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  Maybe she represented some fantasy come to life. Maybe he was secretly turned on by his great-grandmother....

  Suppressing a snort of laughter, he led her over to the table on the deck where he’d set up the evening’s beverages. “Glass of wine? Gin and tonic? First one then the other?”

  “A gin and tonic would be perfect. Great summer drink.”

  “I agree.” He plunked ice cubes into two tumblers, splashed in some gin and a squeeze of lime, and filled up the rest of the glass with tonic, wondering what she had planned for tonight and whether he’d survive waiting to find out. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you.” She lifted her glass to his, her eyes dancing. “Here’s to today.”

  “Today.” He gestured her to sit. “Nice memories in that chair.”

  “So there are.” She flashed him a sexy look and sat, crossing her thighs, reminding him of how she’d crossed her ankles so primly last time. Was this Allie more relaxed or a different character altogether? For a second he thought he saw something glint between her legs—he was a guy, of course he’d looked.

  If she were any other woman, he’d be thinking glitter panties? What the hell?

  But with Allie, he couldn’t wait to find out.

  “Jonas. It’s truth-telling time.”

  “My truth or yours?” He sat in the chair next to hers, nodding when she pointed at him. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  “How many women you’ve had here.”

  “Had here like brought up to visit?”

  “No, had like had.”

  “Hmm.” Jonas put down his drink and pretended to count on his fingers, then switched hands, then switched back. “One.”

  “One?” She laughed in surprise. “No way.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know. It seems like the perfect place for girlfriends.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Part of him contracted into anger.

  “But you never brought them here? How come?”

  “My parents. Nice people, but very critical, controlling and very particular. Around them my friends were on eggshells, always afraid of doing the wrong thing.” He smirked. “Erik was lucky, he didn’t care.”

  “You did.”

  “Yeah.” He stared moodily at the lake. “Some values and traits I’m glad and proud to have inherited. Others...”

  “I think parents are put on earth to mortify all of us in front of our friends.” She spoke bitterly, surprising him.

  “Tell me—”

  “But I want to know about this woman.” She gulped from her drink. “The one you had here.”

  Her question derailed him. He’d wanted to ask her more about her parents, but she’d shut him down every other time he’d tried, too, so he let it go, though it bothered him she wasn’t interested in sharing. It was another barrier she’d put up—one he was increasingly interested in breaching. “Ah, the woman. Practically a girl.”

  “You knew her a long time ago?” Allie wrinkled her nose. “Or recently and she was jailbait?”

  Jonas held up his hand. “No, I was the young one, barely sixteen. She was wildly experienced, a couple of years older than me. I was sleeping alone in the cottage that night, and then suddenly I had company.”

  “Hmm.” She grinned at him. “That sounds familiar.”

  “Mmm, yes, it does.”

  “So she just crawled in with you?”

  “Sally. She was pretty wild. Had a rough life since then, I’ve heard.”

  “Oh.” Allie tsk-tsked. “You ruined her.”

  “Must have.” He got up and brought the bag of potato chips back to the table, along with a bowl of carrot sticks and sugar snap peas he’d found at the market. “Tell me about your first time.”

  She shook her head sorrowfully. “Awful. I’m surprised I ever did it again.”

  He lifted his glass to her. “May I just say how profoundly grateful I am that you decided to stay with the program.”

  She giggled and sipped more gin. She was emptying her drink faster than he was. Maybe he wasn’t the only nervous one here tonight. The thought made him relax a little.

  “Let’s see. I was eighteen, first year of college, feeling very grown up and very independent, until a group of us girls got together one night to gab, and it turned out I was the only virgin.”

  “Or the only one admitting it.”

  “Wow.” She looked up in surprise. “I bet you’re right. I wish I’d thought of that then.”

  “So you decided to lose it immediately?”

  “Uh-huh.” Another sip, then she glanced at the level in the glass and put it on the table. “Let me tell you, there is no shortage of guys in college who’ll help you out with that little problem.”

