Best of Temptation Bundle Read online

  Staying with Grant that first night kept her off the streets. Making love with him fed a ravenous hunger that threatened to consume her. Falling in love with him happened before she’d even realized.

  But now, she had choices. She could ask Grant to further risk his career by helping her arrange her therapy. She could enlist his assistance in tracking down Sammy and Moana, even though doing so might endanger his life again.

  Or she could leave in the morning. Venture out on her own. She knew her name now. Had a family tie. A hometown. Maybe later, after she’d reconstructed her memory and reestablished her life, she’d return and explore her feelings for Grant.

  The realization ripped through her heart like a drill. In such a short time, she’d come to rely on his presence, come to lean on his strength. Yet she couldn’t take the easy road any longer. To do so would put the man she loved at even further risk than she already had. No matter what trauma she’d experienced before this, nothing could compare to her being the cause of Grant’s destruction. Nothing.

  With her decision made, she leaned back into the car seat and watched the lighted billboards flash by until a sickening dizziness lured her to sleep.

  “HARLEY, HON, WE’RE HOME.”

  Her lids fluttered opened and she glanced around, confused by the yawning iron gate and manicured lawn. Where was the gravel drive? The pink stucco? The flapping flag with the preening flamingo?

  Reality dawned slowly. It wasn’t her home he’d brought her to, but his. A place of taste and class and beauty, traits completely foreign to where she’d grown up. Her dream in the car was the same as the last. Of the house. The costumes. Sammy’s metallic smile.

  Grant pulled into the garage and turned off the engine.

  “Are you all right?”

  She straightened from her slumped position in the seat and unhooked her seat belt, stretching her arms and shoulders as freely as possible in Grant’s compact luxury car. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck.”

  Grant’s grin nearly lightened her mood. “I have just the remedy.”

  The prospect of receiving another of Grant’s massages perked her right up. She eagerly accepted his hand as he helped her from the car, then followed him inside wordlessly. He’d already told her about the box of condoms he’d purchased that morning, and since she feared this would be their last night together, she hoped to put each and every one to good use.

  She slipped her jacket over a kitchen chair, then did the same with his. Kicking off her spiky heels, she leaned against the table while Grant perused the contents of his refrigerator.

  “You too keyed up for wine?” he asked.

  She rolled her neck in a semicircle, humming her approval at the liberating cracks and crunches. “Can you be too keyed up for wine?”

  He grinned, pulled out a bottle of blush, shoved a corkscrew in his pocket, found two glasses in the cabinet, and with his hands full, extended his arm for Harley to tuck into as they left the dark kitchen.

  She thought they’d go upstairs for their private interlude, but Grant led her to the pool area. He set the wine on the tiled table and disappeared into a shadowy corner while he fiddled with the light switches. In minutes, the entire patio, pool and bubbling hot tub rippled with soft blue light.

  To Harley, the temperature on this sultry April night climbed a notch or two. “This is awfully romantic for a corporate mansion. Did one of the previous Don Juan-CEOs live here before you?”

  He uncorked the bottle with little effort and poured her a generous portion. The glass immediately fogged with condensation. “I’m the first.”

  She accepted the wine with a skeptical smirk. “I find it hard to believe you had this lighting put in.”

  Taking a sip from his own glass, he sidled up to her, the heat from his body seeping instantaneously through the thin silk of her dress. “I did it…the real estate agent did it…what’s the difference? The fact is you look beautiful in blue light. You look beautiful in any light.”

  She sensed the kiss before she felt it—his lips warm and sweet and tender. His mouth caressed hers softly, demanding nothing and promising everything. Both held tight to their wineglasses, not touching beyond the kiss, yet Harley’s knees weakened. Grant countered her tiny wobble by bracing her with a hand on her arm.

  He ended the kiss with a nibble. First on her lips, then across her cheek. Down her chin. Harley offered her throat and neck. He readily accepted, sampling her pulse points with delicate bites. Her skin purled like the surface of the Jacuzzi.

  “So sweet. So soft.”

