Intoxicating!

Unfortunately, if she kept this up, she was going to get caught, so she stashed her sketchbook away, pushed on her sunglasses and stretched her legs out in front of her. Finally, he moved, rising to his feet, and she drew in her breath. She was still smiling to herself when he turned around, and quickly her smile disappeared in case he mistook it for an invitation. Catherine wasn’t built like the bikinied, sun-streaked blonde. She was a tall dishwater blond, fifteen pounds overweight on a good day, and she didn’t even want to talk about the bad days. She only bought one-piece bathing suits that minimized her butt, which was where most of her weight settled when she overindulged in cupcakes—something she often did on her bad days.

He looked at her, his eyes skimming over her, not sexually, but automatically, taking in the details of his surroundings of which she was a part. She fought the urge to cover herself. Better to ignore him, as if he were a painting on the wall and nothing more. He paused, and she could sense the indecision, but then he walked forward—toward her.

As he moved closer, Catherine glanced down, making sure her sketchbook was lying innocently closed on the ground. Check. No reason to be nervous at all.

He approached her, bare feet sinking in the sand, and sadly she realized that even his feet were glorious. She’d never sketched a foot in detail before, but now she thought she might.

“I hope I’m not intruding,” he said, and she shook her head as if he had hadn’t intruded on her brain since she’d first caught sight of him.

“You’re welcome to sit as long as you want.”

When he was this close, she could see his eyes. A dark, rainfogged gray. His gaze was detached, not in a cold way, but empty and lifeless like the people captured in paintings by Piero.

“I thought this place was empty, and next door’s been a nuthouse,” he told her, automatically endearing him to her because in her mind she knew next door was a nuthouse. Loud, laughing, filled with happy, beautiful people who splashed away in the pool. Yeah, right. When you worked in art, you learned that anything could be forged.

“Please, don’t apologize.” She spoke graciously, adapting the lady-of-the-manor poise of her mother. “It’s not necessary. Stay.”

Restlessly, he shifted on his feet, so staying didn’t seem to be in the cards. She knew the stance. She’d done it often enough. The man was itching to leave her company, but he waited, as if he knew he was only three words shy of being polite. Again, all familiar territory for Catherine. “I’m Daniel,” he said finally.

“Catherine.” She lifted her hand to shade her eyes from the sun, which was totally a great idea because when she blocked out the glare, and the shadows fell across his face, he seemed more alive. And she could see the neat symmetry in his facial structure.

Oh, yeah, she was going to draw him. Capture the tiny dip in his chin, capture the stubble that dotted his jaw. Oh, yeah.

“Thank you, Catherine.”

“My pleasure,” she answered, because it was.

All polite obligations now out of the way, Daniel went back to his chair, and there he sat for several more hours until the sun set for the day.

Catherine stayed in the lounge, sipping on tea and pretending to doze, and not once did he go into the water.

2

THAT NEXT MORNING, after a mere three hours’ sleep, Daniel rose, rubbing tired eyes. He’d forgotten the infinite joys of a summer share. The long hours of drinking, the bed-hopping, the endless unfunny jokes. In search of peace and quiet, he’d first tried sleeping on the lounge outside, but when Chelsea and Bill went skinny-dipping in the wee hours of the night, Daniel gave up, creeping over to Catherine’s deck before finally settling into a deep sleep in one of the chairs.

Sean was going to owe him for this, and Daniel occupied those first waking thoughts creating endless painful punishments for his brother, almost all involving testicles being squeezed into a vise. Only two more days, he reminded himself, rubbing at the empty spot on his ring finger. Still that didn’t stop the nightmares about losing it. With an empty ring finger, the hole inside him seemed impossibly bigger. Some things just weren’t meant to be left behind.

After a long stretch, he walked back to the nuthouse and was safely on one of the summer share’s loungers when Catherine emerged on her deck. She waved, he waved, and they ignored each other for most of the morning until some dipwad got the bright idea of tapping a keg on the sand, which he couldn’t even do right. Daniel chose not to educate him on the finer talents of keg-tapping. That was long ago and far away. Instead he fled back to Catherine’s beach, praying she wouldn’t mind.

