Читать книгу The Return Of Antonides - Anne McAllister, Amanda Cinelli - Страница 9
ОглавлениеTHE MINUTE SHE saw Lukas, Holly had felt her heart kick over in her chest. All the years of pretending he didn’t exist blew right out the window. It was like being eighteen again—young and intense and, above all, foolish.
And there was nowhere to run. Nowhere at all.
For years every time Holly remembered the night of her senior prom, she had done so with a bucket load of guilt—and a heart load of resentment.
It never should have happened, she told herself. And it was all her fault.
She should have been stronger. Firmer. She should have said no, right from the start, when Matt had broken his leg.
At least it hadn’t been her fault he’d broken his leg. That had, of course, been Lukas’s—just as every hair-raising, death-defyingly stupid thing Matt and Lukas had ever done could be laid squarely at Lukas’s door. In this case, two weeks before her prom, Lukas had persuaded Matt to climb Mount Katahdin in Maine.
Holly had not been invited.
She couldn’t have gone anyway because, while Matt and Lukas were sophomores in college and their schedules that Friday were free, Holly was a senior in high school with classes every day. Besides, it was the weekend she was getting her dress fitted for the prom, not to mention that her mother would have freaked out if Holly ever dreamed of going camping with two guys, even if one was her fiancé.
Lukas thought their engagement was idiotic. He had looked confused, then appalled when she had held out her hand to show off her ring. “What’s that?” he’d asked warily.
And when she’d said, “I’m engaged,” he’d stared at her in disbelief.
“To get married?”
“No, to wash windows.” Holly had rolled her eyes. “Of course to get married. What do you think?”
He had thought they were out of their minds, and he hadn’t hesitated to say so. He’d told Matt he was foreclosing on his options too early, that he had no idea what other women were on the planet, that he would never know what he was missing. He didn’t tell Holly anything. Obviously he considered Matt to be the one making the bad choice. She’d wanted to smack him.
But Matt—her dear, dependable Matt—had just laughed and said, “I’m not missing anyone important. I’ve got the only one who matters.” And he’d wrapped an arm around Holly’s shoulders, hauling her hard against him, the two of them presenting a solid wall of defiance in the face of Lukas’s scorn.
Only then had Lukas turned to Holly. “You can’t be serious.” His tone had said he wasn’t joking. Their gazes met and something flickered between them that Holly immediately suppressed. Attraction? Connection? She had never let herself examine it too closely. Lukas Antonides was far too powerful, too unpredictable—too intensely male—for Holly to handle.
“I love Matt,” she had said flatly. It was true. Matt was comfortable, predictable—every bit as male as Lukas, but without the intensity she found so unnerving.
Lukas hadn’t disputed it. But he hadn’t shut up, either. Over the following weeks he had told her she was too young. He’d questioned whether she knew her own mind.
Deliberately Holly had turned a deaf ear. “What do you care?” she’d asked.
If he’d said, “I love you,” what would she have done? Holly laughed at herself for just thinking it. Lukas love her? Ha! Lukas had been going through girls for years!
He’d scowled then. “I don’t want you making a mistake.”
“I’m not making a mistake.”
But Lukas didn’t seem to agree. As winter turned to spring, he’d found ways to keep them apart. In February he and Matt had bought the battered old sailboat in New Haven. It wasn’t seaworthy. It would have sunk in a bathtub, but Lukas had convinced Matt they could repair it.
“It will take months,” Holly had pointed out. And that would be if they worked on it every weekend, which would mean Matt would have less time for her.
“We can sail around the world after we graduate,” Lukas had gone on, undaunted.
“I’m getting married when I graduate,” Matt had reminded him.
Lukas had shrugged dismissively. “Who knows what will happen in a couple of years. You can at least help me work on it,” he’d said to Matt.
So, good friend that he was, every weekend that spring, Matt had worked with Lukas on the boat. Holly had barely seen him. The one weekend he had said he would come home turned out to be the weekend she was doing the final fittings on her prom dress.
“No problem,” Matt had said. “Lukas wants to go to Katahdin.”
Feeling hard done by, Holly had said shortly, “Let him.”
“He wants me to go, too. It’ll be a change from working on the boat. And you’re going to be busy anyway.”