  She hardly noticed when he took away her wineglass, setting the full goblet beside his. He then clutched her hips firmly with both his hands and eased her forward. An inch of space remained between them, not quite near enough for touch, but more than adequate for his musky-scented body heat to make her dizzy.

  In the turquoise glow, his eyes, two onyx stones, sparkled with iced fire. His cheekbones and chin, rugged and shadowed with stubble, seemed sharper. Edgier. More dangerous than a man like Grant had a right or the capacity to be. Yet Grant posed no risks to her well-being. Only her heart, and with it, her body and soul.

  “I don’t know if I like you in blue light.” She traced down his cheek with her thumb, lightly indenting his shadowy skin. “You look almost…criminal.”

  “It’s not the light.” Husky and deep, his voice snared her, held her with the tenacity of a taut steel cord. “It’s you. The thoughts you make me think are definitely illegal.”

  She flicked a fingernail over his lips, still wet and warm from their kiss. “Illegal, or just naughty?”

  Pulling her close, he ground the rigid length of him against her belly. Instinctively, she rose on her tiptoes, pressing herself closer. Even the scanty barrier of her dress and lingerie seemed overwhelming. Extreme.

  He smoothed his hands over her bare shoulders and down her arms. “Depends.”

  “On?”

  He glanced at the gurgling hot tub. Steam wafted from the water, blanketing the tiled Jacuzzi with a misty haze. When his gaze returned to her, she witnessed the dusky smoldering of passion she’d come to crave. “Why don’t we just start with naughty and see where we go from there?”

  A tendril of air tickled her spine as he drew down the zipper on her dress.

  “Aren’t you afraid the neighbors might see?” she asked, nearly losing her balance as he slid his hands up her back and unhooked her bra.

  His chuckle matched the baritone rumblings from the spa. “I have twelve-foot hedges on either side of the yard and no neighbor in back. Unless old Willie Langley has binoculars that cut through solid brick, you’re shielded from all prying eyes. Except mine.”

  He slipped the thin straps over her shoulders, then tugged until her dress and bra lay in a billowing blue mound at her feet. He stepped around her, perusing her from all angles, touching her here or there as it suited him, seducing her with an admiring stare.

  She crossed her arms, somewhat intimidated by his scrutiny, but he immediately clucked his tongue and worked her protective stance loose.

  “Don’t get shy with me now, sweetheart. I’m just looking. Admiring.” He traced a single finger across the small of her back. “Worshipping. I’d never get tired of looking at you. Never.”

  She hooked her fingers in the sides of her garter belt, wanting to put her hands somewhere, preferably on him, yet he remained about a foot away as he circled.

  “I wouldn’t mind something interesting to look at,” she challenged, hoping he’d remove at least his shirt and tie so she wouldn’t feel so vulnerable.

  “All you had to do was ask.”

  One tug divested him of his bow tie. Ditto for the belt. Like a stalking cougar, he continued to circle her, popping one button, then another, until she could see the dark hair curling on his toned chest. Her breath abandoned her. Her breasts tingled. Her mouth sought a moisture only he could serve.

  He unhooked his pants, leaving them lazily open
on his hips as he had this afternoon. “I do believe I’m stripping for you. How’m I doing?”

  “If you want my professional opinion, I don’t remember.”

  “I don’t care about your profession, Harley Roberts. I want your personal observations.” He untucked his shirt and undid his cuff links. In a fluid motion, his shirt slid down his torso and then floated like a cloud as he tossed it onto a patio chair.

  “I’d pay money to see you strip.”

  “Sorry, I don’t take cash.”

  She turned with him, licking her lips as his pants dropped to the ground. “Credit cards? Checks?”

  He shook his head, took her hands and led her to the water. “Nothing but trade, darling, nothing but trade.”

  11

  HE STEPPED INTO the hot tub first, ditching his boxer shorts at the last moment and then submerging himself to his waist in the churning water. She moved to unsnap her nylons, but he stopped her. “Whoa, whoa. What’s the rush?” He kissed her hands, licking the crevices between her fingers with a hot, moist tongue. “Let me find a better vantage point.”

