One Real Man (Entangled Bliss)(13)

Only the pool lights were on, filling the conservatory with a shifting, watery blue illumination. On the far side of the pool stood Owen, a long-handled net in his hand. He’d been trawling it through the water, but at her entrance he paused, his body growing quite still.

“Paige?” The upside-down shadows obscured the expression on his face, but she noticed his hands tightening around the pole. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I—I just forgot my watch in the kitchen.” Shoot, why was her voice so breathy and constricted? She shook back her hair, eager to regain her poise. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning the pool, obviously.”

She pursed her lips at his answer. “You don’t need to clean the pool anymore. You pay someone else to do that.”

He didn’t speak right away. With a shrug, he dipped his net through the water. “Old habits die hard. Once a pool boy, always a pool boy.”

Her cheeks heated. She didn’t want to leave now, not after a crack like that. Folding her arms, she moved farther into the conservatory. “I don’t think I’ve even seen you use this pool once.”

“I’ve been busy.” But the sudden rigidness in his shoulders seemed to say something else.

A disturbing possibility struck her. “Can you swim?”

“Sure, but I prefer swimming in the ocean, not paddling back and forth in a chlorinated bathtub.”

“Oceans are fun in summer, but not now. This time of year there’s nothing better than a heated indoor pool.” His silence needled her. She was tired of being on the defensive. She slipped off her shoes and dipped one foot into the water. “Try it. You’ll enjoy it.” She swirled her toes about, flexing her ankle.

Beneath her flimsy, knee-length cardigan, she wore only a camisole top and stretchy shorts that clung to her thighs. Owen had grown quite still again. Although he stood a distance away, she could sense a change coming over him. He gazed at her with half-hooded eyes, not moving an inch, yet somehow she knew his chest was rising and falling harder than it should, that his heart rate was accelerating, just like hers.

Blood pounded through her body as she switched legs and arched her other foot into the water. She slanted a sideways glance at Owen, verified that he was still staring at her as if transfixed by the slow rotations of her foot. A strange electricity vibrated in her, filling her with a breathless, reckless fever. Just hours ago she’d resented him, but now she wanted to tease him, to ruffle his senses.

“You’ve never used this pool, have you?”

He shook his head, his gaze never leaving her foot.

“Why not, Owen?” Her mouth and her body were running out of control, but she was helpless to stop them. The rigidness in his stance, the determined way he gripped his net, the dark, reined-in force behind his stare—all fuel to the fire flaring in her. “After all those hours you spent cleaning this pool, why didn’t you jump in the first chance you got?”

He took a few strides toward her, and suddenly he was much closer, more dangerous, vibrant with purpose. Her heart skipped several beats. With his green eyes and burly shoulders and the net in his fists, he looked like Poseidon—a goaded, frustrated god.

“A valid question,” he bit out. “I spent so much time on this damn pool—cleaning it, monitoring it, scrubbing it—and yet I was never allowed to use it. Employees are not allowed to use the facilities, my dad was told by your parents. Not even when the family was away. As if we might contaminate the water.” He breathed in and out hard several times, nostrils flaring. “So why can’t I use the pool now? Now that I can, why can’t I dive-bomb into it and make it mine? Why do you think I can’t, Paige?”

His gaze drilled into her, and for the life of her she couldn’t look away. “I d-don’t know.”

“Don’t you?” He moved even nearer, so close she could feel the warm whoosh of his breath against her cheeks and the heat pounding off him in giant waves. She stepped back, but he simply closed the gap. “You don’t know why I might have a few hang-ups about this place? Could it have anything to do with what you used to do to me here?”

“What I used to do?” She tried a hair toss, but her neck was shaking too much. In fact, her whole body was trembling, just like it had in the past when she’d pranced across the conservatory in her bikini, aware that Owen was staring at her, the knowledge making her tingle all over. “Come on, that was just a bit of f-flirting.”

“Is that what you call it? Funny, it felt more like torture to me.”

Indignation flared in her. “You make it sound so one-sided, but it wasn’t. Sure, I flirted with you now and again, but you dragged me into the ferns like a caveman and kissed me against my will!”

