True Love (28 page)

“That it’s a useless waste of energy?”

Laughing, Lexie kept walking.

Jared went to Alix. “Sorry, but I think I—”

“I know,” she said. “You and I should take the truck back.”

He smiled at her, his eyes thanking her for understanding.

They were standing close together and she reached out to touch his fingertips. “Why don’t you go talk to your friends while I help clean up?” The truth was that she didn’t think she could stand being around him without making a fool of herself. They’d already been on the receiving end of Lexie’s sharp tongue and she didn’t want to go there again.

“Good idea,” he said, and in an instant he was gone.

Alix went to the truck, where Lexie and Toby were packing things away. Lexie was talking about what should go where when a man stopped behind her.

Lexie didn’t see him, but Alix and Toby, standing across from her, certainly did. He was gorgeous. Not rugged-looking like Jared, but beautiful, like something off a billboard. Dark hair and eyes, high cheekbones, a sculptured mouth. Tall, slim-waisted but with broad shoulders.

Alix and Toby froze in place, staring.

“Hi, Lexie,” he said. His voice was as beautiful as he was.

“Oh, please, no. Not today,” she said without turning around. “Go away.”

“Do you know where my belt is? The one with the whale on it?” he asked.

Turning, she glared at him. “You came all the way out to ’Sconset to ask me where your belt with the silver buckle is?”

“More or less.” He gave a self-deprecating little shrug that would have made any female forgive him.

But not Lexie. She turned away, her fists clenched, and took some deep, calming breaths. She glanced at Alix and Toby standing there in frozen silence and staring at him. Oh, great, Lexie thought. More women drooling over him. Just what he does
not
need.

Turning back to him, Lexie knew that the argument was going to take a while. Her goal was to get rid of him. She was not going to mix her work with her personal life!

As soon as Lexie started lecturing the man, Toby whispered, “I think that’s her boss, Roger Plymouth.”

“You’ve never met him?” Alix whispered back.

“No,” Toby said.

“He’s …”

“Beautiful?” Toby finished for her.

“More than that,” Alix said. “He looks computer generated. She didn’t tell you he was like that?”

“No. Lexie only complains about him. I got the idea he was a troll.”

Alix bent her head. “Did you see his face when Lexie turned away from him?”

“You mean the way he looked at her? As though he’s madly, passionately, insanely in love with her?” Toby asked.

“That’s what I saw but then I thought maybe I’d imagined it. Do you think he really is … you know?”

“In love with her?” Toby asked. “If he is, she never mentioned that either.”

Roger was no longer listening to Lexie telling him that he could
find his own clothing, that it wasn’t her job to track down his personal possessions, etc., etc. He’d heard it all before. He looked over her head, gave a slight smile to the two pretty women staring at him as though he were an alien being, and looked around. “What is this place?”

“ ’Sconset,” Lexie said, her voice annoyed. “It used to be an old fishing village. And get that look off your face. You can
not
buy anything here.”

He looked over her head as the pretty blonde stepped forward. Not my type, Roger thought. Too pure and untouchable-looking. The other one, the redhead, had a spark about her that he liked, but there was an intensity in her eyes that put him off. He had a feeling she might ask him to recite the multiplication tables.

“There’s a store down the road,” Toby said, looking up at Roger.

“He tends to buy houses, not loaves of bread,” Lexie snapped, then glared at Roger. “Listen, go walk around and look at things, but buy nothing. I’m going to get the keys to this truck from Jared and you can drive it back to Polpis for him.”

“Your cousin? Jared Montgomery, the architect? I’d like to meet him.”

“You can’t meet him and you can’t hire him to build you a bigger house. Go away!”

Roger didn’t move, but just kept looking at Lexie as though he expected something more from her.

“All right!” Lexie said. “Stop looking at me like that. I’ll go with you in the truck!” Her words showed that she knew exactly what he’d been waiting for.

Smiling, Roger turned and sauntered into the crowd.

Lexie looked at Alix and Toby. “Not a word,” Lexie said. “I don’t want to hear anything about him and I’ll answer
no
questions. Got it?”

Alix and Toby nodded, but looked at each other in wonder.

