Real Men Do It Better (30 page)

“Eric. And we’re getting married.”

Duncan’s face dropped with shock. Suddenly, all his brashness was gone, and instead there was a stark, naked expression in his eyes she’d rarely seen, and his vulnerability rattled her to the core. If he was going to look at her like that she was in deep trouble.

“You’re engaged?” he whispered, his gaze snapping to her bare ring finger.

“Yes.” She raised her chin.

“Where’s the rock?” The haunted expression disappeared and the old, cocky tilt was back on his lips. It was the same practiced grin that once upon a time could bring her to her knees.

But no more.

Annie jerked her left hand behind her back. “Well, it’s not official. Not yet. We’re going to be, we’re almost engaged.”

“But you’re not engaged.”

“Yes. No. Stop looking at me that way.”

“What way?”

“You know.”

As if you’ve got another shot with me. Not after what you pulled.

She scowled, but her heart was reeling. She was not going to let this man get under her skin again. It had taken her months to get over him.

Ha! You’re still not over him.

Which was precisely why she wanted him out of her shop, out of her life for good.

His gaze met hers and the rueful expression in his eyes was so intense she had to look away. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“Jock’s in a rehab hospital,” she blurted, anxious to get out of this conversation and shake off these feelings. “He fell at the pier two weeks ago, broke his hip, and had to have hip replacement surgery. That’s why I’m home.”

“Jock’s bedridden?” Duncan sounded stunned.

Annie understood. The news had stunned her, too. She shrugged, trying her best not to let her emotions show. The thought of losing Jock, the last family she had left, terrified her. “He
is
seventy-four.”

“He’s one of the toughest men I’ve ever known. Jock’s a fighter. He’ll come through this thing.”

The vulnerability was back, tingeing his voice with anxiety. He and her grandfather had once been very close, and she was the cause of the rift between them. Jock had loved Duncan like a grandson, but he couldn’t condone the way he’d treated Annie and they’d quarreled bitterly. For the first time Annie realized exactly how much their ill-fated fling had cost Duncan.

“What did you want to see him about?” she asked.

He paused for the longest moment, studying her with eyes the color of a turbulent midnight sea. There was something different about him. His face seemed wiser, more grounded, as if at twenty-eight he’d finally grown into the man he was supposed to be. Had his trip to Bermuda changed him? Or was it something else?

His mouth seemed different, too. Less carefree, more prudent. As if it no longer kissed impulsively. She wondered if he tasted differently and if the texture of his lips had changed. Rougher now, perhaps, than they’d been, but gentler, less cavalier.

Knock it off. You’re imagining things. He’s the same self-absorbed flirt he’s always been. You’re susceptible, lonely, and no one’s ever tripped your sexual trigger the way he did. You’re ripe for the picking. Don’t you dare let him pluck you.

Duncan shifted his weight, scrutinizing her for a moment that stretched long and fiery, the sultry look in his eyes deepening, kindling the flammable tension. He stood so near, if she reached out a hand she could brush her fingertips along his tanned cheek.

The heat of awareness intensified, spreading throughout her entire body, lodging deep within her belly, growing heavy with longing. The very core of her burned for him, churned her juices, aroused her most feminine instincts.

Forget the Twinkies. He made her so nervous she craved mainlining double-fudge brownies.

“I discovered something on that clipper ship we found in Bermuda,” he murmured at last. “The
Lorelei
.”

“Oh?” She wanted to tell him she couldn’t care less, but some small, twisted part of her couldn’t help imagining he was going to say he’d discovered what a big jerk he’d been five years ago, beg her forgiveness, and vow his undying love. In which case, she’d laugh in his face and walk away.

“A very special treasure map.”

His words filled her with hope and dismay. Thrill, trepidation, euphoria, and fear tangled into a hard knot inside her. Annie’s heart careened against her chest. She sucked in her breath.

“What?”

The look on his face told her his find was monumental and that he’d kept it a secret from everyone else. And then she knew what he was going to say before the words tumbled from his mouth. She felt the past pressing in on her, heavy and dark. A flood, a swamp, a mire of regret and pain.

