SeductiveIntent (3 page)

Brendan had his back turned to the closet, so Sophia could
only see his rear for now. The view, however, was quite nice. Those broad
shoulders tapering down to narrow hips and the tightest little bottom.

Kim hummed appreciatively, slipping her string bikini
bottoms off as well, standing naked before him. Since Kim’s pubis was waxed clean,
it was impossible to tell if she was a natural blonde, but Sophia would bet
money she wasn’t. She held her arms out to Brendan and he went to her.

“See how good I make you feel, lover?” the woman crooned,
dropping to her knees and pushing him back against the closed door to the
hallway so that Sophia saw him front-wise for the first time.

Oh my.

He certainly looked as if this Kim made him feel good. He
was completely erect as she took him in her mouth and his hands fisted in her
hair, directing her, the blonde bobbing her head up and down on him. Sophia
watched, mesmerized. At first, it was just the acrobatics involved in the
fellatio. How in the world did she take that huge thing so far into her mouth?
But then she got distracted by the expression on Beckett’s face. He looked in
pure…ecstasy, his eyes closed, his head back against the door, his lips
thinned. What would it be like to render this particular man immobile with
pleasure?

“Aren’t I the best little cocksucker you know, Brendan?” Kim
paused momentarily to reflect.

Brendan opened his eyes and looked down, smoothing her hair
back. “Not every woman would consider that an attribute, Kim.”

He pulled her up and flipped her back against the door,
kissing his way down her neck, her breasts, her toned tummy until he was
pushing her thighs apart and evidently returning the favor to squeals of
delight. “Oh, you’re so good at that. Oh, just there. That’s right.”

It was hard for Sophia to tell exactly what Brendan was
doing with his mouth down there, given a woman’s private parts were a touch
less out there, but whatever it was it was well appreciated. After a while,
Brendan got up and walked to the dresser where Sophia knew his wallet lay. An
exhaustive search of it earlier had not produced anything of significance—other
than awe that he had left it right out like that, not worried about thieves
apparently—with only a driver’s license, credit cards, and condoms in it.
Brendan extracted a condom and ripped the foil package open with a practiced
hand.

“Don’t you ever ride barebacked, lover?” Kim went to the bed
and lay among the crumpled sheets, opening her legs wide. “Or is it just me
you’re always so careful with?”

Brendan rolled the condom onto his penis and joined her.
“None of your business,” he said, pinning her arms over her head as he climbed
on top of her. When he kneed her legs open wider and thrust into her, Sophia
felt it herself between her own legs. For the first time, she realized with
horror what all this interest in the scene was on her part. She was turned on
by it. She was imagining that she was the one in bed with Brendan Beckett.

His hips moved smoothly and she imagined he was moving in
her. The woman wrapped her legs around the tops of his thighs, digging her
heels into the flesh just below his bottom. Sophia watched, fascinated at the
rhythm of his thrusts, the muscles of his back straining as he rode her.
Although the woman made an interesting array of sounds throughout their
lovemaking—from the verbal “oh, that’s
so
good” to the nonverbal grunt—Beckett
made no sound. Or at least no sound loud enough for Sophia to hear. When the
woman finally let out a theatrical moan worthy of a porn film star and
announced she was coming, only then did Brendan Beckett seem to let his control
slip. Relinquishing her arms, he looped them under her thighs and tugged her
farther toward him, coming up on his knees and levering her as he pounded in to
her, one last thrust and a muted groan announcing apparently that he had come
as well, though in a less dramatic fashion than his partner.

Finished, he pulled out and removed the condom, tying the
end and tossing it in the waste paper basket. He put his trunks back on. “Can I
have my swim now?”

“Oh, baby, don’t leave now,” the woman whined. “I know how
many times you can do that. Why in such a hurry?”

Brendan threw her clothes on the bed. “Come on. Get
dressed.”

By the time the two of them were gone and Sophia felt it
safe to come out of the closet, she figured at least five minutes must have
elapsed. A little tighter than she liked, but she needed to get out of there.
She no sooner opened the door to the hallway than she came face to face with
Beckett. She mumbled her excuses in Spanish, consistent with her disguise as an
older Hispanic hotel maid. One with a weight problem care of what Arthur
indelicately liked to call a fat suit.

To her astonishment, instead of the usual dismissive
response in English the five-star patrons of a hotel usually gave in this
situation—inconveniently encountering the help—Brendan Beckett answered her in
pretty good Spanish. Almost as good as hers, as a matter of fact, which was not
only impressive, it was dangerous. How had they not known he spoke Spanish?