It took her an hour to approach. “You’re having problems next door, aren’t you?” she asked, collapsing down into the sand next to him.

Daniel laughed with little humor. “Yeah. I’d love to go home if I could, but the lawyers would report back to my brothers and I’d just have to do it again another weekend.”

“The lawyers?” she asked, taking off her sunglasses.

“My brother’s firm. Long story. You don’t want to hear it.”

She looked at him, looked out at the water, then looked next door. Eventually, she stared at him again, frowning. “Why are you here?”

“Not by choice.”

“I can see that,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

That was what he liked about her. Her quiet. Everything about her was designed to escape notice. Her swimsuit was nearly identical to the sensible one-piece she wore yesterday. Built for swimming, not for looks. Her blond hair was long and unstyled, falling past her shoulders. He didn’t think she was wearing makeup, but Daniel was no expert.

Although he really liked her eyes. Without her sunglasses he could see that she had nice eyes. Big, brown eyes that watched him steadily…until he met her eyes, and then she blinked, looking away, a pale flush rising up her cheeks. Next door, one of the lawyers—Samuel?—chased a woman down the beach, until she turned and let him catch her.

Why did everyone have to be so damned loud? Daniel shook his head. He noticed Catherine watching the people next door. “You want to go over there?”

Quickly, she shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m comfortable here. What about you?”

“I’m happier from a distance. This way I get to study people.”

“Ah, a zoologist,” she said, her lips curving up for a moment.

“People are fairly easy to peg.”

“Really?” she asked skeptically, pulling her legs up underneath her and digging her toes into the sand.

“Oh, yeah,” he answered, as if he were the world’s foremost expert at psychology. Gabe would have laughed his ass off, but okay, Gabe wasn’t here.

“So tell me about the man in the blue swim trunks.”

Daniel thought for a second. He didn’t know these people well, but he knew the types by heart. “Anthony. He’s a clown, goof-off, doesn’t take anything seriously.”

“What about the pale guy, the one who’s going to be hurting from the sunburn tomorrow?”

“Bill. I think. William. Bill. Billy. Something. He’s a little weird. Drinks too much. Works too hard.”

“What about the girl with the dark hair under his arm?”

“Her name’s Chelsea, ambitious, but does things with no half measures.”

“So why is Chelsea, who does things with no half measures, wasting time with weird Bill, when she really wants Anthony?”

“No way,” he said, but then he glanced over at Chelsea and realized that Catherine was right. Chelsea might be spending her nights skinny-dipping with Bill, but when Bill wasn’t looking, her eyes were glued to Anthony. That didn’t even make sense. “Okay, assuming that you’re right—possibly. Then why’s she wasting her time with Bill?”

Catherine moved her head, and her hair fell across her shoulder, following the blue fabric of her bathing suit, stroking along the curve of her breast. Daniel immediately looked back at Chelsea and Bill.

“She doesn’t want to be alone, and she doesn’t think Anthony will like her enough. Most people will latch onto anything rather than learn how to be by themselves.”

“I didn’t think that could be taught.” He’d spent the last seven years alone and didn’t have too many problems with it.

“I think so. It’s a good thing to be comfortable with yourself, knowing what you’re capable of, and what you’re not. You don’t have to waste so much time faking your way through life. Sometimes faking is worth the effort, but most of the time it’s not.”

The quiet voice of reason. Daniel liked her even more. “You do this for a living?”

“No, not even close,” she said, laughing.

“So how come you know so much?” he asked, because she had noticed details he missed. Coming from an accountant, that was just sad.

“Like you said, people are easy to peg.”

He looked at her again, checking for the details he might have missed. She surprised him, but in a good way. It wasn’t that he was antisocial, it was mostly that everyone he met was chock-full of filler conversations that contributed absolutely nothing to anything—or so he thought. Yet here he was, having a filler conversation that contributed absolutely nothing to any thing…or did it?

Catherine’s theory explained a lot. Why Warren in the office took off every Thursday for drinks after work with Thom, when he couldn’t stand the guy. Why Kim went to lunch with Madeline on Fridays, which was about the stupidest thing ever, since Madeline had taken Kim’s job as operations manager. How hard was it to eat alone?

“You have needy friends like that, too?” he asked curiously.

