SeductiveIntent (4 page)

“You grew up here?” she found herself asking, even though it
had nothing to do with anything except her own curiosity. That hadn’t been in
the file she and Arthur had compiled on him.

“As much as anywhere, I guess. We had a family apartment in
Manhattan too, which Virginia lives in now. Or I guess she did, since she’ll be
moving in with Aaron now. Formally. His apartment’s in the same building as our
headquarters, which is perfect for a workaholic like her.”

“Formally?”

“Moving in with him formally. They’ve kind of been joined at
the hip for the last year.”

“Oh. In love, I guess you mean.”

“I guess.”

She was getting off track. “So anyway, why don’t you take me
upstairs then?”

There was that hesitation again.

“Unless you don’t want to.”

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sophia.” No reason not to give him her real name.

Or as real a name as she had. She figured she’d been about
five or six years old when she realized that unless she and Arthur were playing
a con in which he’d assigned them both names, he didn’t call her anything but
“kid” and she didn’t know what to call him except “mister.”

“Your name?” Arthur had said when she badgered him enough.
“Fine. It’s Sophia. And I’m Arthur. Are you happy now?” How old had Arthur even
been back then? He looked no different really than he did now.

“Well, Sophia,” Brendan said. “Why in such a hurry?”

She expected a player like him wouldn’t ask a question like
that. She supposed she should be insulted. She kind of was. But maybe his
midnight burglary was making him a little cautious, even if he hopefully would
never connect her to it. That was understandable.

Or maybe she hadn’t been playing nice enough for his tastes.
Time to change that.

“I just thought,” she reached one finger up to his lips,
moving even closer to him, “it might be fun to have a little private party
together. Wouldn’t you like that?”

The burglary last night must have rattled his brain more
than he’d given it credit for. This Sophia was so hot he was practically
panting. So why was he slowing her down? His answer to “take me upstairs”
should have been an automatic “okay.”

If she wanted to go from playful—actually sort of
hostile—banter one minute to getting down to business the next, who was he to
question the pace? When she put her long, slim finger up to his lips, he felt a
jolt. Which for a guy translated into an immediate erection, and frankly he
didn’t want to attend his sister’s wedding sporting an erection. He kissed her
fingertip and then moved it away. Clasping her hand, he walked with her back
into the house, smiling at acquaintances as he passed them. Ducking in the back
way, he took the servant’s stairs up to the second floor, leading her into his
suite of rooms a moment later. He’d brought women to Bransport many times,
usually when no one was around. And they inevitably cooed at the size of the
place. Sophia, however, said nothing.

Who the hell was this girl and why the hell was he bringing
her to his room?

He looked at her in her halter dress as he closed the door
to his bedroom suite. God, she was stunning.

Oh yeah, that was why.

He was so fucking easy.

Admittedly, he had a pretty high sex drive and women had
come to him from an early age. So why was he questioning it now? The woman last
night must have done more damage to him than just a conk on the head.

The woman last night.

Was that it? Was that what was bothering him? It couldn’t
be…she couldn’t be… No. He remembered the feel of that woman. She had been
tall, maybe as tall as this Sophia, but she had been relatively flat in
comparison. He looked down at this girl as she casually went to sit on the edge
of his bed, crossing her legs and looking around at the room. The height may be
right, but if he’d had those boobs under him before, he would have noticed. No,
he was just letting that Miss Smarty-Pants from last night spook him.

“Nice,” she said.

“Yeah, I was just about to say the same thing, although I do
feel like Sonny in the Godfather.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“You know the wedding scene? Sneaking off during his
sister’s wedding and the bridesmaid up against the door and…” At her blank
look, he drifted off. Probably not wise to get into banging a girl against the
door. “You never saw the Godfather?”

“The old movie?”

“The classic.”

“Oh, no.”

She looked at him expectantly. So much for small talk
apparently. Since they were in his bedroom and everything, he supposed he could
move right ahead and be honest here, forward as it may seem. “Listen, I’m sure
this makes me sound like a jerk, but I just have to say you have the most
incredible body.” He loosened his tie.