Smiling, he asked her to excuse him for barging in and
disturbing her in her work. No problem, she’d responded meekly, opening the
door again and saying she would come back. She had left a cleaning cart in the
hallway outside the room when she first came in, just in case. She put one hand
on it and tried to shut the door behind her, but he held it open, coming out
into the hall, assuring her she didn’t have to leave as he just wanted to grab
something and he’d be gone again. She nodded her “
Sí,
” figuring to do
otherwise would make him suspicious, and he went back into the room, leaving
the door open.

“You there.” The young man hurrying toward her down the hall
was dressed in swim trunks, like Beckett, but rather to worse effect. “My
room’s not been cleaned yet and I have a very important conference call in a
few minutes. Get down there and see what you can do. I’m in the Presidential
Suite.”

Sophia repeated her claim not to speak English. His response
was a tirade of swear words she would’ve understood even if she hadn’t spoken
English. Now this was a response she was more used to after having had
considerable experience in years past dressing as she did now in a dowdy hotel
maid’s uniform. Guys who would sidle up to her in a second when she wasn’t in
disguise treated her like dirt when she was. A disguise like this anyway.
Especially the rich ones.

Brendan Beckett came out of the room. He glanced at the
other guy for a second and then smiled at her, holding up swim goggles, and
telling her in Spanish that he had what he needed.

“Look, pal, my room gets cleaned first,” the obnoxious guest
clarified. “I’m in the Presidential Suite. That trumps you,” he glanced behind
Brendan toward the open door, “since you’re in just a regular suite. Why this
fat cow was in your room first, I have no idea.”

“Hey, enough,” Brendan warned the guy in English.

Fully expecting him to dispute his fellow guest’s
housekeeping priority—this was just the kind of thing rich guys like to fight
about in one form or another—she was surprised at what Beckett said, again in
English, so obviously not just for the maid’s benefit.

“Watch your mouth.”

The jerk laughed. “She can’t speak English.”

“That’s no excuse to be rude.”

“Wait a minute. Aren’t you Brendan Beckett?” Without waiting
for the response he added, with a laugh, looking at her as he said it, “I heard
you’d fuck anything with a pussy, but I thought that was an exaggeration.”

Brendan instructed her in Spanish to go back into the room
and not worry about anything. Head down, she obeyed, rolling the cart in with
her as Brendan closed the door behind her. Presumably, now would come the male,
rich guy bonding at her expense. Not really anxious to hear that conversation,
she nonetheless put her ear to the door, startled when she felt a slam against
it and then what sounded like a companion slam against the wall opposite. She
should have stepped away from the door—that would be the safest thing to do—but
instead she put her eye up to the peephole.

Brendan Beckett had the other guy up against the wall, his
forearm to his throat. Probably suggesting he would sleep with a dog like her,
or like she was pretending to be, was an insult the notorious playboy took
personally.

“Look, I don’t know who you are,” Beckett said calmly, “but
I know you’re an asshole. Just think twice about acting so much like one next
time.”

He let him go.

“I was just kidding about you sleeping with her. That cow—“

The arm hold was back. “You’re not getting this. Don’t
insult a woman who’s done nothing to you. Is that clear enough?”

The guy nodded, clearly confused. He wasn’t the only one.

“Try to show a little courtesy next time, okay? And if I
hear you caused any trouble for that woman, I’ll have your balls and I don’t
care who the fuck you are. Understand?”

The other guy nodded again, and Brendan let him go again.
“Get out of here. Go on.” Brendan turned back to the door and Sophia stumbled
back.

He smiled as he opened the door, switching to Spanish again.
“You can leave this open. That idiot is gone. I’m sorry about that. You
shouldn’t have to put up with that. You let me know if that jerk causes any
other trouble for you, won’t you?”

“
Sí. Gracias
.”

She kept her face carefully blank as he left her. In
reality, she couldn’t have been any more puzzled than if she really had not
spoken English. A rich playboy who was nice to downtrodden overweight nobodies?
Who was this guy? When she left the room the second time, she brought his
journal with her.

Sophia came back to herself as Brendan handed the bride to
her intended and stepped slightly back. The priest or reverend or whatever he
was—Sophia didn’t have much experience with religion—welcomed them all here to
join the “dearly beloved.” Or something. She wasn’t really listening, but the
point was everybody else was. This was the easiest time to slip into a wedding
uninvited, when everyone was absorbed with observing the actual vows being
exchanged. Later, when the reception got underway, the guests would
people-watch—especially at a wedding like this—and inevitably be more observant
about folks slipping in or out, even if they didn’t mean to be. But when Sophia
took an empty chair on an outer aisle during the ceremony, the woman next to
her just smiled and went back to looking at the bride and groom.