So Matt had gone—and had broken his leg. Which was how Holly had ended up with Lukas as her date to her senior prom.
“I won’t go,” she’d told Matt. “No way.”
Matt had looked at her from his hospital bed, foggy-eyed with anesthetic. “Of course you have to go. You already have your dress,” he reminded her the day after he’d had half a dozen screws and a plate put in his left leg. “You’ve been counting on it.”
“I don’t mind staying home. Truly. Lukas doesn’t want to go with me. He doesn’t even like me.”
“Of course he likes you. He’s just...”
“Bossy? Opinionated? Wrong?”
And though she could still see the strain and pain on Matt’s face, he had laughed. “All of the above. It’s just the way he is. Ignore it. It’s your prom. And Lukas should take you,” he added grimly. “It was his idea to go climbing. He owes me.”
No doubt about that. But Holly was sure Lukas would refuse. She was stunned when he didn’t.
“Why?” she’d demanded suspiciously.
“Because he understands responsibility,” Matt said, looking completely serious.
She should have said no then. She hadn’t, telling herself that arguing with Matt would make him unhappy. It might also make him wonder why she was protesting so much. Holly wouldn’t even let herself think about why she was protesting so much.
She didn’t want to think about Lukas, about how when he wasn’t irritating her, the very sight of his muscular chest, lopsided grin and sun-tipped shaggy hair made her blood run hot in her veins.
It meant nothing. She was engaged to Matt.
Still, she wasn’t prepared two weeks later when she opened the door to Lukas, drop-dead gorgeous in a dark suit, pristine white shirt and deep red tie, for the impact of six feet of walking testosterone. The sheer animal magnetism of the man made all Holly’s female hormones flutter in appreciation while her brain screamed, No! No, no, no!
But she could hardly send him home. What would she tell Matt?
So she pasted her best proper smile on her face and tried to pretend she was completely indifferent. Yes, he was gorgeous. Yes, he smiled and chatted and charmed her mother. Yes, he brought her a corsage, which he fastened just above her left breast, standing far too close for comfort, so close that she could smell a hint of pine in his aftershave and see the tiny cut on his jaw where he’d nicked himself shaving.
She leaned toward it instinctively, then jerked back, practically getting herself stabbed by a florist’s pin in the process. “Sorry,” she muttered, mortified. “Sorry.”
He just smiled his engaging Lukas smile, the I’m-so-sexy one she had seen him turn on other girls but which until that moment he had, thank God, never turned on her.
“It looks good on you,” he said. It was a spray of tiny deep red roses. Delicate and aromatic. She drew a breath, trying to draw in the scent of roses to blot out the pine of his aftershave, to blot out Lukas.
But Lukas wouldn’t be blotted.
Worse, he unnerved her by being a perfect gentleman the whole time. He didn’t tease, he didn’t mock. He didn’t mention Matt or their engagement at all. He took her to dinner before the dance. It was expected. And Holly had thought they would go to one of the trendy upscale local places where most of her classmates went to see and be seen. But Lukas took her to a quiet romantic Italian place where he seemed to know everyone.
Holly couldn’t help looking surprised.
“We don’t have to go here,” Lukas said. “But I like it. It’s a little lower-key.”
Since when was Lukas lower-key? But Holly had nodded, glad they weren’t in the midst of a crowd. There might have been safety in numbers, but there would also have been lots of questions about what she was doing with Lukas, why she wasn’t with Matt.
They’d get asked at the dance, of course, but they wouldn’t become a conversation piece there. Holly didn’t want to be a conversation piece. “It’s fine,” she said. “I like it.” She managed her first real smile of the evening then, one that didn’t feel as if it had been welded to her lips.
Lukas smiled, too. Electricity arced between them—sharp and frighteningly genuine. “I’m glad,” Lukas said.
Holly wasn’t sure if she was glad or not. Tonight Lukas was everything Matt had assured her he would be: polite, charming, an easy conversationalist. When the waitress brought their menus, he didn’t tell her what she ought to order. He asked what she’d like to eat.
It was a sort of dream date—an intoxicating, heady experience. Unreal, almost. Holly kept waiting for him to revert to the Lukas she was accustomed to, but he never did.
