Heather Graham (7 page)

“Good evening.”

Brittany started and turned toward the archway. Flynn was there; from his casual stance, leaned against the shell-colored wall, it seemed apparent that he had been watching her for some time.

“Hi,” she returned, almost faltering. She quickly smiled and lifted her glass to the horizon. “You’ve truly a magnificent view here. I’ve been admiring it all afternoon.”

He moved toward her, taking the chair opposite her. Today he was in a white knit shirt and tan slacks. She noted the ribboned muscles in his arms, and the sun-darkened breadth of his hands as he folded them casually between his knees, angling near her.

“I’m glad you like it. But then, you do seem to be a creature of the sun and sea.”

“Yes, I like the water,” Brittany agreed, staring out at the horizon again.

“Mermaids should.”

Brittany laughed. “And you’ve decided I’m a mermaid?”

“What else does a man fish from the sea?”

“Nothing so fantastical, I assure you,” Brittany told him. She was starting to flush again. His gaze had that effect.

“I wonder,” he murmured softly, but he was grinning, and his eyes were light. There was no threat in the words. “Donald said you transferred your things over with no snags.”

“Yes, we finished quite early. I want to thank you again for your hospitality. I don’t know what I would have done. Even my ticket home was lost to—”

“El Drago,” Flynn finished for her indignantly.

“Yes.”

“Ah, well, best to forget it all. My hospitality is nothing. You’re beautiful to come home to.”

“Thank you.” She lowered her lashes, then raised them. “Was it a hard day at the office?”

“A hard day? No, not especially.” Flynn laughed. “And not at the office. I just had some time-consuming errands.”

“Oh,” Brittany murmured. “What do you … uh … usually do?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t any usuallys. Ah, you’re referring to a living?”

“I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that last night you were telling me that it is ghastly exorbitant to keep your castle going—”

“Yes, I did say that, didn’t I?”

“And you seem to travel so frequently. Donald said that I was lucky the other day—that you had just returned.”

“Yes—well, I follow the racing circuit, you know. There was a big cup race off Normandy last week.”

And I’m supposed to assume you were in Normandy, Brittany thought. Liar! I know damned well that you were in London.

“And did you win?”

“No.” Flynn stood, offering her his hand. She stared at it—it was both attractive and powerful. He wore no rings, but she imagined that the simple gold watch on his wrist was the real thing. And for some reason, something about it emphasized his healthy coloring, and the wired strength of his frame.

Snake!
she thought.

“Let’s take a walk on the beach,” he suggested. “I think we just have time before getting ready for Drury’s party.”

Brittany accepted his hand. She couldn’t hang him yet. She didn’t have sufficient evidence.

Flynn led the way down a spiral staircase to the pool, then through the gardens to a beach path, his fingers laced through hers. Brittany followed him, hoping that her breathless laughter was flirtatious—and convincing. It was difficult when she was longing to strangle him—and confront him with the fact that he was a liar.

They reached the open beach and he drew her before him, holding her shoulders from behind as he pointed out the swimming area, and the dock beyond. She felt his breath, warm and caressing against her ear, as he spoke to her.

“While you’re here, you must make this place your home, you know. Everything is at your disposal. The pool, the beach … the boats.”

“Thank you,” Brittany murmured. She clenched her jaw together to remain still with the heat of his body touching hers. She forced herself to move away leisurely. “I would certainly ask you before taking any of your things,” she murmured. The sand was damp beneath her feet. The salt air was especially sweet here. She kept her eyes on the light, rippling waves.

“I’m not always around to be asked,” he told her, and she sensed that he was coming near her again. “You must use what you like, when you choose.”

He was standing before her. Eyes a reflection of the surf and sun, brilliant as they stared into hers.

“Do you have to be gone … so very much?” she heard herself whisper. It was well done. Very real—too real.

“Sometimes.”

“Perhaps I could accompany you on some occasions.”

“Business can be boring.”

“You don’t like to be bothered with business questions, do you?” Her smile was perfectly wistful; her heart was pounding away.

