A Scandal So Sweet

Six

Zach knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while, so instead of undressing for bed, he poured himself a glass of scotch. Then he strode out onto the balcony where the humid air smelled of honeysuckle, jasmine and pine.

Damn those bewitching blue eyes of hers and her pretty, sweet smile that made him want her so badly he hurt.

Why hadn’t he taken Summer as he’d intended? Why hadn’t he punished her? Usually he came on strong with women. What the hell was wrong with him this weekend?

Next week she would be with Hugh, making love to him-at least on film. And probably offscreen, too. Not that her relationship with Jones should be any concern of Zach’s. Still, he burned every time he thought about her with that egotistical phony.

Their first night here she’d seemed so vulnerable and uneasy. Then today, when she’d fallen, she had taken his hand and begged him to stay with her. Her fingers and wrist had felt so slim and fragile in his much larger hand. What kind of man forced his presence on a woman who seemed so defenseless and in need of his protection?

Still, Zach wasn’t so noble that he could forget the glimpses he’d seen of her breasts and her creamy thighs. He wanted to kiss those breasts, tongue all the warm, succulent places between her thighs. He knew what she’d done in the past, how close she’d come to nearly destroying him-but for reasons he didn’t understand, he continued to balk at using her sexually.

No longer did he want to expose their relationship to the press for public consumption.

This weekend had backfired. Damn it.

The sensitive male was a new role for him.

She’d beaten him.

To save his own ass, tomorrow he’d tell her their deal was off and send her packing.

Then he’d do the smart thing: return to Houston and forget her.

The next morning, when Summer awoke, her ankle was so much better she could almost walk without limping if she used one crutch. When she went into the kitchen she discovered that Zach had already cooked and eaten breakfast. She looked down at his dishes in the sink and realized he was avoiding her.

Rolling the scrambled egg and bacon he’d left for her into a tortilla, she walked outside and saw him swimming laps in his pool. When she waved, he got out.

As he dried off, it was all she could do not to stare, even though he wore swimming trunks.

His eyes were guarded as he strode up to her. “How’s the ankle?”

“Much better,” she whispered, lowering her lashes.

“Good. Bob is standing by to fly you to L.A. So, whenever you’re ready, just call him. I know you’ve got work, and so do I, so I won’t keep you.”

He was so remote and cool that her acute disappointment and hurt felt like withdrawal, which was ridiculous.

“What about next weekend?” she whispered, her voice catching. “Do you still want to see me?”

Zach sucked in a breath. “Like you said, maybe spending the weekends together wasn’t such a good idea. So-you won.” His voice was cold, revealing nothing.

He slung a towel across his shoulders and turned away, dismissing her as if she were of no importance to him.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Yeah. Mad at myself, too.”

“Zach…”

“You have your real life…in the theater. And I have mine. I think we should just cool it.”

He was right, of course.

“Or maybe not,” she said huskily as she focused on his profile. “I want to know why you blackmailed me and then changed your mind, why you were so nice last night and are so cold today.”

“Maybe I started thinking about what happened fifteen years ago and don’t see this going anywhere positive.”

He wasn’t making sense. Last week he’d wanted to punish her. And now… What did he want?

“What if I disagree?” she whispered. On impulse, she leaned forward on her tiptoes and kissed his rough cheek tentatively.

When he jerked away as if burned, she beamed. “I enjoyed last night, you see. Too much. And I thought maybe you did, too…just a little. You were sweet.”

“Sweet?” He almost snarled the word.

She smiled gently. “And I thank you for what you’re doing for Tuck, too…taking him out to the tech school and all…especially after what he did to you.”

“Forget it,” he snapped.

“What if I can’t?”

“Soon you’ll fly to L.A. to film those love scenes with Jones. Don’t waste your charm or blatant come-on sexuality on me. Save it for him.”

“I don’t care about him.”

Not believing her, he scowled.

“I don’t.”

When she edged closer and held her hand to his face, Zach froze. At the first light touch of her fingertips on his warm throat, he shuddered. When he tried to wrench away, her hands came around his neck so she could hold him close. She had no idea what she was doing or why she was doing it, she only knew she didn’t want to part from him so dispassionately, when something new and wonderful was beginning in her heart.

“Can’t you at least kiss me goodbye,” she whispered, too aware of her taut nipples pressing against his hard, bare chest.

“Not a good idea,” he growled.

“You sure about that?” She rubbed her hips against the hard ridge of his erection, sighing as her body melted against his.

On a groan, he reached for her, gripping her with strong, sure arms, pulling her close, like a man who was starving for her.

She was starving, too, starving for the intoxicating sensuality of his mouth claiming hers. He tasted so good, so right. For fifteen years, she’d wanted this and denied it. Why should she fight it now? Moaning, she kissed him back.

His savage grip crushed her. His hungry passion ignited unmet needs. Murmuring his name feverishly, her fingertips ran through his thick, inky hair.

“All weekend I wanted this,” she whispered. “Wanted you. Wanted to touch you, to kiss you…to be in your arms…even though I tried to tell myself I didn’t. Friday night I lay in bed, wanting this more than I’d ever wanted anything. And last night after we talked, I craved it even more, craved it so much I felt like I was about to burst. Then you went upstairs, and I felt so lost and alone in that bed. I-I couldn’t sleep for hours. You told me you’d make me want you, and you were right.”

“You shouldn’t say these things.”

“I don’t understand any of it and yet…it’s the truth.”

“Hell,” he muttered. “This isn’t some damn role you’ve got to understand. Life’s messy and chaotic and doesn’t make a lick of sense most of the time. Like now. Like last night. I decided you’re the one woman I should have nothing to do with. And yet here I am…”

“Tell me about it,” she whispered. “You’re definitely bad for me, too.”

