Do You Love Me? Page 11

  “Pack your bags. You’re out of here.”

  The knowing grin vanished, the remarkable eyes narrowed and he dropped his hands to his sides. “We will talk about this in the morning.”

  “No. I want you gone before breakfast.”

  He regarded her for a long moment before Carol rustled forward, drawing dark looks from both combatants. “Now, Savanna, don’t be hasty.”

  She felt her eyes pop wider as she turned the hostility on her friend. “You’re the one who woke me out of a sound sleep to tell me my greaser was entertaining naked women in my pool. Surely you remember that.”

  Guiltily, Carol’s glance shifted from Savanna to Peter and back. “I was barely awake myself. What did I know?”

  Savanna turned her annoyance back on Peter. “You’re too…” She hesitated, trying to settle on an appropriate adjective, struggling to keep her eyes focused on his face, rather than the dark hair dusting his exquisite chest and stomach before it trailed into the scant bathing suit.

  He regarded her quizzically. “Too…?” He raised his eyebrows.

  Damn his innocent act. He was teasing her again. Well, she knew a button to push and he had just authorized its use.

  “That little taunt, my wetback friend, is the very last straw.”

  His jaw flexed and his eyes sparked. He cleared the last step from the pool, caught the backs of both her arms and pulled her against him.

  “Stop it! You’re getting me all wet.” She tried to push him away with her fingertips.

  “I’m your wetback friend, am I? Well, it’s about time you found out exactly how that feels, your majesty.”

  Her struggle was useless as his arms encircled her, locking her own arms at her sides. She kicked and squirmed and yelled for Carol’s help as he carried her down the deck and plunged them both into the water.

  They sank to the bottom, her body trapped beneath his. She wriggled but he wouldn’t release her. She opened her eyes just as he lowered his mouth. She turned her head to avoid the kiss, worked one arm free, planted that hand firmly against his near shoulder, and shoved with all her strength.

  He turned her around, secured her waist with one great arm and surfaced. Her nightgown had floated up and his arm circled her waist just above her panties. She came up kicking and shrieking.

  “Breathe,” he ordered, then took her under again.

  The grope was too thorough to be accidental as his hands made a full sweep of her body.

  Savanna struggled loose, surfaced, and had nearly escaped when he caught an ankle and hauled her under again.

  Playfully he let her surface only to put a massive hand on the top of her head and dunk her, again and again, laughing, his hands skimming her.

  She didn’t want to laugh, but couldn’t seem to help herself. She’d played those kinds of underwater games all her life, and as they surfaced, they spewed laughter into each other’s faces. Seeing his hilarity, however, piqued her temper again. He was enjoying this just a little too much.

  She dived and, catching him off guard, grabbed both his ankles, planted her feet for leverage and pulled.

  As he lost his footing, buckled and sank, she let her own hands make a quick survey of his form, skimming here, patting there, sliding over the outline of his torso, hers a far less detailed search than his of her.

  He grasped her hip bones with both hands, again taking advantage of his brawn to position himself so she was vulnerable. As they sank together, he buried his face between her breasts and blew. Bubbles effervesced in her face and tickled her chest, making her laugh underwater at her own ridiculous, untenable position.

  Meanwhile, he swept his hands from her waist up, thoroughly fondling both of her full, aching breasts before lifting her to the surface.

  Standing in water chest deep, breathless, some distance apart, they again laughed into each other’s eyes.

  On the deck, Carol gasped. “Savanna! Look at yourself!” She paused only a second. “You look completely naked. Wait…no…Peter, don’t you look. Close your eyes or turn around or something.”

  Instead of responding to Carol’s instructions, Peter began a slow glide, looking Savanna over as he covered the short distance to where she stood. His smile faded. “Would now be a good time for you to enumerate the many things you do not like about me, my darling?”

