True Love

  She put her arms out, her hands against the back of the bench, as he entered her again and again. Her eyes were closed, and she gave herself over to the sensation of this man and this moment.

  When she thought she could stand no more, he picked her up and pulled her to him, holding her against his body. They had on shirts but the heat of their skin blazed through.

  When she felt herself reaching the peak, Alix put her head back, but Jared drew her to him closer and closer until the shudders came, both of them clinging together, silent, fulfilled. It was minutes before either of them moved.

  “Kingsley,” Alix said.

  “That’s me.” Jared had his mouth on her ear.

  “Good, because I was a little nervous about Montgomery.”

  He laughed as he stepped away from her, picked up his trousers, and pulled them on. Alix stayed on the table, her shirttail falling between her legs.

  “You’ve stolen Daris’s title,” he said, smiling.

  At first she didn’t know what he meant but then remembered that he’d said Daris had the best legs on the island.

  “Lots of leg presses,” she said. When he walked to her, she slipped her hand under his shirt to run over his hard, flat stomach. “What about you? Go to the gym a lot?”

  “I reel in two-hundred-pound tunas,” he said as he picked her clothes up off the floor and handed them to her. Considering the way relatives walked in and out of the house, she knew it was better not to leave them lying around. She started to put on her trousers but Jared halted her.

  “I like to see beauty.” He put his arm under her legs and lifted her. “Aunt Addy or your mom?” he asked.

  He was asking her which room they should retire to—and she was glad their evening together wasn’t over. “Not Mom’s and …”

  “And what?”

  He was carrying her up the stairs seemingly without effort. But then, Alix thought, she weighed less than a tuna. “Well, with the Captain watching us …”

  “He won’t be there,” Jared said, and when Alix started to say more, he kissed her to silence. “There are some things you need to take my word on.”

  He gently put her down on the master bedroom’s big bed and she wasn’t sure how it happened, but in just seconds she was naked. He stretched out beside her, putting his mouth on her neck while his hands began running over her upper body. “You are beautiful,” he whispered.

  He was still fully dressed, only his jacket missing, and it felt odd for her to be naked but for him to be covered. The shades in the room were down but light filtered in, golden and shadowy.

  As Alix lay there, surrounded by the silken drapes of the bed, her body fully nude, she looked at Jared, at his eyes, hooded, sultry, unfathomable. She reached up to start unbuttoning his shirt but he kissed her fingertips and took her hand away.

  She started to ask why, but didn’t. Her experience of sex was that it was something quickly done and finished. In school, sex had fit in between classes and assignments.

  But this man—key word being man, not boy—seemed to have other ideas.

  He began to caress her body as he looked at her. His lips soon followed his hands over her breasts, her ribs, down onto her stomach. She lifted her hips, wanting him to touch the center of her, but he didn’t. His hands ran over her legs, down to her ankles.

  He kissed her mouth as his hands wandered over her and Alix felt the urgency building inside her. There was something intensely erotic about being bare while he was clothed, something she’d never felt before as his hands touched and caressed her.

  When he did reach the center of her, she arched up to meet him. It didn’t take long for her to reach a crescendo, to come against his hand.

  She buried her face in his shoulder. “Where did you learn that?” she asked.

  “Made it up. I’m very creative.”

  She laughed and for a moment they were still, then she began unbuttoning his shirt. She’d never seen him in anything but long sleeves. They’d been rolled up to expose strong, tanned forearms and she’d wondered what the rest of him looked like.

  It took only seconds to get his shirt off and she gasped at the sight of him. He was tanned all over, a deep, golden brown, and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. She put her mouth on his skin and it was as warm as it looked.

  It was an hour later that Alix, exhausted and sublimely happy, heard him say, “You have beautiful lips.” When a laugh escaped her, he drew back to look at her. “Why is that funny?”

  “I don’t know you well enough to answer that.”

  “After what we’ve just done you can’t tell me what about your lips causes you to laugh?”

  “Not mine. Yours. Specifically your lower lip.”

  He ran his teeth over his lip. “What does that mean?”

  “Someday I’ll tell you. Show you, I guess.”

  “Are you keeping secrets from me?” he asked.

  “A few. What about you? Weren’t you going to talk to me about something?”

  “Not now. Later.”

  She could tell that he was falling asleep, and that meant the part of sex that Alix hated was about to happen. The man either left or he turned away and started snoring. “You’re going back to the guesthouse?”

  “I will if you want me to, but I’d rather stay here. If it’s all right with you, that is.”

  Smiling, she snuggled up to him. “I don’t understand why some woman hasn’t snatched you up.”

  She meant it as a joke but he seemed to take her comment seriously. “Since you’ve been here, what have we spent most of our time doing?”

  “Working.”

  “That’s what they don’t like about me.”

  “Foolish women.”

  “I agree,” he said.

  They didn’t sleep much. They woke at midnight, both hungry, first for each other and second for food. They satisfied the first one right away, then Jared put on trousers and Alix slipped on his shirt and they went downstairs to the kitchen. To their delight, the fridge was full of leftovers from the picnic. Cold crab salad, chicken slices, bread, four kinds of cookies. But as nice as it was to find the food, it also meant that while they’d been upstairs someone had come into the house. Alix didn’t want to think about what they might have heard.

