The Scandal (Billionaire's Beach Book 4) (7 page)

But with him moving about the kitchen, she still could not escape. He required direction about the appropriate drawers for the now-washed pots and pans and where to find the dishtowels. He randomly opened one upper cabinet and stared at its contents, letting out a low whistle.

“You weren’t kidding about the condiments,” he said, glancing at her over his shoulder. “I see about two dozen different kinds of mayo and twice that number of mustard varieties.”

“They’re kind of a weakness,” she admitted with another flush.

How easy he seemed to ferret out her secrets!

When he continued to look at her, she found herself speaking again. “You can take a basic—say a sauce—and make it something special with the right combination, you see.”

With a small smile, he swung the cupboard door shut again and then clapped his hands together as he turned her way. “Well? How about TV? You up for watching some screen in the living area by a fire?”

Sara froze. Earlier fraternization that day had ended in disaster—the kiss—and awkwardness—his fake pretext for leaving early from the school. “I, um, uh…”

How best to handle this? If she needed to prove to him that the lip-to-lip thing hadn’t wobbled her, should she agree to an innocent evening on the nearby couch?

Unsure, she bit her lower lip. “I have a TV in my room.”

“But is it 3000 inches on the diagonal?”

For some reason the hyperbole made her smile. “No.”

“Then hurry up, Butler Sara, we have some high-res moving pictures ready to assault our eyeballs.”

The use of her position had her sliding off her stool and gave her more to do. He agreed that coffee would be nice, and she plated up some cookies to go along with a couple of steaming mugs. They met at one of the large leather couches, and he fiddled with the remote as she slid the tray onto the table pulled up to it.

“What’s your favorite sport?” he asked as she put a mug on a coaster in front of him.

Sara didn’t have one. Between her dual lives in the States and England, she had never established a preference over football or the other football, and she didn’t understand baseball. Bowling made no sense at all.

Unwilling to confess her ignorance, she sought inspiration from the view out the sliding glass doors.

“Volleyball,” she said, thinking of the games she’d glimpsed on the wide public beaches nearby.

“Hmm…” He frowned down at the remote.

“Or anything,” she hastened to say. “Or really, I should return to my room—”

“You underestimate the cable package of 10,017 channels I’ve previously had the opportunity to explore.”

And suddenly, the massive screen bloomed to life with sand and sunshine. Sweaty—oiled?—male bodies wearing bright-colored shorts leaped and stretched and dove, looking Hollywood-cool in their lean muscles and dark shades.

Sara couldn’t drag her gaze away.

“It’s the beach kind you wanted to see, right? This is a pro tournament.”

Swallowing hard, Sara realized she hadn’t had the opportunity to view the sport quite this close. Before, while tooling down the highway, in the distance she’d spied groups of people jumping about the sand. Now, with the camera eye’s view, she could appreciate the athleticism—

Oh, who was she kidding? She was appreciating the hot sexiness of the male physique. Sliding her gaze toward her companion, she watched his hand grip his mug, the simple gesture flexing the corded muscles of his forearm. He settled deeper into the cushions, and she watching his thigh muscles bunch beneath the dark denim covering them as he stretched his long legs. Her eyes drifted northward, to the thick bulge of his sex.

The
very
thick bulge of his sex.

Her womb clenched, and another set of prickles washed over her. Leaning forward, she grabbed for her own coffee as an excuse to move her restless limbs. When had she become so squirmy?

“What do you think, Sara?” Joaquin asked.

Her head jerked in his direction. “About what?”

“Beach volleyball.” Was that amusement in his voice? “The players.”

“They…” She had to swallow to lubricate her throat, gone dry during her study of that place between his legs. Glancing at the screen, she saw the teams continued their battle, one man leaping to spike the ball. “They’re certainly strapping figures.”

Oh, now he was definitely amused, because a grin overtook his face.

“Sara,” he said, shaking his head. “‘Strapping figures.’ What am I supposed to do with you when you talk in that prim, Brit voice?”

Something we’ll both regret.

Alarmed at how intriguing she found the thought, she decided a retreat was in order.

