The Sea Star (8 page)

     
“How about your brother?” Jay said in a sardonic tone that escaped Susanna’s notice. “You did say he was a great help to you.”

     
“
Dallas
is
a great help,” she said at once, caught in a trap of her own making. “But for him to run the hotel singlehandedly....”

     
She stopped walking and turned to him to further explain why a trip to
New York
was impossible. As she did so, she slipped on a patch of sedge and would have fallen to her knees if Jay’s arms hadn’t gone hard around her.

     
“Oh!” she exclaimed softly as he pulled her up against him.

     
Her cheek was pressed against the crisp whiteness of his shirt. She could feel his heart beating, roughly, rapidly, as if he had run a great distance. She was intensely aware of his arm about her waist and of the tension of his hard body so disturbingly close to hers.

     
A tremor went through her. She looked up at him slowly. The ocean breeze tickled through her hair and blew silky tendrils across her quivering mouth. Her cheeks were the color of coral, her eyes were large and luminous, reflecting both sea and sun. She had never looked or felt more desirable, more womanly. Another tremor went through her. She could feel Jay tremble, too.

     
“Susanna....”

     
His voice was a hoarse whisper. He looked down at her intently, his eyes so dark a blue they seemed black. Susanna’s breath caught in her throat. The stillness of Jay’s features spoke more volubly than words. He was going to kiss her. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in the hard controlled tension of his body close to hers. He lowered his head, his arms tightened around her, and when his mouth met hers, it seemed to Susanna the most natural thing in the world.

     
Without conscious thought, she reached up to embrace him. His kiss was firm, demanding, yet with a faint trace of wariness, as if he weren’t quite sure of her reaction. When he encountered no resistance, his lips parted hers, his kiss deepened, became sensuous, searching. For the first time in her life Susanna felt the rapture of passion, but even stronger than passion was the tide of emotion that engulfed her, an emotion so fierce, so sudden and unexpected, it took her breath away.

     
What was it, this alien emotion that sapped every last vestige of her will and her strength? Susanna felt numb, totally nerveless, incapable of speech or motion, yet her heart was leaping joyously, and Jay’s body, pressed so close to hers, was sending a fire of sensation through every fiber of her being.

     
His arms drew her closer, his kiss grew more demanding. Deeper and deeper she sank beneath his sensual spell. She had entered a realm of enchantment that both thrilled and alarmed her. She wanted to feel his flesh against hers, to cling to him, to utterly belong to him. She wanted him, wanted him. Her whole soul ached to have him—

     
“Stop!” she gasped, suddenly tearing her mouth from his. “Don’t. No.”

     
Her thoughts were racing even more rapidly than her heart. What was she thinking? What was she doing? Why was she kissing him, the man who had stolen her brother’s birthright? Had she lost her senses? Jay Grainger was her foe, not her lover. Despite what he’d told her about himself, she didn’t know the first thing about him. He was a stranger from
New York
. They had nothing in common besides their hotels.

     
And yet as she gazed up into the turbulence of his burning blue-gray eyes, as she felt the heat of his body pressed so provocatively close to hers, she knew with unwavering certainty that she wanted this man, and that for the rest of her life she would never want anyone else.

     
“Let me go,” she said faintly, unable and unwilling to pull away from him. “What do you think you were doing? You had no right to abuse me in that manner.”

     
Jay refused to release her. His hands were firm on her hips. “I didn’t beat you, Susanna,” he said with a shaky laugh. “I kissed you. If you’re surprised by my actions, I’m twice more astounded. Believe me, I didn’t bring you here with the intention of seducing you.”

     
“Then let me go,” she said, rendered helpless by his nearness.

     
Her hips were molded to his. This was her first taste of passion, but instinctively she realized that she had greatly aroused him. The feeling was contagious. She wanted desperately to be free of him, and at the same time she wanted to throw her arms around him, to press her mouth to his, to stay locked in his embrace until the end of eternity.

     
“Susanna, look at me,” he said, for she had lowered her eyes from his searching gaze. “You don’t want me to let you go, do you?”

     
“Yes, I do,” she whispered.

     
“Susanna.” His tone was gentle. One arm went about her waist. He lifted her chin with a finger. “I don’t think you do. I think you wanted me to kiss you as much as I wanted to do it.”

     
“No,” she whispered, “no.”

     
“Yes,” he said, “yes.”

     
His voice was a warm persuasion. With his eyes he seemed to caress her. His body, still pressed against hers, both enraptured and enslaved her. She was a prisoner to his strength and to her newly discovered passion. She wanted to know him as she had never known a man, to belong to him, to be one with him. She wanted his mouth on hers again, kissing her, thrilling her, reawakening the need that only he with his sensuous touch had the power to fill.

     
“Yes,” she finally admitted, her voice almost inaudible, “I did want you to kiss me.”

     
She rested her head on his chest. She had never in her life felt so at peace and protected.

     
“I knew it,” he said softly, his lips brushing her brow. “I knew this feeling I had for you was not one-sided.”

     
She looked up at him abruptly. “You...care for me?” she asked. And even before the words left her mouth, she realized that she cared for him as well.

