SeductiveIntent (7 page)

Hard to read her expression under all that armor, but she
just settled back on her elbows, gazing out to the ocean. “Sure. Just let me
know when you’re done with it.”

“Oh no. I’m not putting it on me. I already put mine on
inside. I’m putting it on you.”

Before she could object, he unzipped her cover-up, parting
the sides and pulling it off her arms. When he saw the bounty he’d uncovered,
he swallowed, hard. The coral-colored two-piece suit was not especially daring,
given the string bikinis common on beaches these days, or even the topless sunbathing
in Europe of course. It wasn’t the suit that was so sexy, but what it did to
the body it covered—using that term fairly loosely. The bottoms rose high on
her slim hips, accentuating the miles of legs below, baring her tiny waist. And
then the cups of the top. Two pieces of material accentuating the most perfect
of breasts.

Determined to keep it light, though, he fiddled with the
strap of one side of her bikini top. “This is a private beach. You don’t need
this if you don’t want.”

Sophia looked up and down the deserted strip of sand, the
blue-green water lapping calmly at the shore line. “Couldn’t somebody be
walking along here? Maybe from one of the hotels farther down the beach?”

“Nobody ever walks this far. And if they did, the privacy
signs would keep them out.”

Well, now he was just outright lying. Those signs didn’t
keep anybody out if they wanted a long walk straight down the beach and the
Becketts had never minded one way or the other. It was true that most tourists
seemed content with the strip of beach at their own hotel and didn’t wander too
far off track, but if they wanted to, neither Brendan nor any of his family
ever had a problem with it.

Right now, though, he wished there was an electrified fence
guarding his privacy with this girl. But he didn’t push it. “If you want to
keep your top on, that’s okay. Lie back.”

He pulled her hat off as she complied, spreading her hair
out around her as he leaned over.

Sophia had seen Brendan Beckett naked, the other night when
they’d broken into his apartment and before that, notably when she had been
watching him make love to another woman. So she didn’t think that seeing him in
a swimsuit today would be any big deal. Oh, was she wrong. He was gorgeous of
course. But what was different this time was that he was for her, if she wanted
him. And what woman in her right mind wouldn’t want him? Well, maybe a
twenty-something—God, would she never get over this childish preoccupation with
the fact that she didn’t know when her birthday was?—virgin con woman who was
good at baiting men but wasn’t exactly sure what to do if she caught one.

A con woman who, by the way, was supposed to be conning this
hot guy, not necessarily falling for him.

Virgin. She cringed at the thought at her age, whatever the
hell it was.

Brendan squeezed a dollop of sunscreen into his palm and lay
down next to her on his side on the oversized towel. Balancing his head on the
hand without the sunscreen, he looked down at his other hand, which was now
spreading the sunscreen over her stomach. As if he had to watch and feel at the
same time.

The lotion felt cool to the touch. Nice in the heat of the
tropical sun. His hand, however, was doing anything but cooling her off. It
traveled in slow circles, getting closer and closer to the edges of both the
top and bottom of her two-piece in its forays.

“That feels good,” she murmured, trying to stay in bait mode
and not give in to the pleasure, which of course was absolutely impossible. He
leaned down to her and took a leisurely kiss. She kissed him back, their
tongues only slightly in each other’s mouths.

Her senses were clamoring for her to indulge them further,
but she resisted, pulling back. Now that her stomach was adequately covered, he
refilled his palm with sunscreen and then resumed its journey, this time
travelling along her neck slowly, then her collar bone and the part of her
chest not covered by the cups of her suit. When his hand wandered carefully
lower, beyond the edge of the cloth, massaging still, she forced herself to
say, “I think the suit covers that part of my skin adequately. I don’t think
you need to put sunscreen there.”

His hand flicked just an inch or two farther underneath her
top, well short of her nipple, but then stopped. He pulled his hand out of her
top. “If you say so.”

She would never survive her thighs. “I can do this myself,
you know.”

“Sure, but where’s the fun in that?”

His erection was hard to hide in a swimsuit. She’d seen that
before too.

“I hope I’m not going to be fighting you off the whole
time.”

Oh my God, where had that shrewish comment come from? It not
only wasn’t true, it was so not in the tone in which she was supposed to
address a mark. So absolutely not in the playbook for acting as bait and
leading a guy on a merry chase.

