Scandalous Passion

“Carter, let’s not take a trip down memory lane. It would serve no purpose.”

“Except to humor me—the one with the pictures.” Did she imagine the flash of anger in his eyes or the sarcastic twist of his lips? He tugged the towel from around his neck and dried his hips and legs. Muscles rippled with every move. In her dark-suit-and-tasteful-necktie world she didn’t get much exposure to sleek, tanned skin. Her mouth dried and her pulse couldn’t seem to find its regular rhythm.

“So you do have them?”

“Yep.” He climbed the steps of his porch and held open the door. Phoebe paused. She could refuse his invitation and perhaps never see the pictures again. No, the possible peril was too great. She had to stick with her agenda to recover and destroy the evidence of her shameful past. Lifting her chin, she swept up the stairs and into his sunny breakfast area. She felt his eyes on her backside as she passed and wished she could suck it in the way she sucked in her tummy.

“I got you wet. Sorry. Want me to toss your skirt in the dryer?”

She studied him. Did he intend the double entendre? And did he honestly expect her to hand over her skirt? “No, it’s silk. It has to be line dried.”

“I can loan you some shorts and we’ll hang your skirt out on the deck.”

She’d borrowed his clothing in the past, but she couldn’t imagine doing so today. She wasn’t the casual type any longer. Image was everything in politics. Besides, she didn’t intend to be here long enough for the fabric to dry. “No, thank you.”

“Have a seat.” He jabbed a finger toward the kitchen table. “A wet butt won’t hurt the chairs. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Carter disappeared into what looked like the laundry room at the opposite end of the kitchen, but he didn’t close the door. Phoebe could hear him moving around and her imagination rioted at the thought of him stripping off his snug racing trunks, revealing his taut buttocks and the part of him she’d spent so much time exploring. They’d shared a lot of hasty mutual stripping in their past, first in his dorm room and then at out-of-the-way hotels and on deserted back roads once she’d changed universities.

With her pulse racing, Phoebe sank into a chair at the wrought-iron glass-topped table, averted her eyes from the open door and battled an urge to fan her hot face. She hadn’t expected to still find Carter attractive, but the days of giving her heart or her body to a man were over. Carter had been her first lover, but he hadn’t been in love with her or he wouldn’t have broken her heart. She’d fooled herself once and had no intention of repeating the painful mistake of confusing sexual desire with love ever again.

Of all the people Carter Jones had expected to see standing beside his pool, Phoebe Lancaster Drew didn’t make the list.

Carter ripped off his trunks and swore as the abrupt movement sent a sharp stabbing pain up his thigh. It had been three and a half years since the accident that had ended his military career, and for the most part he was pain-free unless he did something stupid. He’d expected the wavering shadow at the pool edge to be one of his neighbors or one of his ex-Marine buddies, although the pity visits had thinned out since his new company had taken off. Thank God.

He yanked on a pair of ragged cut-off shorts and a tank top. No need to dress to impress the senator’s granddaughter. She’d written him off as her dirty secret years ago. Good enough to screw, but not to marry.

What had happened to the girl he’d fallen for? Had she even existed outside his imagination? Probably not.

Phoebe’s conservative suit and tightly twisted-up sable hair, combined with a ramrod-straight spine reminded him of the day he’d surprised her at her grandfather’s Washington, D.C., home—the day the blinders had fallen away from Carter’s eyes and his world had collapsed. The day he’d discovered Phoebe didn’t love him.

His parents had been coming stateside for his university graduation, and he’d wanted them to meet his future wife, but Phoebe hadn’t been happy to see Carter on her grandfather’s doorstep. She’d acted as if she couldn’t get him out of the house fast enough. When her grandfather had arrived, she’d shown her true colors by introducing him to the senator not as her lover or her fiancé, but as a classmate, for crissake. Her refusal to come with him to meet his parents combined with the lukewarm intro to the senator had said it all. They had no future together. He’d been nothing but a toy to Phoebe Lancaster Drew. Unimportant. Temporary. Expendable.

And now Phoebe wanted to erase what had happened between them twelve years ago. He ground his teeth and struggled to tamp down his anger. Those photographs were proof that the senator’s beautiful granddaughter had done the dirty with a mongrel military brat. Hell, if it wasn’t for the pictures, Carter probably wouldn’t believe the two of them had once been as close as lovers can be. He’d made the mistake of believing their hearts had been as connected as their bodies, but that was the gullibility of youth and inexperience for you.

He padded barefoot into the kitchen, extracted two glasses from the cabinet, then pulled a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator. He carried his load to the table, poured and slid a glass in her direction. She looked so damned rigid he wanted to bark, “At ease.”

But helping Phoebe relax wasn’t his job. Not anymore.

Settling across from her, he nodded at her murmured thanks and leaned back in his chair. Her light floral scent—the same perfume she’d worn twelve years ago—hit him with a C-130 military transport plane full of memories. He used to know every pulse point she anointed with the stuff intimately. He swigged his drink to ease the dryness in his mouth and assessed the changes in Phoebe over the rim of his glass.