“The Siren’s Call,” he said, confirming at once both her worst nightmare and her most heartfelt desire. “I know where she is.”

Giddy goosebumps glided up her arm. Could it be true? The Siren’s Call? After all these years?

Her body flushed. Her head swam. Her vision blurred. Then Annie’s knees just crumpled.

2

Duncan expected his news to come as a shock, but he hadn’t imagined his tough-minded Annie would faint. One second she was damning him to eternal hell with her gorgeous green eyes, and the next second her legs buckled and she was pitching forward facefirst. He grabbed her around the waist, stopping her inches short of cracking her head on the concrete floor. Corkscrew tendrils of her honey brown hair fell softly against his knee and her pearl navel ring pressed hard on the inside of his wrist.

He smiled. She might have gone to Harvard and she might be living in Manhattan far from home, but that small pearl nestled in the alcove of her rounded belly told him she was still a beach bunny at heart.

She smelled of coconut and summertime and the complexity of their past. Five years later and nothing had altered. Even unconscious, Annie Graves welded a mysterious influence over him. She’d held him in her sway since the moment he realized she morphed from a pigtailed, tomboyish teen who’d followed him around like a puppy, to a full-grown woman with adult needs. Still, he’d held back, knowing she was too young, knowing their relationship was too complicated.

He thought of the first time he’d seen her. Nate Graves, Annie’s father, had hired him to work in the dive shop, renting out diving equipment to tourists. When Nate learned Duncan was a runaway with no place to stay, he’d offered him the small garage apartment behind the family house that fronted the beach. Duncan had been in heaven. He’d never lived in a place that nice. He’d been four months on his own—after his alcoholic father had beaten him one time too many—living on the streets, rummaging through garbage cans for food, doing he what he must in order to survive.

Duncan had been sweeping out the storeroom that first afternoon, when Annie walked through the door, all tomboy in her cutoff blue jean shorts and red halter top. She was wearing pink rubber flip-flops with rhinestones, and her cute little toes were painted a fetching color of purple. She’d been working over a wad of bubble gum with her smooth glossy lips. He could smell the watermelony scent when she blew a bubble and it exploded in a soft pop as she stared at him wide-eyed.

She was only thirteen, but she already possessed the fully rounded curves of a grown woman. He’d been sixteen and filled with all the hormones and impulses indigenous to that age group. She’d looked at him like he was one of the Backstreet Boys, and he’d felt something deep in his chest just explode.

He’d wanted her, and in that wanting was his damnation. He knew he could never betray Nate Graves’s kindness by taking advantage of his young daughter’s crush on him. Duncan had fought his desires the only way he knew how. By teasing Annie and acting as if she was an annoying kid sister.

And by finding himself a girlfriend, fast.

Annie had no idea that the string of women who’d come in and out of Duncan’s life had been nothing more than a desperate effort to keep his mind and his hands off her. The older they grew, the harder it became to fight his feelings whenever he was around her, so he’d moved out of the garage apartment and into a houseboat when he was eighteen. He became such an accomplished diver, Nate let him take over giving diving lessons to the tourists while he and Annie’s mother went trekking around the world in search of the Siren’s Call.

And then Annie’s parents had been killed.

Their relationship could have shifted then. Become what Duncan had always dreamed of. But Annie was still underage and she was vulnerable and hurting. She needed friendship and understanding, not groping and hot breathing. Plus, he had nothing to offer her. He worked for Jock now, who’d taken over the dive shop, but he needed to prove to himself that he could provide for her before he dared to tell her how he felt.

Things went on like that for a few more years. Duncan perfecting his diving skills, dreaming of the day he could dive for and find the Siren’s Call himself. Showing Annie exactly how much he loved her. He dated plenty, yes, but never seriously. He never lied to other women. He was always honest. Told them that his heart would forever belong to someone else.

Until the eve of her twentieth birthday, when she’d kissed him and Duncan could no longer hold his passion at bay. He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t proven himself worthy of her, but she’d pushed him to the limits of his endurance, and he’d made love to her prematurely.

