She linked her hands behind his neck, easing back so that she could see his face in the falling light. "You wanted to tear my clothes off again."
"I'm still thinking about it, so behave yourself."
"I wanted to tear yours off, too. I wonder what that would feel like, to just rip away at your clothes, and… bite you. Sometimes I just want to sink my teeth into your—"
"Shut up." In defense, he cupped her head and pulled it to his shoulder again. "I think I've created a monster."
"I don't know about that, but you sure hit the switch. I like it." She laughed again and arched back so that she was floating from the waist up. "Let's come back here tonight when everyone's asleep and go skinny-dipping and make love in the water. Then we'll go for a walk on the cliffs and make love there, just like Seraphina and Felipe."
She rose up again, water streaming from her. "Let's do something crazy."
He was about to do something crazy just then, when he caught the sound of footsteps on the path, and movement. Subtly, he hoped, he changed his grip, hoping he wasn't holding any inappropriate part of the daughter of the house.
"Laura?" Susan Templeton's brows shot up into her spiky bangs. She didn't consider herself to be a woman who was easily surprised, but it certainly rocked her to see her daughter clinging to a man in the pool with the look of a woman who had recently been thoroughly aroused still on her face.
"Mom?'' Shock came first, then the heat in her cheeks from embarrassment. She wiggled, but Michael held firm. Neither of them knew if it was out of stubbornness or habit. "You're here."
"Yes. I am."
"But you were supposed to be here tomorrow."
"We finished up our business a little early." She spoke smoothly. But then, she was a smooth woman. Small and delicately built like her daughter, she looked young and chic in her Valentino traveling suit, her dark blond hair capped gamine style around a sharp, interested face.
"We thought," she said with a faint edge of amusement, "that we'd surprise you. I think we succeeded."
"Yes. I was just—we were… How was the trip?" Laura ended lamely.
"Fine." Manners polished to a high sheen, Susan stepped forward, smiled. "It's Michael, isn't it? Michael Fury?"
"Yeah." With a jerk of his head he tossed his wet hair back. "Nice to see you again, Mrs. Templeton."
Chapter Fifteen
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"If I'd known you were coming in this evening, I'd have held dinner, called the rest of the family." Composed now, and dry, Laura sat beside her father in the parlor.
"We ate on the plane." Thomas patted her hand. He was, thanks to his wife's discretion, blissfully unaware of what his daughter had been doing in the pool an hour earlier. "And we'll see everyone tomorrow. I swear, those girls have grown a foot since Christmas."
"It seems like." Laura sipped brandy. Her mother was upstairs putting the girls to bed, at her insistence. It postponed the questions, Laura knew. Didn't eliminate them. "They're so excited that you're here. We didn't think you'd be back until summer."
"Got to see our Katie girl," he told her. Only one of the reasons, he mused. But it would do well enough. "Imagine, our little Kate having a baby."
"She's glowing. I know it's a cliché, but she really is. She and Byron go around beaming all the time. Oh, and wait until you see J. T. Oh, Dad, he's so perfect. He's sitting up now, and he laughs all the time. Those wonderful belly laughs. I could just eat him up." She curled her legs up, studied him over the rim of her snifter. "And how are you?"
"Fit and fine."
It was no less than true. He was a handsome man, one who didn't take his health for granted and disciplined himself with exercise and interests. He wasn't one who took his business or his success for granted; he watched over things with a shrewd and focused eye. Nor did he take his family for granted—he kept them close in heart and mind.
The result was a firm body, still lanky in his fifties, a face that had lived well and accepted the lines and dents of time with gratitude. His eyes were smoke, like his daughter's, and the silver in his hair glinted richly in the lamplight.
"You don't look fit and fine," she said and smiled when his brow knit. "You look dashing."
"And you look happy."
It relieved him, but he worried at the cause. Was it, as Annie had prophesied darkly, a transitory state attributable to Michael Fury? Or was his little girl finally finding her feet again?
"You're taking some time for yourself again?"