She was still a beauty with her dark hair and changeable hazel-green eyes, but the fire and excitement had faded from those eyes and tension flattened the lush curve of her mouth. She looked too poised and proper, too much like a storefront mannequin for his tastes. It was almost as if someone had sucked the life right out of her, and that saddened him.

Not your problem, Jones.

“Are you happy being your grandfather’s sidekick?”

She blinked at his question. “As opposed to what?”

“Working at a museum or teaching at the university.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, apparently surprised he remembered her long-ago plans. He wished he could forget those nine months and the pain of discovering he’d never be good enough for Phoebe Lancaster Drew. Despite the fact that he was now worth millions, Carter Jones could never be a part of her old-moneyed, politically connected world.

“I’ll have time for that later.” She fingered her glass instead of meeting his gaze. The thick line of her lashes cast shadows on her smooth cheeks.

“And what about the family you once claimed to crave? Say granddad gets elected and possibly even reelected, although he’s pretty old for a second term. You’re thirty. If you wait for Wilton Lancaster to retire, you’ll be pushing forty before you get started.”

He hated the polite and insincere politician’s smile curving her lips. It did nothing to eradicate the sadness in her eyes. “I’ve decided to focus on my career. And my grandfather will be seventy when he’s inaugurated. He’s eager to break Reagan’s record of sixty-nine. Given that Granddad is in excellent health and is very active and mentally acute, a second term isn’t out of the question.”

“He’s been in office more than thirty years. He ought to retire.” And give someone more open-minded a chance. But Carter kept the last to himself.

Her long fingers curled around the glass. “What are you doing with yourself these days, Carter?”

He sipped and nodded, silently acknowledging her change of topic. She wanted chitchat? He could do chitchat. “Computers. What else?”

They’d met when he’d been assigned to tutor her in computer science during college. She’d been the first female he’d met whose eyes hadn’t glazed over when he nervously rambled on about motherboards, memory chips and hard drives. And she hadn’t laughed at him when he’d lost track of his words each time they’d accidentally brushed against each other.

“What exactly do you do with them?”

“I’m a cyber-cop.” The surprise arching her eyebrows grated on his nerves. Had she, like his father, expected him to amount to nothing? Probably. His father had always claimed Carter’s infatuation with computers would lead nowhere. Well, he’d proven good ol’ Dad wrong, hadn’t he?

“You investigate computer crimes?”

“Got it in one.”

“You must be good.” And then she flushed as if she realized that wasn’t exactly a politically correct comment. Jeez, somebody needed to loosen her up. Her candid comments had been only one of the things he used to love about her.

“I own my company, but computers aren’t the only thing I’m good at.” He flashed a carnal grin and watched another wave of peach spread from her neck over her cheeks. Teasing Phoebe had always been fun, and now that she seemed determined to ignore the passion that had once flowed between them, he took perverse pleasure in getting a rise out of her.

He set down his glass and laced his fingers over his abs. “Why should I give you the pictures, Phoebe?”

The taste of her name on his tongue made him think of hot nights and tangled sheets, of quickies in the car or anywhere else they could grab a moment’s privacy vertically, horizontally or otherwise. His pulse quickened. His inability to control his response only increased his anger. Why, dammit, did she still rev his motor? She’d been his first lover, but she hadn’t been his last. He’d been a slow starter, but he’d made up for lost time. There had been plenty of willing women, sweaty sex and tussles between the sheets since.

“I need to be certain they won’t turn up in the press.”

The insult raised his blood pressure. “You think I’d sell our pictures to the highest bidder?”

He practically could see her weighing her words. “Perhaps not, but someone else could get their hands on them and—”

“It won’t happen. The pictures are under lock and key. They have been since we said goodbye. If I didn’t sell them then, when I was seriously pis—peeved with you, I’m not likely to now.”

She wet her lips—one slick swipe of her pink tongue—and fire flickered behind his zipper. Phoebe had once had an amazingly talented mouth. She’d perfected her technique on him, and she’d allowed him the pleasure of returning the favor.

“Carter, please, let me have the pictures.”

He rocked back in his chair and steepled his hands. Tapping his bottom lip with one finger, he pretended to consider her request, but there was no way in hell he’d casually hand over the pictures for her to shred. He didn’t look at them often, hadn’t seen them since he’d moved into this house three years ago, in fact, but they represented the first time in his life when he hadn’t felt like a failure. Phoebe’s betrayal had cut deep and made him feel like a shameful dirty secret, but for a while she’d made him feel like a king.

A spark of an idea began to form. He’d been an untried boy twelve years ago when he and Phoebe lost their virginity together. Afterward they’d explored the boundaries of their newfound sexuality and shared some amazingly uninhibited sex. He hadn’t met a woman since who could ignite him to such a fever pitch or coax him into the unknown with nothing more than a naughty twinkle in her eyes. No woman in the past twelve years had pushed him beyond his rigidly imposed self-control.