Needed: One Convenient Husband(11)

It was actually for a thunderstorm. He could already see lightning  flashes farther north, and from the drop in temperature the rain could  start any time.

"Don't care." She sent him a fleeting look that, half hidden by a tousled swath of tawny hair, was unconsciously sexy.

His stomach tightened as he was irresistibly reminded of a  seventeen-year-old girl who had trailed endlessly along the beach at  Dolphin Bay in a bikini top and a pair of ragged, cutoff denim shorts,  driving most of the male population crazy.

She slid out of the Maserati, the gusting breeze plastering her little  black dress against the lithe curves of her body as she closed the car  with a brisk thud that made him wince.

She sent him a smooth, closed smile, the kind he'd gotten familiar with  lately, as if he was one of her difficult clients. "I'm tired of the  city and miles of concrete. I want to feel sand between my toes."

He depressed his key and locked the car before walking to the beach.  Eva was already standing on smooth, hard-packed sand, just inches shy of  the water, her expression oddly relaxed.

"I love it, especially when there's going to be a storm." She sent him a  slanting sideways look as he joined her, as if she was trying to assess  him in some way. She smiled encouragingly. "Shall we walk?"

His jaw tightened as he suddenly got it. After months of avoidance, Eva  had changed tack completely. Every muscle in his body tightened when he  realized that Eva's question outside the Irish pub about whether or not  his offer of marriage was still open had been for real. And that some  time between that moment and the drive to the beach, she had moved on to  summing him up as a potential husband. When Eva began asking him about  his work hours and his interests, he realized he was being interviewed.

In a weird way, it reminded him of when he was nineteen and had spent a  whole summer getting to know Eva. In a lot of ways, the process had  been the exact opposite of the usual pattern. She had started out so  confident and self-contained it had been hard to get close to her at  all.

One day, with the summer almost over and Kyle pushed to his limits, he  had saved her from an older guy who had cornered her at the end of the  beach. The tussle had been brief, but when the tourist had beat a hasty  retreat, she had stared at him and blushed. She hadn't said a word, just  continued on as if it hadn't happened, but from that moment on her  behavior had changed. In a weird way it was as if he had passed some  kind of test.                       
       
           



       

She strolled down to the water's edge, wading in ankle-deep. There was  no attempt to look sexy or alluring, just a simple enjoyment of the  seaside. She turned, her gaze connected with his then dropped to his  mouth before she looked quickly away.

Every muscle in his body suddenly taut, Kyle waited her out. He wanted  Eva, and she knew it. Last night he thought he'd blown any chance of  having her in his bed, but in the space of twenty-four hours, something  had changed. Added to that, the beach setting was creating an unsettling  sense of déjà vu, as if they'd been spun back years.

Lightning flashed, followed by a heavy roll of thunder. Simultaneously, rain pounded down.

Eva flinched at the sudden deluge, but the rain, though torrential,  wasn't cold and, besides, she loved the wildness of it. Kyle jerked his  head in the direction of the car but, caught up in the adrenaline of the  moment, she grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the shelter of a  large, gnarled pohutukawa tree.

She sucked in a breath as they stepped beneath the dense overhang of  the tree. With the sound of the surf and the shift of shadows as dappled  light from the parking lot flowed through the leaves, in a strange way  it felt like stepping back in time to Dolphin Bay and that first kiss.

When Kyle reeled her in close and framed her face with his hands, the  breath stopped in her lungs. She should have extricated herself in her  usual smooth, sophisticated way, but ever since Kyle had slipped onto  the stool beside her in the Irish pub, she had been subtly off balance.  He had been tailing her for months and had ruthlessly gotten rid of any  man who had gotten too close. Now he was making no bones about the fact  that he wanted her, and against all the odds she loved that.

And suddenly she no longer wanted to resist him. Years ago she had  loved Kyle and then lost him along with the whole future she had  imagined she might have as a woman, a wife and a mother. He had loved  another woman, but she'd had no one. Now she had a chance  at...something. If she stopped to think- But right now, with the storm  pounding all around them, all she wanted to do was feel.

When she ran her palms up over his chest to his shoulders, Kyle's  response was instant. Hauling her closer still, he bent his head, his  breath washing over her lips. "What is it with beaches," he muttered.

Lifting up on her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, the passion white-hot and instant.

Long seconds later, she wrenched her mouth free and dragged at the  buttons of Kyle's shirt. He muttered something short and sharp. Dimly,  she registered the loosening of the fit of her dress as the zipper  tracked down, a damp blast of cool air against her skin. A split second  later the dress was gone and her bra along with it.

Bending down, Kyle took one nipple in his mouth. Dizzying sensation  jerked through her in waves. When he lifted his head, she remembered his  shirt, but he must have shrugged out of it at some point, because she  found naked skin.

Kyle groaned. "Maybe we should slow down-"

Her palms slid down over washboard abs and found the fastening of his  pants. He uttered a short, soft word. Moments later, she was on her back  on the sand, her dress and what she guessed was Kyle's jacket and shirt  beneath her.

Kyle's fingers hooked in her panties, dragging them down. Lightning  flashed, illuminating the stark planes of Kyle's face as his weight came  down on her. Sucking in a sharp breath at the sheer heat of him, she  wound her arms around Kyle's neck, the fierce need to keep him close  momentarily blotting out coherent thought.

"Babe-there's something I need to do first." He disengaged and rolled  to one side. She logged the sound of foil tearing. A condom. Thunder  detonated again and the rain pattered down through the canopy of leaves,  splashing on bare skin so that she shivered.

Kyle hauled her close, sheltering her with his body, and in that moment  it seemed the most natural thing in the world to hook one arm around  his neck and lift up for his kiss. At the same time, curious about the  condom, her fingers closed around him. She felt the smooth texture, the  heated satin of his skin underneath.

A split second later, he came down between her legs. She felt the  heated pressure of him. There was a shivering moment of sanity, when she  logged Kyle's stillness, as if, like her, he had come to the sudden  sobering conclusion of exactly what they were about to do. She should  say no. Kyle would stop, she knew he would, and in a crazy way that in  itself was freeing.

It was a plain fact that she didn't want to relinquish him or the  burning, irresistible pleasure that held her in its grip. It wasn't  love. She wasn't that silly, but when set against the shadows of her  past and her present loneliness-the growing fear that she would never  truly be cherished-it tipped an internal balance so that she no longer  wanted to think, only to feel...                       
       
           



       

She felt him tense at the tight constriction and freeze in place. She  thought he was going to stop, but when he lifted his head, she clung,  unable to bear letting him go, arching against the burning pressure at  the center of her body.

He groaned and a second later, shoved deep. She felt the drag of the  condom, an uncomfortable pinching as with each downward stroke he seemed  to push a little deeper still. Her hips twisted automatically, trying  to ease the discomfort, but the restless twisting momentarily dislodged  him.

He cradled her closer and the next downward stroke felt smoother,  sleeker, more pleasurable, and she realized that something had changed.  The condom was gone, but it was already too late as irresistible  sensation gripped her, coiling tight, and the damp, heavy darkness  shimmered into light.

* * *

Kyle stopped the car outside Eva's house. "We need to talk. Somehow, I  don't know how, because it's never happened before, but the condom  slipped-"

"You don't have to worry about contraception."

The words were out before she could call them back, but she couldn't  regret them. She knew Kyle would probably think she was on the pill or  had some other form of contraception, but that wasn't the case. She  could get pregnant.