When his mouth took hers again, his desperation and urgency made her dizzily excited.

“This is crazy,” she whispered as her fingertips glided across the damp hair on his bronzed flesh. “I didn’t want to come this weekend, and now I can’t bear to go.”

“I don’t want you to go, either.”

“Punish me like you swore you would. Make love to me,” she whispered.

The next thing she knew, he was lifting her, kissing her wildly as he carried her up the stairs, into the house and then down the hall to her room. Locking the door, he drew her down to the bed.

In no time, she stripped, but even in her rush, she enjoyed the striptease, for never had she played to a more fascinated audience. He lay on the bed watching as she undid her blouse in the shadows. Button by button, her slim fingers skimmed downward. He held his breath, his eyes burning when she threw her blouse aside and unhooked her bra.

“You are exquisite,” he rasped when she slid her lacy panties down her thighs. Vaguely she was aware of him rustling with a foil wrapper. Then, reaching for her, he lay down beside her and buried his face in the curve of her neck.

She let her head fall back, offering him her breasts. “You’re pretty okay yourself.”

His lips traced the length of her throat. He tasted first one nipple and then the other until they beaded into damp, pink pearls. She trembled with an enjoyment she couldn’t hide, which she could see excited him even more.

When his lips found hers again, she fell back against the pillows and opened her mouth so his tongue could slide inside.

“Strip for me,” she whispered. “I want to see you naked.”

“Wicked girl.”

Grinning, he ripped off his swimming trunks. Her breath stopped. He was huge and gorgeous, magnificently virile. While she watched approvingly through the screen of her lowered lashes, he tossed his trunks into a far corner.

Reaching toward him, she slid her hand over his manhood, circling it so that he inhaled sharply. While she touched him, he caressed her most secret, delicate folds with blunt-fingered hands, teasing her sensitive nub of flesh until her breath came hard and fast and she wanted him inside her more than anything.

But he refused for a while longer, teasing her with his mouth and hands while she grew hotter and wilder.

How had she lived without him all these years?

Squeezing him, she rubbed in an urgent, methodic way until he groaned and gathered her close. She heard the sound of a foil wrapper again. Then he slid the condom on and, much to her delight, positioned the head of his shaft against her damp entrance.

Murmuring her name, he hovered there, kissing her hair, her brow. Only when she arched her hips upward in sensual invitation did he slide all the way inside. For a moment, he stopped and simply held her so they could savor the sensation of their joined bodies.

“Zach,” she pleaded.

His hips surged. She cried out as he drove himself home.

Their eyes met and held. With her hands, she cupped his face and kissed each of his cheeks and then his nose.

He sighed, as if relieved of some immense weight. Then, all too soon, some primal force took over.

How she loved lying underneath him, staring up at the breadth of his bronzed shoulders, at his black hair that dripped perspiration onto his gorgeous face as he pumped. She felt on fire. With every thrust he claimed her, and she surrendered to him as she had as a girl, completely, irrevocably, giving him every shattered piece of her heart.

Thus did he sweep her away to emotional and sensual peaks she’d never known before. Crying out in the end, she held on to him, feeling lost and yet found again as he exploded inside her. In a blinding flash, she saw that he had always remained at the center of her heart.

For a long time she lay trembling quietly beneath him. Then she kissed his damp eyelashes and eyebrows. I love you, she thought. I always have. This is what has been missing.

If I have everything else and lack this, I can never be complete.

Only gradually did she grow aware of how wonderfully heavy he was on top of her. When she opened her eyes and looked up at the hard angles of his handsome face, she saw that he was staring down at her with a brooding intensity that frightened her.

“You’ve got to go soon, so you can cram for those damn scenes with Jones.” Frowning, he kissed the tip of her nose.

“Yes,” she replied drowsily without the least bit of enthusiasm. “I think you just sapped all my ambition to be a movie star. I just want to stay here with you.”

He nipped her upper lip a little firmly…as if to snap her out of her languid mood. “But that’s not who you are, is it? You said your career is what completes you, not relationships. And with my uncle not there to help me anymore, I’ve got a helluva lot to do in Houston. So…”

No sweet words. Nothing. Just those two parting kisses.

A chill swept her. Had she been wrong about their sex being spiritual as well as physical? Had it just been revenge for him after all? Now that he’d had her again, was he done?

“And next weekend?” she murmured, deliberately keeping her voice light. “Do we meet again?”

“I’ll call you,” he said slowly, but there was no conviction in his voice. Her heart sank as he stroked her neck absently. “Like I said, we both have a lot on our plates.”

“Sounds to me like maybe I’m off the hook. For good behavior?”

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“Okay, then. I get it.”

He stared at her, sucked in a breath, but didn’t reply.

She rose, reached for her clothes and began to dress hurriedly.

So what if he wasn’t going to call? She’d served her time, so to speak. Now he wouldn’t press charges against Tuck.

Logically, she knew that it was probably best if this thing between them ended here. For her, sex with him had been too intense, too all-consuming for her to have a light affair. He would break her heart all over again if she wasn’t careful. No smart adult should let herself become involved with a man she’d loved and obsessed over for years.

But she wasn’t feeling logical. She was feeling sensually and emotionally aflame after his lovemaking. The whole world seemed aglow. He seemed a part of her, her other half.

Naturally, she wanted to see him again, to lie in his arms like this again. She felt she’d lose a vital part of herself forever if she couldn’t. Which meant he’d completed his mission, by using sex as a weapon to punish her.

He’d won.