“I should go,” she said, sliding her mug back onto the tray. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and her awareness of him, of the very male essence of him, was disordering her ordered world. That signaled danger. She wasn’t an overtly sexual being, despite what the tabloids had said, and she couldn’t risk being seen as such by Joaquin.

Your master.

“Shut up, Emmaline,” she muttered.

“What’s that?” Joaquin asked, one brow quirking.

“Nothing, nothing. I’m just tired. I think I should turn in.” She realized she was babbling, but couldn’t help herself. “It’s been a long day, and I should go.”

“Not yet.”

She’d half risen, but at the directive she automatically re-perched herself on the cushions. “Not yet?”

He sighed. “Not before I stop stalling and spit out the apology I owe you.”

Sara froze.
Oh, God
. Was he going to apologize for the kiss? Were they going to discuss it? Then she’d have to acknowledge that she’d taken the friendly, simple peck one step further by actually stroking her wet tongue over the surface of his bottom lip. She’d explored long enough to register the softness of the skin there and then the sexy, comparative roughness of the line where his whiskers began.

She thought she could draw the shape of the lower edge of his mouth from that tactile memory now rooted into her brain.

Joaquin scooted closer until the denim of his jeans brushed her pant leg. “I shouldn’t have left you at the school this afternoon,” he said. “Please know I’m very sorry about that.”

Surprise had her blinking. “What? No. It’s nothing—”

“It’s everything to me. I made a vow a long time ago that I wouldn’t abandon anyone anywhere ever again.”

Relief that this wasn’t about the kiss coursed through Sara, making her almost giddy. “I wasn’t
abandoned
. You had places to go. Charlie didn’t mind being my ride.”

“Still, it was wrong—I was supposed to be your ride.” His fingers forked through his hair, his expression revealing he was sincerely troubled. “Forgive me?”

Though she didn’t understand the source of his upset, it grabbed at her heart. “Joaquin.” Leaning nearer, she put her palm on one of his thighs. “It’s fine.” She looked into his face and gave his leg a little squeeze. “Honest. Just fine.”

He stared at her, that glacial gray-blue of his eyes mesmerizing her even as she realized that the muscle beneath her hand was morphing from simply solid to rock-hard. It indicated flight was in order, immediate escape, but she couldn’t get her limbs to behave.

Instead, her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip.

His gaze followed the movement, and she felt herself begin to quiver inside her hot skin. Hot, because the temperature in the room was suddenly blazing, making it fierier than the beach on TV, more blazing than the Sahara.

“Do we need to talk about something else?” Joaquin asked, his voice quiet. “You’re trembling, Sara. Have I made you afraid of me?”

“I’m not afraid,” she said, fast. Too fast.

One corner of his mouth quirked. “Then why the shivers?”

She swallowed, preparing herself to address the subject she couldn’t forget. Maybe getting it out in the open would clear the heat from the air and steady her jittering nerves.
It hadn’t caused an earthquake.
“Um… That kiss at the school…it was no big deal, right?”

He hesitated, then his lips quirked again. “Right. No big deal.”

His assurance didn’t calm her. Instead, she was now more avidly aware of that long muscle beneath her palm, of the breadth of his shoulders, of the rise and fall of his chest, and they put her own breathing, thoughts, and priorities in even wilder disarray. Her heart pounded against her ribs as excitement pulsed through her bloodstream, hardening her nipples and softening her sex.

She pressed her thighs together to hold on to the sweet promise of pleasure there.

“Sara…”

He nearly groaned her name, and the deep sound of it made her gaze focus on his lips, surrounded by an evening growth of whiskers. The stubble would blur the edges of a woman’s mouth, leave a faint rash on her jaw. She could almost feel the slight tenderness that would be left behind by the abrasion.

Joaquin shifted beneath her hand and edged closer to her. “That kiss was no big deal,” he repeated, contradicting the new tension she sensed infusing his big body.

Fine
. The little unexpected voice of mischief in Sara’s head popped up again.
But this next one might be a problem
.

And, even as good judgement and self-preservation protested in the background, she obeyed undeniable impulse and lifted up to fit her mouth to his.