  Easing away, he settled in one of the Jacuzzi’s curved seats, his line of sight level with her knees. Looking up, he’d have an unhindered view of her every curve and crevice. “We don’t have any veils,” he commented, reminding her of his teasing at the wedding, “but this is good. Real good.”

  His flaming gaze amid the toasty steam heated Harley to the boiling point. Her breathing grew shallow. Her palms moistened. Grant waited, his eyes large with expectation, for her to peel away the last few bits of her clothing with all the finesse and bewitchery of an accomplished exotic dancer. She’d probably disrobed hundreds of times before, but never for such a special audience. She wanted to give Grant this fantasy more than anything—one she’d certainly given so many men before—men she didn’t love.

  Yet a chill lingered, just behind her, in the shadow of her past. She froze.

  “Harley?”

  Immediately, Grant recognized the cold shimmer of anxiety glazing her eyes and keeping her still. He’d touched a raw spot—her stripping—reminding her of a part of her past she clearly didn’t want to recall. He cursed himself for forgetting how truly tentative their relationship remained—and would remain until she recalled her former life.

  Until then, he could only affect her present. Show her how much he cared. Sloshing across the tub, he took her quaking hand and flashed her what he hoped was his most seductive grin.

  “On second thought, why don’t you leave the stripping to the experts? Think the Chippendales would hire me?”

  When the tiniest hint of a smile flexed her lips and she nodded, Grant kissed her palm and knelt on the step into the spa. Eye-level to her panties, he unhooked her garter belt, splaying one wet hand over the small of her back while the other held the lingerie tentatively in place.

  “I suppose I should do this one leg at a time.” He kissed her upper thigh, just below the garter, and traced the curve of her leg with his tongue. “But I’m not feeling patient. I don’t think I can go that slowly.” But he’d sure as hell try. He pressed his mouth against her panties, exhaling his hot breath, inhaling her feminine scent.

  A soft groan and the combing of her fingers roughly through his hair urged him to release the garter belt and draw the hose down her smooth legs and over her wobbly feet. She continued to moan as he slid his hands beneath her panties and kneaded her firm buttocks. The fear, the hesitation he’d witnessed moments before, drifted away amidst the Jacuzzi steam.

  With a stiff tongue, he stroked her, opened her, tasted her through the material, darkening the satiny blue with a mingling of his moisture and hers. Nipping, he caught flesh and silk between his teeth, intensifying her faint cries. She tugged his hair. Her head fell forward.

  He snagged the edge of her underwear with his teeth and tugged them down and then off. She braced her hands on his shoulders, impaling him with her fingernails. He buried his face in the soft downy hair at the apex of her thighs, laving her gently while he lifted her into the water.

  In slow inches, he loosened his grip, sliding her down his body while he kissed the line from mons to navel to cleavage. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, stopping her descent when they were nearly sex to sex, her nipples dark and pouting and pointed at his mouth.

  She groaned when he bit her, cooed when he suckled, cried out when he flicked her pebbled nipples in rapid succession. She squirmed until her sweet folds captured the tip of his erection, urging him to enter her body here and now.

  “Oh, Grant. I want you inside me.”

  Growling, he cupped her buttocks and lifted her higher, breaking their tentative connection. He unwrapped her legs and lowered her thigh high into the water. “Not just yet, sweetheart.”

  He kissed her until he knew she wouldn’t protest, then reached over the side of the Jacuzzi to his pants. He took two packaged condoms from his pocket, tore one from the other, threw the first on the edge of the hot tub and tossed the second into the adjacent pool.

  Her eyes lit with mischievous curiosity.

  “Are we going diving for condoms?”

  He pushed her back gently until she fell into the curved seat. Bending over her, he captured her lips and thrust his tongue against hers, tasting the sweet mingling of wine and steam while he eased her legs apart. “Soon. But first, I have some more dangerous diving to do. For a particular pearl.”

