Taste for Trouble (33 page)

“We
are?” The worry shifted into skepticism. “How?”

He
laughed, a wary joy creeping into his stomach and crouching down alongside the
throbbing anger. “Ah, Bel. You’re so...dependable.”

She
rolled her eyes. “You sure know how to butter a girl up.” She tucked her hand
into his elbow. A zing shot up his arm and clear into his head. Bel, touching
him? Of her own free will? God, he must look worse than he felt.

“Come
on.” She gave his arm a little squeeze. “We’ve got work to do. Let’s get back
out there before you turn my head with your pretty words.”

“You
don’t want to talk about—” He circled a hand between them, then cocked a thumb
at the breakfast nook and everything that had happened there.

She
laughed. “God, no.”

He
frowned. “Why not?”

She
shook her head and drew him toward the door. “That’s going to be some
conversation. This isn’t exactly the time or place.”

“Oh.
Right. Of course.” He told himself to be relieved. The L-word was out there way
ahead of schedule but evidently she wasn’t taking it any more seriously than
she’d taken Will’s kiss. Which was a good thing, right? Maybe he could salvage
Plan A after all. So why did he feel vaguely uneasy?

He
allowed her to lead him through the door and into the foyer. Then memory rushed
up and James pulled back. “There’s something else, Bel,” he said. “And this one
can’t wait. I need a minute. Now. In private.”

“Okay.”
Bel looked around the deserted foyer and cocked a brow. James steeled himself
to deliver the news.
Guess who’s back from his honeymoon, looking tanned,
fit and in love? Two hints—he used to be engaged to you and he’s in the
ballroom right now enjoying the auction with his new wife, who—sorry—used to be
your personal assistant until she stole your fiancé on live TV
.

He
hesitated and his courage fled. “Not here.”

“All
right.” She lifted those smooth, bare shoulders—God, he was dying to bite one
of them—and said, “How about outside? The guests are all busy with the auction,
and I haven’t seen the gardens since they’ve been finished.”

“The
gardens? But the gardens are—”

She
waited with perfect patience for him to finish his thought, one finger threaded
through the fat curl nestled against the swell her breast. The impulse to put
his mouth right there, just there where all that autumn-colored velvet rode
high on the plump curve of her breast grabbed him by the throat but he battled
it back.

“—dark,”
he finally managed. “It’s dark outside.”

“Yes.”
She nodded slowly. “Because it’s nighttime.” Her brows slowly rose. “Is that a
problem? The gardens are lit, aren’t they?”

“No.
I mean, yes. I mean—” He pulled one hand down his face, shoved out a breath and
ordered himself to pull it together. “Yes, the gardens are lit.” And they were.
With fanciful little fairy lights that would make her far too kissable. “No, it
isn’t a problem.” Total lie. His self-control was already on the ropes. Strolling
around in the fairy-twinkled dark with Bel would almost surely deal it a fatal
blow.

“Well,
then.” She gave his arm a companionable squeeze. “Let’s go. Privacy awaits.”

“Right.
Okay.”

James
concentrated all his energy on acting as if her breast weren’t snuggled up to
his biceps as they walked beyond the soaring foyer and out a pair of French
doors onto what used to be the patio. He stepped onto the crushed oyster shell
path that bisected a manicured sweep of lawn bordering the formal gardens, her
skirt swishing companionably against his boots.

“You
did some really extraordinary work here, James,” she said as they entered the
garden through an arching arbor twined with grape vines.

“Not
me. I just sign the checks.” But he hardly heard himself speak. He was too busy
staring down at Bel.

He
hadn’t been prepared for this, he thought a bit wildly. To see Bel here, like
this. Oh, he’d known it would suit her, the strict geometry of an English
garden. She thrived here like a perfect, pink-cheeked tea rose, just the way
he’d known she would.

But
he hadn’t anticipated the moonlight. He’d braced for fairy lights but, Jesus,
the moonlight. He hadn’t braced for that. How could he have? How could he
possibly have anticipated the way it would steal Bel’s practicality and crush
it into glittery dust? The way she would glow under it with a serene, mysterious
beauty?

“You
always say that,” she murmured. “Like other people have all the talent, and you
just make the money. Like you’re nothing special.”

“What
can I say?” He concentrated on keeping their pace, unlike his heartbeat, smooth
and even. “It’s the truth.”

“Believing
what you say doesn’t make it true.”

“No?”

She
shrugged, and James tried to avoid the view it afforded him down her dress. God,
that dress was killing him. It had nearly flattened him in the soft light of
the ballroom, about undone him in the industrial brightness of the kitchen, but
here in the moonlight? With nothing but the cool night air and James’ embattled
self-control between them?

Stick
to the plan, he told himself firmly. Break the news about Ford and
what’s-her-name. Be a kind and loving friend. A hands-to-yourself friend. A
no-crazy-monkey-sex-in-the-outdoors friend. A
friend
. Period

Not
that his feelings toward Bel were at all platonic. Not hardly. James knew love
when he felt it and this was it. Capital L love. The grown-up, for-real, down-on-one-knee-with-a-diamond-solitaire
kind. James wanted Bel’s groceries residing in his fridge on a permanent basis
and wouldn’t rest until they did.

Which
was hardly a secret anymore, thanks to Will’s big scene in the kitchen. God, was
he going to enjoy the punching later. Not that it would change anything.

The
bottom line was that the current state of his life would cause a girl like Bel
to run—not walk—to the nearest exit. As well it should, considering that his
idiot brother had gone ahead and laid a fat wet one on her without so much as a
beg your pardon.

A
hot sliver of rage with Will’s name on it wedged itself into chest but he ignored
it. He didn’t have the time or energy to deal with that right now. Right now he
was working the plan.

