Luring Lucy (4 page)

Bram lifted one brow. So Kent had tattled, huh? He'd box that rascal's ears when next he saw him. Then another thought occurred and Bram half-wondered if his touted—and surely exaggerated—exploits had anything to do with Lucy's sudden determination to get frisky. Maybe he had inspired her.

“It was nothing.”

She scoffed, adding with disdain, “And here I'd stupidly thought that, as the owner of the gym, you left chores like personal instruction to your employees.”

“I never slept with Dede.”

“Yeah, right. And I've never touched up the gray in my hair.”

Bram bit back a smile. Lucy had started getting silver streaks in her gorgeous inky hair when she was only thirty-five. Now, at thirty-nine, they had all been covered over. Forcing himself to be as somber as the accusation warranted, he said, “Don't get confused here, babe. I'm not David. I've never lied to you and I never will.”

That threw her for a moment, and then she rallied once again. “So now you're claiming to be a monk?”

“Far from that.” Bram weighed his next words carefully. “I have no doubt that through fifteen years of marriage David caved in to the temptation to talk about me now and then?”

Bram waited, wanting to know how much she knew of him, dying to figure out if her curiosity had ever been as extreme as his own. He hoped she'd asked about him. He prayed that she'd fantasized a time or two, because God and his own conscience knew he'd dreamed about her far too often.

Lucy shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

Satisfaction settled into his bones. “So you already know I'm
about as far from a monk as a man can get. I like women. I love sex.” He leaned toward her and reiterated, “But I didn't sleep with Dede.”

“You're telling me Kent made it all up?”

“Of course not. I can't imagine Kent outright lying to you like that. But he probably only told you what he saw, which was a little flirting. And the truth is, I considered sleeping with her. You wanna know why?”

“Let me guess? A double-D bra size?”

She was such a prickly little cat today, Bram noted with amusement. Never before had they been at odds. From the time she and David had started to date, they'd all three gotten along. Lucy had often treated him like a brother, so he'd done the honorable thing and kept his wicked thoughts to himself. He'd loved David, and by association he'd learned to love Lucy. There was nothing wrong with that.

It was the lust, and more, that had made him feel guilty.

But he was done with guilt. He hadn't played a hand in their marital problems, and no one, before his current confession to Lucy, knew that he'd been obsessed with her. Lucy wasn't guilty of wrongdoing, and neither was he.

From here on out, he was going after what he wanted. And that meant he was going after Lucy.

Pushing himself away from the wall, Bram closed the distance between them. Lifting his right hand, he stroked her silky dark hair. It was baby fine and arrow straight and he loved it. “Her hair is almost as sleek as yours.”

Lucy caught her breath.

“And her eyes—” He looked at Lucy's face, then tilted up her chin so she had to meet his gaze. “She has blue eyes, Lucy, that when I tried real hard reminded me of you.”

Lucy shook under his intense regard. “So,” she whispered, “the double Ds had nothing to do with it, huh?”

Bram took a step away from her. If he hadn't, he'd have kissed her again, and with the bed right behind her, things might have gotten out of hand. She was already prepared to bolt, so pushing her wasn't a good idea. “Let me be clear about something here, Lucy. When I get alone in my bed at night and decide I can't take it anymore, it's not Dede's body I think about.” He stared at her hard, saw the way her pupils dilated, and admitted gruffly, “It's yours.”

Lucy looked frozen and enthralled. “Good God. You're not telling me that you . . . ?”

“Yeah, so what?” Bram figured he was far too old to be embarrassed over his body and the things he felt, the needs he dealt with. “We've already established that I'm not a monk. And at the moment, no other woman is appealing to me. I want
you
, Lucy. I've been wanting you since before David died.” He didn't have to tell her yet that he'd always wanted her. That might be a bit too much.

For the first time since he'd arrived, she appeared to be softening. Wryly Bram wondered if she felt sorry for him because he'd admitted to flying solo. The amusing thought brought with it another, and his pulse raced.

Softly he asked, “What about you?”

Wariness returned to her gaze. “What about me?”

