Magnificent Folly (6 page)

If
she decided she wanted him? She was melting, trembling, aching with need right at that moment, and he’d scarcely touched her. “It’s all wrong. You have everything all mixed up. You don’t really want me.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Lily, my love, if I don’t want you, then why am I going to have to hightail it out of here before Cassie glances over and notices something most peculiar about my physique?”

“It’s just some sort of romantic fixation,” she said desperately. “I’m the mother of your child, and the situation intrigues you.”

“Then let me get the fixation out of my system in the most pleasant possible way.”

“You said this wasn’t about sex.”

“It’s not, but sex is a way I can get closer to you.”

“No, that’s not—” She broke off as she scrambled to her feet. “I have to get Cassie. The tide’s beginning to come in.”

He stood up slowly. “You’re running away.”

“You bet I am.” She quickly scooped up the thermos, plates, and cups and dumped them into the rattan picnic basket. “You’re a menace. What did you major in at good old Franklin University? Seduction?”

“I never said I attended Franklin.” His tone was abstracted as he picked up the beach rug and started to fold it. “Will you come tonight?”

“I have to get Cassie.” She refused to meet his gaze as she picked up the basket, and spoke quickly, almost feverishly. “I should have told her to build that beautiful sand castle closer to the cliff. She’s going to be heartbroken when the tide washes it away.”

“No, she won’t. She’s finished it. It belongs to her now. The feeling of creation can’t be taken away from her.”

“Even if the product of her creative labor is destroyed? Don’t be silly. It’s pure folly to build something knowing it’s going to be destroyed.” She turned to face him. “Can’t you see that?”

He shook his head. “You build, you enjoy, you let go.” He paused. “But you never really lose anything. The experience is always a part of you.”

“Cassie!” she called. “It’s time to go home.” They watched the little girl as she waved in acknowledgment before gathering her pail and shovels.

“You don’t believe me,” Andrew said.

“You’re a romantic,” Lily said crisply as she took the beach rug from him. “I’m a realist. Never the twain shall meet. Can’t you see what a disaster any relationship between us would be?”

“No.” He waved good-bye to Cassie and started across the beach toward the path leading up the cliff. “I’ll be here tonight.”

“I won’t come.”

He didn’t look back. “I’ll still be here.”

•  •  •

She wouldn’t go down to the beach.

Her hands gripped her upper arms as she gazed down at the crashing surf. There was no question about her doing anything so foolish as to start a sexual relationship with a man like Andrew.

She turned, quickly crossed the deck, and entered the cottage. She shot the bolt on the front door and turned off the lamps. If he was watching the cottage, he would see the lights go out, know she had no intention of coming to him, and go away.

She peeped in at Cassie to make sure she was sleeping soundly, then went to her own room and closed the door. Without turning on the light she crossed to the window and flipped open the blind.

Darkness. No moon-silvered beach that night. Even if Andrew was waiting down there, she would not be able to see him from this window.

Andrew was there. She knew he was.

She could race to the beach, into his arms, and he would pull her down in the sand to move over
her. He would smell clean and salty, as he had that afternoon; his body would be strong, eager, even frantic.

Lord, what was she thinking? She was no dog in heat. She was a mature woman, who made decisions with her mind, not with her glands. So she needed a man. It didn’t have to be this man. Perhaps Andrew was right about her coming alive again, but it didn’t mean she had to involve herself with a man who was as dangerous to her as Andrew.

Dangerous. The realization came as a shock. Andrew was gentleness and sweet, coaxing words, glowing youthfulness and blatant sexuality. Yet beneath that shimmering exterior she had always been subliminally aware of an iron core of determination that would never relent.

Well, she would not relent either. She took off her cotton robe and dropped it on the rocking chair beside the window. Then she strode briskly to the double bed and slipped beneath the crisp cotton sheets. She would close her eyes and forget about Andrew. She turned on her side, trying not
to notice the heavy ripeness of her breasts, the aching emptiness between her thighs.

She would go to sleep and forget how Andrew had looked lolling on the beach rug, his fair hair disheveled, his body tanned and hard and beautiful.

She moved restlessly as lust surged through her.

