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“I don’t think so,” Marcus said. He fought the urge to touch her more intimately, to cup her breast in his palm, to nuzzle his face into the curve of her neck, to slip his hands around her backside. The battle was almost painful, raging in his head and in his groin.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?”
“I do,” he admitted, allowing his hands to slide down to her hips. “But not right now.”
Her gaze fixed on his mouth and she moved closer, her mouth just inches from his. “When?”
“I’ll get back to you on that,” Marcus replied.
But Eden wasn’t one to take no for an answer. In a heartbeat, she leaned closer and brushed her lips across his, running her warm tongue along the crease of his mouth. She slowly pulled back, her eyebrow arched. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He’d tried to resist, but at that moment, he wasn’t sure why. With a low groan, Marcus captured her mouth with his, pulling her into a deep kiss, his hand furrowing in her wet hair. Their tongues touched, and he felt himself losing control, his fingers desperate to explore her soft flesh. His lips traced a path to her shoulder and then lower, to the tops of her perfect breasts. Her nipples peaked in the cool water and he drew one into his mouth, teasing at it with his tongue.
In his life, he’d never wanted a woman more than he wanted Eden. It had always been so easy to control his desires, but this had gotten way out of hand. He knew he could have her. And he knew he wanted her. His reason and resolve had vanished the moment her lips had touched his. This wasn’t some girl he’d picked up in a bar. This was Eden Ross, his boss’s daughter, the woman who was about to put a quick end to his feeble attempt at celibacy.
For a moment, they both forgot to tread water and slowly began to sink, but then Marcus pulled them back up, returning to taste her mouth. Her mouth was sweet and warm, her body clinging to his, his erection pulsing against her belly, aching for release.
She reached down to touch him, and Marcus sucked in a sharp breath, teetering on the edge of total surrender. Why did he always seem just one step behind her? Every time he gained control, she found a way to yank it from his grasp. Abruptly he pulled away, ending the caress as quickly as it had begun. “I think I’ve had enough … swimming for today.”
He turned and swam back to the stern of Victorious, then slowly climbed the ladder. Their little encounter had done nothing to diminish his desire, but he was past hiding it from her. Though his body might want to take pleasure in Eden’s, he was smart enough and strong enough to resist the temptation—at least for now.
“HEY!”
Eden slowly opened her eyes, then stretched her arms above her head, her cotton T-shirt riding up on her belly. She’d curled up on the berth in the lounge after her swim and had dozed off. The stress of the past week, combined with two days of jet lag and two nights filled with strange fantasies about Marcus Quinn, had exhausted her.
With a soft sigh, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Marcus stood in the hatchway, his lean body outlined by the sun, his arms braced on either side of him. Her mind returned to their swim, to the delicious moment when he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Even now, a thrill raced through her body at the thought of his touch and the feel of his lips on her breast, the heat of his desire in her hand. He might pretend to ignore her, but now Eden knew exactly how defenseless he was in this little game she was playing. One kiss, one caress, and he’d tumbled over the edge of reason and into her arms.
“Come up top. I need your help,” he said. A moment later he disappeared, his silhouette replaced by the soft light of the late-afternoon sun.
Marcus Quinn was definitely different from any man she’d ever met. Real, she thought to herself. Solid and self-assured. There was a steadiness in him that she found oddly intriguing. It didn’t come from well-honed charm or extravagant wealth or even an overblown ego. He knew exactly who he was and, by that, had quickly figured out who she was—inside and out.
Though he found her sexually attractive, Eden wasn’t sure that he even liked her. When she wasn’t in the process of trying to seduce him, he barely spoke to her. And though she spent hours watching him, he rarely gave her a second glance. It shouldn’t have mattered to her. But for some reason, she wanted that from him, an admission that it wasn’t just the prospect of sex that attracted them.
She glanced around the cabin for her sunglasses and slipped them on as she walked up the steps to the deck. She’d give anything if Marcus could see past the woman he thought she was—even just for a few hours. To the world, Eden Ross was a party girl, an heiress, a trustfund baby. She’d become fabulously famous for being … famous. She hadn’t discovered or invented or contributed anything worthwhile in her life, yet the entire world seemed to be interested in what she wore and who she dated and where she traveled. It was all so silly and superficial.