     
“Isn’t that obvious, Susanna?”

     
“But we don’t know each other.”

     
“I know a great deal about you,” he contradicted gently. “I know that you’re proud and honorable and ferociously loyal to those you love. I know that you’re an intelligent woman who for the past two years has borne a burden that might have crushed many a man, yet you’ve borne it admirably.”

     
Susanna’s heart swelled with gratitude. No one had ever thought to say that to her. She had worked like a lackey since her father died, and yet no one she knew had even noticed or cared.

     
“It
has
been difficult,” she confessed, gazing up at him with newfound trust. “Sometimes I’ve wanted to simply get rid of the Sea Star, but then I remember how much my father loved it, how much
I
love it.”

     
“You needn’t ever have those thoughts again,” Jay assured her. “I’m here to help you now, Susanna. You
will
let me help you?”

     
“Oh, yes, yes!”

     
Her ivory face glowed, her green eyes were fervent. Jay’s eyes, a deep dark blue, were half veiled by his lashes. He drew her closer in his arms and pressed her cheek to his heart, so that his suddenly troubled thoughts should be hidden from her view.

     
Later, at the Brighton Hotel, Jay was with his attorney, Ford Weston, discussing plans for the construction of his new hotel on the Boardwalk. That is, Ford was discussing plans. Jay had had little or nothing to say for almost an hour. To Ford, he seemed uncharacteristically inattentive. In fact, when the attorney fell silent and remained so for several minutes, Jay merely continued to gaze out the window, watching the moonlit ocean as if it contained all the secrets of the universe.

     
“Jay, what’s wrong with you? You haven’t heard two words I’ve said all evening.”

     
Jay turned from the window, an odd expression on his face. “I’ve heard every word you said. It’s just that I have something else on my mind right now.”

     
“More important than your new hotel?” Ford asked wryly. “That’s a first. You must tell me what’s so important that it’s taken precedence over the driving force of your life.”

     
Jay scowled at him, then walked over and took a seat opposite him. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, his hands clasped together. He paused for a moment before asking, “What would you say if I wanted to return the Sea Star to the Sterlings?”

     
Ford, the consummate attorney, concealed his surprise. “Why would you want to do that? You’re the one who was so anxious to gain control of that old firetrap so that you could put it in good order.”

     
“Yes,” Jay agreed. “But I’ve been having second thoughts. For one thing, the new hotel on the Boardwalk is going to take up a lot of my time. For another—”

     
“It’s Susanna Sterling, isn’t it?” Ford said intuitively. “You’ve taken a shine to her.”

     
Jay uttered a sound of disgust and rose to his feet. “Don’t be absurd. She’s twenty-four years old.”

     
“So?”

     
“What would she want from a man my age?”

     
“Your age?” Ford echoed. “I wish to heaven I were still your age. I’d go after that little beauty so fast it would make her head spin.”

     
“Shut your mouth, Ford! We’re not talking about some doxy here. Susanna is a—”

     
“Jay, have you taken a fancy to that girl? Is that what this is all about?”

     
“I haven’t taken a fancy to her. I barely know her. It’s just that she loves that damned hotel so much. It’s all she has in the world.”

     
“She has a brother,” Ford reminded him.

     
“She’d be better off having cholera,” Jay said contemptuously. “That little bastard is going to be her ruination. I should never have made that deal with him. What in God’s name was I thinking that night at Dutchy’s?”

     
“You were thinking—and rightly so—of turning a hazardous, decaying, fifty-year-old building into a safe, substantial hotel. Jay, if you have feelings for the girl, go after her. You can still do what you want with the Sea Star.”

     
“I didn’t say I had feelings for her,” Jay maintained stubbornly. “It’s just that she’s like no woman I’ve ever met before. And I
will
do what I want with the Sea Star. Whenever it’s in my power, I’ll make sure that no one is ever again trapped in a burning hotel. But....”

     
Jay fell silent and returned to his post at the window. This was a side of him that Ford had never seen before. Hotels were Jay’s only passion. Everything else in his life took second place. But it was obvious that Susanna Sterling had changed that. Jay Grainger, Ford thought, was undeniably in love.

     
“Jay, listen to me,” he said sensibly. “Whether or not you have feelings for Miss Sterling is immaterial. Gain full control of the Sea Star, as you had planned, then—”

     
Jay turned abruptly from the window. “By God, you’re right!” he exclaimed. “If I leave Susanna’s half in her hands, that conscienceless brother of hers is going to bleed the hotel white. I
must
gain full control, or else she’s bound to lose the Sea Star. Once I do have full control and the hotel is out of danger, I can turn it back over to her.”

     
“And how the devil are you going to explain all this to her?”

     
Jay was silent a moment, recalling Susanna’s fierce devotion to her brother. For reasons that eluded his comprehension, she loved that unscrupulous scapegrace and would go to any lengths to protect him, perhaps even at the risk of losing her beloved hotel.

     
“I’ll worry about that when the time comes,” he told Ford.

     
“You’d better worry about it now, before things get out of hand.”

     
“Leave me alone,” Jay said curtly. “I know what I’m doing.”