If Brendan Beckett’s expression right now was any
indication, he was proof positive of why not.

Jesus, what was with this girl? Either she liked him or she
didn’t. The latter was shaping up as a distinct possibility right about now, in
which case her motivation for accepting his invitation to the Caymans was
suspicious. Maybe she was the thief from his apartment. If so, what the hell
did she want? To tease him to death maybe?

She had paid her own way here. Not that he had to pay for it
or anything. And though she had entered the house this morning with an
overnight bag and put it in an upstairs bedroom, for all he knew, she might be
planning to stay in a hotel.

But she was still on his goddamned beach. Did she have to be
such a snip about everything? It was on the tip of his tongue to say that—the
tongue that had just tasted the nirvana of her kiss. He realized how it would
sound and it was so unlike his usual approach with women that it gave him
pause. Where was the laid-back playboy persona he’d perfected into an art? He
never turned caveman on a girl, let alone turned into the spoiled rich boy brat
that everybody probably thought he was anyway. He’d never even wanted to.

Deliberately, he collapsed onto the towel, dialing himself
back, folding his hands behind his head and looking up at the cloudless sky.

“I’m sorry, Brendan. I didn’t mean that.”

“That’s okay. You’re right. We said no strings attached. I’m
coming on too strong. I’ll tell you what. We won’t go anywhere unless you
specifically ask for it. How’s that sound?”

Terrible. That sounded really terrible. He had no fucking
idea why he had even proposed it.

Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he sat up. “Come on.
Let’s go swimming.”

“In the ocean?”

He didn’t dignify that with an answer, but rather just
picked her up unceremoniously and started walking toward the waves.

She quickly looped her arms around his neck, squealing.
“Don’t you dare drop me right into the water, Brendan!”

“We’re at the beach. You’re supposed to go in the water,” he
chided with a smile.

“I can’t swim.”

He stopped, the waves calm today, no higher than his knees
at this point. “Really?”

Her eyes in the sunlight were an intriguing shade, more
green than blue. She looked vulnerable, hesitant. Then she laughed. “No, not
really. I can swim. I just don’t like to be dumped into the water.”

He laughed. “Don’t forget, I have five sisters. I excel at
dumping girls in the water.”

“Especially if they don’t like it, I bet.”

“Especially then.”

He walked farther in as she held on tighter to his neck.

“Oh no, you’re not going to get me with that.”

“What?”

“Snuggling up to me in the hopes that I’ll take pity on
you.” He was thigh high in the water now and the waves almost to her bottom as
he held her.

“It’s cold!”

“It is not. This is the tropics.” Smiling down at her, he
didn’t dump her, though. “All right, you’ve discovered my secret. I wasn’t the
obnoxious brat brother who liked to torture his sisters. I was the wimpy
brother who played nice with them.”

“Good. I hate obnoxious brat brothers.”

“Do you have any?”

Her face was blank.

“Brothers?” he clarified.

“No. I have a confession too, though.”

“Yeah? I’ve got to hear this.”

“I love to be dumped in the water.”

He laughed, spinning round in the water to her renewed
squeals, and with great fanfare flung her into the waves. She went under and
came up like a champagne cork seconds later, water dripping off her hair and
body. Then she lunged at him. “Your turn, mister.”

He ran away as fast as the water would allow, but she caught
up to him easily, swimming toward him, and levered herself up with her palms on
his shoulders to dunk his head beneath the water. When he came up, laughing,
she said triumphantly, “Now we’re even.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Nowhere near even.” Hands on
her waist, he bent his head to kiss her cool, wet lips. Nothing heavy. No
tongue even. Then he twirled her around slowly in the water, loving the sight
of her in this mermaid mode, the sun glistening off her wet hair and skin, the
buoyancy of the water making her feel other-worldly in his arms. She flipped on
to her back to float, which in her bikini top was really quite a sight. He
fought back the lascivious thought. She was just a girl having fun in the
water.
Let her be
, he told herself sternly.

To aid in the effort, he let go of her and swam a few
lengths, his head submerged, his arms and legs feeling the pleasurable
resistance of the waves. He’d gone for a run on the beach before Sophia had
shown up, but it hadn’t been enough to tire him out, which he supposed was what
he was trying to do so he wouldn’t come on so strong with her.

So much for that.