  She sputtered and retreated a step at a time, giggling in spite of herself as he drew closer. “Go away.” She backed all the way to the wall. Turning, lifting herself, flutter kicking, she scrambled to escape, but the wall was too high, the water too deep and the gown too cumbersome.

  Peter wrapped one arm around her middle and pulled her back, turning her to face him. He placed both hands on her waist and she clutched at his arms, bracing herself to keep from floating into him.

  A look of undisguised desire stole over his face, a look she was afraid mirrored her own. In that moment, for Savanna, their relationship changed, for it was then he appeared to see clearly that her desire for him equaled all that he declared for her.

  After a long moment, he pressed himself against her, sealing her between the pool wall and his own hard anatomy.

  Her body responded.

  Trying to force her defenses to rally, she said, “What is your problem?”

  She immediately regretted the question as his most immediate problem became clear, quickening her own eager response.

  His arousal was so pronounced that it made her at once intimidated and terribly flattered to have inspired him to such a condition. Or was it Mary Edith who deserved credit?

  As if reading her mind, he whispered, “This problem of mine has nothing to do with the neighbor’s naughty child.” He caught Savanna’s hand and guided it to the bulge in his swimsuit, ignoring her halfhearted attempt to resist.

  She excused her own reaction, rationalizing that he was forcing her, but she was curious.

  Carol shouted at them from the side. “Savanna, get out of the water. Peter, let her go right now.”

  Savanna and Peter continued gazing into each other’s eyes as he guided her hand down his swollen, straining shaft, challenging the integrity of his swimsuit.

  Marveling at his condition, she whispered, “Does that hurt?” Her question sounded academic as the engorged cock pulsed still larger against her fingertips.

  “Yes.” He gritted his teeth as he smiled, as if he were experiencing pleasurable pain. “It is a shame,” he rasped, “for one to be all dressed up with no place to go. Don’t you agree?”

  She almost smiled back at him, but squelched the impulse, and tried to arrange her face into a frown as she rolled her eyes from his. “Maybe Carol or Mary Edith…”

  “You are the one who can satisfy this hunger, my angel.” He shifted position, widening his stance until his shoulders were nearly submerged along with hers. She didn’t release the cock, which continued to throb in her hand. He looked to the heavens and groaned. At that sound, chills pebbled her arms. The area between her legs ached and twitched, warming with answering need.

  Carol continued carping into the quiet night. “Savanna, whatever you’re doing, stop it. Come out of the water at once.”

  Savanna swallowed a low moan, peering at Peter. “You’re out of line.”

  Suddenly Peter clasped his hands on top of his head, squinting down at her through slitted eyes. She continued to hold the swollen penis. When she finally forced herself to release him, he groaned again, and submerged.

  Savanna turned her full attention to Carol’s continuing harangue, her friend’s tone elevated to a shriek. “Savanna, he let you go. Come out of there this minute. Come on, now.”

  As Peter surfaced in deeper water and stroked slowly, putting distance between them, he called back over his shoulder. “My towel is on the large glass table, Carol. Put it around her.”

  Savanna swam and waded to the steps in the shallow and lifted herself out, wringing her gown. It clung, outlining her breasts, the darkened V between her legs, hugging her hips,
leaving nothing to an observer’s imagination.

  She yielded to Carol’s ministrations as her friend wrapped her in Peter’s towel, but Savanna didn’t really listen to the continuing patter. She reveled instead in the memory of their underwater shenanigans, the hardened phallus, the firm caresses, his calloused hands.

  Savanna tried but could not subdue a smile that reflected the feelings in her heart. He didn’t want Mary Edith. He wanted a fully mature woman who ripened quickly to his touch.

  Checking those pleasurable thoughts, she stiffened. She had to end this. Why, she wondered, did all her options appear to be either bad or worse?

  Chapter Twelve

  Savanna tossed and turned, feverish with the vivid memory of Peter’s caressing hands, the thrill of his fondling. She awoke again and again, breathless, perspiring, her nether regions pulsing, primed, and needy.