“That depends.” His hands caught both of hers; for a moment they were joined between them. Then his were no longer holding hers, they were moving up and down, a tender caress of roughened and exciting flesh against her bare arms. “I can tend to be a very private person,” he was saying. “I think I’m a man who needs to be close to a woman before he really tells her his thoughts and … activities.”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” Brittany murmured. She swallowed, fascinated by the pulse against his throat. She tilted back her head and gave him a soft but dazzling smile. “I just wanted to know more about you.”

“And I didn’t mean to imply that you were prying. Only that I want to know more about you, too.”

She just kept smiling. There was something … something in the husky tone of his voice that made her think that they were fencing; that they were both players in a game of deceit. And perhaps they were. But then, as she watched him, and as he touched her, all the undercurrents changed.

His hands were on her shoulders, and as he leaned toward her, she knew he intended to kiss her. And she knew what kind of a kiss it would be. A light touch; a gentle, physical contact that would be like a slow, rippling wave that came before the sweep of a tide. She would welcome that contact; she had planned on it. And as she watched his features, tense now, his eyes a smoky shade to match the coming dusk, she thought with a little thrill of triumph that she could succeed at a reckless game. She could eventually draw him out and prove beyond a doubt his guilt or innocence. Perhaps she was playing with fire, but her heartache decreed that she must take the chance of being singed, that she would play against all odds.

But when his lips touched hers, all that was meant to be was gone. It was a gentle touch, infinitely tender. It warmed, warmed and deepened; cunning and deceit faded into the pink and gray of the encroaching twilight. Brittany felt his strong arms around her, she felt his tongue rimming her mouth, her lips parting to accept him. She breathed and her body filled with the scent of him, clean and unique. She wanted him; she wanted to come closer and closer to him, and the sweetness of that touch overwhelmed all else. Her arms curled about his neck, she arched to his length. And each sensation was all the more sweet. The liquid warmth and searching pressure of his mouth … his tongue, the hardness of his hips, the muscled breadth of his chest, crushing so solidly against her breasts. It was that feeling again; not that he was a man who needed to conquer, but that he could bring out all that was best in a woman, bring her soaring with him to heights of reckless excitement and breathless abandon.

She didn’t care where they were; the gardens eclipsed them from view of the house, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Something had gone astray; she had melted into that kiss, savoring all that her senses gave her, memorizing him in the way that a lover did: the feel of his cheek against her palm; the heat of his body, giving hers fever; the pressure of his hips, the hardness of his thighs. His fingers laced through her hair—exploring, as she explored. And his mouth. So tender upon hers that it was more intimate in itself than she had ever imagined. Finally … reluctantly, pulling away.

And then his eyes, meeting hers again, telling her in those first brief seconds that it had all been as spontaneous with him as it had with her. And as Brittany returned his stare, searching out his eyes, it dawned on her that she had committed the gravest sin: she had betrayed herself. She had been willing to go to great lengths to gain his trust, but she hadn’t intended to lose her own soul.

Darkness came suddenly. It fell about them like a curtain of mist and smoke, and like a curtain, it created a barrier between them. She saw his eyes change; no longer bared to hers, they were gray, darkened by the night that was with them at last, their only glitter that of a diamond-hard shield. But his touch … he didn’t turn that to a lie. He didn’t release her. And when he spoke, the burr was rich in his words, and they were soft.

“We’d better return to the house. We’re due at dinner very soon, I imagine.”

“Yes.”

He took her hand. Brittany was silent as he led the way back to the house.

The lights were coming on as they neared the
casa
. In the courtyard, the cascading fountains were caught in sparkling brilliance: it was as if the
casa
had found a new and even more glorious life with darkness and the night. It was illusion, Brittany warned herself; day transformed into night, and she became captive in the twilight.

Twilight … because she didn’t know what was right, and what was wrong. She was barely even aware that she was praying again.

Don’t let it be him. Please, don’t let it be him.

