The Billionaire's Bride Read online

  Instead of returning to his Jeep, they walked on the beach afterward. The wind had picked up enough that it could no longer be classified as a breeze, but Marnie knew this wasn’t why she felt so swept away. It was because the man walking with her—an intriguing, handsome and very sexy man—was also holding her hand.

  “I don’t even know your last name,” she said, feeling a little horrified that she had kissed him twice now and had woken up that morning considering doing much more and yet she didn’t know his full name.

  “Lundy,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s Lundy.”

  She smiled. “J.T. Lundy.”

  Something about the name nibbled at her memory, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. He changed the subject by asking, “Do you like margaritas?”

  “They aren’t my drink of choice, but when in Mexico…” she said with a shrug.

  Heading back to where the Jeep was parked, he said, “I have an idea.”

  They went to Hussong’s, a crowded bar that J.T. told Marnie was credited by some for putting the area on the map with tourists. It was, after all, where a well-known tequila-spiked beverage had been born.

  “The drink was created in 1941 and named after the daughter of the German ambassador to Mexico, or so the locals say,” J.T. told her.

  She held up her salt-edged glass in salute.

  “Here’s to Margarita,” Marnie said. “She must have been something, to have a drink named after her. We’ve never named anything for any of the people who come into the Lighthouse Tavern.”

  “The Lighthouse Tavern?”

  “It’s a bar in Chance Harbor. My family owns it. My grandfather, Daniel Striker, started it after the Second World War. Dad took over and then passed the reins to my brother. But I’m running it these days.”

  “A bartender?” The information surprised him. She didn’t seem the sort content to mind the tap in some tavern, even one she had a personal stake in.

  “Shocked?”

  “Enlightened,” he corrected. “No wonder I find myself wanting to confide all sorts of secrets in you.”

  He said it teasingly, but to his astonishment, J.T. found he actually did.

  It was late when they finally headed back to La Playa de la Pisada. Marnie was so quiet on the return trip that J.T. thought she must have fallen asleep. She had her head on the rest, tilted sideways to look out the passenger window.

  But just before they reached home, she said, “I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  She straightened in her seat and glanced across the console at him. “I was thinking very seriously about sleeping with you tonight.”

  The bald statement surprised him, even though he had hoped that was the case. Still, he swallowed hard.

  “Was implies you no longer are.”

  “No.”

  Was that regret in her voice? He thought so, or maybe his ego just needed to believe it was.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “If I said, I’m not that kind of girl, would you laugh at me?”

  “No.” In fact, the old-fashioned notion made him respect her all the more.

  “It has to mean more than just…well, you know.”

  His heartbeat echoed in his ears when he asked quietly, “How do you know it wouldn’t?”

  She sighed, a sound weighted with disgust, but he got the feeling it wasn’t directed at him.

  “Because I didn’t even know your last name until tonight. Because, when I leave here tomorrow, the odds are good—really good—that I’ll never see you again. I’m right, aren’t I, J.T.?”

  For just a moment, he wanted to disagree, but that was ridiculous. Their paths would not cross again. This had one-night stand written all over it, and J.T. found it odd that he’d been considering it, too, since he wasn’t a bed-hopper by any stretch of the imagination. His wealth drew plenty of candidates for a solitary night of carnal delight, but he’d always passed. He had too much to lose, and he’d long ago realized that his fortune was only part of it. After all, no dollar figure could be attached to self-respect.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not the promiscuous sort. I mean, sure, I rented the entire first season of Sex and the City on video and found it entertaining, but I’m not like those women. At all. Well, except for thinking they dress divine. And then there are the shoes. I do have a shoe fetish. But the point is, I don’t go around having sex just for the fun of it.” She made a face, shot him a look that dared him to laugh. “You know what I mean.”

  J.T. wisely hid his grin. She was babbling. Adorably.

  “I didn’t think you did,” he said.

  “I’m glad, because I think I may have been sending, well, some mixed messages where you we concerned. And that’s not like me, either.”

  “No?”

  “I’m not a tease,” she said pointedly.

  “No.”

  “So, this isn’t—I mean, it wouldn’t have been a good idea. If we had, um, rather if we had had…” Her voice trailed away, and though the interior of the Jeep was too dark to see her face clearly, he’d lay odds she was red as a beet. He found the contrasts in her startling and sweet. The sexy and outspoken Marnie LaRue seemed suddenly as shy as a schoolgirl and at a loss for words.

  “Sex,” he supplied succinctly. Then he couldn’t resist. “Yes, it probably would not be a good idea to pass the next several hours in a sweaty haze.”

  “Several hours?”

  “In a sweaty haze.”

  “Not a good idea,” she repeated softly, but it came out sounding more like a question.

  “No, definitely not.”

  “That’s not fair.” But her voice was steadier now and it held a hint of amusement.

  “What?”

  “Few women can resist a man who claims the sex will last hours.”

  “Really. So, I’ve just made myself irresistible?”

  She laughed, robustly, and sounded more like the Marnie he’d come to know and appreciate during the past few days. “I said few women can resist such a man. Unfortunately for you, amigo, I’m one of those few women.”

