"That's one way of describing it."
He slid his hand down to her waist and pulled her into his side with a reprimanding squeeze of his fingers. "I most certainly am. Beauty and brains are a definite turn-on for me."
"I'll bet they are." The blond girlfriend of another neighboring millionaire who looked young enough to be her fiancé's daughter gave him an appreciative once-over. She had been throwing him sideways looks since he'd arrived, making him wonder if her man needed to pop a few pills to satisfy her. "My husband tells me you run one of the world's largest automotive companies, but I wouldn't understand what it is really because it's all that stuff inside a car."
He smiled. "Very well put."
"Do you work?" his wife piped up. She hadn't gotten any less stiff beneath his hand. The urge to drag her off somewhere to loosen her up was an idea.
"Oh, no," the blonde pooh-poohed. "We have two children. I don't get these women who work when they should be home. Parenting is the most important job in the world. You can't bring back those years."
His wife went ramrod straight. "No, you can't," she agreed. "But if there were no female surgeons we'd have a serious shortage of doctors to take care of your children. And then where would we be?"
The blonde shrugged a shoulder. "It worked just fine when women were at home."
The other woman must have read the antagonism painted on his wife's face because she swiftly backtracked. "Oh, I wasn't talking about you," she demurred. "I'm sure you're fabulously talented. I just think women take it a bit far sometimes...forget their priorities."
Diana's fingernails bit into his side. Sensing an imminent explosion, he gave the other two women a smile. "Would you mind if I steal my wife away for a moment? I wanted to show her something before dinner."
Without waiting for a response, he nudged his wife forward. "Don't let her get to you," he murmured. "What is she going to say? She doesn't have your skills."
"You'd rather I be like her," she muttered. "I should be at home lying on the bed eating bonbons waiting for you to come home."
"Don't give me ideas." He slid his hand lower to cover her bottom. "If I thought I could have you spread out and waiting for me when I walked in the door I would, but I think the world is better off with your surgical skills."
She looked up at him, a fierce glitter in her beautiful brown eyes. "Don't flatter me to get me to cool down. I am not a button to be pressed."
"Oh, yes, you are," he countered silkily, his palm shaping her bottom. "And I intend to press every last one before I'm done with you tonight."
Her eyes widened before her long lashes fanned down over her cheeks to cover them. "Why don't you go press the young blonde's buttons? She'll be more than willing I'm sure."
Temper rose in him, swift and sure. He stopped at the railing that overlooked the sea and stepped close enough to cage her in. "This is the last time I'm going to say this, Diana, so hear me when I tell you I have no interest in any other women. Nor will I in the future, even when you are round with my child. You are the only woman who can turn me inside out. You are the only woman I want warming my bed. That's always been the way."
Her breathing fractured as he stood with arms on each side of her on the railing, his heated gaze holding her in place. The darkening of her eyes to almost black said he might finally have gotten his message through.
"Say it once more," he promised, electing to hammer his message home while he had her attention, "and I will find a room, a corridor to convince you of it."
His wife's body went slack against the railing. The glitter in her eyes said she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. That corridor wasn't a half-bad idea.
"Dinner is served." Arthur walked past them on his way to alert the other guests, an amused expression on his face. "Unless you have another type of sustenance in mind."
Diana's face went beet red. He stepped back and guided her to the table set under the stars. His wife was primed and ready for him. Good thing, too, because his own very primed and ready body had had enough.
Diana was seated to the right of her husband at one end of the long, rectangular table laid with ornate silver place settings and tall candelabras. Dana sat at the head of the table to her right, thankfully keeping her across the table from the blond temptress. If she'd had to sit beside that lipstick-encrusted wolf in sheep's clothing she might have burst a blood vessel.
As it was, she was having difficulty relaxing with her smoldering, very sexy husband by her side. He seemed determined to take every opportunity he could to touch her as he passed the butter and filled her water glass. His threats had made her stomach churn with a sexual awareness of him that was getting worse with every minute that passed.
She focused desperately on her hostess, who it turned out was a very talented artist who painted scenes from the islands sold for high price tags in a London gallery. The surgeon in her loved hearing about the creative process and how she worked with her hands to achieve certain effects.
At some point after their salad plates were cleared and before the main course was laid down, Coburn's hand landed on her thigh. She stiffened as his warm fingers curved into her heated flesh, staking a firm ownership. She might have kept her composure had he not moved his hand down to her knee during the main course and gradually worked her dress up her thigh. She flashed him a look full of daggers, but he went innocently on talking to Dana as if he wasn't seducing her at a table of twelve diners.
And really? Did she want him to stop? She swallowed hard as he slid his palm between her thighs and worked them apart. Her muscles gave way of their own volition, trembling in low-grade anticipation as his calloused fingers scraped against her skin. It seemed difficult to pull air into her lungs, to maintain even the simplest of conversations with heat descending over her in waves.
She put her silverware down on her plate, laying it neatly across the china as if to signify the discipline to stop. "Coburn," she murmured in his ear. "No."
"Sound more convincing," he rasped back, "and I will."
She couldn't do it. His thumb dipped into the heat at the core of her, his swift intake of breath telling her he'd discovered just how aroused she was.
Oh. My. God. She attempted to coherently answer Dana's question about a jewelry boutique in New York her hostess couldn't remember the name of while Coburn's thumb found the honeyed, delicate nub at her center and rocked against it. Her breath seized in her throat, her hand fisting on the table.
Somehow the name of the store popped into her head. She told Dana, who pulled out her smartphone to make a note of it. Coburn's caress deepened, quickened. She clenched her thighs around his hand, her mind warring with her body. She could not let him do this here. She could not.
She slipped her hand under the table, closed her fingers around his and squeezed. His fiery blue gaze met hers, and for a moment she was lost. He was as gone as she was.
His hand slipped away from her skin. Her constricted chest eased, oxygen making its way back into her lungs. Coburn tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and leaned in close. "You are so ready for me, baby," he murmured. "Do not expect me to hold back."
Her nervous system short-circuited. She ignored the unabashedly curious looks the blonde threw in her direction and focused on breathing. She took absolutely nothing in as their dinner plates were removed and dessert and coffee were served. The anticipation simmering in her veins was of the all-consuming variety.
Arthur had just asked the table if anyone would like a refill on the nightcap when a bundle of small boy appeared on the terrace in his pajamas and threw himself at his father. Maciah, Arthur's nine-year-old son, babbled some incoherent words to Arthur, bringing the entire table to a halt.
She thought it was a night terror at first. The little boy's eyes were wide and he was hyperventilating, trying to pull air in. His father pulled him onto his lap, smoothed his hair and told him to take deep breaths.
Maciah's small chest inhaled and exhaled. "James is hurt," he sobbed.
His father frowned. "He's in bed."
The little boy took another deep breath, his voice shaky as it tumbled out. "We wanted to have some fun, too, so we decided to build a fort on the cliff. Only James fell and hurt himself."
The internet CEO's wife gasped. Diana sat up in her chair. Arthur took his son's face in his hands. "James is on the cliff?"
"Y-yes. Daddy, there's all sorts of blood."