Swept Away (15 page)

Damn, the last year had been difficult, watching the money begin to slip away—like blood draining slowly from his body. He only wanted to give his family the best—was that so
terrible?

But the worries would be over soon, thank God.

Kat’ s agreeing to marry Ian had changed everything. Everything. She had no idea of the impact
the union would have—was already having—on all of them.

She’d been the light of Clark’s life since the day she was born. Some men longed for a son—to pass their name to, to make into a junior version of themselves; maybe it gave them the illusion
they’d never die. But he and Debra had agreed that one perfect child was enough, girl or boy.
Kat was all he’d ever needed to satisfy him as a father. And soon she’d have the life he’d
always wanted for her.

Funny, he’d thought he’d always be able to give her the best of everything. He’d earned so
much money once upon a time that he’d never dreamed it could diminish. But now that she was
marrying Ian, he wouldn’t have to worry about that. She’d never want for anything from this
point forward.

And maybe wanting that for her was setting her up to be like Debra in a way, someone who’d
never done without and didn’t know the real value of all they possessed. But Kat was his little
girl. And she should have everything. What parent didn’t want that for his child? What parent
wouldn’t move heaven and earth to make sure his child was happy, safe, and would never
know what it was like to be hungry or cold.

Just knowing his girl’s future was set, until the day she died, made his mission in life feel a
little more complete.

So suddenly it was a noble mission Brock was on, seducing Kat. And if they happened to have some incredibly hot fun in the process, who was he to complain?

As he slapped together a couple of turkey sandwiches for them at the kitchen counter, “Cruel to
Be Kind” by Nick Lowe echoed from the radio, perched precariously next to the sink in the
only position that allowed the oldies station to come through.

A minute later, he pushed the front door open with his back, two plates balanced in his hands.
“Dinner is served,” he said, lowering her sandwich and chips in front of her. Glancing down,
he saw that she still wore her bathing suit, but much to his irritation, she’d tied her skirty thing up over her breasts, concealing her curves.

Not that it made her any less pleasant to look at, he acknowledged, taking a seat across from
her. Her eyes still glittered beneath the rising moon, her hair still fell in messy waves around
her shoulders, and those shoulders—God, he didn’t know when he’d developed a shoulder
fetish, but Kat’s were about the smoothest, tannest, prettiest ones he’d ever seen. Shoulders,
stomachs—hell, she was making him notice all sorts of body parts that didn’t usually capture
his attention.

“Quit staring at my breasts,” she said.

“I’m not staring at your breasts. I’m staring at your shoulders.”
“Why?”

“Because you covered up your breasts.”

She rolled her eyes, and he couldn’t resist a grin—although he tried to make it more playful
than wolfish. He wasn’t sure why, but maybe he’d felt a little bad after what had happened
earlier. He didn’t regret trying to seduce her, especially now that it had a more gallant purpose
—but she’d seemed shaken afterward, and he didn’t like making her uncomfortable. On the
contrary, he wanted her to realize just how good he could make her feel.

After crunching down on a potato chip, he looked her in the eye and said, “Maybe we should
talk about what happened today at the beach, kitten.”

She lifted that pretty gaze to his, although it was colored with distress. “Why? What’s the
point?”

He hoped she could see his sincere concern. “You seemed upset.”

She wrapped one delicate hand around her sandwich, started to lift it to her mouth, but then stopped. Her blue gaze, shining on him, looked darker than usual. “Tell me something, Brock.
Why are you doing this?”

“This?”

“Trying so hard to get in my bikini bottoms.”
Lots of reasons, kitten. But he couldn’t tell her the big one, that he was working desperately to
save her from a bad marriage. So he kept it simple. “Because I screwed up ten years ago and
want what I missed.”

He watched her eyes—and like so many times in the last day since his arrival, he knew they
were both thinking back to that night long ago.

“You know what I’ve learned in the FBI, kitten? That life is short. I’ve seen people die. Was
forced to shoot a man once myself. All any of us really have for sure is this moment, right
now. So I’ve learned that I have to seize the day—or the night,” he said, casting a glance to the
half-moon shining white overhead in a star-speckled sky. He seldom got so serious and earnest
with anyone—but suddenly he felt he owed it to her somehow. He couldn’t tell her the whole truth, but he could at least let her know his attempts at seduction were about more than his just being a jerk who had no respect for marriage. “I’ve learned to take what good things, and what pleasure, is offered to me whenever I can, because it might not be there tomorrow. And I’ve
learned to go after what I want because I might not get another chance.”

She looked at him long and hard, her gaze soft, her lips gently parted, and he knew she was
feeling it, too, that need to live in the moment, to seize it for all it was worth—with him.