  Finally, after several trips to the bathroom and many sips of water, she lay determined not to think of him again. As she drifted into sleep, her hands again explored his body.

  She squirmed remembering the engorged cock throbbing beneath her fingertips. She burned, reliving the pleasure of his molding himself against her, of speaking so openly of his need.

  None of the other men in her social group had ever behaved as Peter had tonight. Not with her, anyway.

  Rolling onto her back, staring at the shadows and reflections chasing across the ceiling of her room, Savanna faced a sudden, glaring truth. She was depraved.

  Maybe, deep down, she had agreed to this project because she secretly wanted a boy toy, a gigolo of her own to play with.

  Peter himself had used the term, said people called him her gigolo. Carol, who called a spade a spade, had said the same thing.?

  She ran the fingers of both hands into her hair and rolled her head from side to side.

  He had to leave.

  She would tell him first thing in the morning. She would be firm but kind, insist he take the clothes, and the money for repairing the car, and any pay he had coming for services rendered, yard work, maintenance work on her vehicles, anything. She had to get him out of here, away from her, before she…

  Before she what? She sat up, defiant. Slowly her shoulders slumped and her chin dropped to her chest.

  She’d tell him the project wasn’t working out. Instead of modifying him into a gentleman, she was creating her own Frankenstein monster.

  Remembering how he looked in the Speedo, tears stung her eyes and she murmured, “Lord, help me be strong.” It was the first time she’d prayed in years. Peter was having even more influence than she had realized. She giggled to herself as such a ludicrous thought.

  Savanna swam her laps in her most conservative one-piece swim suit, her strokes crisp as she tried to work off some of her disappointment, or frustration, or whatever unidentified scourge was gnawing her insides.

  Carol did not appear at the breakfast table. Savanna hoped Carol’s absence would make what she had to do easier.

  Peter, on the other hand, showed up in casual slacks, jamming his arms into the sleeves of a sport shirt as he hurried across the deck.

  Savanna closed her eyes against the sight of the chest hair which trailed the middle of his flat stomach, a part of his anatomy she found devastatingly gorgeous.

  He didn’t look at her until his shirt was buttoned and he slid into his place at the table. “Good morning.” He eyed her tentatively and placed a small jeweler’s box on the table.

  “What is that?”

  “A small gift of thanks.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Peter, you don’t need to…”

  “Allow me some pleasure.”

  Now what was that supposed to mean? “All right.” She opened the lid. Two large, frivolous, gold hoop earrings winked up at her. Not at all her style. “Thank you, Peter.” She hoped she sounded appreciative.

  He gave her a knowing smile. “Wear those someday when you want to please me.”

  “Well, thank you, Peter. I’ll certainly do that. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

  “I was thinking of you when I bought them. I pictured in my mind how you would look wearing them. They are symbolic.”

  Symbolic of what? They were simple circles. She didn’t understand, but had a gnawing suspicion she shouldn’t ask. She did not intend to be distracted from the morning’s mission by trinkets.

  “Peter, I do want you to leave.” She said the words gently.

  His face sobered. “Last night, did I offend you so badly?”

  “I was not offended. I’m…”

  “If my swimming apparel is not to your liking, I will get another suit.”

  She snapped the jeweler’s box closed and fingered the velvet container. “No, it wasn’t to my liking. I didn’t care for your Speedo.”

  “I found it in the cabana.”

  She had never seen any male guest in her pool wear that. Perhaps she had and it just hadn’t looked the same on another man.

  “I did not buy a swimsuit for myself when we shopped,” Peter continued. “I thought I had already imposed too much on your generosity.”

  “What? I told you that day to buy yourself a bathing suit.”

  He looked directly into her eyes. “No. Carol told me to do so. You did not.”

  “Well, I wish you had. The one you wore last night is too…skimpy.”

  “Yes, and I could see by your face that you disapproved. It embarrassed you to see so much of me.”

  To see so much of him? How about the way he had forced her to touch him?