  “Now you see why I never leave underwear on the kitchen floor,” Jared said, his mouth full.

  “Does that mean you’ve had a lot of practice in leaving undies on the floor of your great-aunt’s kitchen?” she asked primly.

  “Not mine. Hers,” Jared said. “Aunt Addy’s. I had to pick it up often.”

  Alix laughed at his joke. “So what were you like as a kid? Other than kind and generous?”

  “Do you think that because I gave you some old Legos? I was protecting my inheritance. Aunt Addy let you play with things that should be in a museum.”

  “Speaking of which, maybe tomorrow I could see the papers about Valentina.”

  Jared stopped with a fork full of food on the way to his mouth. “Say that name again and the ghost arrives.”

  “Are we talking of the beautiful Captain Caleb? Then I’m on board.”

  “What is it with you and so-called beautiful men today?”

  “There’s you and who else?”

  “Good catch,” he said. “First Lexie’s boss and now my grandfather.”

  Alix’s face lost its smile. “You’ve mentioned him before. Maternal or paternal? Still alive?”

  “If I remember correctly, I changed that reference to Aunt Addy.”

  “So you did.” She looked at him and could see that he wasn’t going to say any more. “Could I see the papers?”

  “Sure. They’re in the attic. Can I stand on the floor and watch you climb up those steep stairs?”

  “With or without undies?”

  Jared’s look made her shove the last bite in her mouth. Without a word spoken between them, they jammed the rest of the food back into the fridge and ran up the stairs to the bedroom. r />
  An hour later, Jared suggested that they try out the big bathtub in Victoria’s room.

  “I don’t think I looked in her bathroom. Please tell me it isn’t green.”

  “Then I’ll have to be silent,” Jared said.

  Groaning, Alix let him pull her along the corridor to her mother’s ivory and green bathroom.

  In the hallway, Caleb was smiling.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Alix? Are you here?”

  The voice was familiar and comforting and seemed to come from far away. She snuggled against Jared. Light was filtering into the room so it was day, but she had no intention of getting up. With the way she felt, she might stay in bed forever.

  She felt him kiss the top of her head and move even closer. “Last night you earned the name of American Living Legend,” she murmured as she fell back asleep.

  “Alix? Are you upstairs?”

  She heard the voice again, so very familiar. “Just another minute,” she said, her eyes still closed.

  But then they opened abruptly. “It’s my dad,” she whispered.

  “So it is,” Jared said, his arms holding her tightly.

  She turned over to face him. “It’s my father. You have to leave. He can’t see you and me … together. You have to climb out the window.”

  Jared lay back in the bed but he didn’t open his eyes. “When I was sixteen I was too old to do something like that. And now … Besides, we have to tell your father sometime.”

  At that thought, a feeling of panic ran through her. If her mother found her in bed with a man, it wouldn’t matter. But not her father. He believed in honor and integrity and … and not finding his daughter in bed with a man she wasn’t married to. She tried to conceal her anxiety from Jared. “I know you’ll meet him,” she said with as much patience as she could manage. “But not yet. Let me soften him up first. Please?” She put her hand on his face.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the fear in her eyes. “All right,” he said, “but later we need to talk about a few things.”

  “Isn’t that what women usually say?” she whispered.

  “They do, and in my experience, those words mean that she wants a declaration of undying love.”

  “Oh? And how many times have you given it?”

  There was a tap on the door. “Alix,” Ken said, “unless you’re like your mother, I’m coming in.”

  “No!” she said loudly. “I mean, I am.” She lowered her voice to Jared. “He’s referring to the fact that my mother sleeps—”

  “In the nude,” Jared said as he got out of bed. “Every male on this island knows that and dreams about it.” He pulled on his jeans and picked up his other clothes off the floor.

  Alix slipped on a T-shirt and went to the window. She was about to unlock it when Jared, on the other side of the bed, reached behind Captain Caleb’s portrait, unlatched something that made a click, then swung the big frame out.

  Alix was aghast—mainly because the architect in her hadn’t seen that the portrait was hinged and covering an exit. It took a moment to recover from her shock, then she rolled across the bed to get to him. Behind the portrait was a doorway with a narrow, dirty staircase leading down.

  “Alix?” her father said, louder this time.

  “Just a minute, Dad, I’m getting dressed.” She looked back at Jared and whispered, “Is that so the Captain could sneak in and out of Valentina’s room?”

  “It was put in so the maid could empty the chamber pot and nobody’d have to see her do it.” After a quick kiss, Jared started down the stairs and Alix pushed the door shut, but she didn’t lock it in case he wanted to return.

  She looked up at Captain Caleb’s portrait. “The secrets you hide!”

  “Alix,” her father said from the other side of the door, “I just got a call that I need to answer. Take your time getting dressed and meet me downstairs.”

  Alix let out a sigh of relief that showed how tense she’d been. How in the world was she going to tell her father about her and Jared? And what would she tell him? That they were lovers and she had no idea what would happen in the future?