At the dance, when she expected he would do his duty, dance once or twice with her, then disappear with the more interesting, flashier girls, he stayed by her side all evening. She wondered aloud whether he wouldn’t rather dance with other girls, but Lukas simply shook his head.
“I’m happy,” he said as the music started again. Without another word, he swept her into a dance while Holly’s mind spun and her body responded instinctively to Lukas’s powerful lead. One of her hands was gripped in his hard, warm fingers, more callused than Matt’s, rougher to the touch, giving her another tiny stab of awareness. Her other hand, resting on his shoulder beneath the smooth, dark wool of his suit coat, felt the shift and flex of strong muscles.
When she danced with Lukas, her eyes were on a level with his lips. Instinctively she licked hers and stumbled, red-faced, at where her thoughts were going.
“What’s wrong?” Lukas pulled her up and held her closer.
“N-nothing.” She tried to put space between them, averted her gaze from his lips. “What’re you doing?” she demanded as Lukas only drew her closer.
“It’s called leading.” The soft, almost teasing murmur in her ear sent a shiver to the base of her spine.
He led. She followed. Their bodies touched. The experience was nothing like the warm, slightly zingy buzz she experienced when she and Matt danced. No, each touch with Lukas felt electric, a shock to the system, a different sort of awareness altogether.
“Relax.” He breathed the word in her ear on a warm breath that did anything but relax her. She felt alert, aware, awake as she’d never been awake before. Expectant—though what she was expecting, she would not have dared to think.
Lukas didn’t say anything else, just moved with the music, drawing her with him, easing her closer. His hand slid to her hip, but went no farther. And gradually, unable to remain alert and wary every moment, Holly realized that she was relaxing. She found joy in the movement, in the rhythm, in the warm nearness of Lukas’s body. He made her feel oddly protected.
They danced almost every dance, far more than she ever would have with Matt, who much preferred to stand on the sidelines and watch while he talked sports with the guys. But Lukas danced. And eventually he began to talk, too, recounting what they had been accomplishing on the boat, then telling her what they had seen mountain climbing in Maine.
“So you don’t think breaking his leg is all we did.” His smile was wry.
Holly gave him a doubtful look, but she couldn’t help smiling and sharing a moment of rapport with Lukas. He asked her about her classes, and he surprised her by talking about his own courses.
“I don’t know what I want,” he said. “I just try things. See what I like. I’ve got geology this semester that is kind of cool. And—don’t laugh—but I like Latin. But what the hell do you do with Latin?” He shrugged. “What about you? What are you going to do?”
Holly, disarmed by Lukas liking Latin, found herself telling him about her own plans and dreams. “Nothing grandiose. I want to get married, have a family. I’ve always wanted kids.”
“Me, too,” Lukas said. Another surprise. “Not anytime soon, though,” he added quickly. “Not ready to settle down yet.”
She wasn’t at all surprised by that. “Before I have kids, though,” she went on, “I think I’ll teach.”
“You’ll be good at it,” Lukas said. And when she raised a questioning brow, he shrugged. “You should be able to handle a classroom. You always kept me in my place.” His wicked grin flashed, inviting her smile in return, and Holly did.
The whole evening was like that—Lukas attentive and fun to be with—a Lukas that once upon a time she had dared to imagine might lurk beneath his teasing, baiting, infuriating exterior. But if that Lukas ever even existed, he’d seemed far out of reach.
She shouldn’t even be thinking about him that way. She was engaged! She was going to marry Matt!
So she deliberately closed her eyes and tried to pretend that he was Matt. But the aftershave was wrong, the way he moved on the dance floor was smoother, easier. His height was wrong, too. She opened her eyes again at the feel of something feathery touching her forehead and saw Lukas’s lips so close they could kiss her brow. Holly sucked in a careful breath and shoved the thought away.
Why were there so many slow dances tonight?
Holly longed for something fast and furious to burn off her awareness, to give her some space. But when the next one was fast, it was no better. Seeing Lukas’s body shimmy and thrust to the music while she did the same, created something elemental, primeval, between them.