And that fateful night had wrecked everything between them.

Now swinging the unconscious Annie into his arms, he carried her into the storeroom. The dive shop had changed since the last time he’d been there. Supplies had been inventoried, boxes stacked neatly and color coded. The floor had been swept, windows cleaned, files sorted. Annie was home again.

But not for good. Not unless he did something drastic. She’d hardened her heart against him and while he understood why, he also knew he was on the verge of losing her forever. He had only a small window of time to change her mind about him. That’s what he was doing back in St. Augustine.

Gently, he laid her on the scarred wooden table where, in the past, he and Jock and her grandfather’s cronies had played many a hand of Texas Hold ’Em. He gazed at her face, his eyes lingering on the scar at her chin. His breath caught in his lungs. She looked so fragile, so small and delicate. Next to her he felt like some great oversized beast, lumbering and clumsy.

Memory transported him back five years. Images of the night they’d finally made love after years of flirting, indelibly etched into his brain. Duncan could see his fingers stroking the curve of the small of her back. He could hear her purrs of pleasure. Could feel her body arching into his as they swayed together on the dance floor at a summer solstice beach party. His cock was throbbing and she had boldly ground her pelvis against him, letting him know she wanted him, too.

He should have put a stop to it then, but her mouth had been so pink and ripe. It made Duncan think of all the raunchy things she could do to him with those lips.

Somehow, he couldn’t recall exactly—his brain had been so frosted with lust—they made it back to the houseboat where he’d been living at the time. All he could recollect was his desperate, hungry need for her. How they’d ripped off each other’s clothes and ignited in each other’s arms.

And that’s when he’d discovered she was a virgin.

Emotion overcame him then. Ambivalence. Joy. He’d felt honored and overwhelmed by the gift she was offering him, but also frightened by it. This encounter meant something. To her, to him, to both of them.

Not wanting to do anything they both might regret later, he’d tried to call it off.

But Annie had been the one who’d taken the lead at that point. Pleading with him to make love to her and to put an end to her sexual torture. He lost his last shred of control. He’d been as gentle and thoughtful as he could, treasuring the gift she’d given him.

He’d coiled his body around hers, tracing his quivering hands over her skin, memorizing every precious detail of her—the freckles dotting her cheeks, the little valley between her nose and her lips, the faint dusky network of veins beneath her pale softness.

Her exuberance had surprised and delighted him. Incandescent, they lit up the bedroom. It had been and still was to this day, the most perfect sex Duncan had ever had.

Then he remembered that awful morning after, when he’d realized what a mistake he’d made. He knew he could never hope to hold on to her. She was much too smart for a guy like him. He was nothing more than a scruffy salvage diver with more bravado than brains. He had nothing to offer. He simply wasn’t man enough for her. Duncan had panicked and done the only thing he knew to do. He’d pretended their blissful night of pleasure had meant nothing more than great sex.

Many times over the years he’d regretted that decision. Not just because he’d lost Annie’s friendship and Jock’s, but because he’d hurt them both so deeply. He yearned to reach into the past, grab tight hold of his mistake, and erase what he’d done. To take it all back. To make a different choice. But if he could do that Annie wouldn’t have an MBA from Harvard. She wouldn’t be a Wall Street stockbroker.

Nor would she be almost engaged to Eric Hammond.

He growled, perturbed and jealous at the thought of another man touching her.

Three weeks ago, Jock had called him in Bermuda. Duncan had rarely spoken to the older man since he and Annie had broken up. He was surprised to hear from him until Jock related that Eric Hammond had phoned, seeking his permission to ask for Annie’s hand in marriage.

“You’re going to go to your grave regretting letting her slip through your fingers, Stewart,” Jock had warned. “Get home as soon as you can. I’ve stayed out of your affair because I hoped you two would eventually realize you were meant to be together and work this out on your own, but since you’re both stubborn as donkeys, I’ve got to put in my two cents worth before Annie ends up marrying that jackass lawyer. I bought you some time. I told Hammond I needed Annie to come down and help me get my business affairs in order. I convinced him to hold off until then.”