  “Damn the luck,” he replied, but he couldn’t help smiling in return. Never had he found the prospect of not having sex so tantalizing.

  They arrived outside her place. J.T. pulled the Jeep to a stop and shifted into park.

  “Can I at least kiss you good night?”

  She thought about it a moment before asking, “Do these seats recline?”

  “All the way to horizontal,” he said with a meaningful lift of his eyebrows.

  “Ah. Better walk me to my door, then.”

  “Too tempting?”

  “For you,” she replied and got out.

  They kissed on her doorstep like a couple of curious teenagers: Eager to explore, but holding back.

  “Should I keep my hands to myself?” he asked, coming up for air after a few minutes of what he supposed might still be called necking.

  “I told you, I’m not that kind of girl,” Marnie reminded him.

  “Oh.”

  But then she grabbed his shirt and hauled him forward for another kiss, letting her own fingers roam freely over his chest before skimming down his torso and over his hips to rest on his butt. He was pretty sure that she’d just pinched him.

  “I th-thought you weren’t that kind of a girl,” he stammered on a ragged sigh.

  “I’m not. But neither am I a nun.”

  “Glad to know it,” he said before diving back in to see just how much of this foreplay he could stand before he went completely insane.

  It turned out his threshold for unconsummated intimacy was incredibly high. They spent the better part of the next twenty-five minutes working one another into a sexually frustrated froth.

  “I’m going to need a cold shower after this,” he commented when they finally broke apart for good. “A very, very cold shower.”

  Then he regarded her in the moonlight. “You
could join me. As you know, my shower stall is more than big enough to accommodate two consenting adults. We could…” He trailed kisses down her neck and over her shoulder, moving the thin straps of her shirt and bra out of the way as he did so. “Wash each other’s backs,” he finished.

  Marnie snorted out a laugh. “Like that’s all that would happen. I do still have a few working brain cells.” To herself, she admitted that might be all she had at this point. She adjusted her clothing, pulling the straps back into place. “But there’s a whole ocean out there, cool as can be. We could take a dip, work off all of this heat and energy.”

  “We could do that in the shower.”

  “No doubt.”

  “So?”

  “No dice. The ocean. That’s the only place you’re going to come into contact with my wet, slippery skin. Take it or leave it.”

  He groaned. “That imagery is pure torture.”

  She grinned. “I know. That was the point.”

  “I don’t get it. When did I lose control of this situation?”

  The question was rhetorical, but Marnie answered him anyway.

  “Who says you ever had it?”

  “Oh, I had it,” J.T. insisted. “We both know I did. You were putty in my hands at one point—I think it was when I mentioned spending a few hours in a sexual haze.” He skimmed a hand skillfully down her side in a way that caused her to shiver. “That was the point. Definitely. I’m sure of it.”

  Never one to concede defeat, Marnie pulled her hair free from the ponytail band and tossed her head in a careless motion until dark waves of hair framed her face. The gesture was sexy and she damn well knew it.

  “You might have piqued my interest with that boast of your endurance,” she conceded. “But like a typical man, you overplayed your hand. Your arrogance slapped me back to my senses. I suppose I should thank you.”

  “And I know how.”

  “Forget it.”

  His hand was still resting on her hip and he used it to draw her forward. Nuzzling her neck, he whispered, “My mother always said cockiness would be my downfall.”

  “Trust me on this: Mothers are never wrong.”

  And, despite issuing what J.T. swore was a helpless little moan of pleasure when his tongue flicked quickly across the lobe of her ear once and then came back for a lazy second time, she stepped away from him.

  “The beach. Swimming,” she said, using arm motions as if she were speaking to someone slow.

  And at that moment, he had to admit, he felt downright mired in her.

  “I just want to go on the record as saying I disagree wholeheartedly with your method of working off energy.”

  “So noted.”

  “Perhaps it should come up for a vote?”

  “It would be a tie.”

  “No tie-breaker?”

  “No vote.”

  “A question then.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “By all means. Ask away.”

  “What will you be wearing for this swim of ours?”

  Marnie’s eyes narrowed, but her lips twitched when she replied, “My swimsuit, Don Juan, my swimsuit.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.” And his groan was hardly manufactured for effect.

  “Meet you on the beach in fifteen,” Marnie told him and she looked as pleased as a cat lapping up cream when she closed the door in his face.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ONCE she found her flashlight and lit a few candles, it still took Marnie nearly half an hour to put on her swimsuit. Only a couple of those minutes were actually required to slip into the clever tank’s spandex. The first twenty-seven were spent wondering if she’d lost her mind.

  Playing with fire, that’s what this was. She felt scorched already from the intense heat the mere brush of his fingers over her skin could ignite. But she didn’t want the evening—or this sweet torture—to end just yet. She wasn’t ready to go back to being Noah’s mom and Hal’s widow. To being regarded as that Poor Marnie LaRue. Here, tonight, she was simply Marnie with no tragic history and none of the ardor-cooling responsibilities of motherhood.