And it was entirely her own fault. She’d taken control of her trust fund at age twenty-one and promptly allowed her life to careen out of control. She’d let the press invade her privacy and now she couldn’t get rid of them. Once her latest and most salacious scandal hit the tabloids Stateside, her father would be through with her. He’d threatened to disown her more times than she could count, and this would definitely push him over the edge.
A sick feeling twisted in her stomach, and she wondered if it was regret or the seawater she’d swallowed during her swim. Eden rubbed her stomach and winced as she walked through the cabin to the hatch. She found Marcus on the bow of the boat, bent over his toolbox.
“Give me a hand, will ya?” he said, passing her a tool without looking at her.
She stared down at the broad expanse of his back, bronzed by the sun and shifting with sinewy muscle. Her gaze drifted across his wide shoulders. His long hair, still damp from their swim, brushed his nape. Eden’s fingers tensed and she reached out to toy with a curl that rested against his neck. But when he turned suddenly, she drew back her hand. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she murmured, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. “What do you need me to do?”
Marcus pointed to a line dangling over the rail. “I need you to crawl out onto the bosun’s chair. You’re going to fit that wrench over a bolt and then hold on to it while I loosen a nut on the other side. Whatever you do, don’t drop the wrench in the water.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Eden said. “How hard could it possibly be to hold on to your damn … tool.” She stifled a smile, amused by the flicker of desire she saw in his eyes.
He stood up in front of her, sending her a dismissive glare. Eden’s gaze drifted down, following a line of hair that began just above his belly button and ended somewhere beneath the waistband of his shorts. He’d found a way to deal with his desire, the bulge now gone from the front of his shorts.
Eden had always harbored an intense fascination with the male body. There were so many different types of men, so many facets to male beauty. Long limbs, hard muscle, sharp angles and smooth surfaces. She longed to touch Marcus again, to test his responses and gently stir his passions. Just how good would it be between them? Would he be the best she’d ever had?
All men have their breaking point, Eden mused. What was Marcus’s? Did he prefer to be seduced slowly or was it better to catch him off guard? Just the thought of finding the answers to her questions was exciting.
“Are you just going to stand there?” he asked. “Or are you going to make yourself useful?”
Her gaze met his and grudgingly she did as she was told, swinging her leg over the rail and slipping into the bosun’s chair. “Happy?” she asked.
“Deliriously,” he shot back. He followed her over the rail and shimmied out onto the bowsprit, his legs wrapped around the carved figure of a mermaid that decorated the prow of the boat. “Now reach out and slip the socket wrench over the bolt head. And then hold on to it really tightly and don’t let it move.”
She stared at weathered wood in front of her, gnawing at her lower lip. She really ought to know what he was talking about, but she wasn’t quite sure what a socket wrench did and what a bolt looked like. “So what are we doing here?” she asked, stalling for time.
“I’m removing this old carving so I can either restore it or reproduce it.”
“You must be pretty good if my father hired you to work on his precious boat.”
“I do all right,” he said. His lips curled in a slight smile and Eden took it as a small victory. Strange how something as simple as a compliment could please him. She’d become so intent on seducing him, she’d hadn’t taken any time to get to know who he was and what he liked.
“How long have you been carving wood?”
“Since I was a kid. My da gave me a Swiss Army knife for my seventh birthday and I used to carve little animals. As I got older, the carvings got bigger and more elaborate.”
“You’re an artist, then,” she said.
“Okay, are you ready?”
Eden reached out to brace her hand on the bowsprit, but as she did, she lost her grip on the wrench and it slipped from her fingers, plopped into the water and quickly sank. “Oops.”
“Aw, hell,” he muttered.
Eden wriggled in the boson’s chair. “Don’t worry. I can find it. I’ll just go get a mask and—”
“No, there’s an adjustable crescent wrench in my toolbox. Find it and see if that will work.”
Eden crawled back on board and stared down into the toolbox. Was she supposed to know what a crescent wrench was? Did most women know what a crescent wrench was? She glanced over at Marcus, then back down again at the jumble of tools. For the first time in her life she felt completely useless.
She opened her mouth to question him but then snapped it shut again. All of the fears and frustrations that had been building over the past week suddenly surged up inside her. She swallowed back the tears and pasted a smile on her face.
“I—I don’t … I can’t—”
“It’s the silver thing that looks like a C,” he said impatiently. “It’s got a little screw barrel that makes it smaller and bigger.”
