His Style of Seduction

  “Wading,” he corrected. “I told you I like the unexpected.” He pulled out the waders he’d folded in the bottom of the bag. “You thought I had a camisole and a thong in here, didn’t you?” He tsked, shaking his head. “What a cliché that would be.”

  “With you, I never know what to think.”

  He grinned. “Aw, Lil. You couldn’t have paid me a higher compliment.”

  Two hours later Lily was still laughing. This time when they drove away, however, Jack opted for headlights, which he’d disdainfully referred to as “the chicken-shit way out of the bog.”

  They provided enough light for her to see the red stain that covered her hands, the only skin that had touched the actual bog, thanks to his thoughtful delivery of hip waders and his obvious skill at finding underwater bridges.

  They hadn’t fallen in once…but they’d come close. She’d clung to him for security and his hearty laugh had echoed over the moving, waterlogged fruit farm. He’d never stolen so much as a kiss out in the fog and water, a move that might have been designed to make her comfortable, but only made her realize how much she wanted to kiss him, and taste the sweet fruit on his mouth.

  “How do you know so much about cranberries, anyway?” she asked.

  “I told you, I was raised in Cape Cod. I love the bogs, so I worked harvests after school from the time I was fifteen for extra money.”

  Was it possible he knew what it was like to have no money? “Money for what?” she asked.

  “The usual. Gas in my Camaro so I could take pretty girls on dates.” He glanced at her. “Why the look? You jealous?”

  Maybe of the fact that he’d had a car. Gas in my Camaro was a far cry from food stamps and money to buy shoes from the thrift store. “Nah,” she assured him.

  “My buddy Deuce and I used to pay way too much for Red Sox tickets, and it wasn’t cheap getting to and from Fenway Park.”

  She plucked at some cranberry twigs stuck in her hair. “You were baseball fans,” she said absently. Not poor. Not penniless. Just normal.

  “Deuce was way more than a fan. He played pro ball for the Las Vegas Snake Eyes until last year. But then the impossible happened and now he’s a coach at Rockingham High and bracing for that baby girl due in two weeks.”

  “The impossible? Wait, he’s married to your sister, right?”

  “Yep. Proving that the love gods are capable of the most unlikely miracles.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jack shrugged. “They belong together, Kendra and Deuce, but they had a past so dark, I never thought either one could see the light. Then the gods, and Deuce’s father, intervened. Ready to see my real favorite spot in Nantucket?”

  He whipped onto another side road and started a steep climb up.

  “Sure. Where is it?”

  “The top of the world, baby.” He put his hand on her leg. “And Dots packed our dinner in that cooler back there and I threw in a blanket. No walls, just right.” He patted her leg. “Tomorrow. I promise tables, napkins, forks aplenty. Tonight I vote for high on a hill, overlooking the sea and the bog, under a blanket.”

  “You mean on top of a blanket.”

  “My bad.”

  She chuckled and shook her head. “Why not? This is already the strangest date I’ve ever been on.”

  “Do you date a lot?” he asked.

  “No. I work a lot.”

  “A workaholic, huh?”

  “Not really.” She looked up at the stars, wondering how much to tell him. “I work, like most people, to make enough money to live.”

  “What’s enough?”

  She sighed. “Above the poverty line, below the Forbes 100 list.”

  “I don’t work for the money,” he said. “That’s why I’m having a hard time getting my arms around this whole thing with selling the agency.”

  “But you understand why Reggie needs to do it.”

  “Yeah.” But he was quiet as they wended their way up the hill. “We’re almost dead center on the island now. From up here, you can see Hyannis and Martha’s Vineyard and on a clear day you can see whales in the Atlantic Ocean. And if you look to the southwest, you can see the bog we just waded.”

  When he parked, she climbed out and did a full turn, taking it all in. “Wow. This is incredible. Who owns this land?”

  “Some dude with more money than time,” he said with a wry chuckle. “But he doesn’t care if we come up here.”

