T is for Temptation (40 page)

She poured her heart into the kiss. Jake tasted alcohol-tinged chocolate mixed with the celebratory cigar he’d smoked on the way over. She devoured him, eating his mouth, tempting his tongue into a dazzling salsa. Jake fed on her essence, absorbing it into his soul.

Tee broke the kiss. She stared at Jake.

“It is you. You’re here. I thought I’d never see you again. Oh Jake, my Jake.” Her hands framed his face, stroking his skin. Tee ran her thumb across his lower lip.

“How did you get back? When? How did you know I was here?” Tee kissed him after each question. “Oh God. I’m scared I’m dreaming. Pinch me.”

He chuckled. “Relax, witchy woman. I’m here, in the future, with you.” He slid his hands under her T-shirt, squeezed a bottom cheek in each hand, and sighed against her forehead. “The most perfect ass in the world, and it’s mine.” He kneaded the firm mounds.

“I have a lot to tell you.” Jake brushed his lips across her eyelids.

Tee pushed at his chest. “I saw you marry that girl. How could you?” She pummeled his shoulders, the blows so light they could almost be a caress.

“I didn’t marry anyone. Listen to me, Tee. You saw my twin brother, Stephen, handfast with her.” Jake studied her face.

Tee’s eyelids flew up, and her bow-shaped mouth dropped open.

“It’s true. It’s a long, unbelievable story. I have a mother, a father, and a sister. I haven’t met my sister yet. Her name’s Helen, and apparently she’s a handful.” Jake tucked a curl behind Tee’s ear. “I’m surrounded by strong women who know their own minds.”

Shifting onto his side, head propped in his palm, he examined her expression, knowing he walked a fine line over the next few minutes. With so much at stake, he had to read her reaction right. Had to, his future depended on it.

“Are you too tired, or do you want to hear everything now?”

“Do you think I could sleep after the bombshell you just dropped?” Tee sat up and straightened the tangled sheets, fluffed the pillows, and switched on the lamp.

Jake reached over, adjusted the lighting to the lowest setting, and patted the bed. “Come, curl up here with me, and I’ll tell you the whole tale.”

“I can’t find my panties,” Tee muttered, hunting under the comforter.

“That T-shirt’s more than long enough.” He thumped the bed. “Come on. We’ll pull up the sheets so you won’t be embarrassed. I think we’ll have to wean you into full nudity in the bedroom.”

Tee found her underwear, bunched it up, and threw it at him. Since it proved to be an itty-bitty lace triangle, he grinned and suggested, “Maybe you should put it on after all. I have this notion of taking it off with my teeth.”

“Oh my.”

“I love the way you blush all over.” He crooked a finger. “Come, witchy woman mine.”

Snuggled into the nook of Jake’s arm, she rested the side of her face against his chest. “All right, tell me.”

Jake recounted the events since she left
Brodick
Castle
.

“You can’t dislike
Douglas
anymore. He gave you back your family. What did it feel like, meeting your parents? Your brother?” Tee circled a finger around his nipple.

“I’m still not sure. It’s like a disconnect, as if it’s happening to someone else.” He tipped up her chin and kissed her, tracing the seam of her mouth with his tongue.

Color stained her throat, her cheekbones.

“Why is Henry here?” Jake asked.

“He came to rescue me and pressure the authorities into dropping the charges.” A secret little smile curled one corner of her mouth. “We talked about me, my powers. He’s always known about them, and it doesn’t seem to bother him.
Douglas
advised him not to talk to me about them. No, don’t frown like that. He must have had a reason. Look at the trunk, the way it all worked out.”

“That’s still a question mark as far as I’m concerned. What did your mother have to say about everything?”

Those rosy lips flattened into a thin line.

“Tell me, babe.”

So she did.

“It’s her loss, not yours. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Tricia Inglefield wouldn’t allow Tee to move in with him. She’d use her cold scorn to intimidate and subdue her only child. He’d bet his company on it.

“Let’s talk about why you’re not sure you want to move in with me.”

She covered her face with her hands, but not before a shadowed grimness owned her features. “I’m not sure. But, I know one thing—I’m not moving into a house you own and decorating it with your money. Tony had all the power in our relationship. That’s not going to happen again.”

“Okay, I can deal with that. Why don’t we look for a place together and share everything fifty-fifty? We can rent. We don’t have to buy.”

“And what do I do while you’re working? I know how important the business is to you, and I know it takes up a great deal of time. I don’t know anyone in
Florida
, and although I don’t have a formal career…” She chewed on her lower lip for a few seconds. “I work with physically handicapped kids at a horse farm in
Trinidad
. I know it isn’t the same. You have a hectic schedule, and you work with high-powered executives, famous people.”

He remembered Tee’s remark on the way down the islands and the way she grimaced, as if embarrassed. “
I don’t have your hectic schedule
,” she’d said.

“I’m not like Tricia. I don’t do lunch at our country club. I’d grow horns if I became a member of a crochet club. Can you see me at a mall every day? After a few months, I’d come to resent the most important part of your life, your company. And then where would we be?”

