 page)

This was a kiss of possession, a kiss of incredible passion. She'd never experienced anything like it, even through fifteen years of marriage, and her heart did two wild flips before settling into a frantic rhythm of panic, excitement, and, amazingly enough, response.

Lucy flattened one hand on Bram's chest, wanting to push him away but using it for balance instead. The damp cotton of his shirt did nothing to shield his hot masculine flesh. He felt blistering hot and wonderfully solid against her palm. She realized he was coiled tightly, his muscles iron-hard and straining, his heartbeat thumping in a fast gallop that mirrored her own.

The young worker whom she'd specifically hired because he'd flirted with her cleared his throat loudly. Bram ignored him, which left her no option but to do the same.

All too aware of the heat of Bram's mouth, his delicious taste,
and the overwhelming strength in his muscled body, Lucy tried to protest. All that emerged was a small sound, barely audible, a mere whimper that could have been interpreted any number of ways.

Abruptly Bram released her. Her lips felt swollen and wet, her body both tight and too soft. She would have fallen down the hill and tumbled into the lake if Bram hadn't reached back out for her, throwing one bare, heavily muscled arm around her shoulders and literally anchoring her to his side. Caught in the cage of his body, Lucy felt small and defenseless, and strangely enough, that feeling stirred others, rousing emotions she hadn't dealt with in far too long. Female to male, soft to hard.

The idea of flirting with a stranger had titillated her senses. Bram's kiss had gone far beyond that. She felt as if she'd been torched.

Her brain may have turned to mush, but her body was working on full alert.

Lucy shook her head, attempting to regain control so she could figure out just what it was Bram was doing. Why had he kissed her? Did he think to somehow warn off the worker by intimating a nonexistent involvement? To protect her virtue?

Ha. Bram couldn't know that she wanted the indiscriminate fling. She wanted
to feel
again, to be alive as a woman, as a sexual being—and then she'd sell the summer house and get over the past, burying all the hurt once and for all.

The worker looked at her nervously, as if asking for instructions. The difference between Bram and the young man she'd hired was like the difference between an impressive oak and a new sapling. The younger man was rangy with muscles, lean and toned. But Bram was solid and thick with layered muscle, large and in his prime. Overwhelming. He exuded sheer masculinity and iron will.

Lucy wanted to fan her face, still reeling from that kiss. She used to wonder what it'd be like to be kissed by the infamous Bram
Giles. Shortly into her marriage, when David had lost interest with teasing and nuzzling and foreplay, she'd thought of all she knew of Bram, how the women sang his praises and his own testament—by word and deed—to loving sex and females. She'd always thought that sex with Bram would be something almost too delicious to bear.

Now she knew what it was like to have his mouth, and she doubted she'd ever sleep peacefully again. His kiss alone had been more sexual than anything she'd experienced in half a decade.

What did that kiss mean?

Bram turned his head toward her, but with his reflective sunglasses on she couldn't even begin to read his expression. A little embarrassed, she hoped he didn't see her reaction, that he wouldn't know his tactic to warn off other men in a half-baked plan to protect her had actually turned her on. He was so cavalier about sex and intimacy, accepting it as a natural, healthy part of his life. After her marriage, he probably assumed she was, too.

He'd have been far from the mark on that one.

Lucy held her breath until Bram again looked away. With his free hand, Bram dug into his pocket, pulled out two twenty-dollar bills, and handed them to the young stud she'd hired to tend her lawn—with hopes for more.

“Get lost,” Bram ordered in a low rasp, and the worker, after snatching up the money, fled.

“Bram,” she protested, looking around at the yard with only half the work done, “he hadn't finished.”

“He was finished, all right.” She couldn't see his eyes, but she read his fierce expression all the same.

Lucy lost her temper. Oh, he'd thrown her with that kiss, but she was squarely on her feet now. And he'd just chased off her most promising prospect.