“One friend who keeps seeing her ex, who makes her miserable.” She leaned forward, her hair brushing over her shoulder again, down her breast. This time Daniel looked for a long minute before glancing away.

“Maybe she loves him,” he said, his voice rough. The heat was getting to him, making him light-headed, his skin hot.

She slipped up her sunglasses, her feet digging under the sand until they were completely covered. “She doesn’t love him. She doesn’t even like him.”

“People are strange,” he said, looking away from her, focusing on the waves until his brain righted itself.

“Got that right,” she agreed.

Their conversation drifted on from there, moving from one nothing topic to another, but he definitely liked this. As they talked, the sun shifted in the sky. Daniel leaned back in the chair, relishing the warmth of the rays that reflected off the water. All in all, it was definitely good. Definitely.

Eventually the conversation dwindled, and the silence fell, perfectly balanced to the soothing ebb and flow of the whitecapped sea.

Catherine watched the waves lap up onto the beach, and then cleared her throat. “You’re welcome to sleep here if you’d like.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in and Daniel’s brows shot up at the invitation, in shock, and more than a little fear. She couldn’t have noticed. When it came to hiding things, Daniel was an expert.

Then Catherine glanced in his direction, caught his deer-in-the-headlights look and laughed, a gurgling hiccup of noise.

“Not that way,” she told him. “We have a bunch of rooms, and I don’t play volleyball, or much else. Your brothers would never have to know.”

He sighed, a great explosion of breath. One bullet dodged.

“Nothing to be afraid of. I promise,” she said, and he believed her. The offer was beyond tempting. Her beach house was a shining beacon of serenity compared to the reality show next door. As if God knew and was laughing, one of the lawyers pulled out a karaoke machine and cranked up the volume, singing bad Bob Dylan at the top of his lungs.

“I don’t know. That’d be a big imposition on a stranger,” he said, but he heard the longing in his own voice.

Pleeb.

“I’m actually not that strange,” she answered seriously, which cemented his decision. Anything was better than ten thousand drunken choruses of “Just Like a Woman.”

“You sure you don’t mind?” he asked, not that he was going to let her back out now. She was promising him an escape from more late-night skinny-dipping and the now-permanent ridge in his back where the deck chair slats had eaten into it.

She shook her head, her hair falling again, and this time he didn’t look at all. “I’m sure. I draw a lot out here, so if all you want to do is sit by the beach and stare into the sun, it’s not going to bother me at all.”

“You draw?” he asked curiously.

“Not well,” she answered, pulling her sunglasses back over her eyes, but not before he saw the uncertainty flicker in them.

“Still, it’s something,” he said, trying to reassure her. She looked as if she needed reassurance.

“What do you do?”

“I’m an accountant.”

“Exciting,” she murmured.

Daniel managed a half smile. “Don’t lie.”

She looked at him, black lenses hiding her eyes. “Actually, it suits you.”

“Most people say that as an insult.”

“No, you’re very quiet and thorough and intense. I think those would be good qualities for an accountant to have.”

She sounded completely serious. “Still, boring is boring.”

“Ha. Not likely,” she said so skeptically that he had to look at her twice.

“What do you do?” he asked, thinking that if she thought accounting was exciting, her job must be a complete snoozer.

“Art appraisal.”

Not a snoozer, not even close. “Now see, that’s exciting.”

“Yeah,” she agreed happily. “It usually is. We discovered a lost Picasso last year.”

“Now that’s much better than accounting.”

“But you love it, don’t you?”

Daniel didn’t try to lie. Truthfully, he did love his job. The world needed accountants, like they needed scientists and garbage collectors. “I’m not designed to do anything else. There’s a balance to accounting. Very exacting, very precise. No room for error. At the end of the day, you know exactly where you stand.”

She smiled then, and he noticed that she had a nice smile. A full lower lip, and even white teeth that hinted at years in braces.

“Why do your brothers want you at the Hamptons?” she asked.

“To have fun.”

Catherine laughed. She had a nice laugh, too. Almost hesitant until she got into it and then the sound made him smile and want to laugh along with her, but he didn’t. “I shouldn’t laugh,” she said, putting a hand over her mouth.

“No, really, I think you should.”