A few minutes later Jared returned and Lexie told him that Roger had shown up and he’d drive the old truck back.

“Lexie.” Jared again had that patient tone to his voice. “This truck is valuable. I can’t just turn it over to somebody I’ve never met.”

“Minutes ago you were willing to give it to me and I can’t even drive a stick shift.”

“Yeah, but I know that you’re a good driver because I taught you. But I don’t know this Roger guy from any other off-islander.”

“He drives Formula Ones. Races them,” Lexie said. “Not to earn money. He doesn’t do anything for that. He just likes to drive things. And sail them. Climb them.” She waved her hand. “Whatever moves, he likes it.”

“He’s a race car driver and you never told us?” Jared asked.

“It seems that she didn’t tell anyone a lot of things about her boss,” Alix said.

“There’s more to a person than the exterior,” Lexie said, her eyes narrowed as she looked at Alix and Toby.

“Races, climbs, sails,” Alix said. “Sounds good to me.”

“All wrapped up like the best ever Christmas present,” Toby said.

“I’ve always loved Christmas,” Alix said.

“Meeeee tooooo,” Toby said.

“Give me a break,” Lexie muttered, then turned back to Jared. “Go! Leave. Take Alix and go home. We’ll take care of the truck, the car, and the food.”

“Will Roger airlift it all out of here for you?” Alix asked, her face absolutely serious.

Lexie frowned as though she meant to make an angry retort, but then she laughed instead. “You and Jared are a perfect match.”

Jared grinned at Alix. “I think that’s quite possible,” he said. “Come on, I found us a ride.” They waved goodbye to Lexie and Toby and walked down the road toward the grocery.

The ride turned out to be in the very back seat of an SUV that was more like a bus than a car. The middle was full of kids and teenagers, with tired-looking parents in the front.

In their place in the back, Jared and Alix had what was very
nearly privacy. “So what’s this about Roger Plymouth?” he asked, his voice hidden by the noise of the kids.

“Nothing much,” Alix said. “It’s just that he’s drop-dead gorgeous, seems to be staggeringly rich, and he wanted to meet you—or Montgomery anyway. And, oh yeah, he’s madly in love with Lexie.”

Jared looked at her in astonishment. “I was only gone a few minutes. How did so much happen?”

“What can I say? Roger is a fast worker.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Definitely yes!” Alix said, and Jared laughed.

“Jared!” the driver yelled over the noise of the kids. “When do you have to go back to New York?”

Jared reached up to catch a Frisbee before it hit Alix in the head, put it on the floor, and gave the boy who’d thrown it a look to cut it out. “Not for weeks,” he answered.

Alix had been introduced to the couple but she couldn’t remember their names. For the remaining five miles back to town the couple fired questions at Jared.

He answered everything while holding Alix’s hand, and the two youngest kids looked through the seats and giggled.

They were finally let out on Main Street.

“Hope you don’t mind if I don’t drive down your lane,” the man said. “A bit too narrow for my taste.”

Jared and Alix got out, thanked them all profusely, and breathed a sigh of relief when they drove away.

“Summer people?” Alix asked.

Jared took her hand. “What gave it away?”

She laughed. “Kingsley Lane is quite wide compared to some I’ve seen on the island.”

“Downright spacious.”

As soon as they turned the corner and saw Lexie and Toby’s house, Alix felt at home—a far cry from what she’d been feeling a few hours before. It was a quiet, tree-lined street with elegant old houses, and the best of them was theirs. No, she thought, not
“theirs.” Not yet. But then she’d spent little time in the house without Jared so it did feel like it belonged to both of them.

When she looked up at him, the thought of what was to come sent a little thrill through her.

Jared must have felt it too because he stopped. When he turned to her, his eyes were on fire. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Not sweet as before but showing his longing and desire for her.

She had to stand on tiptoes to reach him and his body felt good against hers, but they broke apart and again started walking. On the way to the house, Alix began to get nervous. She and Jared had been friends, coworkers, but now … The truth was, she didn’t know what to expect when they reached the house. Until today, touching had been taboo. And then there was the fact that he was an intellectual. He traveled in such lofty circles. Some of the richest people in the world wanted him to design their houses.