  “Ooh.” He winced, immediately jealous of the undeserving jerk. “Tell me you didn’t take out an ad online.”

  “Not quite. But...well, I could have chosen better.”

  “His first time, too?”

  “I would hope so. Because anyone with that little clue after a decent amount of experience should just be taken out of circulation.”

  He cracked up. Allie had an extra edge to her tonight—maybe nerves, maybe not—but he was enjoying her even more than usual, and was thrilled she was actually talking about her past. “I’m truly sorry.”

  “Aw, that’s okay. I learned my lesson.” She sent him a wicked smile. “And went on to bigger and better things.”

  “Not touching that one.” He got up, still too restless to sit still, and moved toward the grill. “I’m about to start cooking. How do you like your burgers?”

  “Medium.”

  “Same.” He spread the lit coals in the grill, put on the rack and closed the lid to let it heat. “Tell me what your dating life has been like since then. Serial boyfriends? Casual flings? Always someone in your life? Seldom? For one-night stands, press one. For serious boyfriends, press two. For—”

  He loved the sound of her laughter, and the way she threw her head back and opened her mouth wide for the initial shout. Last time she’d come to him here, she’d been all cool sophistication and control. He liked her this way better. Around her he felt funny, sexy and, frankly, a little crazy. In a good way for the most part.

  “I date when there’s someone worth dating. There hasn’t been lately. I had a serious boyfriend in college—as serious as you can be when you’re too young to be serious. Then another one who broke up with me a couple of years ago. Nice guys, but...I don’t know, not that exciting.” She frowned, mouth bunching adorably, looking as though she was starting to feel the alcohol. “No, that makes me sound shallow. I’m not looking for nonstop thrills. Just...someone who accepts me as is. Wait, not that I wouldn’t have to change anything ever, I mean that’s impossible, obviously. But what I mean is—”

  She broke off, looking bemused.

  “You mean it’s pretty much hopeless to explain why some relationships seem okay, but aren’t.”

  “Yes.” She looked at him as if he’d solved one of the primal mysteries of the earth. “I’ve worried it’s me, that I’m too picky. Other times I think I just haven’t met the right guy yet. I figure most people do find someone, so I should just be patient. And then I think, I drank three-quarters of my drink in about five minutes and my God I’m talking too much, I should probably eat something.”

  It was his turn to laugh, freely and without restraint. She surprised him. And delighted him, sober, tipsy, earnest, erotic, silly, he liked every side he’d seen of her.

  And frankly would like to see a lot more.

  “Your turn.” She grabbed a carrot stick. “I have banned myself from talking. Tell me about your girlfriends.”

  “Okay. I’ve had two big ones.”

  “How big? Amazons?”

  “Ha ha.” He lifted the grill lid and used his scraper to clean the rack. “Two serious ones.”

  “They couldn’t take a joke?”

  “No talking, Allie.”
/>   She clapped her hand over her mouth and spread her fingers to speak. “Right, sorry.”

  “I dated around in college, but met Margaret after business school when I was working at Baldwin & Company.”

  “She worked there, too?”

  “At the lunch counter. Art was her calling. Sculpture and multimedia. A great woman, lots of fun. Very strong. Very determined.”

  Allie made ape noises and mimed beating her chest.

  “No more gin for you.”

  “I’ll be good. Tell me more.”

  “At first I loved the challenge of her, but after a while she just exhausted me. Everything was a battle she had to win.”

  “Oof. No fun. Then who?”

  “After Margaret, Missy. To be continued...” He went back into the house, brought out the burgers and put them on the grill to sizzle, loving the way Allie looked sitting on the deck, all yellow and white against the gray weathered boards, like a daffodil blooming on rock.

  She caught him staring and smiled. “Missy?”