“So you’re going to have a miserable time and prove them wrong, aren’t you?”

“It hasn’t been bad,” he answered honestly. Since he’d met her, he had liked sitting with her, talking, under no obligation to be funny, or witty, or charming, or any of those other sterling character traits that Daniel had long forgotten.

“I won’t say anything to your brothers,” she whispered.

“Thank you.”

“So, do you do anything besides accounting?”

Daniel hesitated, because he didn’t tell many people about the bar. There were expectations of a bar owner, more of the fun-loving, pleasure-seeking crap, and Daniel usually kept his mouth shut. But Catherine would understand. He knew it. She was the type of person who invited confidences, the type of person who didn’t demand or judge, and it had been so long since he’d had an ordinary conversation. He was surprised that he remembered how. “I’m part owner in a bar.”

The sunglasses came off again, and he wished she would leave them off; her eyes were strangely compelling. So completely content. “I’ve never met a bar owner before. You don’t seem the type.”

This time Daniel did laugh. “It’s my brother. He’s the type.”

“Ah. Your family must be close.”

“Family distance is highly underrated.”

She smiled at him. “Spoken by someone who is close to his family.”

“When they’re not playing therapist.”

“Do you want lunch?” she asked, and Daniel checked his watch. He’d talked with her for nearly two hours, and never noticed.

“I shouldn’t impose.”

“Puh-lease. You’re my houseguest now. What sort of hostess would I be if I didn’t feed you?”

“You have something beyond snack foods and beer?”

She raised her brows. “That bad?”

“Hmm, it’s not, but I’m thinking your food is probably better.”

Daniel pulled on his T-shirt and followed her through the French doors to the interior of the house. Once inside, he heaved a blissful sigh. Now this was a beach house. There was no television, no stereo, only a couch overlooking the windows, two dainty sticks of wood, which Daniel termed “female chairs,” a wall of rare books and what he guessed was really good art on the wall.

“This is a great place.”

“It’s my grandfather’s. I freeload often.”

“I bet he doesn’t mind.”

“Nah.”

She opened the refrigerator and stared inside. “Eggs, salad, tuna and some berries.”

“Very sensible.”

“I have cupcakes and chips in the pantry.”

“I won’t judge. I swear.”

“Thank you. Actually, I shouldn’t have them,” she said, skimming her hands down over her hips. It wasn’t a seductive move, but a self-conscious one. Daniel’s gaze automatically slipped lower, following her hands, and he felt something stir inside him.

A momentary flicker of heat.

Daniel looked away, and Catherine never noticed.

After lunch was over, Daniel grabbed a paperback thriller and sat out on the beach while Catherine sketched. He was curious to see her work, but she didn’t invite him to, and so he left it alone. He waited until there was a break in the karaoke next door, the lawyers driving off for dinner, and Daniel took advantage, grabbing his duffel.

No one had even noticed he’d been gone. Excellent.

When he walked through her French doors, bag in hand, she looked up from the book she was reading on the couch, as if he had disturbed her. Daniel didn’t usually second-guess himself; he didn’t have to. But this time, he did. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” he asked.

“Are you kidding? Don’t worry.”

After that, he stopped worrying and simply enjoyed himself. Dinner was great, and afterward when the shadows of evening had begun to fall, Catherine broke out a bottle of 1982 Rothschild, pouring two glasses. “Grandfather’s got a truly excellent cellar,” she told Daniel. She sat next to him on the couch, curling her legs underneath her.

The wine seemed like the perfect ending to what had been the best day he’d had in some time. Seven years, in fact. Next door might have been When Good Lawyers Go Bad, but here, with the steady sound of the ocean, the quiet of the house, the easiness of her company, Daniel felt peace.

“This has been nice,” he told her. “I appreciate it.”

“You don’t expect much. I like that,” she said, lifting her eyes to his, and Daniel promptly forgot what he was going to say. It’d been too long since he’d been in such a close setting. He could feel the heat under his collar, the slow pound in his blood and the push of his cock against what had been a loose pair of shorts until he had found himself fascinated by a set of wistful brown eyes.

Snap out of it, O’Sullivan.

Even before he could look away, Catherine did. Time for bed.

Alone.