The wedding couple was rather something to look at. The
bride, Brendan’s sister, was radiant, tall and blonde and beautiful in her
elegant white silk gown, the lace veil folded back on her upswept hair. Her
groom was dark-haired and devilishly handsome in his tuxedo, smiling at his
soon-to-be wife.

Brendan’s siblings were easy to pick out among the
attendants and in the first row. Two twin bridesmaids in gray silk with
lavender trimming were Becketts without question, with their blonde hair and
perfect skin. Matching older versions, one in black oddly, sat in the front
row, both smiling, assorted children in ages ranging from middle school to high
school surrounding them. Those must be the older sisters and nieces and
nephews.

The groom’s attendants consisted of Brendan and a bookish
man with curly brown hair and perpetually slipping glasses, who kept whispering
to Brendan like a naughty school boy in class until the groom scowled over at
him and he stopped.

Where the groom’s family was, Sophia didn’t know. She
supposed the gray-haired older woman on the other side of the aisle belonged to
him. The rest of the crowd could be anybody. Since this was a wedding of
business titans, as the press had dubbed it, they were probably all colleagues
or customers or whatever business titans had. Maybe they were all just minions.

Before Sophia knew it, the couple was being pronounced man
and wife and walking down the aisle arm and arm, smiling so genuinely it was
kind of sickening to watch.

Well, never mind. Now was the time for the action to begin.

Chapter Two

Brendan was happy for Virginia. He really was. She was
beaming as she danced with her new husband. She hadn’t even asked him what the
latest projections were, a relief since they happened to be lousy.

“Are you having another?”

He glanced sideways at his older sister, Nora. Choosing to
wear black to a wedding could be considered chic, but since Nora’s husband had
just been incarcerated for trying to kill the bride, it was probably more than
a fashion statement. More like a comment on the institution of marriage as a
whole.

Brendan downed his champagne in one gulp. “Yep.”

Nora frowned. She had been a heavy drinker once herself, but
her husband’s descent into drug-induced crime seemed to have scared her sober.
He exchanged his empty glass for a full one care of a passing waiter and downed
that too.

“No date, Brendan?”

“No. You know I think it’s a bad idea to bring a girl to a
family wedding. Gives her dangerous ideas about Beckett money and the
happily-ever-afters that go with it.”

“Yes. I suppose so.”

The crack in his sister’s voice made him feel like a shit.
“I’m sorry, Nora. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right. I can’t go through the rest of my life with
everybody tip-toeing around me. Just take my advice, little brother, and never
marry a pretty face without finding out what’s underneath.”

“No worry on that score. I don’t intend to get married.”

“Even better,” Nora muttered.

“What are you two looking so down about?” Mindy popped up at
his elbow, a glass of champagne casually in hand. He divested her of it, as was
their usual practice.

“You’re not twenty-one yet, squirt.”

His pretty little sister huffed. “Why don’t you relax your
big brother act for one night, Brendan? It’s Virginia’s wedding, for heaven’s
sake. What do you think, Nora?”

Nora smiled wistfully at their sister, not much older than
her oldest child, who Brendan couldn’t help but notice didn’t appear to be
speaking to his mother. The little snot. He’d give his nephew a good talking-to
if he didn’t know the poor kid was going through hell now. Even a no-good
father was better than a no-good father behind bars.

Nora was chatting with Mindy now, an arm around her shoulder
casually. He might have thought that the twins would annoy Nora at this
juncture in her life, with their carefree failure to recognize the enormity of
what had just happened. To the twins, somebody trying to kill their one sister
and the husband of their other sister ending up behind bars were just blips in
a life full of college and socializing.

But if anything, Nora seemed to cherish the normalcy in her
relationship with the twins.

Mason Lockbridge, a friend of his and Virginia’s from
college, approached them and nudged Brendan off to the side.

“Hey, who is that?”

Brendan followed the direction of Mason’s gaze and saw her.
“Wow,” he agreed. The woman was in an electric blue dress, as if she needed to
call any more attention to herself. A halter top kept in the most
attention-getting breasts he had seen in quite some time, the short skirt of
the dress wafting over long, long legs, with a tiny waist in between. Now that
was a beautiful body. The face was just as lovely, with wide, generous lips,
and huge doe-like eyes, though he was too far away to tell their color. Her
hair was a mass of silky dark curls to her waist.

Brendan put his champagne glass down on a nearby table.