Eden bent down and rummaged through the tools, but she couldn’t find anything that looked like what he described. A tear dribbled from the corner of her eye, and with a vivid curse she brushed it away. “I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. She hurried along the rail to the cockpit, then quickly descended into the cabin.
With a shaky sigh, she sat down on the couch and pulled her knees up to her chin, pressing her face against her legs. Unwanted tears dampened her cheeks and she fought against them. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d cried. It had been years, a lifetime ago. But since she’d returned home, her emotions had been bubbling just beneath the surface, threatening to spill over at the slightest provocation.
“A crescent wrench,” she murmured, a fresh round of tears flooding her eyes. “I’m crying over a damn wrench.”
But it wasn’t just the wrench. It was the video and the pictures and the betrayal and the shame. The video had been nothing more than a silly game of seduction meant to add a bit more excitement to a night together nearly three years ago. But now it was out there, threatening to make her the object of public ridicule and lascivious speculation.
She should have known better than to trust Ricardo—to trust any man, for that matter. But she’d had a bit too much champagne, and Eden had never been one to be afraid to try something new. And Ricardo had promised to erase the tape after they watched it. She’d thought he cared about her, at least enough not to ruin her life.
But then, the blame could be put entirely on her. He’d kept the video a secret for three years, until she’d made an offhand remark to a reporter about Ricardo’s sexual prowess and been misquoted. Suddenly the tape had resurfaced in the hands of an Internet entrepreneur, who’d released a few blurry stills to the European tabloid press.
When the photos had hit the papers, she’d been shocked. Confronting Ricardo had proved useless. He had simply claimed he had nothing to do with it, but she’d heard the lie in his voice. He’d taken the tape and given it to a friend, and that friend was now trying to sell it to the highest bidder.
It had been a lifetime ago and she’d been a stupid girl who had thought she was in love. And now the tape threatened to ruin her life. She didn’t have the money to buy it back and Eden couldn’t ask her father for help. She had found herself with no way out, so she’d run. The story would hit the tabloids in the U.S. any day now.
Eden felt a hand on her shoulder and she jerked her head up. “Are you all right?” Marcus asked.
“Fine,” she said, quickly wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I—I’m sorry about the wrench. It was a wrench, right? I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll buy you a hundred of them.”
He smiled and nodded. “The water’s clear. I’ll be able to find it. No big deal.” He reached out and tenderly brushed the hair from her face. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
He studied her face, his gaze skimming over her features as if trying to understand her tears. And then he leaned forward and kissed her. It was a perfect kiss, full of sweetness and warmth. The breath slipped from Eden’s lips along with the frustration and confusion she felt. It hadn’t come as a result of seduction or some game she’d played. It had come from simple kindness.
Strange how Marcus, a man she barely knew, could make her feel safe with just one kiss. She’d always managed to throw herself into the paths of completely inappropriate men. She didn’t know anything about Marcus Quinn, beyond the fact that he knew how to kiss and he had some kind of accent. For all she knew, he could be yet another in a long line of self-absorbed jerks. But for now, his touch, his kiss, made her feel better about herself.
“I don’t think we should do any more work today,” he murmured, his lips warm against her temple. “I’m going to go into town and get us something really good for dinner and we’ll celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” Eden asked, glancing up into his deep blue eyes.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sure we’ll come up with something. We’ve got all night.”
Eden nodded, a tiny sliver of apprehension shooting through her. One of two things would happen tonight, she mused. Either they’d become friends or they’d become lovers. The trouble was Eden wasn’t sure which she wanted more.
LIGHTS LINED THE DOCK of the Ross estate, reflecting in the glassy water. The sprawling white clapboard house sat on a rise overlooking Price’s Neck, the last of the sunset fading behind it. Though the house was huge, it wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as some of the neighboring mansions. Marcus smiled to himself. He could have fit Porter Hall inside Trevor Ross’s house at least twice, and the guesthouse alone was bigger than the Quinn family house in Bonnett Harbor.
Marcus shifted the grocery bags in his arms as he walked down to the water. He’d given Eden a few hours to calm herself and he hoped that her dismal mood had dissipated. He really wasn’t adept at dealing with tears, and they came as such a surprise from Eden. She seemed to maintain such tight control of her emotions.