She mustn’t go down to the beach.

“I missed you,” Andrew said quietly as he threw a pebble out into the surf. “I stayed here a long time thinking about you.”

“I told you I wouldn’t come.” She nervously clasped her fingers together over her knees. “I wondered whether you’d show up this afternoon.”

“Because you didn’t sleep with me?” He shook his head. “Being with you and Cassie means so much to me. It doesn’t matter if I hurt with wanting you. I told you this wasn’t about sex.”

“You could have fooled me.” She could have bitten her tongue as his gaze shifted to her face
and he gave her a slow smile. “And you needn’t look so satisfied. What I want isn’t always what I permit myself to have.”

“Did you have a bad night?” he asked, then spoke without waiting for her response. “Me too. But maybe we’ll both have a better one tonight. I’ll be here every night, Lily.” His voice softened to velvet persuasiveness. “Every single night.” He jumped to his feet. “I’m going down to play with Cassie.”

“I suppose you’re going to help her build another sand castle,” she said irritably.

“Maybe.” He rolled up his jeans and stripped off his T-shirt. “Want to join us?”

She shook her head. “I’ve told you my views on sand castles. I’ll sit here and watch.”

He turned and ran like an exuberant child down the sandy, rock-strewn beach toward Cassie.

Lily shifted restlessly on the bed.

She would
not
get up and go to him. She had
resisted the temptation for the last four nights, and she could hold out this night too.

She wouldn’t think about him.

She would squelch her erotic thoughts about him.

She wouldn’t lie awake until dawn again.

Dear heaven, she wanted to go to him.

“Do you ever dream, Lily?”

“Sometimes.” She wished he would move away. She could feel the heat his body was emitting, and it caused the now-familiar weakness to attack her limbs. “Doesn’t everybody?”

“I used to dream a lot when I was a kid. Not so much lately. I had a dream last night that you came to me and you let me love you.”

“Go away.” Her tone was thick with tension. “It’s not going to happen.”

“It’s got to happen. It’s the next step. All you have to do is come to me. Then all that tension will be gone and you’ll be able to be comfortable with me again.”

She moved away from him. “If you’d only stop talking about it, I’d be comfortable again.”

“No, you wouldn’t. It’s too late. Would you like to hear about my dream? It was very explicit. Definitely X-rated.”

“No!” She buried her face on her drawn-up knees. She wanted to get up and leave him, but she knew she wouldn’t move as long as he was next to her. As an addict craved his drug, so she had come to crave his presence, the sight of him, even the frustration of her need for him. What the hell was happening to her? “Why don’t you go talk to Cassie?”

His smile was lovingly sweet, but his words were relentless as he murmured, “Later, Lily. Right now I want to tell you about my dream. You were naked, and your breasts were beautiful in the moonlight. I put my mouth on your nipple and I could feel it harden as my tongue touched it.”

Her nipples were hardening just then, and she could feel his gaze on the front of her T-shirt, watching the transformation.

“Yes,” he said. “Just like that, Lily. You bent over me, and I held your breasts in my hands while I sucked and nipped at those pretty—”

“Shut up,” Lily said hoarsely. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“No, but you want to feel it.” Andrew smiled. “And you won’t let me touch you, so I have to dream—and you have to listen to my dreams.”

“I don’t have to listen to anything.”

“Then get up and walk away, Lily,” Andrew said gently. He leaned back on one elbow, his gaze on the evidence of her body’s betrayal of her will revealed by her clinging T-shirt. “If you don’t walk away, you’re most certainly going to hear the rest of my dream in great detail.”

She didn’t
want
to leave him, dammit. Why couldn’t he just be quiet?

“Then I rolled you over in the sand and moved between those gorgeous long legs of yours, but I didn’t enter you right away, love. I wanted to play for a while, so I opened your legs and …”

His words went on for a long time, each sentence creating pictures that made heat build
within her until she could scarcely bear it. She should have gotten up and walked away from him.

She sat there, not looking at him, listening.

It rained that night, a hard, gusty downpour that swept the surf against the rocks of the shore.

Even Andrew wouldn’t be stubborn enough to wait for her on the beach in weather like this, Lily assured herself as she looked out her bedroom window. It would be crazy for anyone to be out in such weather.