When he came up for air and looked around, treading water,
he couldn’t spot Sophia at first. But then he saw her, swimming steadily
farther out. Since this was a private beach, there were no public safety buoys
posted at various lengths to warn swimmers to go no farther, as there were at
hotel beaches. But he and his sisters had never needed them. They had been
coming here all their lives and could adequately judge how far they should go
out and when they needed to turn back. Sophia had no such experience.

And she was way past the point of safety. Not only were the
currents too strong for comfort out there, there was also the issue of the
occasional boat.

Shit. He should have warned her. The sheer panic he felt
hadn’t surprised him, but he didn’t stop to question it. He headed straight for
her, swimming as fast as he could, head down, which was probably not the way to
go about it. It just meant two of them were in danger instead of one if a boat,
for instance, should happen by. By the time he paused to lift his head, he
realized that he was only marginally closer to her now. She was a hell of a
fast swimmer. He should know, since he was a hell of a fast swimmer.

But what the hell was she trying to do? Swim to Cuba?

Chapter Four

She was really way too far out now, and from what he could
tell, she wasn’t even pausing to gauge how far from the shore she was. There
was a real danger at the pace she was going that she might find herself too
tired to make it all the way back when she finally turned around.

The little idiot.

He redoubled his efforts, ensuring of course that he might
find himself too tired as well by the time he caught up to her to get back, but
he didn’t care. He’d seen the dot of a boat or two out on the horizon. God
forbid that one of them head back in and Sophia find herself in its path.

Blanking his mind, he swam with an intensity that signaled
stores of adrenaline he normally used only for long bouts of mindless sex were
being called upon. When next he raised his head, he was much closer to her,
although that was probably because she appeared to have stopped swimming,
waiting for him. When he caught up to her, he didn’t bother to say much. “You
little fool” sufficed. But he added, “Do you know how far out you are?”

They were both treading water, breathing hard, but his
comment seemed to surprise her. “Is that why you followed me?”

“Come on. We swim back together. Side by side.”

By the time they both trudged onto shore, he for one was
exhausted, and pissed as hell. Flat on his back on the sand, breathing hard, he
tried to rein back in his anger. “Do you know how dangerous that was?” he
muttered, eyes closed. When he opened them, she had her head turned toward him,
flat on the sand like him, but watching him.

“What?” he snapped.

“Is that why you swam after me? You were worried about me?”

He said nothing for a minute, trying to remind himself she
wasn’t familiar with these waters. She couldn’t have known. It was his fault
for taking her into the ocean without adequately warning her first that no
matter how good a swimmer she was—and she was damned good apparently since she
wasn’t even breathing as hard as he was—these waters could be treacherous and
the kind of chance she took was crazy.

“Look, Sophia, you were about twice as far out as was safe.
The currents, a boat, anything could’ve turned that into a very unhappy ending.
Even for a very good swimmer. Don’t do that again. Promise.”

She came up on her side, on one elbow. “That means it was
dangerous for you too. Yet you came after me, even though you knew that.”

Part of him wanted to take credit for doing that. Whatever
floated her boat. That was the whole point of getting her here, wasn’t it? To
seduce her, and maybe in the process discover whether she might have had
something to do with the break in at his apartment.

But mostly to seduce her.

If she needed to think of him as some kind of knight in
shining armor to be into it, he was okay with that. Maybe it was even some kind
of silly girl test that, happily, he’d passed.

So why the next words came out of his mouth, he had no clue.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I would’ve done that for anybody. I don’t like people
dying on my beach.”

He got up. “I’m going in to take a shower. Can I trust you
not to go back into the water right now? You need to rest.”

She nodded.

Fuck. Way to go, Beckett.
Scolding her as if he
really were her brother. How screwed up was that?

Sophia flipped back down onto the sand, not registering the
gritty sensation of it against her back. In reality, Brendan shouldn’t trust
her to not go back into the water. How could he when she apparently couldn’t
trust herself with anything?

Claiming not to be able to swim was one of her best gigs.
She was great at it. The fake fear, the trusting acceptance of the big, strong
guy’s instruction, the opportunity to give him a really good look at her body
as he taught her to float. It was perfect for this situation. And she’d been
about to launch into it, when something about his “really?” stopped her.