  He spread the blanket, lit a tiny portable lantern and started emptying the contents of a cooler while she circled the top of the hill and studied the lights of Cape Cod thirty miles away.

  “I forgot silverware.”

  She just laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “C’mere, Lil.” He patted the blanket and held out a thermos. “I told you we’d drink the chowder and eat the cod with our fingers.”

  “You called it.” She joined him, a shiver running through her that had nothing to do with the early-autumn air.

  “We don’t need no stinkin’ silverware.” They said it at exactly the same time, with the same intonation, punctuating their harmony with a laugh.

  She took the open thermos and held it to her mouth. “Here goes.”

  “Fear not, Miss Manners. No one’s watching but me.”

  And he was watching intently, studying her face, leaning close enough to almost touch her.

  She took a sip, letting the hot, rich, velvety soup fill her mouth. “Mmmm.” She swallowed and automatically reached for a napkin, but he wiped the corner of her mouth with his fingertip, then licked the drop of chowder.

  Taking his own sip from the thermos, he added, “Dots is the one woman I might marry. She loves me unconditionally and she makes a mean quahog chowder.”

  “Those are your requirements for marriage?” she asked, waiting for her turn to share more delicious soup.

  “I have no requirements for marriage because I don’t believe in it.”

  “You don’t believe in it? Or you don’t believe in it for you?”

  “Both. What does that piece of paper mean? It’s a paper wall, that’s all, easy to tear down and throw away. There’s something about mating for life that seems so…confining.”

  She looked at him, the moonlight catching the angles of his strong face, the shadow of his unshaved jaw. “And yet humans do it all the time,” she said, hoping the whisper of sadness in her heart didn’t come out in her voice. “Even walls of paper can be lasting if they’re built with enough love.”

  “Very ideal thinking, Lil. And I say, hey, if that’s what you want, go get it.” He opened a container to reveal crispy fried cod. “And you, I suspect, are a woman who gets what she wants.”

  What she wanted was to change the subject from marriage to work. It was far more comfortable. “What gives you that impression? How I shop?”

  “Nope.” He broke off a piece of cod and reached for her mouth, sliding it between her lips without even waiting for permission. “How you make love.”

  Leave it to Jack Locke to avoid a comfortable topic. “How’s that?” she asked when she managed to swallow the bite.

  “You take what you want, when you want it, how you want it.”

  She held the thermos and looked hard at him. “Did you think I was selfish last night?”

  “On the contrary. You were bold. Confident. Aggressive. All seriously attractive qualities, I might add.”

  “In bed, at least.”

  “In life, too. Here.” He held the cod to her mouth. “Let me feed you.”

  For a moment she just looked at him, then she opened her mouth and he slipped another piece of cod between her teeth. It tasted fresh, like the sea itself.

  “This is the best way to eat, don’t you think?” he asked, giving her another bite. “Outside, under the stars, sharing bites.”

  “You do manage to make everyday activities more…” Sexy. “Interesting.”

  He gave her the tiniest smile. “Another perfect compliment, Li
l. Thank you.”

  With that thought and those words hovering around them, she let him feed her the rest in silence, pausing to admire the lights of Cape Cod and the whitecaps dancing on the ocean.

  When they finished, he opened a bottle of water for them to share, and he dropped back on the blanket to look at the stars while she sat next to him. When she leaned back on her hands, he curled a finger into the ends of her hair, twirling it as though it were the most natural thing in the world, sending sharp twists of desire through her with every casual touch.

  “You’re a master of seduction, Jackson Locke,” she said, turning to glance down at him.

  “I’m not going to seduce you,” he said softly. “I just want to know your secret.”

  “My secret?” Her heart kicked a little, and not just because of the way he looked flat on his back, his hair falling to the sides. “My secret to success?”

  “No.”

  She looked at him again. “My secret weapon?”

  He tugged gently at a lock of her hair. “Your secret. I know you have one.”