Chapter 4

Joaquin sank into the kiss, aware there was no gaggle of parents and groups of little kids lurking nearby. No, it was only Sara and her soft, delectable rosebud mouth, and this time it was his tongue that managed the first move.

He slid it between her lips, and the slick heat he found sent an instant, intoxicating buzz through his body. That should be warning enough to put on the brakes, but then he cupped Sara’s shoulders, and the little responsive shudder that wracked her body set a match to any notion of caution.

Christ, she did something to him.

He shifted her closer, not quite onto his lap, but close enough that she could throw a slender arm around his neck. He lifted his mouth to kiss his way down to her throat, and he sipped at her fragile skin, tonguing the flesh there, tasting the flavor of her.

Flowers and talcum and female desire.

Lust jolted through him again, a heavy bolt of jagged want, and his grip tightened on her shoulders as he shifted back to her mouth. This time, her tongue wrapped around his, as silky as her legs would be about his hips. Joaquin groaned, low in his throat, and moved one hand lower, tracing the side of her breast and the delicate line of her ribcage with his fingertips until he reached the hem of her shirt. Burrowing beneath it, his palm found the sleek, bare skin at her waist.

She moaned at the touch, and he took it as implicit acquiescence to further exploration. His drew his hand upward, his fingers splayed wide on her back. He urged her closer with it, and she melted into him with another moan.

God. Sara.

He’d run away from her that afternoon because his dick acted like an animal around her. It was aching with need now, so hard he hurt, and chemistry could only explain why it was this woman at this time.

When they both knew it was wrong.

Wrong
.

That word had him breaking the kiss.

Squeezing shut his eyes, he fought against the urge to swoop back in. He’d gone with a wrong decision when he’d been under the influence of lust before, and it had led to the defining tragedy of his life. Surely, surely he’d learned.

His breath sawing in and out of his lungs, he reopened his eyes to see Sara staring up at him, her expression dazed.

Yeah, chemistry. Damn it all.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he said, his hand sliding from beneath her shirt. His fingers clenched into a fist. He forced himself to lose his hold on her shoulder, too.

She licked her swollen lips. “I know. I…” A shrug.

“Yeah.”
Chemistry.

Her arm dropped to her side, and she scooted away from him, then dropped her elbows to her knees and her face to her hands.

“Brilliant, Sara,” she muttered. “Just brilliant.”

For some reason her self-castigation stung. The same as when she’d refused to eat with him until he’d expressed it like an order.

Did she know him well enough to have that reluctance and this regret?

But hell, if she knew him any better, she’d probably feel even worse.

She gusted out a sigh, then glanced over at him, her eyes bright in her flushed face. “I don’t even know where to begin…what I was thinking…”

“Not with your brain,” he said. “Me either.”

With a grimace, Sara sat up. “I’m practical, not impulsive. I’m cautious, not reckless.”

He smiled a little. “Could have fooled me.”

“Yes. Well.” She blew out another long breath. “Should I quit, or should you fire me?”

His brows drew together. “Now wait a minute—”

“You know it must be one or the other.” She stood, execution squad-straight. “Should I resign, or should you let me go?”

A doorbell chimed in the near distance. They both looked toward the front entrance, then Sara took a step in its direction. “I’ll get that.”

It was dark. It took a passcode to get through the gates by the highway. He’d only given it to his assistant—who was wrapping things up in Portland—and to his mother. Which meant…

Shit.
Renata.
He shot to his feet and caught Sara’s arm to halt her progress. “Let me take care of this.”

Stalking to the door, Joaquin cursed the blonde butler. Of course it wasn’t fair to blame Sara, but now he was keyed-up, blue-balled, and seriously annoyed on the way to facing down his mother.

Should I resign, or should you let me go?

He didn’t want to let the butler go.

But of course it must be done.

Because, after all, he couldn’t truly believe they could manage to put all that kissing out of mind and continue living in the same place without once again succumbing to lust.

More succumbing wasn’t wise. His purpose in Malibu wasn’t to start an affair with a woman whose paycheck he signed.

Well, that Patrick signed.

On Joaquin’s behalf.

Still…it was a degree of separation, right?