Her First Vacation (10 page)

All through dinner, she fought to keep her eyes off him.
She struggled to ignore the way Janine threw herself at him. This was what she
knew his life must be like. Women would always want him. In that way Claire
supposed she was exactly like the rest of the females at the table. It was the
only thing she had in common with them, though. She knew she wanted Colin, but
there was no way she could be so open about that desire. So she kept quiet
while Colin and Janine flirted with one another. She couldn’t help the sigh of
relief when Colin left the dining room without Janine on his arm, though. He
and Garret were going to the casino. Claire had never been gambling in her life
and still felt no interest in it, but she followed them all the same. She
didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t possibly just walk right up to him
and tell him that she’d decided that having an affair was a good idea. That
wasn’t the truth, anyway. She still wanted a husband and a family. That wasn’t
going to change. But she also suddenly knew she didn’t want to risk waking up
one day and finding herself a lonely old spinster with nothing but shattered
dreams to keep her company. Having an affair with Colin would be crazy, but at
least it would be something to remember.

Colin couldn’t believe she’d followed him. She was making
an effort to pretend she’d come to the casino to gamble, but there was no doubt
that her focus was on him. He could feel her eyes every time they sought him
out. It was driving him nuts, because he could barely control the urge to watch
her as well. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Garret had found another pair of
bimbos to keep them company. The blonde who’d come with the brunette Garret was
pawing had all sorts of annoying habits, including a laugh that could make his
eardrums bleed and a pair of wandering hands that had pretty much lit on damn
near every inch of his body at least once. He shifted away from her a little as
he felt one of those hands light on his knee and start sliding toward his
crotch. This one was going to be damn hard to ditch. She was hot to trot in a
big way and clearly didn’t mind letting him know. Normally, he’d have endured
her groping without feeling anything more than mildly annoyed. Knowing that
Claire was witnessing it all made him anxious in all sorts of unpleasant ways.
Finally he pushed away from the Blackjack table and stepped out of the blonde’s
reach.

“I’m going to the john.”

The blonde gave him a seductive smile. “Want some company?”

He had to force himself to return the smile. “Not this
time, sugar, but hold that thought for me, okay?”

She nodded, and he turned around, his gaze scanning the
immediate area for Claire. Sure enough, she was a few yards away, pretending to
watch the tumblers on the slot she’d just fed a quarter into. The slot machine
pretty much blocked her from the view of the table where Garret and the two
women still sat. Colin chanced a quick look back to make sure they were focused
on their cards, then snagged Claire’s arm and drug her off her stool. She
yelped in surprise,
then
tugged at her arm as he drug
her around the corner.

“Hey, let me go!”

He ignored the demand as he pulled her toward the hallway
that led to the restrooms. The minute he was sure they were well out of sight,
he spun around and shot her a dark glare.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Claire was too shocked by the anger in his eyes to say
anything for a few seconds. Then she gathered her wits enough to reply.

“Gambling.”

Colin shook his head. “Bullshit. You’re following me.”

She immediately tried to deny it as a blush crept up her
neck to her face. “That’s absurd.”

“
What’s
absurd is you being
foolish enough to pull a stunt like this. Didn’t I make myself clear this
morning? I don’t want to see you anymore.”

She swallowed,
then
shook her
head. “No, you said you didn’t want to hurt me. But you did want to take me to
bed. That’s what you said, wasn’t it? Only you knew I wasn’t that kind of
woman. Well, you’re wrong.”

It took a tremendous amount of willpower to make
herself
move after saying the words. She reached up and laid
a trembling hand against his chest, then drew a deep breath and leaned forward
to touch her mouth to his. He didn’t move. He didn’t appear to even breathe.
She felt her confidence wavering, but refused to let it collapse so easily. She
opened her mouth and ran her tongue across his lower lip. He jerked as if the
act had been painful. Then he grabbed her and shoved her back against the wall
an instant before opening his mouth and devouring her.