“It's been a long time since you filed for divorce. You haven't dated one single time since then.” It sometimes made Bram break out in a sweat thinking about a woman like Lucy, a woman so alive and so filled with love, going to her bed all alone every night.

“Don't you get lonely, Lucy? Doesn't your body burn sometimes, wanting the touch of a man? Wanting relief? To the point where you just can't take it anymore?”

In a tone that matched his own, she whispered, “That's why I'm here.” She looked away from him, then back again. “What you said, being alone . . . that's not the same as being with someone.”

His heart thundered. “No, it's not. It's a damn poor substitute.”

“Things . . . things were bad between David and me for a while before he cheated. But even then, even when I knew I was losing him, it was nice to have a man close sometimes, a warm body in the bed with me at night.” She swallowed and in an attempt to explain, she said, “There's a certain type of comfort in just knowing you're not alone, in feeling the body heat, hearing someone else breathe.”

Bram's lungs constricted with fresh pain. Through the years of her marriage, it had been a unique form of hell knowing that David made love to her and Bram would never be allowed to. Now he had a chance and he'd be damned forever before he lost it.

He caught her chin on the edge of his fist. “I want to be the man who touches you now.”

She immediately shook her head. “Bram, I can't compare with all those young, beautiful women you date.”

“Christ.” How could she not know, not understand? David had been a bigger ass than he'd suspected. “You don't have to compare with anyone. You're in an entirely different league.”

“The minor league?” she teased, but Bram saw her uncertainty, the misconceptions she had about herself as a woman.

Desperately he tangled his fingers in her hair and drew her up against his chest. “I want you for who you are, Lucy. I've always respected your intelligence and your loyalty. I adore your sense of humor and your sense of responsibility.”

“Bram.” They'd hugged often over the years, and the way she hugged him now was familiar and sisterly. He hated it. “It's not a woman's sense of humor a man sees when she's naked.”

He shuddered with the thought. “Seeing you naked,” he growled near her ear, “would likely make me come in my pants.”

She laughed. “Bram.”

Bram took her hand and carried it to his distended fly. His breath hissed sharply when her warm palm pressed against him.

“Ever since I realized what you intended to do,” he gasped, “I've been hard. Thinking about you wanting another man enrages me,
and still I'm hard. Knowing you would plan this week rather than come to me makes me want to howl—and still I'm hard.
Sex with other women is a hollow thing, babe, even worse than jacking off, because I want you.”

“How . . .” Her fingers didn't leave him and, in fact, curled around him tentatively instead. She was getting used to the idea, Bram decided, and he wanted to roar with his triumph. “How did you know what I was going to do?”

Bram hesitated. The closeness of talking with her like this, touching her like this, had always been no more than a dream. The reality was so much sweeter, so much sharper, that Bram didn't want to run the risk of destroying it. But he had promised her that he wouldn't lie to her, and so he wouldn't.

He kissed the top of her head and said, “Unless you want me to take you now—and I don't think you're quite ready for that yet—we'd better stop what we're doing.”

He heard her swallow. “I'm not. Ready, that is.” She looked up at him. Her fingers were still curled securely around him through the jean material of his shorts, and he felt them tighten the tiniest bit. “You're . . .” She stopped, took two deep breaths. “Well, you're
huge
.”

Women had been commenting on the size of his prick since he was eighteen, and he'd always wallowed in the praise. Now all that mattered was that Lucy was intrigued. If his size helped to interest her, then Bram was doubly thankful for what he'd been given.

His hands gently stroking her shoulders, he said, “I would never hurt you, Lucy.”

Her breath came in small pants now. Small
excited
pants. “I don't know about that. I mean, it's been a while for me. A long while—you were right about that.” Idly she slid her palm up and down his length, measuring his dimensions again, making Bram lock his jaw with the pleasure of it.

Feeling nearly hollow with desire, Bram growled, “I'd be careful with you, baby. We'd go real slow and I'd make you so wet first, so hungry for it, sliding in will only be pleasure. I swear.”