  Grant eased down until only his face remained above the waves. Water rumbled in his ears. Harley shifted in the popping bubbles and hazy steam, her breasts alternately slipping from sight, her arms outstretched on the tiled ledge, her eyes half open and locked with his.

  Once she settled in, he joined the churning water in kissing her parted thighs, savoring the combined flavors of chlorine and honeyed flesh. He buoyed his hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her high. With the pumping jets pounding him from all sides and his lungs holding tight to his breath, he took her sweet center in his mouth. The sultry water made her warm and pliant. He eased her knees over his shoulders. She stiffened, then squirmed.

  He came up for a quick breath, then dove into her again. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, even over the growling of the jets. When her bud hardened between his teeth and tongue, he knew she had reached the edge. The sound of her pleasured cries lured him to the surface.

  He gasped when he rose, but Harley allowed him no time to breathe. Her lips boldly captured his. Her hands clasped his cheeks and held him immobile. She fed him air and love and passion—all in a single unyielding kiss. This was the woman he’d almost lost when those low-life creeps abducted her, and then again when he’d suggested she strip for him.

  But now, the bold, fearless woman he’d grown to adore returned.

  He slipped his mouth away from hers in a desperate rush to ease the torching of his deprived lungs. Gasping, he touched her as the water touched her, furiously and haphazardly, and with ever-escalating heat. She suckled his neck and shoulders, panting between bites, stroking his sex with her hands. Desire raged through him like a flash flood.

  He was hard. Rock hard. Harder than he’d ever, ever been. If he drove into her now, he’d surely break her in two. His body, so close to shutting out his voice of reason, demanded immediate release.

  With his last tentative grasp on sanity, he scooped Harley into his arms, took the single step to the ledge, then plunged them both into the icy water of the swimming pool.

  When they broke the surface, Harley screamed. “It’s freezing!”

  Grant continued to hold her as she splashed and spluttered, enjoying the feel of her prickly gooseflesh and stony nipples against his chest. His muscles shuddered and protested at the instantaneous change in temperature, but the thought of rekindling her heat kept him hard and ready. “Mmm. I’ll warm you, honey.”

  Her smile grew dark and daring as she calmed and ran her fingers through his dripping hair. “You’ve done quite enough. When is it
my turn?”

  “When I’m finished with you.”

  “And that will be?”

  Never, he hoped, but he bit back the reply. She wasn’t any more prepared for a commitment than he, especially not one destined to end badly. If Howell Phipps, the town gossips, her cousin Moana, that scum-bucket Buck and Harley’s memory loss unwittingly combined forces, Harley and he didn’t stand a chance. For the present, they could share only what they had now—intense passion—with mutual caring and respect on the side.

  “I’ll be finished when I make you as crazy as you make me.”

  He released his hold on her and dove deep beneath the surface, his eyes honed on the red, square package dotting the bottom of the pool. Snagging the condom, he propelled to the surface with a powerful thrust, grabbing Harley along the way. He locked her legs around his waist then half swam, half kicked them to the shallow end.

  Settling on the middle step, he positioned her atop him. In defiance of his quest for control, she shimmied until her feminine lips enveloped his shaft, cloaking him in warmth, yet denying him entrance.

  She kissed the sluicing water from his face and ran her hands down his torso. “I am crazy. Crazy for you.”

  He buried his face between her breasts. “Trust me, honey, you don’t know crazy like I do.”

  With a limber tongue, he lapped at the droplets clinging to her skin, swirling thick circles around her areolas, avoiding her rigid nipples to enhance her burning need. She exhaled rhythmic gasps that sometimes sounded like his name, urging him to pleasure her deeper, to return her to the orgasmic rush he’d brought her to before.

  Her hips undulated, easing him closer inside her. With a groan, he stretched out of reach. If he remained pressed against her, he’d come before she did. He throbbed for release so acutely, his blood pounded in his ears. His eyes couldn’t focus. He lost the power of speech. She whimpered, but acquiesced when he filled the empty space with his hand. One finger, then two, probed her hidden recesses, taunting her with reserved half thrusts.