In the patio, he turned to her. “Would you do me a favor tonight, please?”

“What?” They sounded so normal.

His smile was back. The one that was subtly amused, yet somehow warm. The one that held a borderline of warmth—and danger.

“Wear the silk tonight.”

“The silk?”

“The emerald silk. For me.”

Take a step backward, Brittany, she warned herself. A giant step backward. She had been worrying about her dress for the affair; wondering if any of her own gowns would be up to par for the occasion. It was almost as if he knew … and was giving her an easy out.

“Surely,” she told him softly, and she managed to retain her smile until she had turned, and hurried down the corridor.

Flynn noted that his tux had been laid out on the bed. White tails, white vest, black bow tie. Damn, but Donald was bloody proper. Always correct.

He grimaced. What would he do without Donald?

He stripped off his shoes, then his shirt, and then, by long habit, pulled off his watch and set it on the dresser. He paused, listening. He could hear the muted sound of running water.

Flynn wondered briefly if Brittany was aware that her room was directly next to his. She would be taking a shower—or a bath. One way or another, she would be stepping into the water. Naked. He already knew a fair amount of her form. She had been in a wisp of a bikini when he had pulled her from the water. He knew that she was slim and beautifully tanned; he knew that her hips curved nicely and that her breasts were full and firm. And he had touched her and held her close and he knew that her compact form had the added attraction of warmth and passion and supple vitality …

Flynn gave himself a little shake. He was still standing before his dresser, as if frozen in motion. His watch still dangled in his hand.

What are you doing?
he asked himself in dismay, slipping out of his trousers and briefs and striding into his own bath. He paused before the mirror and ran a hand over his cheeks. Yeah, he needed a shave. He’d shower first.

Once inside the shower, he tried to allow himself to assess the situation with an objective mind. It was evident that she was playing a game; that was all right—he knew how to survive at the game. Once he figured out what it was.

But down by the beach … for those few minutes, he could have believed everything that she seemed—even knowing that she was a liar. When he had held her, he had known a warmth he hadn’t felt in years, a burning desire to make it all real. He had wanted to accept every word that she said, to allow her beneath his skin, and into his heart.

Bewitched, he warned himself. You pulled a siren from the sea, and you’re willing to suspend the truth for magic. She’s good, that’s all. Brilliant at her act. And it is an act, because you know too many truths …

Something in him protested that the haunting exchange of warmth and fire at the beach couldn’t have been a lie. Neither of them had expected the chemistry, the ease with which they had come together. Even now it was a memory that could haunt and tease, cause him to tremble inside with the desire to touch her again, and follow the path still farther.

“Ego,” he chastised himself aloud, and the riveting water of the shower seemed to echo the word. You want it to be so, and so you will convince yourself that it is …

He couldn’t. He had thought himself the hunter; it was hard to accept that he was the hunted. He was suddenly vulnerable to eyes of green fire and a voice that touched him like a brush of silk.

Flynn stepped closer to the spigot and rubbed his face strenuously while the water pounded into it. He couldn’t afford any slipups. Things were coming to a head; a few more takes, and he could be done with the long haul. Take a vacation, a break. Reap the satisfactions and rewards of his labors.

She could be useful. If he moved right, he could use her to draw out the others. She was beautiful, elegant, and perfect. No one but he would ever suspect her …

He pulled away from the shower and soaped himself vigorously. He wasn’t really afraid of her, or afraid that she could really get in his way. He had a fair amount of confidence in his abilities, simply because he had been at it all so long. There was still something that bothered him; like a flaw he couldn’t see, something that was there, but just couldn’t be touched …

Flynn paused again, feeling the rush of the water full force. Steam was rising all around him.

He understood the feeling that had eluded him.

Yes, he wanted to sit back. He wanted to take a break. To spend time at honest leisure, not searching, not watching; just sitting back and truly seeing a sunset, the ocean beneath a crimson sky, enjoying the cool whisper of the wind or the warm caress of a fire against the cold …

He didn’t want to do it alone.