Lucy shuddered, and her hand stroked him one more time, nearly devastating him, before she pulled away. Her eyes were huge, filled with conditional trust. She would try, he realized, but she wasn't making any promises.

For a long moment, Bram simply concentrated on breathing, on not losing control. He could hardly win her over with devastating sex if he came in his shorts from a simple fondling.

When he felt able, he took her hand and led her from the bedroom. “Here's what we'll do.” His voice was abrasive and deep, unsteady. “A swim—because I badly need a dousing of ice water—then a fast boat ride just to distract us. While we're on the lake, I'll explain things to you. We can . . . talk.” He pulled her out onto the deck again. The heat and the sun hit them like a wave, sealing in the lust, the hot craving. Still somewhat shaky with need, Bram asked, “Do you need your shoes?”

Lucy, too, was trembling despite the steamy summer afternoon. “No.” She looked up at him, her eyes slightly heavy with desire, and Bram had to lock his knees to keep from carrying her back inside. “I want to be totally free this weekend. No shoes, no bra. No laundry or phones or nosy neighbors or gossip.”

Her statement sounded like a sensual promise to Bram's sensitized nerve endings. Or maybe he was just so damned horny, anything she said would have exacerbated his lust.

He nodded in agreement and they left the patio to follow the stone path down the hill to the lake. Bees buzzed around their feet, going from one clover blossom to another. Bram watched closely where they stepped, not wanting Lucy to get stung. Somewhere far off a cicada split the air with its noisy call. A black bird took flight.

“Do you have the keys?”

Her voice hushed with lingering uncertainty, Lucy said, “They're still in the boat. Life preservers are in the boathouse.”

“You've been out in her already?” She should have only been at the cabin a few hours without him. Bram had cleared his calendar and quickly packed once it had dawned on him what she was up to. But she'd had time to scout out the area for other vacationers, if she'd done so right away.

“No, just started it up to make sure everything was in running order.”

Bram stopped at the irregular shoreline before walking onto the long wooden dock where the boat was tied. She'd brought it out of the boathouse and removed the tarp cover.

Greenish lake water lapped at the rock retaining wall along the shore with a gentle splash. Sunlight glittered and sparkled, making it necessary for Bram to replace his sunglasses. The air was thick, the sky so vivid a blue it was nearly blinding.

Before he'd gotten run off, the worker had cut the grass, but he hadn't yet trimmed. Everything smelled fresh and new, scents intensified by the damp air and baking sun, filled with possibilities. Bram kissed Lucy gently on the mouth. “When we get back, I'll finish the yard work. Did you pack anything to grill?”

“I figured I'd eat sandwiches. Grilling seemed like too much trouble.”

Bram made a mental note to stop by the one and only grocery store located on the lake. He'd talk with Lucy, feed her, and tonight
he'd show her part of what her body could expect to feel with him. Before he was done, she'd crave what he could give her. She'd crave him.

“I'll take care of it. I'm a good cook.”

She snorted and headed past him to step off the wooden dock and into the boat. “You're good at everything you do and you know it.”

Bram watched her settle herself onto the white leather seats. Knowing he was damn near a goner, he took a quick walk off the end of the dock and into the icy water. His shirt floated up, leaving his abdomen bare; his athletic shoes felt heavy on his feet. The water closed around his head, stinging his heated skin but doing very little to cool his lust.

He doubted a massage with an ice cube would cool him down right now, not when he was so close to having what he most wanted.

Lucy was turned around watching for him when he resurfaced. He slicked his hair back and smiled at her, then slapped some water her way. With her own smile, she ducked back into the boat.

Taking long strokes, Bram swam to the ladder leading into the boathouse and commandeered two life vests. It was cooler inside the boathouse, and dark. Cobwebs hung from every corner, testifying to how long it had been since anyone had disturbed the boat. Exiting the door leading to the dock instead of the water this time, Bram walked around the dock to the sleek inboard. His shoes sloshed with every step, and his shirt stuck to his torso. Lucy wasn't looking at him. He tossed the preservers into the back before joining her up front. She was in the passenger's seat, so he assumed she wanted him to drive.