“Look at me!”
Her lashes fluttered up. Reluctantly she met his gaze. An indefinable emotion lurked in the turbulent depths. Despite the warmth of the spa room, and the steam swirling around them, Avery shivered. This was not the easy-going restaurateur she’d thought herself in love with. She didn’t know this man.
“Not even Jeff?” he asked.
“What?” Avery blinked up at him in confusion.
“Forgotten how he kisses already?” There was a caustic bite to his tone. “N-no.”
Forgotten? Guy sent me. I’m your birthday present. Then Jeff had breathed over her with boozy breath and touched her with hands that made her feel unclean. The words that had spewed from his mouth had made her feel dirty to her soul. I’m to chauffeur you to Baratin when we’re done.
How could she ever forget?
Was Guy jealous of the man he’d all but pimped her to? Well, she hoped he’d suffered the tortures of the damned. He’d destroyed her illusions. If he was jealous now, it was his own damn fault for opening a forbidden box that should have stayed shut.
He deserved to suffer.
The temptation to inflame his sexual possessiveness was too much. Avery gave him what she hoped looked like a seductive, kittenish smile. “I never kiss and tell.”
“You did more than kiss Jeff. You slept with him.”
She stretched her eyes wide. “Why the curiosity? Wish you’d been there? We almost called you to join in.”
The instant the words left her lips, Avery experienced a rush of regret. She’d thrown away the opportunity to tell Guy the real truth about how much she’d hated what had happened that fateful night.
But how could she recant now? How could she tell him her sarcasm had been prompted by hurt and anger at his ready acceptance that she’d slept with a man he’d sent to her? Pride wouldn’t let her.
He could go to hell.
Guy didn’t love her. Had never loved her. It was enough to make her want to weep.
“Jeff told me that you’d been chasing him for weeks, and that night he couldn’t resist what you were offering.”
What?
Had he not sent Jeff to her? She gazed at Guy, searching for a chink in his shuttered face. But the only softness came from the flickering candlelight that danced over his skin, causing shadows to lurk under his cheekbones.
“That I offered?” she prompted.
Guy pushed a hand through his hair. “I was busy—”
“You were always busy.”
His jaw tensed. “Jeff called just as I was about to ring you to ask you to catch a cab. He offered to make the call for me and get the cab so I could finish what I was doing. I thought it was important.” His mouth twisted in a parody of a smile.
“So Jeff called me,” she said flatly.
“And you asked him to pick you up—only when he got there did he find out what you had in mind.”
“Of course.” Avery felt numb. He’d believed Jeff.
The man must be dumb. How could he not know what they’d discovered was special? Something she’d never found with another man? Yet he believed her capable of sleeping with Jeffrey…and Matt…at the drop of a hat. She shivered.
“You’re cold.”
Not cold. Goosebumps from reaction. She was hurting, exposed and vulnerable. Unlike him.
“Get into the hot tub,” he ordered.
“With you here?”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Why not? There’s nothing I haven’t seen many times before.”
The biting sarcasm made her see red. All the objections that threatened to spill over fizzled out when he hit a button on the control dial and the jets started to froth. Why not?
She’d told Matt that she was going to exorcise him.
No time better than the present.
With a reckless awareness of playing with fire, Avery dropped her terry robe. She was nak*d beneath. She heard Guy suck in air, but refused to turn her head to gauge his response. Instead she stepped over the lip of the tub into the churning water of the sunken spa.
And wondered if she’d ventured too far…
Guy could’ve sworn his heart ceased when Avery’s robe slipped down her glorious body.
Any hope he’d nursed that Avery had not been playing cruel games with him and Jeff as her pawns had been extinguished by the brazen admission that she’d seduced poor Jeff.
It only took a glimpse of her nak*d form for the rage to flare into mind-blowing sexual hunger. Given that she was so little, Avery had the longest damned legs he’d ever seen. His eyes followed the sleek bare length to the delectable curve of her butt. She was perfect. Absolutely god-dammed perfect.
He wanted her. Damn, he ached with wanting. It had been too long….
The tub swallowed her as she settled down, the long legs and curvy body disappearing beneath the frothing water that gleamed in the light of the candles. She leaned her head against the edge of the tub and gave a sigh.
Only the top of her br**sts were visible, yet even that was enough to make him hard.
After her betrayal he’d told her he never wanted to see her again. He’d been certain if he saw her, he’d throttle her. Famous last words. No doubt she planned to make him eat them, morsel by morsel. Well, here he was achingly aroused and dying to kiss that sassy provocative mouth again. Damn.
She was here for the duration of the Food and Wine Gala. Why not sate this inconvenient hunger for her that gnawed at his gut like a wild, feral beast? This time he would make her as mad for him as she’d made poor, broken Jeff. The fool had risked everything for her. His friendship with Guy. Their business, Go Green.