“And I imagine you’ve seen quite a few.”

He laughed. “Maybe, but yours is…” He took the opportunity
to take a straight-forward look at her chest, no subtlety, not hiding it. They
were adults here. They knew the score.

“Useful,” she supplied when he tapered off.

His hands paused at his tie. “Not exactly what I had in
mind. I was thinking more along the lines of a work of art, but was trying not
to be so trite.”

Useful? Why the heavens had she said that? Of course it was
true. But that was no reason to say it to a mark. Still, Sophia had meant
useful. As bait in the game. It had been for years. As soon as Arthur realized
that she was growing up in such a way that she could no longer be invisible, he
made the most of it and made sure she was seen. At first he had to work at it
with plunging necklines that felt funny on her even though she was technically
“legal”, as Arthur kept reminding her. But soon her body blossomed in the most
unexpected way and her coltish long legs and slim height were instantly
transformed into a platform for a sex goddess.

“Men love boobs,” Arthur had assured her in what he
undoubtedly considered a pep talk. “Just stop hunching over and put them out
there. They’ll do the trick for us.”

The trick. At first, Arthur had the idea that could be more
than an expression. He actually mulled over trying to turn her into a
high-class escort and it wasn’t her horror at the idea that discouraged him
from that path either, as far as she could tell. It was simply that he couldn’t
figure out how to make enough money at it.

“It’d probably be only serious money to take your cherry.
Some sheik or other might pay some bucks for that, but then where would we be?
Ten grand here. Ten grand there. In the long run, it’s not a big money maker.
We’re better off using your body as bait.”

That was the first time Sophia had heard it, but not the
last. Arthur had depersonalized her body into a tool of the trade for them. As
long as the mark was straight, they were in business. Married, not married,
old, young. None of that mattered. They took the bait.

Of course whether she slept with them or not in the end was
immaterial to Arthur, but he had a slight preference for not. “Makes it
stickier,” he’d advised. Once she’d had a taste of men’s reactions to her body
in private, she had a preference for not too. All that pawing and groping and
giddy excitement. It was off-putting.

It worked better with the game anyway to cut things off
after a little frisky foreplay. It was true men liked the chase best of all, no
matter what they said. Being the girl who gave them just a taste—literally,
usually—and then got away drove them all crazy.

With this one, though, she had to admit she didn’t truly
want to get away. Not yet anyway.

Brendan approached and when he reached out to her, his touch
was surprisingly deft, light, barely tracing the skin of her shoulder. Such
restraint. Of course a man who was perpetually full was not likely to be a
glutton.

Not sitting down next to her yet, just standing in front of
her, he ran the back of his fingers along the under-curve of her chin. It was
wimpy of her to shiver, but she did. Leaning closer, he whispered, “Your skin
is so soft.”

“Yeah, all over,” she whispered back, trying to move him
along to that part where he got grabby and uncontrolled.

He smiled slightly. “Tease.”

“You have no idea.”

He leaned farther forward and kissed her lightly, tracing
her lips with his tongue. She opened her mouth wide to let him in, but he still
hovered, tracing, kissing, even nipping. She was waiting for the part where he
shoved his tongue so far in her mouth she had to learn to stifle her gag
reflex. It usually came right around when a guy was cupping her breasts for the
first time. But Brendan did neither. As he came to sit next to her, one hand
just lingered at her waist, the other still engaged in that maddeningly shivery
caress of her chin, her neck as he kissed her.

Boy. This guy was good. Was it that he sensed exactly what a
woman needed and acted accordingly? Because she’d seen him act greedily, almost
roughly. Seen it with her own eyes. Hard to believe that woman had excited him
more than she did, but she supposed it was possible. She knew breasts weren’t
every guy’s thing. She just hadn’t met one for whom that happened to be the
case.

Then she pulled away slightly to look into Brendan’s usually
sunny blue eyes. They were almost black, the pupils were so large. He was
excited all right. He was just holding back.

