Magnificent Folly Page 4

  Impossibly quixotic, impossibly honest, impos­sibly stubborn, impossibly lovable. She carefully shifted her thoughts from the dangerous path where they were wandering. "You make me feel a hundred years old and positively maternal."

  "No. I don't." He finished the sandwich and reached for the Sryrofoam cup of coffee beside him on the beach rug. "Oh, sometimes, maybe." He lifted the cup to his lips and looked at her over the rim. "But most of the time I turn you on."

  Her gaze flew back to his face in surprise. It was the first time he had said anything in the least sexually oriented since that day on the beach al­most fourteen days before. He had been stimulat­ing, companionable, entertaining, and she had gradually allowed herself to relax in his company. "I've changed my mind. Not utterly impossible— you're utterly egotistical."

  "Nope." He set the cup down before stretching out full length and closing his eyes. "You've been fighting against it, but IVe been growing on you."

  "And how do you deduce that?"

  "Instinct. I have infallible instincts, remember?"

  "I'm getting very tired of hearing about your instincts."

  "But you're not getting tired of me." He half opened his eyes and gazed up at her. "You like me, don't you?"

  "You're . . . amusing."

  "And you'd miss me if I went away?"

  "Maybe."

  "And you think I'm sexy?"

  She made a face at him. "I'm not about to touch that question."

  "Touching is good. I wish you'd touch me." He closed his eyes again. His voice was so soft, she had to strain to hear it. "I think about touching you all the time."

  Dear heavens, he was beautiful. The faded jeans clung to his long, powerful thighs and rode low on his slim hips. He had taken off his shirt to get some sun when he'd first sat down beside her that afternoon, and now his reclining position pulled the muscles of his stomach taut as they flowed into the corded strength of his chest and shoulders. She had a sudden urge to put her hand on that flat stomach and feel the muscles contract. Warmth stung her cheeks as she looked quickly back at Cassie. "Then you should think about something more productive."

  "I'm hoping it will be very productive. What are you thinking about?"

  She had been thinking how gorgeously tough he looked and wondering how many women had thought the same thing. "Don't your damned in­stincts tell you?"

  "Let me see." His lids lifted to reveal brown eyes sparkling with humor. "You're lusting after me again. Why don't you give in to it, Lily? I guaran­tee 111 be a pushover."

  "I was not lusting after you. I was just wonder­ing where you got the great tan."

  "The Clanad is based in Sedikhan. It's princi­pally desert country."

  "You work for a foreign corporation?"

  "International."

  "What does the Clanad produce?"

  "Lots of things," Andrew said vaguely. "It's sort of hard to explain. Why do you want to know?"

  "You never talk about your work. What do you do for this Clanad corporation?"

  "It's kind of difficult to describe. I guess you could say I fix things when they break down."

  "Computers?"

  He shook his head. "I told you it was a difficult job to describe."

  "Well, they seem to give you plenty of time off. Corporations don't usually give such long vaca­tions to new employees, even if—"

  "But I'm not new." He sat up and reached for his cream-colored shirt. "I'm an old and trusted employee. They want to keep me happy."

  "Old?" she asked dryly. "Then you must have started working for them when you were in high school."

  "Something like that." He started to button his shirt. "You seem to have a hang-up because I'm younger than you. Four years shouldn't make a difference." He grinned impishly. "Particularly as I'm such a jaded man of the world these days."

  No one could be less jaded than Andrew, Lily thought with sudden aching tenderness. He lived each moment with the same zest and curiosity Cassie did. "No way. Sometimes I think I should send you out to play in the sand, the way I do Cassie."

  His smile faded. "There you go again. I'm not a kid, Lily. If you want to build defenses, you can't base them on those four years. I'm no inexperi­enced boy who has a fixation of an older woman. I think sex is great and I have strong appetites, but that isn't what this is all about. I want much more from you." His lips tightened. "And, by God, 111 have it."

  "Andrew . . ." She gazed at him helplessly. "Go away. HI hurt you. I don't have anything left to give. He drained me."

  "Baldor? He may have almost destroyed you, but you were too strong for him. You just needed time to recover and heal." He was suddenly on his knees beside her. "You're ready to come alive again, Lily. Don't be afraid. Let me help."

  He was burning, blazing, with nearfy irresist­ible intensity. She found herself swaying toward him as if drawn into the center of a tornado. "You don't know what you're talking about," she whis­pered.

  "Yes, I do." He framed her cheeks with his hands and gazed down into her eyes. "Do you like me?"

  She didn't answer. "Don't hide it. Tell me." "Yes."

  "Do you think I want to hurt you?" "No, but—"

  "Shhh. We're making progress." He smiled down at her with radiant sweetness. "Now the big one. Do you want me?"

  "1 told you I didnt," She moistened her lips with her tongue and, since he continued to stare down at her, finally burst out, "Yes, dammit, but it doesn't mean anything."

  He laughed joyously as he gave her a quick, exuberant kiss. "The hell it doesn't."

  His lips were hard, firm, and warm, and she had wanted them to linger. She unconsciously tilted her head back, seeking more. He smelled of clean soap and fresh sea air as the warmth of his body reached out to enfold her. "When?" he asked sofuy. "Tell me when, love." "We can't. Cassie—"

  "Tonight. After Cassie goes to sleep. Ill be here on the beach. Will you come?" He drew a shaky breath. "Lord, I want you to come. There are so many things I want to do with you. I want my hands on your breasts. I want to come into you and hear you cry out when I please you. I want to—"

  "No ... I don't want to hear it." His words were a heady aphrodisiac. She could feel the cotton of her shirt tauten as her breasts swelled.

  "Just once," he said coaxlngly. "Just come to me once, and if you're disappointed 111 never ask

  you to come again. Just once, Lily. You're a pas­sionate woman, and you need this. You need me."

  A liquid burning tingled between her thighs, causing her muscles to clench. "It's not so simple."

  "It can be. If you change your mind after you come to me, I'm not going to force you. Come tonight, and If you decide you'd like it, then let me love you."

  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. "Ill be here tonight."

  "I won't come."

  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 were 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 her-

  self 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 subliminal^ 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 Cassle 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 well both have a better one tonight. Ill 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. Ill 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 1 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 burled 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 Cassle?"

  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 feet 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 night-

  gown 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—"

  'Tes, 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.