They went to the back door of Kingsley House—which was usually unlocked—and went inside.

Alix turned to look at him. “I guess I better change—”

She didn’t finish her sentence because Jared picked her up, his mouth on hers, her legs around his waist, and held her up against a wall. In seconds they were both nude from the waist down.

Passion, she thought. It’s what she wanted … needed from this man.

When he entered her she started to scream, but he put his mouth over hers.

For all the frantic need between them, he took his time so that the sensation began building in Alix and increasing. Rising.

He put her on the kitchen table, salt and pepper shakers tumbling to the floor, and she clung to him as his slow, even strokes increased in strength.

She put her arms out, her hands against the back of the bench, as he entered her again and again. Her eyes were closed, and she gave herself over to the sensation of this man and this moment.

When she thought she could stand no more, he picked her up and
pulled her to him, holding her against his body. They had on shirts but the heat of their skin blazed through.

When she felt herself reaching the peak, Alix put her head back, but Jared drew her to him closer and closer until the shudders came, both of them clinging together, silent, fulfilled. It was minutes before either of them moved.

“Kingsley,” Alix said.

“That’s me.” Jared had his mouth on her ear.

“Good, because I was a little nervous about Montgomery.”

He laughed as he stepped away from her, picked up his trousers, and pulled them on. Alix stayed on the table, her shirttail falling between her legs.

“You’ve stolen Daris’s title,” he said, smiling.

At first she didn’t know what he meant but then remembered that he’d said Daris had the best legs on the island.

“Lots of leg presses,” she said. When he walked to her, she slipped her hand under his shirt to run over his hard, flat stomach. “What about you? Go to the gym a lot?”

“I reel in two-hundred-pound tunas,” he said as he picked her clothes up off the floor and handed them to her. Considering the way relatives walked in and out of the house, she knew it was better not to leave them lying around. She started to put on her trousers but Jared halted her.

“I like to
see
beauty.” He put his arm under her legs and lifted her. “Aunt Addy or your mom?” he asked.

He was asking her which room they should retire to—and she was glad their evening together wasn’t over. “Not Mom’s and …”

“And what?”

He was carrying her up the stairs seemingly without effort. But then, Alix thought, she weighed less than a tuna. “Well, with the Captain watching us …”

“He won’t be there,” Jared said, and when Alix started to say more, he kissed her to silence. “There are some things you need to take my word on.”

He gently put her down on the master bedroom’s big bed and she wasn’t sure how it happened, but in just seconds she was naked. He stretched out beside her, putting his mouth on her neck while his hands began running over her upper body. “You are beautiful,” he whispered.

He was still fully dressed, only his jacket missing, and it felt odd for her to be naked but for him to be covered. The shades in the room were down but light filtered in, golden and shadowy.

As Alix lay there, surrounded by the silken drapes of the bed, her body fully nude, she looked at Jared, at his eyes, hooded, sultry, unfathomable. She reached up to start unbuttoning his shirt but he kissed her fingertips and took her hand away.

She started to ask why, but didn’t. Her experience of sex was that it was something quickly done and finished. In school, sex had fit in between classes and assignments.

But this man—key word being man, not boy—seemed to have other ideas.

He began to caress her body as he looked at her. His lips soon followed his hands over her breasts, her ribs, down onto her stomach. She lifted her hips, wanting him to touch the center of her, but he didn’t. His hands ran over her legs, down to her ankles.

He kissed her mouth as his hands wandered over her and Alix felt the urgency building inside her. There was something intensely erotic about being bare while he was clothed, something she’d never felt before as his hands touched and caressed her.

When he did reach the center of her, she arched up to meet him. It didn’t take long for her to reach a crescendo, to come against his hand.

She buried her face in his shoulder. “Where did you learn
that
?” she asked.

“Made it up. I’m very creative.”

She laughed and for a moment they were still, then she began unbuttoning his shirt. She’d never seen him in anything but long
sleeves. They’d been rolled up to expose strong, tanned forearms and she’d wondered what the rest of him looked like.