If Bram had some macho notion of looking after her, keeping her
pure
, she'd just have to help him rethink it. For this one week, for one time in her life, she didn't want to be pure. She wanted—
needed
—to feel the burning satisfaction of lust one more time.

“Are you nuts?” Lucy demanded in a warning growl. “Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Bram?”

Bram stared out over the diamond surface of the lake. It shone with twinkling sunlight and the occasional ripples from a fish. During the week, the tourism was thankfully low, leaving the area quiet and serene for those who owned lakefront property. On the weekends, though, it got downright rowdy, boats and water-skiers and Jet Skis everywhere.

For now, Bram thought, watching the worker drive away in a cloud of spewing gravel and dust, he had Lucy all to himself. She could rant and rave as much as she wanted, but there would be no one to hear.

Without bothering to explain his intentions, Bram scooped her up into his arms and headed for the house. His body relished the feel of her, her gentle weight. Damn, it felt good to finally hold her, to have her in his arms where she belonged.

Lucy gasped so hard she choked, and when she was finally able to pull in a wheezing breath he was already on the steps leading to the deck. She smacked him hard on the side of the head.
“What . . . is . . . the . . . matter . . . with . . . you?”

He kissed her again. He wanted to keep kissing her, everywhere, all over her delectable body, but he knew they'd both end up rolling down the hill if he didn't give appropriate attention to where he stepped. “I have something to explain to you, woman, and it's best done in private just in case there's anyone fishing on the lake who might hear you yelling.”

“Why,” she asked loudly, “would I yell?”

“You're yelling now,” he pointed out, thinking he sounded most reasonable.

She started to club him again, so Bram squeezed her tighter. Lucy generally wasn't a violent woman. Of course, she usually wasn't on the make, either. “None of that,” Bram told her, trying to contain his satisfaction. “I can't very well explain if you knock me silly.”

“You can explain no matter what, starting right now!”

The bare flesh of her soft thighs draped over his hard forearm was a torturous temptation for Bram. He wanted to feel the silky skin of her inner thighs on his jaw, his mouth, his hips as he drove into her.

Her breasts, more bared than not, felt so plump and full against his chest. He thought about pressing his face into her cleavage, tasting her pointed nipples through the cloth until she squirmed.

And her mouth—
hell yes, her mouth.
Set in outraged, mulish lines, it made it hard to concentrate on what he was doing.

The second he stepped across the sprawling deck and through the tinted patio doors, Lucy wiggled free. Bram let her go, but not far. Her feet were barely touching the hardwood floors and she was still against his body, where she belonged, when he said bluntly, “I want you.”

Lucy pulled back. Her clear blue eyes were wide, her lips parted. She went alternately pale, then flushed.

The need to kiss her again was a clawing ache.

Bram touched her cheek, needing the contact, but she flinched away. “I want you, Lucy,” he said again, harder this time to make sure there was no mistake, no misunderstanding. “I've wanted you for a helluva long time.”

She shook her head, either denying him or not believing him.

It didn't matter which to Bram, because neither one was acceptable. He fully intended to have his way. “Yes. And I'll be damned if I'll sit back now and watch you indulge in some sort of prurient idiocy.”

Her face went blank with shock, then burned with mortification. “Dear God,” she rasped, sounding appalled, “what . . . what are you talking about?”

Bram straightened to his full height. At six feet, four inches tall, he stood a good foot above Lucy. She didn't look the least intimidated.

Bram frowned. “Don't bother to deny it, Lucy. You came here to get laid.”

Guilt flashed over her features before she sputtered, “That's utter nonsense.”

Leaning down close to her, Bram met her nose to nose. “Oh no you don't, sweetheart. In general, I know women too well to be fooled, and specifically, I know you as well as I know myself. The second you told me you were coming to the lake, I knew what you were up to.”

She didn't want to believe him. “You can't possibly—”

“The hell I can't. This is where David cheated on you; this is where you want to get even.”

Crossing her slender arms around herself, Lucy turned away. “David is dead. I
can't get even.”