CHAPTER SIX

Claire would have gasped if she could have. There was no
way she could draw breath through her mouth, though. It was full of Colin. His tongue
stroked hers, his teeth nipped at her lip. His entire body was pressed tight to
her length, and she could feel heat spreading outward from every place they
touched. It seemed to pool low in her belly. Then he shifted his position
slightly so that one of his legs slid between hers, and all the heat in her
body raced to the place where she rubbed against him. She was trembling and
didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was his kiss, his touch. She could
feel the hard bulge at the front of his pants and couldn’t help the shiver that
it caused. He really did want her.

Colin had to jerk his mouth off her just to get a deep
breath. God, she tasted good. There was a hint of sweetness in her mouth from
the desert she’d had after dinner. But it wasn’t just her mouth that he wanted
to taste. He was aching with the need to run his tongue all over her.
The skin of her neck, the hard peaks of her breasts, the soft flesh
of her belly and lower.
God, how he wanted to feel her
trembling while he put his mouth between her legs.
At that moment he was
certain he’d never wanted anything else more. Then she spoke in a voice thick
with arousal and full of emotion.

“Make love to me, Colin.”

It might as well have been a bucket of ice water. Make
love. That’s what she wanted. What sex would always be to
her.
There was no way in hell that she could give her body to a man without handing
out her heart as well. And he knew he had no right to take that from her. Even
if she offered it willingly, he had to refuse. But telling her no wasn’t going
to cut it. She’d swallowed what little bit of pride she had to come after him
tonight to tell him what she wanted. If she’d done it once, she might work up
the nerve to do it again. Unless he made sure she stopped wanting him
altogether. He felt his gut clench as he accepted the decision he’d made, the
only decision he could make. He forced himself to pull away from her and look
down into her eyes, then braced
himself
for the pain
he knew he was going to cause her.

“Make love? Is that what you think it would be, Claire?” He
shook his head. “Love has absolutely nothing to do with it. What I want from
you is sex. I want it hard, fast and dirty. In fact, I’d be willing to take you
right now. We don’t need a bed, you know. All you need to do is hike up that
skirt of yours. We’ll go into the bathroom and I’ll fuck you up against the
wall.” He dropped his gaze to her mouth. “Or maybe you’d be willing to do me
with that sweet little mouth of yours. What do you say?”

Claire wouldn’t have been more shocked if he’d slapped her.
It wasn’t just the vulgarity of his words. It was the way he said them and the
look in his eyes. It made her feel dirty somehow. She shook her head.

“I thought you wanted me, Claire. Isn’t that why you
followed me here like some pitiful little puppy?”

Claire felt the tears coming to her eyes and struggled to
hold them in. He shot her a disgusted look,
then
backed away.

“You see, I told you that it was a bad idea to keep seeing
me. We’re two different people, with completely different needs. I don’t make
love to women, I fuck them. And I’m not interested in screwing any woman who
doesn’t want to be fucked, understand?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer him. He just turned and
walked away. Claire watched him go through eyes blurry with tears. She wanted
to drop to the floor and cover her face with her hands. She wanted to curl up
into a ball and cry until she was exhausted enough to sleep. But she knew she
couldn’t do that. Not here. She had to get to her room, first. She headed for the
end of the hallway,
then
stopped when she heard
Garret’s voice.

“There you are. What’d you do, fall in?”

“Sorry, I got distracted by someone. Are the girls ready to
go?”

“Yeah, and so am I. My luck’s been shit tonight.”

“I get the feeling you won’t need luck with the brunette.”

“Good thing, too.
Otherwise I
might be forced to go to bed alone tonight.”

“If she fell through, you could always take the blonde.
She’s so hot for it that she’d probably take any man who came along.”

“But that would leave you to go to bed alone.”

Colin’s laugh made Claire feel sick to her stomach. “My
luck’s not as bad as yours. Like I said, I’ve already been distracted once
tonight. I’m sure I could arrange to make it twice.”