  At that thought, she could imagine her dad’s groan, see his look of hurt, and worse, feel his disappointment. “So you’ve added yourself to the entourage of the Great Jared Montgomery,” he’d probably say.

  She listened at the door and could hear her father talking quietly, then his footsteps went down the stairs. Good, she thought, as she needed time to think—and to shower. As much as she didn’t want to, she was going to have to remove all evidence of last night from her body. She wanted to savor her memories of the night, but right now she couldn’t indulge herself. Dealing with her father came first.

  She spent a long time under the hot water and thinking about how she was going to present Jared to her father. “If you’ll just get to know him as a man and not by his reputation,” she’d say. Or “Maybe he can be quite arrogant in America, but—” No, that wasn’t right. She’d have to explain that remark. She’d just say “off-island.” “Off-island, he might be so arrogant that he tells clients to take what he designs or get out, but here on Nantucket …” No, that wouldn’t work either. “Arrogant” was too strong a word.

  She shampooed her hair. What if she reminded her father that she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions? Great, she thought. Start off with everyone angry. Her dad would hate Jared if Alix suddenly became belligerent and demanding.

  When she got out of the shower, she was no closer than she had been to figuring out how to deal with this.

  “Maybe they’ll like each other,” she said aloud as she picked up the blow-dryer, but then gave a little laugh. Her gentle professor father and tuna fisherman Jared? No, that would never happen. But maybe Montgomery and her father could … But then there were all those women Jared had been seen with. No, that wouldn’t work either.

  As she took her time with her hair and in dressing, she couldn’t help wondering what Jared was doing. Had he run away on his boat? Anything to escape having to face a girl’s father. But he’d seemed to be utterly unafraid, so maybe…

  Alix smiled into the mirror. “My girl.” That’s what Jared had called her. Maybe if she could make her father believe that there was more—or going to be more—between her and Jared Montgomery Kingsley the Seventh that would make it all easier for him to swallow.

  When she was at last clean and dressed, she opened the bedroom door. It was time to face reality.

  Jared went down the old stairs, and as he’d done many times, he vowed to run an electric cord up the wall and put in lights. It was pitch-dark in the downward tunnel and cobwebs were all over him.

  He was looking forward to seeing Ken. It had been months since Aunt Addy’s funeral, when they’d last seen each other. Of course there was that call when Ken had blasted Jared within an inch of his life. But he was used to that. When they’d first met, Ken had been so angry at the world that he could only talk in loud bursts. But back then, Jared wouldn’t listen to anything said in a normal tone.

  Jared’s big concern was Alix. How was she going to take finding out that her father had also spent so much time on Nantucket and concealed it from her?

  The stairs ended in the front parlor, behind what appeared to be paneling—and yet again he doubted the family chamber pot story. The maid could have shown up in the midst of a tea party. He’d have to ask his grandfather for the truth—which he had no hope of getting.

  Jared wasn’t surprised to see Ken standing in the room waiting for him. Many years ago the two men had repaired the old stairs. As they had been tearing out the dry-rotted treads, Ken said, “Don’t want Addy’s ghost lover to hurt himself, do we?”

  At the time, Jared had looked at him sharply, wondering what he knew, but Ken had only been making a joke.

  Now there was a second of hesitation between them because it was obvious that Ken knew where Jared had been. Ken was the first to react as he opened his arms and Jared went to h
im. He was so grateful that Ken wasn’t angry that the reunion was like a son coming home from war. They held on to each other for a long moment.

  “Come on,” Ken said, his arm still around Jared’s shoulders, “let’s sit down. I made coffee and I brought doughnuts from Downyflake.”

  Jared had never been one to postpone bad news, so he said, “You know where I was?” It was better to get this about him and Alix out in the open.

  “I always believed that you and my daughter would like each other.”

  Jared’s smile showed his relief. It would have been bad if Ken disliked the idea of his precious Alix hooking up with a man who used to be less than an upstanding citizen. Forget all the success he’d had since then. Jared knew that Ken saw inside him.

  The pretty little front parlor was where the good furniture was, including several pieces that his grandfather had sent back on the ship with his brother. After that time, no more children in the family were given his name, as a lot of Nantucketers were angry that Caleb Kingsley, in his rush to get home, had gone into dangerous waters and sunk the ship. Family, friends, and crew had gone down with him.

  Ken took the couch and Jared sat on a chair across from him. To Jared’s great annoyance, his grandfather sat down in the big wing chair. His shape and substance were stronger in this room and it amazed Jared that Ken couldn’t see him.

  “How’s Celeste?” Jared asked as he picked up a chocolate-covered doughnut.

  “Gone,” Ken said. “And Avery?”

  “Stormed out months ago,” Jared said. “She wanted a ring.”

  The two men smiled at each other. It was humor and understanding based on many years of shared confidences about the women who’d been through their lives. That neither of them had ever settled with one had been a bond between the men.

  While eating one of the delectable doughnuts, Ken took a moment before speaking. “What does Caleb say about you and my daughter?”

  “He’s always thought—” Jared began, but then halted, his eyes wide.