An abrupt silence fell between them, and all she could hear was her staccato breathing and the frantic beat of her pulse. His eyes were shadowed and fathomless, filled with emotions she couldn’t interpret. Resentment? Lust? Regret?

“I kissed you against your will? Soyou didn’t want to be pawed by the grubby pool boy, you just wanted him panting after you.” His voice lowered to an ominous growl. “You wanted to show off to your friends, boost your reputation.”

Oh God, how right he was about that. Astrid Sherwood had challenged her to toy with the dark and brooding pool boy, and she hadn’t dared refuse. To do so would have meant banishment from Astrid’s inner circle, and she couldn’t afford that, not when belonging was so important to her—her and her mother. Shame squirmed in the pit of her stomach. Even though she’d nursed a secret weakness for Owen, she had used him, and for nothing more than to impress Astrid.

“And those two weeks when we sneaked around and you let me kiss you any chance we had?” His voice was water running over gravel, liquid and rough at the same time. “You were just leading me on, hoping to make a fool of me. I suppose you were laughing at me behind my back, laughing with your friends.”

Her eyes squeezed shut. She didn’t want to remember those two weeks; it was tooconfusing. After that first kiss in the ferns, she’d slapped Owen and run away. She’d never told anyone about that first kiss. But then, a day later she’d bumped into him, and somehow he’d ended up kissing her again. Only that time, she hadn’t slapped him or run away. Instead she’d stood there, transfixed by the magic of his lips running softly, reverentially over her mouth, her cheeks, her neck. He’d been so gentle and strong at the same time, his kisses so different from the fumbles she’d endured from other boys. In the days that followed she couldn’t stop thinking about Owen and meeting him accidentally on purpose. His kisses grew bolder and hungrier at each encounter, and she couldn’t get enough of them, and she knew she was falling into deep, deep trouble

“Paige, look at me.”

His abrupt command made her eyes flicker open. She wished she hadn’t, because the sight of him sharpened the memory of his kisses. Her gaze involuntarily lowered to his mouth. His tough, manly features accentuated the generous sensuality of his lips. She could almost feel them against hers, hard and soft, demanding and giving. Desire tugged low in her pelvis—acute, dangerous, scary as hell. Even after fourteen years, the vortex that was Owen was as powerful as ever, threatening to suck her in.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, her lungs aching for air. “I never laughed at you behind your back,” she said huskily. “I never told anyone aboutabout us.”

Owen blinked, startled. “You didn’t?”

She shook her head.

He plowed his fingers through his hair, some of his ire evaporating. “I don’t understand, then. Why did you go to that dance with Eric Jensen? What did I do to deserve that?”

It wasn’t anything he’d done, but rather what she was afraid she’d do if they carried on meeting in secret. The magic of his kisses, the thrill of his hands caressing her, the blood-tingling fire in his eyes as they devoured her—all so wild and irresistible, luring her further and further into dangerous, uncharted territory. Even now she could barely admit this to herself, never mind telling him.

“You didn’t do anything, but it was time to call a halt.”

Instantly his chin jerked up. “Oh yeah? So when you coolly say it’s all over, that’s it? I don’t get a say? I’m just supposed to go along with whatever you decide?”

Her stomach snarled. Without thinking, she burst out, “Oh, come on, Owen. What did you expect? Did you think I’d take you to the school dance?”

She’d never meant to say it that way, but it was too late to recall her words. Owen’s face chilled to granite.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I did.” His shirt tightened as he folded his arms, biceps like rock. “I thought you would take me instead of some smarmy, wimpy pretty boy.”

She swallowed, her throat like sand. Eric Jensen had been everything Owen wasn’t—smooth, charming, richand most importantly, safe. Even though he had every girl at school swooning over him, he hadn’t once troubled her pulse rate. She’d gone with him to the school dance because he’d asked her, and everyone would think her insane if she turned him down. But mostly she’d done it because she was desperate to break free of her warped fascination for the brooding pool boy, and Eric Jensen was the quickest way of getting her message across.