Until she sucked in her breath and transformed her expression into something less yielding.
Her voice came out low, tender—but strong. “Do you know what the difference is between
you and me, Brock? We don’t live the same life. If I were some danger-loving secret agent like
you, facing death around every corner, sure—I’d fuck your brains out right now.”

He blinked. She’d said it so matter-of-factly—like such words from his kitten wouldn’t
instantly produce a painful erection in his swim trunks, unbidden.

“But I’m not in danger,” she went on, shaking her head. “I’m not going to die tomorrow.
Unless a freak accident occurs, I have all the time in the world, and my actions have
consequences. I’m getting married in less than a week. I’ve made a commitment to a man who
loves me. I can’t indulge my whims anymore. All that’s changed. I’m somebody else now.”

Her words were stalwart and admirable. But the longer she talked, the more he heard that
little tinge of sorrow, that acknowledgment that she was giving something up, and maybe she
didn’t want to. “I don’t want you to be somebody else, honey. And I don’t believe you really
are. I don’t believe you can be.”

She took it the wrong way. “You don’t believe I can change? You don’t believe I can be a a
good girl? A good wife?”

He sighed. He had to make her get what he was trying to say. “This isn’t about good or bad,
Kat. It’s about who you are. Shakespeare once wrote, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ And I—”

She shot to her feet, expression bewildered and angry. “Jesus Christ! Brock Denton spouting
Shakespeare to me? I am truly in the freaking Twilight Zone. And I want out.” She shoved
back the picnic table’s bench and started to march away, but then stopped and turned back.
“And do you know why I think you want in my pants?” Her eyes held accusation. “I think you want it so bad just because you can’t have it. I think you somehow want to get back at me by seducing me.”

He flinched, suddenly incredulous. “Get back at you for what?”

“For” She looked flustered now, but pressed on. “For the same reason you turned me down that night at the swamp. For being rich when you were poor. For having a better life than you.”

Now it was Brock who pushed to his feet, toppling the bench behind him in the sand. He
narrowed his gaze on the deluded girl before him, and lowered his voice. “If you only knew
how far off you are, kitten.”

Maybe it was the slow, sure way he’d spoken, but to his surprise, as a fresh silence stretched
between them, she looked like she might actually believe him. “About?” Her voice softened
slightly.

“All of it. About why I want you now. And why I couldn’t have you then.”

He watched the slow rise and fall of her breasts beneath the skirty thing tied there. “Couldn’t
have me? What does that mean?”

“Let’s just concentrate on now,” he said, steering her back to what mattered most. “And right
now, I want you because every time I see you I get hard. I want you because you’re hot and beautiful—and cute as hell when you’re mad at me. And maybe I even want you because I’m selfish—I’m a selfish son of a bitch who can’t think of anything else right now beyond being
inside you.” So there it was, all the shit he’d never planned to say, but had just spewed out like
a volcano erupting all over the beach. He, of course, still hadn’t told her about his plan to
prevent her wedding from taking place, but he’d given her everything else, and for him, that
was a lot.

She stayed quiet, looking a little dazed, and he was on the verge of remembering everything
she’d been through in the last day or so and feeling bad about the fact that he’d just sort of yelled at her—when she simply walked back to the table, snatched up her sandwich, and
padded away toward the house.

Shit. Real smooth, Denton. He followed after her. “Wait, kitten. Wait, and tell me what’s
wrong.”

As she reached the door, she spun to face him. “Nothing, actually. Because what you just said
helps a lot.”

He held his hands out, palms up. “What do you mean?”

“Being reminded that you’re a selfish son of a bitch makes me want you a lot less. So thank
you for pointing that out.”

He watched her walk inside, the screen door slamming behind her—and realized that, in fact,
that part hadn’t been true. The more he thought about it, he wasn’t being selfish at all. He was doing this for both their sakes.

But she couldn’t see that, so it made the point pretty moot. Let her have some space. You’ve rocked her world the last two days—give her some time alone.

He headed back toward the table through the cool night sand, righted the bench he’d knocked over, sat back down, and ate his dinner. He drank the beer he’d popped open a few minutes
earlier and tried to enjoy the evening breeze washing in from the beach, the stark silence of
being alone on an island in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, the stillness of it all.

But his skin still itched with wanting her. And with wanting to save her.

Relax and recover mode—turned out that wasn’t this. But maybe he no longer wanted it to be.

He wanted to let her have her space, get herself together, calm down—but not for too long. Because Brock knew a little something about infiltrating someone’s defenses. The Bureau had
taught him well. And if he was serious about having her—and saving her from a lifetime of dissatisfaction—then this was the perfect time to kick things into high gear.