Holly tried to deny it. It was only dancing, she told herself. But their bodies were in sync, moving, shifting apart, coming together. And at the end Lukas grabbed her hand, then spun her out and reeled her back into his chest so that his body spooned against hers as he wrapped her in his arms.
“Oh!” Holly’s body was trembling, her heart hammering. His hands cradled her breasts. One of his legs had slid between her own. Holly tried to get her balance, to pull away. But her overheated body wanted nothing to do with that. She turned to stare breathlessly up at him.
Lukas was breathing hard, too. His cheeks were flushed, his forehead damp, his hair tousled across his forehead. Her fingers itched to brush it back, to feel its silkiness between her fingers. Deliberately, she knotted those fingers into fists.
“Hot work,” he muttered. “Let’s get something to drink.”
“Yes.” Before she went up in flames.
He got them each a soft drink, and they stood watching as the next dance began. It was a slow one again. Romantic. If they danced now, Lukas would pull her into his arms. Holly felt her body trembling.
“Let’s sit this one out.” Lukas’s voice was gruff.
“Yes.” Holly nodded and took a desperate gulp of soda, praying that it would cool her down. But nothing cooled her down that night. Amid the kaleidoscope of lights and sounds, of fast dances and slow, she was seduced by the moment, by the night. She told herself it wasn’t Lukas making her feel this way. But she had to admit he had made it a night to remember. He’d been the Lukas she’d dared to dream he could be.
When the prom ended, several friends were heading off together for a late meal. Had she been with Matt, no doubt they would have joined them. Holly expected Lukas to breathe a sigh of relief, bundle her into his car and take her straight home.
But when her friend Lucy called over, “Do you guys want to come to Woody’s?” Lukas had looked at her.
“Do you?”
She hadn’t expected that, and was ready to say no, sure he’d had enough of the evening, of her. But before she could answer at all, he went on. “That’s what you do on prom, isn’t it? Stay out till dawn?”
Stay out till dawn? With Lukas Antonides? An inappropriate flutter of anticipation tickled her. “Well, I—”
He raised a brow. “Would you go with Matt?”
“Sure, but—”
“We’ll come,” he said to Lucy. He slanted Holly a grin. “After all, I’m standing in for Matt.”
So they went to Woody’s, an upscale version of a fifties diner, full of her classmates, all laughing and talking, still on a high from the dance. Lukas, to her surprise, fit right in. He talked sports and surfing and sailboats with the guys. He was easy and charming to their dates.
They squashed into a booth with three other couples. Holly would have been comfortable with Matt shoved in next to her, would have relaxed when he slipped an arm around her. But when Lukas did it, she could feel every inch of the hard muscles of his arm. She was more aware of the heat of his body pressed hard against her than of anything anyone was saying.
She was sure Lukas wasn’t aware of her with the same intensity. His knee bumped hers, then finally settled against it, and he didn’t seem to notice. He kept right on talking to Sam, Lucy’s date, even as his fingers played with a strand of her hair. If she turned her head even slightly, her lips would brush his fingers. Holly shivered and looked straight ahead. It didn’t mean a thing. It was just Lukas. He didn’t mean anything by it.
But her whole body was thrumming with awareness by the time they left Woody’s. The noise subsided when the door shut behind them. The night breeze on her heated skin made Holly shiver.
“You’re cold,” Lukas said. “Here, have my jacket.” He made to shrug out of his coat.
Wear Lukas’s suit coat still warm from his body? Holly shook her head quickly. “N-no, thanks. I’m fine. It’s lovely out here, isn’t it?” She did a pirouette in the parking lot, looking up at the night sky, trying desperately to get her bearings, to get her feet on the ground.
Lukas glanced up briefly, then looked straight back at her. “Not as lovely as you.”
Holly stared at him in shock. Was she losing her hearing? Imagining things? “Was that a compliment?” she ventured.
“I can give them,” he said gruffly.
“Not to me.”
His mouth twisted. “Don’t let it go to your head.” Now he sounded more like the Lukas she’d always known, but perhaps just a little bit kinder. Then, like the gentleman he had never been until that night, Lukas opened the car door for her, then shut it once she got in.
“You know, one of the things I hated most about you—” she said when Lukas got in and shut the car door.