  “Missy, yes. She turned out to be the opposite of Margaret, at least on the surface. Sweet, charming, with a high-level job. I wondered sometimes how she could manage people or money effectively by being so obliging. Then I discovered she was screwing a colleague and wanted me just for my money. Since then, there’s been no one I’ve thought about seriously.”

  Until now.

  The thought blindsided him.

  “God, Jonas.” Allie’s expression turned to sympathy and, for a flash before it was gone, tenderness. She cared about him. At least some. “It’s weird how we can be so blind to obvious destructive patterns when we start dating people.”

  “No kidding.” He moved the burgers around on the grill for something to do while he got his thoughts back in order. Allie? He’d barely known her three days.

  “It makes getting involved with someone sort of terrifying. My last boyfriend, Raymond, was a completely passive lump of a person.” She waved her hand in front of her face, apparently dismissing Raymond’s memory. “I was so thrilled that he adored me. I kept telling myself no one was perfect. I couldn’t have everything in one man. And then, finally, I realized, well, no, Allie, but you should have something in him.”

  He felt that same tenderness he’d glimpsed in her eyes. He wanted to tell her she deserved everything, but didn’t want to bring to her attention that she was finally sharing personal details. As it would be too much too soon coming from him. “When people are first dating they put on a show of being who they want to be, or who they think they are, rather than who they really are. So you waste all this time investing emotions into what is essentially fake.”

  Allie stiffened, made a noncommittal sound, picked up her drink and took another swallow.

  Jonas flipped the burgers, wondering what he’d said. Nothing that applied to them. They weren’t dating, just fooling around. Nor did he get the impression Allie was putting on any kind of a show. He certainly wasn’t. So why had she abruptly put out the fire she’d brought to the conversation and to the evening?

  He brought out the hamburger rolls and opened them, ready to warm them up. “Hungry, Allie?”

  She came out of her trance and smiled. “You bet.”

  The hamburgers were delicious: juicy and flavorful, slathered with the pesto and topped with flavorful summer tomato slices and melting fresh mozzarella. Allie’s eyes popped when she took her first bite and encountered the unexpected flavors, which pleased him way too much.

  They chatted about the weather, their day, the area’s history, her favorite places in New York, and his in Boston. The door into her life and the emotions had been slammed firmly shut.

  After they ate, they brought their plates to the kitchen and sat outside, lingering over the bottle’s last two glasses. Jonas didn’t know when he’d felt such a crazy mix of contentment, anxiety and raging lust.

  “I have watermelon. Would you like some?”

  “Love some.”

  “Brandy?”

  “Absolutely.” Her skin was rosy in the evening light. Strands had come loose from her hairstyle and curled around her face in the lake air, making her look sexily mussed.

  He got up, reluctant to leave her, even for a few minutes, and went into the kitchen, half-hard just from looking at her and imagining all the things he wanted them to do. At the counter, he cut a few slices of watermelon and put them on plates, then poured two glasses of the brandy he’d brought out from the house, put it all on a tray and carried it back to—

  She was leaning against the railing, which she’d covered with beach towels so her body would be invisible from the lake, her back to him, staring out toward the water. He’d seen her in the pose before.

  But not like this.

  Her hair was covered in strips of black sequin-covered cloth—half wig, half hat—with a distinctly Cleopatra shape. A brass cobra coiled around her upper arm. The gold material he’d glimpsed under her shirt wasn’t a camisole; it was a slender band covering her breasts. Below that, gold chains glittered around her slender waist. More black sequins stretched over her hips in a narrow band, extending into a tiny swatch of a skirt that barely covered her bottom. On her feet she wore black strappy sandals with medium-high heels. An Egyptian seductress.

  She turned her head to reveal eyes lined with black, almond-shaped with a stripe extending from the outside corner almost to her hairline. Her profile caught the setting sun, the lake behind her, her body in beautiful silhouette. Exotic. Seductive.

  He was no longer only half-hard.

  Jonas put down the tray. “I’m not sure I’m still in the mood for watermelon.”