  “I thought you might have changed your mind,” J.T. said when she joined him.

  In her absence, he’d stoked a fire to life in a makeshift pit halfway between their two homes.

  “I’m not quite ready to call it a night.”

  “Glad to hear that.”

  J.T. tossed another piece of kindling onto the fire and settled onto a blanket that was spread over the sand. He’d brought out refreshments as well, she noted, packed in a wicker hamper. The gesture was more romantic than she wanted it to be, as was the firelight. Its flickering glow bathed him in gold.

  “You have a nice eye for details,” she said, nodding in the direction of the basket.

  He shrugged. “I try.”

  “Well then, you deserve an A for effort.”

  She had pulled a sweatshirt over the bathing suit and was glad for it given the chilly night air. Settling onto the blanket next to him she drew her legs up close to her body and held her hands out to the flames for warmth.

  “That dip’s going to be mighty cold, I’m thinking,” J.T. said at last.

  “Very.”

  She was shivering. In anticipation of the cold water or further contact with the sexy man next to her, she wasn’t certain.

  “Maybe we should make sure we’re good and hot to make it worth the shock to our systems.”

  “Going to put another log on the fire?” she inquired innocently.

  “Something along those lines, yes.”

  And he reached for her.

  The fire crackled and a log broke apart, sending up a shower of sparks, but it was Marnie who burned, taking delight in her slow incineration. She found herself pinned beneath J.T. on the blanket, the sand providing little cushion with his weight pressed into her, but her mind didn’t register discomfort, only a delicious kind of pressure building from within as well as without.

  I’m going to remember this night, this night of almost, she told herself, enjoying the solid feel of him.

  Appropriately enough, from his portable CD player, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas were singing “(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave” as Marnie helped J.T. work the sweatshirt up over her head. He tossed it aside blindly as his lips lingered on her neck. Then his mouth slid across the ridge of her collarbone and she was lost.

  “Mmm.” The sound vibrated from her throat, reminiscent of a cat’s contented purring.

  “You said it.”

  J.T. slipped the strap of Marnie’s suit over her right shoulder, raining kisses there as well.

  “I never realized before that shoulders were an erogenous zone,” Marnie whispered on a sigh.

  “Neither did I.”

  “Maybe Cosmopolitan should do an article on it,” she suggested, trying to keep her head even as his breath singed her already heated skin.

  He moved to her left shoulder, applying the same sensual treatment. The second strap slipped low on her shoulder, tugged down by J.T.’s teeth, and right along with the strap came the top of her suit until quite a bit more than mere cleavage was exposed to the chilly night air.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he rasped.

  This can’t go any farther. The words screamed through her head, but never made it to her lips. Even so, J.T. stopped abruptly. Marnie’s body was still humming with pleasure and yearning for release as he thoughtfully pulled her suit back into place, showing far more good sense than she was at the moment.

  He blew out a gusty breath and settled his forehead against hers. “Better take that swim.”

  It was her turn to exhale sharply. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  He stood and helped Marnie to her feet. Then he pulled off his shirt and dropped it in a heap on the blanket, after which he reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers.

  “I want to keep you close,” he said and her heart tripped over in her chest, pounding erratically even
after he added, “The tide can be dangerous.”

  They stayed near the shore and their swim was brief, just long enough to let the chilly water douse the last of their ardor. In its place, companionship settled, playfulness even when she used her hand to splash water in his direction.

  They frolicked in the surf, made giddy by the late hour and pent up sexual desire, and then he swooped her up in his arms, settling her snuggly against his wide chest. His skin was cool to the touch, but together they generated that glorious heat she’d felt all evening.

  “This got me into trouble once before.” He jiggled her in his arms and laughed. “I didn’t know a girl could punch like that.”

  “Woman,” she corrected primly.

  “Don’t I know it?”

  “And you were heading the other way at the time,” she pointed out. “You planned to dump me in the water.”

  “True. But you were already wet.”

  She shrugged. “My brother would tell you I tend to punch first and ask questions later.”

  “Ah, passionate.”

  Chuckling, she gave him a playful tap on his chin, following it up with a quick kiss.

  “You’ve got a one-track mind.”

  “Not usually, but when I’m with you, I find it difficult to think about much else,” he admitted.

  They reached the fire and he set her down slowly, letting her wet body slip down the length of his. She stood there for a moment in the loose circle of his arms, her body pressed against his solid one. She felt more alive than she could remember feeling in a very long time. If nothing else came of her time in Mexico, at least she had that.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Too embarrassed to tell him, she glanced toward the hamper.

  “For the towel. I’m assuming you brought one for me.”

  “Yes.” He reached inside the hamper and pulled out two, handing one to Marnie.

  “You’re very thoughtful,” she murmured, wrapping the long sweep of terrycloth around her body.

  And he could be, she realized again, very thoughtful. It was a nice trait in a man, one that didn’t always get combined with a broad chest, chiseled abs and nicely muscled limbs. She dried off as best she could and pulled the sweatshirt back on.