He had been about to put the key in the ignition. Instead, he stopped and looked at her, startled. Then a corner of his mouth quirked up. “Just one? I’m sure you have a whole long list.”
She did, but this was one she felt compelled to share. “Yes, but listening to you guys talking back there reminded me of this one.”
Lukas raised a brow, waiting for her to speak.
“I hated that you wouldn’t let me go sailing with you. You used to take Matt out with your dad and your brothers, but you wouldn’t take me.” She probably shouldn’t even be admitting that it had mattered.
Lukas looked thoughtful, then he nodded, put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car hummed to life, but he didn’t put it in gear immediately. Instead, he stared straight ahead in the dimly lit parking lot as if making up his mind about something. Deciding if he should apologize? That would definitely be un-Lukas-like.
Finally, he turned to her. “You want to go sailing? I could take you sailing.”
“When you and Matt get your boat finished?” Holly said with a tiny smile. “The twelfth of never?”
“No. Now.” There was a rough edge to his voice. And though it was dark in the car, Holly could feel his gaze on her as if he were touching her.
“Now?” she said doubtfully. “Tonight?”
“Don’t want to take the boat out in the dark. But when it starts to get light... How about that? We’ll end the night with a sail.” And he gave her one of those amazing Lukas Antonides grins that would have caused a saint to cave in to temptation.
Holly was no saint. Besides, it was just sailing, she told her sensible self, the one that was telling her to say no. He was, for once, being kind. It was Lukas’s way of making up for years of thwarting her. Was she supposed to throw it back in his face?
Besides, she did want to go sailing.
And with Lukas? Well, this had been Matt’s idea. Not hers.
* * *
He was playing with fire. Lukas knew it.
But he’d never been one to play it safe. And he hadn’t started this. It had been Matt insisting that he take Holly to the prom. What should he have done? Said no?
So he’d done it. He’d done everything Matt would have done—taken her to dinner, danced every dance with her, put his arm around her in a crowded restaurant to make more room for her friends. And if he had heightened his own desire with every touch, well, he could see desire in Holly, too.
He had seen the way she’d looked at him tonight. Her cheeks had been flushed, her nipples had become hard pebbles beneath the midnight silk she wore. Lukas was twenty years old, not a virgin. He knew something about the response of women’s bodies when they were aroused. Holly had been aroused. By him. And God knew he was aroused by her.
He should take her home. She was Matt’s girl. Not his. He had no right. But what if she was making a mistake marrying Matt? What if she wasn’t as in love with Matt—as committed—as she believed she was?
Don’t go there, Lukas told himself.
But he couldn’t bring himself to take her home. He’d offered her a sail. It wasn’t betraying Matt to take her for a sail. Lukas put the car in gear and headed toward the marina.
Halfway down the dark, narrow highway, Holly said, “I can’t.”
Lukas, shoulders tense, turned his head sharply. “Can’t what?”
“Go sailing! How can I in this dress?”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “No problem. There’s stuff on board. Shorts, T-shirts. Jackets. You can wear something of Martha’s. It’ll be fine.”
She swallowed. “Oh. Well, good.” She didn’t sound wholly convinced.
Lukas expected she would find another reason to call a halt to things. But as he kept driving, Holly was silent. She sat very still the rest of the way.
The marina parking lot was virtually deserted, allowing him to park next to the ramp leading to the dock. Some cars were still there because people had taken their boats out for the weekend. But no one was around. Lukas started to lead the way down the ramp, then realized that Holly had to pick her way carefully because she was wearing high heels.
He went back and swept her up into his arms.
“Lukas!” She wriggled against him.
His half arousal went to full-on just like that. His jaw tightened. “You want me to drop you? Stop squirming!”
“I can walk,” Holly protested.
No. He wasn’t relinquishing her now. He strode down the ramp, getting a faceful of hair and a breath of citrus shampoo for his effort. “Hold still!”
“I am!”
She was. He was the one who was moving, causing her body to rub against his. Lukas swallowed a groan. By the time they got to the boat and he let her slide down his body to put her feet on the deck, he was in a state of temptation and torture both. It was worse to let her go.