“In your mind, you can.” Bram stepped up to her back and slipped his own arms over hers. He wanted to comfort her, console her. He wanted her digging her nails into his back as he gave her a mind-blowing orgasm. Hands, mouth, penis, he didn't care how he accomplished it; he just wanted it to happen.

“He ruined your marriage by fooling around here, in the family
vacation home. A place where you brought the kids, a place you used to love.”

In a small voice, she said, “I still love it.”

“You haven't been here since, not in four long years. But now you're here, looking incredibly sexy—”

“What?” She tried to twist to see him, but he held her still.

“—and eyeballing a guy who, if I don't miss my guess, is close to the age of that girl you caught here in bed with David. That sounds like getting even to me.”

She gave a self-conscious laugh. “Funny. To me, it sounds like a woman who's desperately horny.”

Shaking with the possibility of that, Bram gentled his hold, stroking her arms, bringing his groin in closer to her lush ass. Though he had a damn good guess, he still asked, “How long has it been for you, baby?”

She stiffened, but Bram secured his hold, refusing to let her sidle away.

“Don't be embarrassed with me, Lucy,” he urged. “We've known each other too long for that. We're friends.” And he wanted them to be lovers. He wanted all of her, every way that he could take her.

“If you're asking how long I've been without a man,” she replied stiffly, “it's really none of your business.”

Bram rocked her. “I'm guessing it's been over four years. You and David were a little on the rocks even before he blew it.” He pressed his mouth to her temple in a reassuring kiss. “Am I right?”

He felt her tremble, heard the shuddering breath she drew in. “Bram, don't.”

He ruthlessly ignored the pleading in her tone. It was his damned sympathy, his misplaced understanding, that had led her
here today with plans to crawl under another man. He wouldn't make the same mistake again. “Four years, Lucy. A short lifetime to go without letting another man get close.”

She yanked herself away from his hold and whirled to face him. “What was I supposed to do, Bram? Pick up a guy in the grocery store? At the school? Being a mother to two kids, the president of the PTA, and already the object of scandal made it just a little bit tough to go looking for sex, didn't it?”

For about the hundredth time Bram wished he'd beaten the hell out of David before he died. “No one has ever blamed you, Lucy.”

“Bull!”

“David was responsible for his own actions.” Sadness welled inside him, but he shook it off. “He was the only one responsible for his death.”

“I guess you never heard the neighbors whispering. They think I'm coldhearted, that during one of David's crying jags I should have taken him back.”

Bram shook his head. “He was a partier. And it had come close to happening before that.” David had slowly grown out of his marriage and had begun flirting, testing the waters. He'd been on the prowl long before he'd gotten lucky.
Or unlucky
, as Bram saw it, thinking of all he'd lost.

“I know,” Lucy whispered. “He ogled women everywhere we went.” She cast Bram a narrow-eyed glance. “And he envied you.”

Bram gently shook her. He couldn't, wouldn't, let her draw a comparison or blame him in any way. She had no idea of the lengths a man would go when the woman he wanted was married to someone else.

“A man who cheats is a cheater,” Bram told her, determined to at least ease any ridiculous guilt she might feel. “If it happened
once, there's no guarantee it wouldn't have happened again. You can't blame yourself for not liking the odds.”

And, Bram thought savagely, a man who cheated on Lucy didn't deserve a second chance. He'd loved David as a friend, but he'd known all along that David wouldn't make her happy. Too many times, David had told him that he resented the restrictions of marriage.

And time and again, Bram had told him what a lucky bastard he was.

Tiredly, as if she'd rehashed the story too many times, Lucy said, “I kicked him out, he went on a two-year drunken spree, and he died in a damn car wreck because of it.
I blame myself.
”

Bram wanted to shake her again. “Lucy,” he said, chastising. “You're too smart for that, honey. And too realistic to think you had control over David. He chose his own way, then regretted it. No one made him cheat; no one made him ignore you or the kids. And no one made him drink too much or drive too fast.”

He squeezed her shoulders and said quietly, “I know the past few years have been ugly.”