She loved to swim. She loved to play in the water,
especially the ocean. Part fish, Arthur had called her when she was a little
kid. She had no idea why she wanted to reveal that part of herself, her real
self, to Brendan Beckett, but she did. As to swimming out so far, she hadn’t
meant to. Not really. She had just been lost in thought and when she looked up,
he was following her. At first, she had thought it was a competition, and so
she kept swimming, another thing she really should not be doing. Men hated it
when women competed against them. She didn’t have to be a seasoned con woman to
know that.

But then she realized what he was doing. The look on his
face when he caught up to her humbled her. They were too far out, way too far
out. And he knew it, certainly better than she pretended not to. But he had
come anyway. Then on the beach, she had half expected him to ask for his
reward. Any other guy would have. Or at least play out the rescuing the damsel
in distress angle now that everything had turned out fine. But he hadn’t. He
had seemed…genuinely concerned and genuinely angry.

Who was this guy and what was she really doing with him? She
was starting to worry it had less to do with finding Arthur’s mysterious box
than she thought it did.

By the time Brendan had showered and calmed down, changed
into some khaki shorts and a tee shirt, and gone out on the balcony, he saw
that Sophia had moved to the towel again, and seemed to be stretched out
asleep. Even at this time in the day, the sun could be scorching. He hoped
she’d reapplied some sunscreen. But he was done acting like Big Brother. He’d
brought this chick down here to nail her, hadn’t he? What was he doing worrying
about her getting burnt or drowning?

Okay, maybe worrying about her drowning was understandable,
but did he have to be so heavy handed about it? He needed to just chill out and
have fun with her. That was what he was all about, wasn’t it? Fun? Ask anybody.
Why was he getting so intense with this girl? Hell, he didn’t even know her
last name.

He’d let this Sophia have a nice long nap and then he’d turn
to what he’d brought her here for.

* * * * *

Sophia woke up with a start.

“Hi.”

Brendan was standing over her. She sat up. “I’m sorry. I
must have fallen asleep.”

“No problem. I was just getting hungry. Growing boys need to
eat.”

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and then stretched,
standing up in the process.

“I thought we could walk down the beach to a little
restaurant I know. It’s not too far. Why don’t you just go in and change. I
don’t feel like fighting any guys off by bringing you in a bikini.”

Nodding, she gathered up the towel and her beach things and
followed him back in to the house. It was a beautiful setup, this house, one
she may have been able to fully appreciate if she hadn’t been on a job. Two stories,
it was plenty big enough for all six of the Beckett children if they had all
been here at once with their parents growing up. Brendan had mentioned that the
family had owned it since before he was born. So the house was plenty big. But
the open-air rooms on the first floor and abundant picture windows looking out
to the ocean made it seem welcoming and cozy, as if the vastness of the ocean
would bring any man-made structure down to size in comparison.

The hardwood floors and brightly colored cane furniture
everywhere completed the picture of casual beach living, though she knew this
all must have cost a fortune. Even owning a house on the beach in the Caribbean
must have cost a fortune.

True to his word, Brendan had given her a separate room,
complete with its own bathroom. When Brendan left her at its door, she quickly
ducked inside and into the shower to wash the salt of the ocean off her skin
and out of her hair. Not taking the time to unpack her blow dryer, she just
wound her hair, wet, up in a big clip at the base of her neck. Another halter
dress, this time a tropical-themed one—halters were good for keeping her in
without the need for a bra—completed the ensemble.

When she came back downstairs, Brendan smiled, all charm
again. “Very nice.”

She slipped her sandals on, flats since they were going to
be walking in the sand, but he said, “You don’t need those. No shoes required
in this restaurant.” She looked down, noticing he hadn’t donned any. Even his
feet were kind of sexy.

He showed her out the side door, locking it behind them and
slipping the keys in his pocket. She hadn’t had time to thoroughly inspect
anything but her own room, but there’d be time for that later.

The sun, an orangey ball, was low in the sky now, but the
air was almost as warm as it’d been at midday. Brendan took her hand as they
walked, but was silent for a while, so that the sound of the waves was all she
heard. She could be very lulled by this. She was in fact. If not, she’d be
doing what she was supposed to be doing, peppering him with flattery and subtle
questions to try to find out what she needed to know. Arthur had encouraged her
to introduce subjects along the lines of “interesting things recently acquired”
or “what a rich man really values.” Something like that.