“Martha’s stuff is below,” he said gruffly, leading the way down to the galley where he pointed to one of the tiny bunk rooms. “Put on a bathing suit. We can go for a swim.”
Holly looked at him, startled. “Swim?”
“There’s a beach just on the other side of the shop.” Lukas jerked his head in that direction. “We’ve got a couple of hours to kill before it starts to get light.” He could think of other more pleasurable ways of killing that time, but he knew better. He needed cold water. Lots of it. Now.
He thought she would object, but after a second’s hesitation, Holly nodded. “Good idea.”
When she disappeared into one room, he went into the other and stripped off his clothes, grateful for the cool night air on overheated skin. Then he dragged on a pair of board shorts and went back up on deck where he stood staring up at the sky, his body rock hard from a combination of desire and tension, as he wondered again what the hell he was doing with his best friend’s girl.
“Just doing what he asked me to do,” Lukas muttered aloud. Matt would have kept her out all night, he reminded himself. It was what you did after prom. It was a tradition. Matt wouldn’t have taken her for a sail, though. Matt had nothing to take her for a sail in.
No, Matt and Holly would have been doing something else entirely. Lukas cracked his knuckles fiercely, trying to avoid thinking about Matt and Holly making love when he so badly wanted to do it himself.
It was almost a relief when Holly climbed back up the steps. Except the sight of her—even in Martha’s sensible one-piece maillot—was enough to cause his self-control to slip another notch. Even the fact that she had a towel draped over her shoulders with the ends hanging down in front shielding her breasts from view didn’t help. Her long legs were bare and tempting in the moonlight.
Lukas sucked in a breath and jumped back onto the dock without waiting for her. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder and headed back toward the parking lot and the beach on the other side of the closed shop as fast as he could.
The whole place was deserted. But the moon and the lights in the parking lot illuminated the steps so that finding their way down to the beach was easy enough. He walked ahead, needing the space, only stopping to wait for her at the edge of the water.
She didn’t come. Instead, when he looked back, Holly had spread her towel and was sitting down.
“Sunbathing?” Lukas, self-control fraying badly, couldn’t keep the edge from his voice.
“Guess so.” Holly pulled her knees up toward her breasts and wrapped her arms around her shins. “Don’t let me stop you. Go on in.”
Lukas stared at her. What the hell was she playing at? Maybe she knew he was coming undone and was giving him a wide berth. “Suit yourself,” he growled. Then he turned and ran, flinging himself under the incoming wave.
The shock of the cold Atlantic in the middle of an early May night had the desired effect. By the time he broke the surface, he breathed a little easier. A glance back told him that Holly had stood up and was walking to the water’s edge. He caught a glimpse of a long, lissome shape in the moonlight. Then she began to run into the water. He heard a shriek, then she dove under—and surfaced bare inches from him.
So much for dampened ardor. Lukas swallowed a groan.
“It’s freezing!” Her teeth were chattering.
He resisted wrapping his arms around her. “You’ll warm up. Come on. Let’s swim.” He took off, swimming away from her as he’d always done, never letting her catch him. And Holly swam after him.
Minutes passed. Half an hour. They did laps. They swam in lazy circles. Lukas finally slowed a bit to allow her to come alongside where she did the sidestroke, all the while keeping her eyes on him.
Lukas couldn’t take his eyes off her. He should say something about Matt. Something to deflect his awareness, but nothing deflected his awareness of the girl swimming mere feet away. It reminded his fevered brain of one of those nature films they had showed in school, the ones that euphemistically described the mating rituals of exotic maritime animals. Not a useful train of thought. But apparently the only train of thought he had. It was all he could do not to reach for her.
“You’re making me crazy,” he muttered at last and abruptly turned to swim back toward the beach.
“What?” Holly sputtered. “What’s wrong?” He could hear her splashing after him, but he didn’t wait. Lukas needed space. He needed distance. He needed to stop wanting what he couldn’t have. He didn’t stop moving until he was back on the boat.
Then he turned to see Holly hurrying up the beach and across the parking lot after him, her towel wrapped around her shoulders. Her teeth were chattering like castanets when she finally reached the boat.