  “No.”

  “Cleopatra.” He came up behind her, covering the delicate fingers resting on the railing with his hand. His chest pressed against her mostly naked back. His pelvis found black sequins, pushed suggestively against them. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have a great asp?”

  A groan came out of her that made him work not to chuckle. He kissed her bare shoulders, one then the other, lightly bit her sweet-smelling skin, then soothed the bite with his mouth.

  “Your servant is here, my queen,” he murmured. “What do you desire?”

  “Here.” She tipped her head, leaving her long, graceful neck open for exploration. He happily complied, moving his hands to the narrow span of her waist, then following the chain around front to slip his fingertips over her stomach and under sequined elastic. Her skin was smooth, soft. He couldn’t get enough with his fingers or his mouth.

  “Very nice.” His fingers returned to the small of her back; he stepped out of the way while they journeyed back under the sequins and around her firm bottom. Jonas closed his eyes, savoring her shape until his fingers grew impatient and pushed their way down and forward between her legs, where they encountered warm moisture...and cool air.

  He stopped, puzzled. Was there a hole in—

  Sweet heaven. Designed for easy access.

  His turn to groan, as she had, but not for the same reason. He knelt behind her, lifted the small square of material and took his fill of the sight. Black sequins lined either side of her sex, her lush pink lips protruding from the neat gap in the fabric. Jonas pressed her legs farther apart, then counted slowly to three, letting her wonder what he was going to do, letting the breeze blow over her, making the light brown hair between her legs quiver.

  Silently, he moved in. His tongue found her first. She gasped, her knees buckling before she recovered and leaned forward to give him better access. He tasted her greedily, steadying her hips with his hands. She was soft, sweet, her labia yielding and stretching under his tongue. A breeze blew around them, carrying the smell of the charcoal fire mixed with coming rain.

  Eagerly he turned her toward him so he could find her clitoris with his lips, wanting her as hot and ready as he was. Wanting her to let go completely, to beg for his cock inside her. He wanted her to acknowledge in some way that she was as far gone as he was, that she cou
ld no longer fight the power of what lay between them. That what lay between them might be...important.

  “Stop. Queen’s...orders.” She barely got the phrase out. “This isn’t the plan.”

  “No more plan. Just you and me.” He kept at her, using his lips to paint her, his tongue to thrust up inside, loving her taste, her smell, the promise of what they could do together tonight.

  Without the costume.

  He tried to ease the panties down, surprised when she grabbed them to keep them on. Okay. The gold band would go, then. He dragged it down around her waist so he could touch her breasts, admire their shape, taste the pink nipples that drew him to his feet.

  She was gasping, her body trembling. “You’re not— I was supposed to—”

  He lifted his mouth from her breast, took her shoulders and pulled her close to kiss her fiercely.

  She stiffened; her hands pushed weakly against his chest. He persisted, wanting her more than he’d ever wanted a woman, wanting to break through the barriers she put up, to get to the inner truth of her. He kissed her insistently, seductively, willing her to break, to show how much she wanted him back.

  Finally she relaxed against him, parted her lips and wrapped her arms around his neck. Jonas’s heart swelled with male triumph. He was going to take her right here, against the railing through the slit in her extraordinary panties. He retrieved a condom from his back pocket and shoved down his shorts and boxers with the same hand.

  “What are you doing?” She spoke against his mouth with more alarm than he thought necessary.

  “Condom.”

  “No. No sex.”

  He stopped kissing her, incredulous and angry. Another barrier? “What’s up?”

  “Sex is...not part of the—”

  “So?” He snorted. “Because some ancient relative didn’t, we can’t? This is the twenty-first century.”

  “No, that has nothing to—”

  “Is this part of some other manipulation, Allie? Because I’m not into power games.”

  “Stop. Jonas, calm down.” She was clearly distressed. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, taking a breath. Still on testosterone overload. He needed his brain to work here.