“She’s got to be a friend of the groom’s,” Mason commented.
“She looks like she could be one of Winston’s old flames. You better make sure
your sister doesn’t see her.”

Brendan scoffed. “Virginia wouldn’t care if she did see
her.”

“I thought they were in love.”

“Believe me. They are. Winston can’t take his eyes off her
and Virginia even stops thinking about business for a half a second when she’s
with him. No old flame is going to get in the way of that.” If there was one
thing Brendan believed in, it was that it was possible for some people to have
a happy marriage. His parents had had one. Allie and her husband Pat had one.
Virginia and Aaron were going to have one. But not him. Never him.

“You couldn’t possibly be serious, Brendan.”

“I am, Sarah. Why not?”

“Why not? How about I’m a waitress and you’re a Beckett.
How’s that for a reason?”

He laughed, kissing the tip of her freckled nose and palming
one of her milky white breasts. She slipped one of her long, bare legs between
his and nudged her thigh against his cock, already hardening though they had
just gotten done making love. A hard cock was a pretty perpetual state for him
at his age, but the thought of satiating it with Sarah’s sweet body for the
rest of his life filled him with excitement. Her objections to marrying him
were silly and he planned to make short work of them.

“That’s a lousy reason, baby. What does that even matter?”

“Your parents—”

“Want me to be happy. You make me happy.” He tasted her
strawberry-flavored lips, care of that light lip gloss she always wore since
she needed no other makeup. Even at this relatively young point in his life,
he’d slept around quite a lot. And already, he was tired of it. Tired of one
easy lay after another, tired of college, tired of the constant socializing. He
wanted to settle down with Sarah. He wanted to be half of a happy couple, like
his parents, like Allie and Pat, even like Nora and Brian when they weren’t
bickering with each other.

“I would never live up to being the wife of a CEO, Brendan.”

“I don’t want to be CEO. I told you that. That’s for Virginia,
not me. She likes all that stuff.”

“And what do you like, Brendan?” She said it so softly, he
almost didn’t hear it.

“You.” He kissed her, flipping her over onto her back, and
reaching for another condom. He slid his fully erect cock into her tight vagina.
“I like you.” Murmuring those same words as he fucked her, somewhere along the
way he switched to “I love you,” but she never responded, her eyes closed, her
welcoming legs open to him.

When he shuddered and slid off her again, kissing her cheek,
he felt wetness against his lips. He reared back. “Are you crying?”

She swiped one hand against her cheek. “I have to go. My
shift starts in ten minutes. I have to get into my uniform.”

“Look, Sarah, I want us to live together. I want to marry
you, not just fuck you in the backseat of my car.”

“I have to go.”

And then she was. Gone. That very same night. Just
disappeared, leaving him a note that said it all.

She had been put in his path by one of his “pals”, who was
long on heritage but short on funds. The idea was for Sarah—who his friend had
fed with all his likes and dislikes, right down to not a lot of makeup—to hook
up with him and eventually assume a role as full-fledged mistress, with car and
apartment and credit line all in her name. The friend would benefit of course.
Sarah would benefit. Even Brendan would benefit, she had said in her note since
she’d be sleeping with him just as much as she’d be sleeping with his friend
and whoever else she happened to take a fancy to on her own time.

But he was so “sweet” and so “innocent” despite his skill in
bed that she just couldn’t find it in her to dupe him. And then when he started
talking marriage, the friend had pushed her to accept, obviously an even better
set-up. But she couldn’t. So she left.

And the biggest favor dear little Sarah had ever done him
was to leave him that note. Whatever innocence he had left in him was long gone
after that.

“You better go find out who she is, just in case, pal.”

“Yeah,” Brendan agreed with a laugh. “It’s kind of my duty
seeing as how I’m brother of the bride.”

“I’d try, but if you got your eye on her, I got no chance.”

“You got to work on your confidence, buddy.”

“Just stating a fact.”

The mystery woman was wandering to the edge of the patio, as
if mysteriously being corralled off for his benefit. Perfect.

“See you later.” Brendan approached the woman, who turned in
his direction at the last minute. Blue. Her eyes were a deep blue-green,
slanted up a little at the ends, which gave her an exotic look. Her skin was
golden, not with a tan, but suggesting a drop or two of Mediterranean blood in
her background.

“Hi.” Always a good way to start. She gazed back at him
without returning the greeting, so he added, “You looked a little lost there so
I thought I’d volunteer my services.”

“To do what?”

Her voice was low and smoky. But oddly familiar.

“Show you around. Are you a friend of the bride’s or the
groom’s?”