And
the plan—the best he’d been able to come up with over the course of the past
two weeks—involved keeping Bel at arm’s length until the time was right. Until
his home life was a little more appropriate, which meant straightening out this
thing with Will, getting Bel her job back and taking his team to the World Cup
Finals for the first time since the Great Depression.

That
was Phase One. Phase Two involved luring her into his bed and keeping her there
until she was too weary, too sated, too undone with sexual satisfaction to even
consider leaving.

And
then he could move on to Phase Three, in which he somehow transformed all that
crackling lustful energy between them into something more solid and meaningful.
Something more like love.

Simple,
right?

But
until then, he’d keep her close and work the friendship angle. Even if it
killed him, which was seeming more and more likely.

“Listen,
Bel.” He forced himself back to the unpleasant task at hand. “I have to tell
you something.”

“Oh!”
She broke off as the path under their feet opened up to a broad circle centered
on the marble fountain that used to grace his front lawn. “Oh, James, this is gorgeous!
I didn’t realize I was looking for the fountain while we were walking, but I
must’ve been. I could hear the running water, I guess, on some subconscious
level. Funny how your brain works, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,”
he said. “It is.” He’d wondered himself why the original landscaper had hidden
the centerpiece of the garden inside a ten foot tall ring of shrubbery, but it
was just like Bel said. The sound of unseen water drew people. Called them into
the mazes and alcoves, and rewarded the persistent with this lush, intimate
surprise of a space. The illusion of isolation capped with nothing but the
endless night sky. The sort of place where men lost their heads and women lost
their inhibitions.

The
sort of place he should avoid like the plague with Bel on his arm, beaming up
at him with pure delight. He stared down at her, trying to ignore the way the
curve of her breast pressed warm and inviting against his sleeve. The way the
heat of her seeped through his coat and into his skin. The way want danced to
life inside him, sparkled hard and fast through his gut.

“Dance
with me?” she said.

“What?”
His brain felt half-awake, sluggish. Nothing at all like the rest of him.

“Dance
with me,” she said, laughing. “Can’t you hear it? The water?”

He
frowned at the burbling fountain. “What about it?”

“It’s
waltzing.”

“It’s
what?”

She
laughed. “Seriously, listen.” She slid her hand up to James’ shoulder, seized
his other hand and eased him into a gentle one-two-three sort of thing around
the wide, gracious path ringing the fountain. He followed, his feet moving more
out of an unconscious imperative to stay near her than any actual desire to
dance.

And
then he heard it.
Burble
beeble beeble,
burble
beeble beeble. The
water trickled along in some primitive, gravity-driven rhythm that ticked
through his veins and had him sinking his hand into the small of her back,
drawing her into him and taking over the lead.

“There
you go,” she murmured. She nestled her cheek into his shoulder and they sailed
over the path in a perfect unity of motion and spirit. And inside him,
something caught fire. Want surged up, fierce and undeniable, and he didn’t
have an ounce of self-control left to put out the flames. He’d used most of it
not kissing the hell out of Bel the minute she’d walked into the foyer in that
dress. Not punching Will had finished him off.

Now
he just
wanted
. Wanted with an aching, searing need that drowned out the
better angels pleading for caution inside his head. And what he wanted—more
than a happy family, more than a successful career—was her. Bel. Her faithful heart,
her tidy soul, her elegant body. All of her.

Her
breath fanned against his throat, sweet and warm, and that beautiful earnest
face tilted up to his. And that mouth of hers, that impossible mouth was
right
there
. It pulled him and he swayed into her, dipped his head. What would it
hurt? Just a taste—

He
stopped. Stopped dancing, stopped breathing, stopped moving in for that kiss he
could almost taste. “Bel,” he said, a desperate panicky edge to his voice that
even he could hear. He took her by the shoulders and set her carefully away
from him. “Listen, I
really
need to tell you something—”

“No.”
Her mouth turned down in a sulky pout that utterly short-circuited his internal
pep talk.

“No?”
James gazed at her, enthralled as she stepped toward him. He shook his head. “Wait,
what do you mean, no?”

“I
mean no, I don’t want to talk.” She took another step toward him. He could feel
her now, the heat of her shimmering in the cool night air.

“But
I—”

“What
I want—” She slid her hands up the front of his jacket. “—is for you to kiss
me.”

James’
jaw dropped and his brain simply stopped. His conscience threw up its hands and
when she took that last step forward, his arms automatically circled her, his
palms cruising toward the small of her back. “You want me to, um, what?”

She
rose up on her toes, put that gorgeous mouth a wish from his and slid her
fingers into his hair. “Kiss me.”

It
was all the invitation he needed. The beast inside him surged ahead, snapped
its leash, and yanked a grateful James along behind it.

He
dragged her to him, let all that satiny cool skin, all those neat angles and plump
curves, slide over his body like running water. He pulled the scent of her deep
into his lungs, feasted on the vanilla-and-cinnamon smell that clung to her
hair even when she hadn’t baked in days. He plunged himself into her mouth, her
hot, willing, beautiful mouth, all honey and spice and lush welcome.

Plan
A could go screw itself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Bel
fell into the kiss, dizzy with success and fear and love. This was what she
wanted. His hands streaking over her with undeniable want. His mouth hot and
commanding on hers, the force of his desire bending her like warm wax to his
will. Enclosed in the circle of his arms, safe inside his want, his need, his
love.

She
twisted her hands into the stiff fabric of his jacket and pulled herself higher
onto her toes. More. God, she needed
more
. She opened her mouth beneath
his and a trembling glory shook through her when his tongue touched hers. She
dragged in a deep breath, and it was hot with the scent of him. Clean,
masculine, his breath swift and sweet on her face, in her mouth.