Time to come out and play, Mr. Beckett.

Men were visual creatures. So Sophia reached up to the back
of her neck and slowly untied the top to her halter dress. Years of practice
had her automatically arching her shoulders back to counteract the loss of the
support from the dress. Real breasts succumbed to gravity, slight in her youth
she knew, but it would be more pronounced as she aged. Even as she had the thought,
she saw in his expression what she always saw when men saw her topless for the
first time. And it wasn’t any concern with gravity.

For just a second, the expression was there. Greed. Want.
And then it was gone. As if he’d pulled it back, and his usual affable
expression was back in place with his eyes firmly on her face rather than her
breasts. “You really are a tease,” he murmured, taking an audible deep breath,
his fingertips tracing her collarbone now.

“I’m not teasing you, Brendan.” His restraint, oddly, was
egging her on. Usually, she just had to flash a guy and he was all over her.
“I’m undressing. I’m right here. You can touch me, if you want.”

“What do you want?”

“What?”

“I didn’t hear you say you wanted me to touch you.”

Now that was annoying. “Do women usually beg for your touch?
What—”

She reminded herself of the game immediately. She wasn’t
here to rail at his incredible conceit. As much as she wanted to. What she and
Arthur had in mind was a little making out and then a little stopping to slow
them down, during which time she’d casually stroll around the room to see if
she could tell if there was a safe anywhere. Maybe even ask him to go get her a
drink so she could search the room more thoroughly. Arthur meanwhile would
check out the more obvious places, like the library.

But first she had to get Beckett to the making-out part, to
unsettle him a little. Distract him. So automatically she amended, “Of course I
want you to touch me, Brendan.”

He laughed. “That wasn’t what you were going to say. What
you were going to say is probably something about me being full of myself.”

“Probably,” she snapped.

“So your invitation to touch you doesn’t seem that sincere.”

She forgot to arch her back, to put her best asset forward.
Instead, she put her hands on her hips like a fishwife, or maybe a half-naked
reality TV star. “What do I have to do? Get down on my knees?”

“That’d be nice. But first, don’t you think we should get to
know each other?”

Before she could snap back at him, he pushed her to lie back
on the bed and bent his head. Oh. Wow. He kissed the side of one of her
breasts, lightly, and then made his way up to the nipple, lapping at it with
his tongue in some way that turned her on so much she could not believe it. She
must have made some sound because he raised his head, smiling. “Do you like
that, Sophia?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Why do you seem so surprised then?”

He held her gaze when all she wanted was for him to bend his
head again to her breast. “Tell me,” he urged.

“Tell you what?”

“Why you seem surprised that you like it when I kiss your
breast.”

“I didn’t say I was surprised.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Fine. All right. Usually men grab me or bite me.”

He laughed softly. “Well, I have to admit, that can be fun
sometimes but you have to work up to it. And the working up part is just as
nice.”

Finally, he bent his head again and she sighed as his wet
mouth caused the most exquisite sensations in what she had frankly usually
thought of as an inconvenience when they weren’t baiting a trap. Her fingers of
their own accord sunk into his silky blond hair. But they just ruffled through
the strands. She didn’t pull him to her, letting him set the pace, her eyes
closed. Obviously, this man knew what he was doing.

And she didn’t give a crap about some safe right now.

God, she was a funny little thing. Sassy and bold,
practically inviting herself into his bed, and then so sweet and shy when she
got in it. And her body was…incredible. Just as he’d said. Her naked breasts
were like nothing he’d ever seen, so lush and full and hot, that it was no
wonder that men usually couldn’t restrain themselves with her.

But nobody had ever taught her the pleasure she could get as
well as give? Now that was surprising. Even though his cock was pounding, and
had been well before her hands went to the tie on her halter, he would pleasure
these breasts for hours if he could, even if she wanted no more than that. He
placed his palm carefully over the breast he wasn’t licking, flicking the
nipple with his thumb, and she groaned, spreading her legs under the skirt of
her dress. It appeared she wanted more than that.