“Neither,” she said, without further explanation.

“Maybe friend isn’t quite the right word.”

“If you want to know who I am, Mr. Beckett, just ask me.”

“Ah, so you know me.”

“Who doesn’t know the handsome Brendan Beckett?”

“I’m flattered.”

“You flatter easily.”

He was taken up short. Not that he never got the brush-off
from women, it was just…well, no, it was that. He never got the brush-off from
women. At least not in recent memory since he’d passed puberty anyway.

“Ouch,” he said with a laugh.

“You wound easily too.”

If this was the brush-off—and he was starting to feel as if
it might be—at least she wasn’t moving away. On the contrary, the girl seemed
rooted to the spot, just on the edge of the patio, staring only at him as
people passed by.

“Any chance I can change your bad opinion of me?” he asked.

“Who said I had a bad opinion of you?”

“You like easily flattered, easily wounded guys?”

“Ones that look like you, I guess.”

Now that was more like it. He moved a little closer, leaning
his head down toward her. She had a fresh, lemony scent about her. “The
feeling’s mutual. Think of what beautiful children we’d have.”

Okay, he admitted it. That was corny. But since he always
carefully used a condom in any encounter, it wasn’t as if he actually meant it.
And most girls seemed to like it.

Not this one, though. “Does that line actually work?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. I usually only use it when I’ve had
too much champagne and only—and this is the important part—only at a wedding.”
Without being too obvious his eyes dipped slightly to take in her cleavage. He
swallowed, hard. When he looked back at her face, the smirk said she had noticed
his detour. Hell, he was only human. “Sometimes I don’t need a line at all.”

“No? So what do you do? Just ask a girl to go to bed with
you?”

He said nothing, smiling. She really was gorgeous, but her
flirting technique was a little odd.

“Why don’t you try that with me?”

“I’m sensing a trap here.”

“Easily flattered, easily wounded and easily cowed,” she
concluded.

“You’re killing me.”

Just then, the bride brushed past giving them an absent
smile, her train flowing over one arm, as she apparently tried to keep it off
the ground. “Brendan, can you do me a favor and find Allie? Send her up to my
room. I need some help with my dress.”

When she was gone, Brendan said, “I guess I have my marching
orders. Stay right here until I get back?”

“I don’t know. We’ll just have to see if I obey orders as
well as you seem to.”

A passing waiter leaned in to offer Sophia a glass of
champagne from his tray. She took one as he softly said, monotone, “You’re
supposed to be flirting with him, not driving him away.”

“He’ll be back,” she murmured and Arthur moved on.

He was. Two minutes later.

“Did you find your sister?”

“What?”

“Wasn’t that what you went off to do?”

“Oh yeah. No, better than that, I found the groom. He
doesn’t like to let Virginia out of his sight for more than a minute, so he was
happy to go up to her. He’ll take care of whatever she needs.”

“Some men are like that.” She sipped her champagne. “Others,
not so much.”

“I could give you what you need.”

Give her what she needed? Why didn’t he just whip out his
penis and get it over with?

She stared at him without responding, deadpan. Not that she
was trying to play hard to get here. Or at least she wasn’t supposed to be.
It’s just that she had expected a little more from the man she’d met in the
hallway of that Four Seasons hotel. The one who had spoken in Spanish to a
nobody maid. The one who wrote the kind of thoughts—the kind of poetry,
really—she had read in his journal.

“I’m sensing here that my charm isn’t winning you over,” he
said mildly, reading her accurately, which in itself was frightening. She
better put her game face on, and pretty soon too. “Okay, I’ll let up. How do
you know who I am, by the way?”

“You were giving away the bride, remember? Not hard to
figure out you’re the only son of the illustrious Beckett family.”

“Yep. That’s me all right. So are you here with someone?”

“Why?”

He laughed. “You’re not big on questions, are you? I was
just asking because I was hoping I might give you a call sometime and I was
wondering whose toes I might be stepping on if I did.”

“Give me a call?”

His sensual mouth tightened. “You know, for a date maybe.”

A date. Such a convenient all-purpose euphemism. What a
surprise.

She was suddenly feeling very testy indeed, but she had a
job to do. Fine, she’d do it. “Well, I always say there’s no time like the
present. We could have a date right now. Do you have a room here?”

He eyed her. “Sure I have a room. This is my home.” She had
expected him to counter that he could take her to his apartment instead and
she’d have to pretend her urgency was such he should just take her upstairs.
She hadn’t expected him to call this estate home or, for that matter, to
hesitate the slightest bit in taking her up on her offer.