Guy had been ready to plant a fist in Jeff’s face for his perfidy until he’d realized how bad his friend had it. Jeff had told him about how Avery had teased and tempted him for weeks, until he’d been unable to resist her summons.
What would he have done if Avery had opened the door in nothing more than the bustier and G-string Jeff had told him she’d worn to welcome him?
Guy could understand Jeff’s desperation. Would he have reacted any differently to her seduction? Hell, if he climbed into that spa beside her, he’d touch her and it would be over in moments.
Dragging in a breath he wrestled for control. Instead of allowing himself to be drawn into her trap, he dropped to his knees beside the sunken tub and started to knead her shoulders. This time it would be on his terms.
Avery started, she moaned.
“Good?”
“Mmm.”
“Relax, let the warm water ease all the cricks.”
“I already had a massage—that helped,” she murmured so softly he had to bend forward to catch the words. “But how can I resist?”
Guy could see the edge of her pouting mouth. Her hair fell in soft tendrils about her face, and her features had relaxed.
He growled, a rough, throaty sound. “I better tell my sister to start a service offering neck rubs in the tub.”
“Melissa is your sister? You mentioned brothers yesterday. I didn’t even know you had a sister.”
“You never asked,” he pointed out.
“I suppose.”
“We had better things to talk about.”
It was true, he realized as he massaged her flesh. Their focus had been on the white-hot passion that had exploded between them, consuming them in an affair that had erupted before they could draw breath—let alone get to know each other.
But her silence made him feel a pang of guilt. Maybe they should’ve talked more…
“I’ve got another sister, too,” he offered. “Erica. She’s my half sister actually.” He still wasn’t sure how he felt about Erica. Until now he’d maintained a friendly, but definitely cool, distance. “We only discovered her existence after my father died.”
“I heard about your father. I’m sorry.”
His father had died less than a week after she’d slept with Jeff and walked out on him. It had been the worst week of his life. But Avery didn’t need to know that.
“We weren’t close.” Guy dismissed her sympathy.
“It must’ve still been hard to discover he had another child.”
“It was.” Guy forced himself not to be abrupt. “The knowledge that my father had an affair so soon after mom’s death was—” He broke off, reluctant to supply the words that might reveal any lingering vulnerability.
After a moment’s pause, Avery said carefully, “It must have been hard for Erica, too.”
Her voice held no judgment, she simply stated a fact. He wished he could see her expression. “It couldn’t have been too bad for her. She inherited an equal share in Dad’s estate. She’s a wealthy woman now.”
“Money isn’t everything.”
Avery of all people expected him to swallow that?
Guy found a knot and rubbed it, and Avery winced. He slowed his movements, his fingers lingering on flesh that had taken a golden glow under the candlelight.
“Erica found love, too.” A note of cynicism entered his voice. “She’s engaged to Christian Hanford now. The family lawyer,” he tacked on, in case he wasn’t making sense. Stroking her skin had that effect on him. Touching her made him forget everything else existed.
She was undoubtedly a sorceress. A magic woman who held him trapped in her secret sensuality.
“Where are you staying?” Guy changed the subject. He didn’t want to talk about Erica, about the uncomfortable emotions his father’s affair aroused and the sense of helpless loss that his father’s death evoked.
“At Jarrod Manor,” she replied, a little drowsily.
“So am I.”
Avery stiffened under the stroke of his fingers. “Oh.”
“Relax,” he said. “It’s the largest lodge. No danger of finding me—unless you want to.” He didn’t add that he was staying in one of the family suites on the top floor, which had their own card-access elevator. There was little chance of Avery’s finding his suite by accident.
“But you only need to ask reception to find out where I’m staying—you’re a Jarrod, they’d tell you whatever you wanted.”
His hands stilled. “Do you want me to ask?”
“No!”
The water swirled around her as she moved in agitation. For a brief instant Guy caught a glimpse of pale pink nipple before she hastily sank beneath the bubbling water.
“On second thought, you probably don’t even need to ask, do you? You’d have access to all the computer and reservation systems—and key cards.”
“I’d never enter your room—or any guest’s room—without an invitation.” Guy was appalled by her assumption that he’d abuse his position—or the privacy of a guest. “You’d have to ask.”
“Promise?”
The look she slanted up at him almost undid him. “Yes!”
She relaxed with a sigh, her head dropping back against the lip of the bath, the candlelight giving her blonde hair a rich patina. “I believe you.”
I believe you. Her instant trust caused a rush of elation. Wordlessly, he rubbed his fingers in little circles along the apex of her shoulders, seeking out the tell-tale knots, massaging them. Her flesh was soft and supple beneath his fingers, and he savored the subtle, flowery scent that clung behind her ears, released by the sultry, heat of the steam, tempting him to set his lips against the silken skin.