  Well, maybe forced was too strong a word.

  She shook her head as he continued regarding her in his usual frank, unabashed way. She could tell by the look on his face he was trying to read her thoughts. She would sidestep that pit.

  “I’m afraid your attire may have been too provocative for Mary Edith. So much of you on display must be what lured her over here.”

  His expression didn’t change, nor did his eyes waver. “She has expressed a sexual interest in me since the day I arrived, regardless of my clothing.”

  Savanna studied him solemnly, her thoughts off on another tangent. “Have you returned her interest?”

  His somber eyes held hers. “I have not.”

  “I would understand if you had. She’s young and attractive and obviously wants to spend time with you. It was clear last night that she…ah…stimulated you.”

  He allowed a slow smile as his gaze recaptured hers. “Yes, I was aroused, as you know, but my condition had nothing to do with Miss Fletcher’s unspoken promises.”

  Savanna knew her puzzlement showed in her face. He lowered his voice. “My body responds to you, Savanna, whether I am looking at you with my eyes, or only the image of you in my mind. I did not sleep well last night, my darling, tormented by constant thoughts of you. What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Did you sleep peacefully with no thoughts of me?”

  She shook her head, trying to empty it of the images that had plagued her through the night. His stunning eyes burned into her as he waited for a response. She needed to change the subject. “Mary Edith is wealthy in her own right. She inherited from her grandparents on her mother’s side. If it’s the money…”

  “Money does not motivate me, Savanna.” He gave her a sympathetic smile. “You do, my darling, just as I have told you many times in many ways.”

  It couldn’t be true. Could this astounding man sincerely be interested in her as a person?

  No. When he took her into the pool, he was getting even for the epithet. His behavior was fair recompense for her shrewish tongue.

  She glanced up to find him staring at her as if he were waiting for a response.

  “I don’t want to play this game with you, Peter. We agreed from the beginning to be honest with one another.”

  He snorted and surveyed the deck, the pool and the house. “I like living in this fine place. I do not want to le
ave.” He leveled the roving gaze at her. “I do not want to go away from you.” He drew a ragged breath. “I will do whatever you say. Behave…”

  She raised a hand to stop him, angry with herself for having caused the pain she saw in his face, the capitulation she heard in his voice. She had to change her approach. “Peter, we can’t have women breaking into the place at all hours of the night.”

  “One woman.” His expression darkened. “You say you want to be fair, then be fair. Mary Edith Fletcher is not many women ramming the gate. She may have seen me as an opportunity to quiet her hormonal urgings. I have lured no other women into your home or your pool. I have had no women in my bed, nor have I lusted after any other.” He took a breath and shuddered, releasing it as he whispered, “Only you, Savanna.”

  She thought of Carol, definitely a woman enticed by him onto Savanna’s property. Although she had stayed over a night or two when it had gotten late or she had been drinking, and the 30 miles home seemed too far. Carol had never before expressed an interest in spending a week in her home.

  Looking into his face, she braced herself as he continued speaking. There was a warning in his gaze. “What of your hormones, Savanna Cavendish? Could I be of some assistance in dealing with those?”

  She glared, but her thinly disguised annoyance seemed to please him and he flashed the knowing little smirk she had grown to hate. She looked away, not willing to reward his cunning guess with a reply. When she looked back, his expression was again serious as he addressed her.

  “We are making progress with our project. You are a fine teacher, far more patient than I deserve. You know many things that benefit me. Please do not deny me knowledge you possess when I want and need it so badly.”

  That was a smart approach, this guilt trip tack, suggesting it might be greedy of her to hoard other advantages her wealth provided. She took a breath and set her jaw.

  He wasn’t outflanking her. She recognized his strategy. Still, it was an astute approach for him to take. Obviously, he knew it.

  She’d come this far. She had never considered herself a quitter. She had an idea, one that would set a deadline to end this fiasco in a specific amount of time and a deadline might make things easier.