He took a deep sip of wine and then placed it on the table, getting to his feet. “I think I’ll go to bed. Sleepy. Tired. Didn’t get much sleep last night.” He was rambling, pathetically rambling, but he needed to run and fast. The poor kid was probably completely unaware of the ideas that were suddenly flooding his brain.

Catherine uncurled herself from the sofa, and he found himself staring down the front of her bathing suit, which, up to this point, had been sensible and concealing. But now it wasn’t, nope—when a man was staring straight down her front, he saw flesh. Soft, pliable flesh. Soft, pliable bare flesh.

She lifted her gaze again, sending a shockwave through him for absolutely no reason, because it wasn’t as if she was going triple-X on him. No, this was just her being her, and he was suddenly in danger of busting a seam. For nothing. Just a set of dark eyelashes. And the breasts. The soft, pliable…okay, it was really time to leave. Past time to leave.

Daniel told himself to move, but it was too late. He’d found bottles of whiskey that were easier to escape than one single, soulful pair of shadowy brown eyes.

She rose from the couch.

His breathing stopped.

And then she kissed him.

3

DANIEL PULLED AWAY from her. “I should go,” he said, completely and utterly embarrassing her.

Oh God. She had thought…well, who cares what she thought? She’d been so caught up in the rare moment of being in the close proximity of such a man-man and now she’d blown it. Why the heck did she think he’d want to kiss her?

Talk. Yes. Sex. That’s a big No.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She was rambling. Whenever she got embarrassed, she developed a severe case of foot-in-mouth disease, which was a reason she always managed to avoid embarrassing situations.

“It wasn’t that stupid,” he answered, his eyes crinkling up nicely.

“I don’t mean that it was stupid to kiss you, I mean, you’re…” She waved a hand, searching for words, but found none, so opted for a silent adjective and stared a hole in the floor. He could figure that one out on his own. “I meant that I shouldn’t have intruded into your space without an explicit invitation. It’s rude.”

“I didn’t think it was rude,” he answered evenly, making her like him even more. He was so polite, trying to make her feel better, and she did.

“Okay, maybe not rude, but wrong.”

“It wasn’t wrong, either.”

“I shouldn’t have done it. Let’s leave it at that,” she stated, trying to extricate herself from this with some pride intact.

“No, I think you should have done it.”

At that point, as nice as his ego-bolstering was, she decided to bring him crashing back to reality. “Which is why I put the fear of God in you and you jumped?” she asked, as nicely as she could have when her words dripped with sarcasm.

He shook his head. “Not the fear of God. Something much more basic.”

His voice changed at the end, turning rough and textured. In fact, she was so caught up in this newly discovered sexualvoice experience that she almost missed the words.

Almost. Her stomach pitched and then steadied, and she wondered if he knew what he’d just done. She didn’t dare look up, but she sensed the change in the air. It wasn’t the salt of the sea or the hint of black fruit in the bouquet of the wine. This was heady and strong, and sent bright bursts of fever rushing through her.

“So this is okay?” she asked, her breath thin and forced, coming from freshly squeezed lungs.

His hand curved around her waist, his fingers stroking softly, straying into the no-man’s-land between her bare back and the elastic of her swimsuit. Her body shivered, nerve endings descending into pleasured chaos.

There was something so private, so personal about a man’s and woman’s gazes meeting, and Catherine didn’t do it often. People thought she was shy, but cowardly was the better description. In her chest, her heart thudded painfully, and slowly, questioningly, her eyes raised to his, her Odysseus. Desire darkened the gray to black smoke, and he didn’t look lonely. Not anymore. Catherine couldn’t look away. Not now. Probably not ever.

Her hand reached out, touching the cotton shirt that covered his chest. One touch, to feel him. To touch him at last.

Her palm rested flat on him, over his heart, and she could feel the heated blood pounding there.

Warm flesh was so much better than art. The hard contours of his body weren’t cold granite, or marble, but overflowed with muscle, bone and blood that called to her. She considered herself an expert on the male body in theory, but she wasn’t even close when it came to the real thing. Right now, she was shaking like a kid. Gently, he inched her toward him, until her whole body was aligned with his, sternum to sternum, pelvis to pelvis, woman to man.