  She cleared her throat, since swallowing had suddenly become impossible. “Everyone has secrets, Jack. Let’s see…I read the funny pages first. Does that count as a secret?”

  He propped himself up on one elbow and feathered her hair some more. “I mean the secret you are trying so hard to hide.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Lily. There’s something about your past that makes you evasive. You have a secret. And tonight you’re going to tell me what it is. Now, as a matter of fact. Before we leave this hillside.”

  All she could do was stare at him.

  Because when she opened her mouth, the truth was going to come out and she was going to tell him the one and only thing she’d never admitted to anyone.

  And that, she realized with a wallop of her heart, was his real secret weapon.

  Seven

  F or one quick second Lily considered using sex to get him off the subject.

  Instead, she took the bottle from his hands and sipped some water. “I don’t know what you mean by a secret.”

  “Whatever you call what you’re hiding. A past. The truth. The real you. Lay it on me, Lil.”

  “I’m not hiding anything.” Her look and tone were a little too tight, a little too harsh. But how did he know?

  He sat up and moved his hand to her nape, his fingers gently burrowing into her hair to send a waterfall of chills down her body. “Then why did you blush when I asked where you went to school?”

  “Because I didn’t graduate from college, and some people, some clients especially, think that’s a strike against me.”

  He laughed softly. “You really think I’d care about something as conventional as college? Me?”

  “Well, you’re different. No one’s like you.”

  His fingers curled as he stroked her neck. “You’re killing me with these compliments. But why are you so vague about your childhood?”

  She moved away from his touch, hugging her knees to her chest. “Because my childhood is not the issue here. This week is about you, about your makeover. You are the one on a voyage of self-discovery, not me.”

  He snorted softly. “I don’t need—”

  “No stinkin’ self-discovery.”

  “Amen to that, sweetheart. But you do.”

  Blowing out a breath, she glared at him. “No, I don’t.”

  “Hey,” he said softly, leaning his whole body into hers. “You agreed. You do what you want to me during the day and I do what I want to you during the night.”

  “I thought that meant sex.”

  “Tonight it means finding out your secrets.”

  She stiffened next to him, and she knew he felt it. How could he not? “I’d prefer sex,” she said, her voice as low and dark as her heart.

  “We’ll get to that.” He slid his arm around her, gently inching her closer. “Tell me.”

  There was no way he was pulling this out of her. No. Way.

  Maybe no way. Maybe…

  God, if anyone in the whole world would be sympathetic and understanding, it was Jack Locke.

  Suddenly, unbelievably, she wanted to tell him. Everything.

  “I am not really hiding anything. I’m just a little embarrassed about my…” She expected him to fill in the blank, but he didn’t. “My humble beginnings.”

  “Your parents were poor.”

  “My parents?” The word stuck in her throat as she looked at him. “My dad disappeared when I was two. My mom raised me alone and we weren’t poor. I believe the word is…”

  “Destitute.”

  She bit her lip, took a breath and looked him straight in the eyes. “The word is homeless.”

  He didn’t move. Didn’t draw back in horror or pity or shock.

  “In fact,” she continued, fighting a lump the size of a Ping-Pong ball in her throat, “I know firsthand the unique disgrace of living in a car, a shelter and, one particularly bad year, a toolshed.”

  Almost imperceptibly his arm tightened. “How long did you live like that?” he asked.

  She ratcheted up her chin, held his gaze. “The longest time? A year. Eventually, when I was about eleven, we finally got a small studio apartment in Waltham and my mother got jobs cleaning houses for rich people.” She shrugged. “Maybe you wouldn’t consider them rich, but they seemed like millionaires to me. She died when I was seventeen.”

  “No wonder you want money.”

  “No, I want security. I want to never live like that again. But I learned a lot.”

  “About living on the streets?”