Instead, she said, out of the blue, “Where did you learn to
speak Spanish?”

He glanced at her. “How do you know I can?”

Uh oh. What the hell was wrong with her? Even her basic
lessons seemed to be deserting her. Never admit to knowing something unless you
can credibly explain how you knew it. “I heard someone say it at the wedding.
One of your sisters, I think.”

He nodded. “Oh, okay. Well, I don’t really speak it that
well.”

Which she happened to know wasn’t true.

“You took it in school?”

“No, every prep school I ever went to pushed Latin. Dead
languages are so useful,” he added with a wry smile. “I learned some Spanish
from a guy I knew at one of them.”

“Another student?”

He hesitated. “No, he worked there.”

“Oh, a teacher.”

Brendan laughed. “Kind of. Juan taught me a lot. He was the
janitor.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d mix much with the help.”

He cocked his head and she couldn’t tell whether he took
that as a joke. Actually, she wasn’t sure whether she even meant it as one. But
then he went on, without commenting on it one way or the other. “I boarded at
this one academy for a while when I was younger. I don’t know. Eight or nine
years old. Until my parents took pity on me and pulled me out to attend a day
prep school so I could live at home.” He glanced sideways at her, the warm sand
sifting through their toes as they walked. “Go on, say it. How cold of my
parents to let a poor little boy live all alone at school.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Well, it was what was done in my father’s family, with the
boys, that is. Unfortunately, I didn’t take to it and my mother finally put her
foot down. But I was there for one whole school year.”

“And that’s when you met this Juan?”

“Yeah.”

They were far enough down the beach to encounter the
occasional other walker who nodded at them as they passed.

“Juan cleaned the rooms while we went off to class. Most of
the time, nobody saw him, but one day—and I’m sure this’ll surprise you—I was
hiding in my room playing hooky and he came in. He was…nice to me.”

Brendan hadn’t thought about that day for years, but walking
with this beautiful girl, he suddenly did. He thought of the loneliness and
confusion he had felt at being sent off to school. And he thought of meeting
Juan.

Juan had come upon him one day while he was trying to hide a
puppy in his room. Brendan had found the puppy in a box in the bushes on his
way to the dining hall and named him Boxer. Boxer was so tiny and weak, Brendan
had almost not heard the sound of his cry when he walked by. And then when he
did, he was surprised to see it was a puppy, not a cat, because his pitiful cry
had sounded so much like a meow. But no, it was a dog. And he’d always wanted a
dog. Of course Boxer was no bigger than a mouse at that point—well, maybe a
little bigger—but when he got strong enough, Brendan had planned to take him
outside to play and throw a ball to him and have him fetch.

He just had to somehow manage to hide him in his dorm room
until then.

But the very first day he tried, Juan found him out. From
his gruff initial reaction, Brendan had supposed at first that the janitor
would turn him in. But after talking to Brendan, Juan instead gave Boxer a warm
berth in the engine room and helped Brendan to take care of him. He helped
Brendan to take care of a lot of things that year.

By the time Brendan left school at the end of the year,
Boxer was bigger than he was and Juan, a gentle man with a good heart, was a
trusted friend. Familiar with the ways privileged boys could abuse that
privilege, Juan had helped one lonely little boy avoid that path, with a wise
word here and there. Oh, and by feeding his dog.

Brendan brought Boxer home with him to Bransport when the
year was done, but both boy and dog were sorry to have to say goodbye to Juan.
He remembered now how much he had missed him at the time, though he hadn’t even
thought of him for years.

“Juan was a good guy. He’s the one who taught me Spanish. I
don’t get to use it much, though. How about you?”

“How about me what?” The feel of Brendan’s hand in hers was
very nice. He had big hands, with long fingers, and he didn’t hold hers too
tightly.

She didn’t know how far they had walked, but the beach
walkers were getting more numerous and the buildings dotting the landscape more
frequent.

“What’s your story, Miss Sophia? You’re very mysterious. I
can’t have a last name yet, but throw me a bone. Where are you from? What do
you do? Something.”

Mysterious was not necessarily a good thing for someone in
her line of work. She was supposed to be engendering trust. And one always did
that with a pretty tight cover story. She and Arthur had worked one out for
this time. Sure they had. Singer on a cruise ship. Parents passed away, blah,
blah, blah.