“Why didn’t you say you were cold?” Lukas demanded. “You can take a shower.” He slipped down the steps below deck and jerked open the door to the head. “There’s plenty of hot water. Lots of towels. Get warm, I’ll be on deck.”
He changed swiftly into another pair of shorts and a sweatshirt, resolutely ignoring the sound of the shower and his imagination’s notion of Holly’s naked body beneath the spray. Instead, he made himself focus on getting the boat ready to go. He was checking the mainsail when he heard Holly’s footsteps.
“What did you mean?” she said. Her voice was quiet.
He turned around then. She was wearing shorts and a baggy sweatshirt of Martha’s that hit her midhip. They had never struck him as remotely sexy when Martha wore them. Put Holly in them and it was a different story. Lukas crouched down, showing sudden interest in the mast again, in case his interest in Holly was more obvious.
“You said I made you crazy.” She had climbed up on one of the benches and was almost on eye level with him.
Lukas shrugged awkwardly. Was he supposed to tell her he wanted her? That he was crazy with longing for her—and she was engaged to his best friend? He put a hand back and rubbed between his shoulder blades and said the only thing he could think of. “You always argue.”
“I didn’t argue tonight!”
He grunted. “Most times you argue.”
“So do you.”
Lukas scowled, unable to dispute that. He turned his attention back to the mast. “We can go soon. Should begin to get light in half an hour or so.”
He thought she might go away, look out to the east for signs of dawn. She didn’t. She watched him. Then she asked, “Why did you agree to take me to the prom?”
“You know why. Matt asked me to.” He flicked a quick glance up at her, then picked at a bit of loose brightwork with his thumb.
“Is that the only reason?”
His brows drew down, and he scowled at her. “Why else would I do it?”
Holly shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know. I just...wondered. Sometimes...” She stopped and looked away, staring out across the dark water. “Never mind.”
Wondered what? Don’t stop there! But damn it, she did. She didn’t say anything else. And he couldn’t make himself ask. He and Holly never had heart-to-hearts. They never talked about things that mattered. And he wasn’t going to admit to anything when she wasn’t saying how she felt.
“That’s the only reason,” he said gruffly. “I’m just doing what Matt would do. What Matt wanted me to do.”
If he said it out loud firmly and flatly enough, would that make it true?
“Of course.” Holly’s voice was toneless. Was she convinced? Was she doubtful?
Did she want...him? Lukas rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, then he straightened, walked back to the cockpit and dropped lightly into it. Only one way to find out. He reached up and caught her hand, pulling her down off the bench to stand facing him.
“What?” Holly looked up at him, confused.
“What would you and Matt be doing now?”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?” She looked at him, confused and wary.
“You asked me a question. My turn to ask you one. I’m standing in for Matt, aren’t I? What would you and Matt be doing?”
He felt her fingers twist in his as she looked away. “How should I know?”
“Kissing?”
She didn’t answer, just pressed her lips together and refused to look at him.
“Kissing,” Lukas affirmed softly, leaning in, so close now that he caught another hint of that citrus scent.
Her fingers pulled out of his hands. He let go, but only to catch hold of her wrists, then slid both his hands up until they rested lightly just above her elbows, drawing her closer.
“So I haven’t been doing my job,” he said, keeping his voice even, although he felt the tension rising within.
He would burn in hell for this. He knew it, but he couldn’t help it. If she responded... If she wanted him, he would save her from making the biggest mistake of her life.
Holly flicked a quick glance up at him, then immediately looked away again, but it was too late. Lukas had seen a flicker of interest in that glance. He let go of her arms to touch her face, to turn it to look at him as he ran his thumbs along her jaw and slowly and deliberately lowered his mouth to hers.
Lukas’s brain fogged over. His body took over. He had no plan. Hell, he never had a plan. He went with his gut—and other even more interested portions of his anatomy—doing what came naturally, tracing her lips lightly with his tongue. Teasing, testing, tasting...
And Holly didn’t pull away.
The taste of Holly on his lips intoxicated him, made him tremble with the need that had been building all evening. Evening, hell, it had been building for years. From a time when he was too young to understand, some gut-level instinct deep inside him that he couldn’t begin to put a name to had zeroed in on her. He had wanted Holly before he’d barely known what such desire meant.