  She smiled. “No. About rich people. Before my mother died, and after, I spent lots of time in those people’s houses, when I wasn’t in school. I watched them. I helped set tables for dinner parties. I talked to the help. I observed how they lived, what they wore, how they talked. Then, when I went out on my own, I tried to emulate them.”

  “You obviously learned well,” he said, tightening his hold on her. “Because you dress, talk and look as classy and well-bred as any woman I’ve ever met.”

  Her shoulders, which she hadn’t realized she’d held square and stiff, dropped with a sigh. “Thank you.”

  “Lily.” He stroked her cheek with the lightest touch of his fingertips. “You should be proud, not ashamed.”

  Yeah, right. “Well, I coach a lot of people who obviously lived well and went to college. I couldn’t. In fact, I had to quit high school at sixteen so I could work. I was a waitress and a hairdresser, and then I got a job at Bloomie’s as a personal shopper.” She didn’t wait for his comment, but powered on, as though a dam had broken and she wanted to overflow with the truth. “I took some night courses, but I always had to work to make ends meet, so I’ve been working and working. This opportunity, this chance to get international clients for my little agency, well, Jack, this is the chance of a lifetime.”

  Now he did draw back a little. “No wonder it’s so important to you.”

  “Of course. I can finally, finally…” She gave him a tight smile. “I want to buy a house. That’s all I want in the whole world. It’s my dream, my burning, most powerful dream. I want to own a house. Nothing grand, nothing special, but I want to own it. Free and clear.”

  “Makes sense,” he said.

  “Of course it does. And not just because of my background. I think having a home, a real home, matters to everyone. But most people take it for granted.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” he replied. “Houses mean walls.”

  “Well, we’re different that way, then. But this job is really important to me, Jack. Succeeding with you and proving myself to Reggie can mean the breakthrough I’ve wanted my whole life.”

  “I see.” He nodded slowly. “Seems you and Reggie have pretty compelling reasons for wanting this deal, and this makeover, to go through.”

  “And you’re sweet to go along with it.” She brushed the si
ngle strand of burnished hair that fell over his eye. She loved that lock of hair. Loved to twirl it around her finger, as she did right then. “I’ve never told anyone that, you know. About my past, or about my dreams.”

  “Now, that—” he closed his fingers over her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles “—is the greatest compliment of all.”

  For several moments they said nothing. They sat close, while her heart continued at a gallop, her eyes still stung from unshed tears and her hand stayed securely in his.

  She finally broke the silence. “Well, Jack, you got me to eat with my fingers, forgo a napkin and tell my darkest tale. You sure managed to wreck my first social protocol lesson.”

  He kissed her cheek. “Wait’ll you see what I do for body language.”

  “I can’t.” She turned so that their mouths aligned. “Start now,” she whispered, leaning close to kiss him.

  His response was tender at first. But she deepened the kiss, offering herself, and when his hands slid over her sweater she moaned softly to let him know how much she wanted his touch.

  In a moment he guided her onto the blanket, positioning his long, hard body on top of hers.

  “We’re going to make love again,” she said, feathering his beautiful hair as it fell over his cheeks.

  He stifled a little laugh as he pulled the sweater higher and lowered his head to tend to her breasts. “Looks that way.”

  “Even…after…you know about me.”

  Moonlight caught the glint of seriousness in his eyes when he looked at her. “You can’t really think that would change how I feel about you.”

  “How do you feel about me?”

  He rocked his hips against hers, as though his obvious arousal answered the question.

  “I know how you feel about my body, Jack. I meant me. Me. A person who’s been so poor she practically lived in a cardboard box.”

  He didn’t even blink. “I told you walls hold no allure for me. You were a kid, Lily. A child who has obviously used the lousy hand dealt to you to build a productive, useful life and, in the process, help other people fix their own problems. It’s amazing, really. And admirable.” He half smiled. “At least, it would be if you weren’t slathering those renovation talents on me, but since you are…” He rocked again. “And since we’re here…” He kissed her cheek. “And since I happen to like the hell out of you…”