Garret was silent for a moment,
then
he spoke softly.
“You son of a bitch!”

“Yeah, that’s me. And don’t you forget it.” He chuckled
again. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before my date really does decide that
any man will do.”

Claire waited several long minutes before finally creeping
out of the hallway. She quickly scanned the interior of the casino but didn’t
see Colin or Garret anywhere. She hurried through the crowd as the tears slid
down her cheeks. By the time she reached her room, she was barely managing to
hold back the sobs.

Colin had to resort to pharmaceuticals to finally get the
blonde off him. He slipped her a mild sedative, then left her and headed back
to his room. He stood in his bathroom, glaring at himself in the mirror over
the sink. He really was a son of a bitch. He closed his eyes and immediately
saw Clair’s stricken face. He’d cut her to shreds, and if he burned in hell for
it, he couldn’t complain. He reached out and gripped the edges of the vanity.
Just thinking about the way she’d touched him and kissed him made him hard.
He’d never responded to any woman like he did to her. He’d never wanted any
woman like he wanted her. And he couldn’t have her. Worse, he couldn’t even
just walk away and leave her in peace because he’d been stupid enough to let
her get close to him. So he’d hurt her to make her stay away. God, he hated his
job. He hated what he’d let it turn him into.

Claire spent a while crying, then half the night thinking
about everything that had happened since she’d made the decision to come on
this cruise. In the beginning she’d made the plans out of desperation. She knew
she needed a change, and she’d hoped this trip would be enough of one to erase
the dissatisfaction plaguing her. Instead it had only served to make her feel
more alone than ever.
Until Colin had reached out to her.
She’d shared parts of herself with him that no one else had ever gotten close
to. He’d made her start questioning her own self-image. He’d forced her to face
the fact that everything she thought she knew about herself might be wrong.

His words had hurt her. His vulgarity had shocked her. But
she knew she had no one to blame for that but herself. He’d tried to warn her.
She was the one who’d refused to see him for what he really was. She’d been too
busy sinking into the fantasies she was creating about him to actually see the
truth. Colin and Garret were two of a kind. The only difference was that Colin
hid his true face behind a mask of charm so realistic that it was almost
impossible to disbelieve. Garret simply didn’t bother to try to pretend to be
anything other than what he really was.

So now she knew that Colin was not the man she’d wanted him
to be. And she’d made a fool of herself by going after him. But there was one
thing that she was starting to think he hadn’t lied about.
Because
she could see and feel the proof for herself.
Maybe he’d pretended to be
interested in her as a person when all he really wanted was her body, but the
fact was he had wanted her body. She knew he hadn’t been faking that. So maybe
she wasn’t as homely as she’d always believed. Colin had seen something in her
that turned him on. He’d even pointed out that her only real problem was the
fact that she didn’t take advantage of the assets she did have. Perhaps it was
time she remedied that.

Colin was awake at dawn the next morning, but he stayed
away from the deck and the dining room. The last thing he was in the mood for
was facing up to Claire’s accusing eyes. She’d have spent the night crying. He
knew that much about her. By morning he hoped she would have refocused her pain,
turning it to hatred. It wasn’t her opinion of him that bothered him. He could
live with her thinking he was a bastard. What he couldn’t take was the worry
that it might actually make her draw even further into her shell. If she
thought everything he’d said was a lie then it could do the kind of damage that
she might never recover from. That wasn’t something he wanted to live with. Of
course there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Not now, at least. But
maybe he could try to make up for it later. After Palmer and his friends had
been dealt with, maybe Colin would find her and tell her the truth.

A nagging little voice in his head snorted.
And then what?
She’d forgive and forget and run into his
arms and his bed? Yeah, right. It wouldn’t matter why he’d treated her the way
he had. Claire wouldn’t understand it. She was going to hate him for the rest
of her life, and that was no less than what he deserved.