But Andrew would be there waiting for her.

Because the stupid man was quixotic and impossible and utterly tenacious, and it only served him right if he caught a chill and ended up in the hospital with pneumonia.

A bolt of fear shot through her, exasperation and emotional turmoil in its wake. She certainly didn’t care if he got sick. Then he’d have to leave her and Cassie alone.

Another jagged burst of lightning split the
darkness, followed immediately by a crash of thunder.

Cassie …

No, the storm wouldn’t disturb Cassie. She always slept so soundly, a freight train could have rolled through the house without waking her.

The only victim of the storm would be that idiot down on the beach.

Maybe the lightning would strike him or he would slip on the rain-slickened rocks and hit his head.

Stupid. So damned stupid.

Then Lily was running from her room, across the living room, toward the front door.

Puddles of rain had already formed on the deck, soaking her slippered feet as she flew through them and down the steps. She lost the slippers a moment later as she dashed down the incline toward the sandy beach.

In minutes she was drenched, the cotton nightgown and robe plastered to her body, the rain trickling down her cheeks. Nothing existed in the world but darkness and lightning and thunder.

Then she saw him coming to meet her.

“Idiot!” She had to shout to be heard above the surf and the thunder. “Go away. Don’t you have any sens—”

His mouth was crushing hers, hot, open, moist, invading.

She groaned as she collapsed against him. “No, Andrew, this isn’t—”

“Yes, it is.” His hands were quick, jerky as he stripped her robe away and let it fall to the sand. “Don’t lie to yourself, love. This is why you’re here.” His hands were warm, hard, as he cupped her breasts through the damp cotton of her gown. “Lord, you feel so good.”

She arched helplessly toward him. Sweet heaven, he was right, that was why she was here. All the rest was lies.

He pushed down the clinging cotton of the bodice of the nightgown, his fingers plucking feverishly at her nipples. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out as the muscles in her stomach clenched. Fire. Need.

Then he was pulling her toward the cliff. “This way,” he muttered. “Shelter.”

Shelter in this deluge? She didn’t care about shelter. She only wanted him to touch her, come into her. She wanted to run her hands over the hard muscles of his back as he—

“Here.” It
was
shelter—of a sort. A beach blanket was spread beneath the jutting overhang of the cliff. Andrew was stripping quickly. “Lie down, please,” he said. “It will have to be quick the first time. I’m burning up.”

So was Lily. She was experiencing a desire so intense and mindless, all she could do was stand there, wanting him.

He was almost nude now, his back to her, a pale, powerful shadow in the darkness.

She took a step toward him, then another. Her arms encircled his waist, her aroused nipples pressing into the flesh of his back. He felt so good. Hard, warm, sleek. “Andrew …”

He froze, his muscles locking. “Lord, Lily.” A long shudder rippled through him, and the muscles of her stomach contracted in a silent gasp as
she felt him hardening, readying. “Please. I can’t—” He broke free and whirled to face her. “Quick, love.” His hands urgently tugged the gown over her hips. “I have to have—” He pulled her down on the blanket, and was between her thighs. “Take me into you,” he cried, then plunged deep.

Lily wasn’t conscious of the primeval sound issuing from her. Hardness, heat, thickness, ruthlessly seeking into the heart of her. “Yes, oh, yes.” She spoke through clenched teeth. “Please … more.”

He was giving her more. Plunging, withdrawing, thrusting, his breath coming in harsh gasps. His hands slid around her to cup her buttocks in his warm, hard palms. “Hold me.” He drew her up and forward to meet each wild, forceful stroke.

She clenched around him.

Andrew’s throat arched as he threw his head back, his body tightening like a bowstring. “Lily!”

Wild, she couldn’t
stand
for it to go on. The
tears ran down her cheeks as she dug her nails into his tight buttocks. Dear heaven, so good … She couldn’t
stand
for it to end.

There was no choice. The fury between them climaxed with the same explosive urgency with which it had begun.

Andrew collapsed on top of her, his elbows braced on the blanket to spare her his weight. She could feel his heartbeat thundering against her naked breasts as he fought for breath.