It didn’t look as though she’d be leaving anytime soon. If they were going to live together on the boat, they had to come to some sort of understanding, and tonight would be the perfect time to work out the terms. He’d bought a ready-made meal of cold salmon, grilled vegetables and Caesar salad, along with cherry pie for dessert. Champagne was also on the menu, although Marcus wasn’t too sure about the effect it would have on his self-control.
As Marcus stepped onto the dock, he saw a figure at the end, rising from a bench that overlooked the water. Though the light was low, he immediately recognized his brother Declan. “Hey,” he called.
Dec waved and waited for Marcus to reach the end of the dock. “Hey, little brother.”
“What are you doing here?” Marcus asked, an uneasy feeling twisting at his gut. “Is everything all right? Is Ma okay?”
“I’m here on business.”
“How the hell did you get past the gate?”
“I’m doing another job for Ross,” Declan explained. “I have the security codes to the house and the gate. I thought you’d be out on the boat, but the housekeeper said your truck was gone.”
“I was just getting some dinner from town,” Marcus said. He set the bags on the bench. “What kind of job?”
“I’ll tell you all about it over dinner,” Dec said. “I assume you have cold beer on that boat and something good to eat in those bags.” He peeked inside, then withdrew the bottle of champagne. “I thought you preferred Guinness.”
Marcus grabbed the bottle and shoved it back into the bag. “I’m just resupplying the boat. Replacing a bottle I drank one night when I ran out of beer.”
Declan pulled out a plastic bag and dangled it in front of Marcus’s face. “And what are these?”
“Organic mangoes,” Marcus explained.
“Since when do you eat mangoes?”
Marcus shrugged. “I like mangoes. Kiwi, too.” He grabbed the bag and searched for a quick change of subject. “You said you’re doing a job for Ross?”
Dec nodded. “I’m looking for his daughter,” he said, giving him an odd look. “She’s gone missing.”
“Missing? Like kidnapped?”
Dec held out a copy of a tabloid newspaper he had tucked under his arm. Marcus took it and turned it toward the light at the end of the dock. The National Inquisitor.
“'Eden’s Sexcapade Caught on Tape,’” Dec read.
“What exactly is a ‘sexcapade'?” Marcus asked.
“Miss Ross and one of her Eurotrash boyfriends decided to make a little home movie a few years back. Somehow it got out there, and now the guy who has it is threatening to sell it over the Internet. He’s released a few still photos from it to amp up the interest. The story broke in Europe last week and the tabloids picked it up here. In a few days it will be all over the news. Trevor Ross is furious and he has his lawyers working on a lawsuit against the magazine. Meanwhile, nobody seems to know where Eden is. Ross isn’t even sure this is his daughter in the video, and until he talks to her, he can’t confirm it.”
“Don’t these magazines usually make stories up?”
“Yeah, but look at the photo,” Dec said.
Marcus squinted to try to make out Eden’s face, but it was too blurry to see. “And you’re looking for her?”
“We know she landed at JFK last Sunday, but after a cabbie dropped her off at the Plaza in Manhattan, she just vanished. Ross thought she might come here, but I didn’t think so. The housekeeper hasn’t seen her. She’s probably hiding out with friends in New York City.”
“Hiding out?” Marcus asked.
“Hell, she had to know this would hit the fan sooner or later. I don’t think she’s too anxious to see her father right now. It’s going to cost him a lot of money to get her out of this.”
“Maybe he shouldn’t,” Marcus said with a shrug.
“Her problems are his problems,” Dec said. “If he can’t control his daughter, people are going to start to think he doesn’t have control over his business interests either.”
“She’s a big girl,” Marcus replied. “She lives her own life.”
“She’s a silly girl with far too much money and free time on her hands. But if she does come here, I want you to call me.”
Marcus nodded, then rolled up the tabloid. “I think I’ll keep this. I’m not sure I’d recognize her if I saw her.”
In truth, Marcus knew nearly every inch of Eden’s body, from the gentle slope of her shoulder, to the soft spot behind her knee, to the sweet curves of her breasts. He’d recognize her stark naked and fully clothed, in broad daylight and in the deepest night. He could probably recognize her by the feel of her skin or the taste of her mouth or the smell of her hair. In just a few short days he had come to know Eden Ross quite intimately.
“So are you going to show me this boat you’re working on?” Declan asked.