“Is that a flat out no?” Tight and stretched to shattering point, Jake couldn’t look her in the eyes. Why’d she keep harping on his business? Why not say it aloud? She didn’t want him, not the way he wanted her.

“I don’t want you to end up hating me, and it seems inevitable.”

“Spit it out, Tee. Say the words.”

“And there’s my dad’s appointment.
Trinidad
’s not like the
US
. Can you see your president’s daughter living with someone while he’s in office?”

“Throw your mother in there too, why don’t you? She thinks I’m the equivalent of trailer trash.” He rolled onto his back and stuck his hands under his head. Naked, erect, and angrier than a wounded lion on its last breath.

She rose onto her forearms and scowled at him, amber eyes on fire. “Don’t even go there, Jake Mathews. I would love to rub Tricia’s nose in the fact I’m dating you. And I can’t wait to tell her about your title. God, that’ll be so satisfying. You think I want to end up like her? Crocheting doilies and gossiping being the highlight of my day? I want to do something with my life. And maybe volunteer work doesn’t add up in your world, but it makes a difference. I see how the kids improve.”

“Ah hell, Tee.” Deflated, he tugged on his earlobe. “Why can’t we make this work? Okay, I’m a selfish idiot. I never thought about those details. I thought about waking up and holding you in my arms. Coming home and finding you there. And for the record, I think what you do with the children is nothing short of amazing. I saw the cards from the kids on your dresser at Greenbriar. You do make a difference.”

Mutiny still ruled her mouth, and she didn’t appear convinced of his veracity. Then her lower lip trembled, and a lone tear escaped. “Damn, damn, damn. I’m so bloody confused, and I hate being teary.”

“Oh, babe. Don’t cry.” Enfolding her in his arms, he kissed her temple and whispered, “Stay with me. Let’s find a way to make this work. Can you really break it off right now?”

Her head shook against his chest, and she muttered, “No. I don’t even want to. I’m just trying to take charge of my life and think things through.”

“Which you’ve done like a pro and put me to shame. Have I overstayed my welcome? Do you want me to leave?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you really want to rub Tricia’s nose in it by flaunting our relationship?” The thought appealed, but it occurred to him revenge wouldn’t win her blasted mother over.

“You bet.” Her head rose, and in a mercurial mood change, her lips lifted and curved with glee. “And I’m going to introduce you as Lord Ferguson at every cocktail party. I can’t wait to tell her.”

“Sorry, I already did.”

“You didn’t.” She slapped his bicep. “When? She didn’t mention a word. What did she say?”

“Something to the effect of impossible. I sucker punched her, and she never saw it coming. Blast, I’ll pay for that eventually, won’t I?”

“Tricia’s not the type to forget and forgive, more like remember and continually punish.”

“Are you going to tell her about your powers?”

“I can’t. I don’t want to hurt Dad. But, I’m not hiding them anymore, not from close friends. Alex took it well, didn’t he?”

“Better than I did after you disappeared and everything exploded with my family.”

“Are you two identical?” She rested her chin on cupped hands, which warmed his chest.

“My brother and I? To be honest, I tried not to look at him. It was eerie. Even our scars are the same.”

“Like this one?” she said, rubbing a thumb over his right eyebrow.

He smiled and stroked her spine.

“Could I tell you two apart?”

“Yeah, he has a bit of a Scottish burr.”

“Hmm, what about here? Are you the same here?” Tracing a line of tiny nips down the middle of his chest, she licked around his navel. “And here?” She sucked the skin above his weeping erection, her saucy big browns peeping at him.

“If you ever find out, he’s a dead man. You do know what you’re starting?” Needing the words, he waited.

“I think it started when you crawled into bed naked,” she said, planting a dry kiss on the head of his prick. “I read the first chapter of that book, “Taste, the Long and Hard of It.”

“No regrets tomorrow morning?”

Golden ringlets cascaded down to her shoulders, curtaining almost her whole face, but she shook her head and flashed him an audacious grin. “Nope, nary a one.”

“Thank God.” Jake hauled her against his chest.

They spent the rest of the night talking, planning, laughing, and making love. Sunlight leaking through the gaps in the drapes found them dizzied with newfound lovers’ elation, and neither had slept a wink during the long, pleasure-filled night. At dawn, Tee dozed off. Jake succumbed to sleep a few minutes later.

Lifting one lid, a tad bleary-eyed, he read the ruby LCD on the digital clock,
8:15
, and wondered what had woken him.

A knock sounded on the connecting door.

“Honey, are you awake?” Henry Inglefield’s cultured voice resonated through the wooden structure.

Jake groaned, and he shook Tee’s shoulders. “Wake up, babe,” he whispered.

“Five more minutes,” she grumbled.

“Your father’s at the door.” He surrendered to temptation and kissed her thoroughly.

She smiled up at him and stroked his cheek. “Morning, darling.”

Darling, he liked that. “Your dad’s at the door.”

“Henry? Dad?”

He nodded.

“Oh no.” She scrambled out of the bed, struggled into a hotel bathrobe, finger-combed her curls, and rushed to the door.