Megan's mouth went dry. She dared not look at Josh.
Greg pulled to a stop outside the bungalow, which Megan decided was misnamed. “Cottage” couldn't begin to describe the enchanting quadraplex of apartments.
“Mrs. Lambert,” Greg said, opening one door with a key and a flourish before standing aside. She went into the suite, which was decorated in blue, beige, and peach. From the bathroom, with its sunken tub, to the bedroom, with the king-sized bed and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Atlantic, no detail had been overlooked. As soon as Greg had pointed out some of the more unique amenities and deposited her two bags in the dressing room, he left to show Josh to his adjacent apartment.
Left alone, Megan walked to the wide windows and opened the sheer curtains. A broad expanse of lawn extended from a private terrace outfitted with comfortable patio furniture. The grass was strewn with pine needles, which had fallen from the trees that separated her “yard” from the white beach.
It was a place made for lovers, a setting to appeal to all the senses, and she knew that if she weren't careful she would be doomed by this scheme of her own making.
As though her mind had conjured up his image, Josh was suddenly standing on her terrace, having walked around the wall separating it from his. Without thinking, she unlocked the sliding glass door, and he stepped inside.
“Forgive me for using the back door,” he said. He didn't smile. His eyes were busy cataloging each feature of her face.
“That's all right. How's your room?” she asked on a thread of breath.
“Empty.”
They came together in a sudden rush of movement. His mouth clamped over hers, while his hands scaled her back. A rowdy tongue destroyed her logic as it investigated her mouth with undeterred purpose.
“For once we're alone in a private place. There's no one to interfere. I don't want anything between us,” he breathed against her neck as he divested her of the white jacket.
With no resistance from her, he walked them toward the bed. When they fell upon the quilted spread, her arms were looped around his neck, her hands in his hair as grasping and eager as his. He covered her only partially, giving himself space to explore.
With more discipline than she could credit herself with at the moment, he pulled the silk shell from the waistband of her slacks. The skin of his palm sliding over her ribs set every nerve in her body into bedlam. When his hand closed over her breast, she arched her back and cried his name softly against his lips.
“I've never forgotten how you feel.” He took pleasure in her full breasts, which swelled over the lacy cup of her bra. His hand rotated over her slowly until her budding desire was cupped in the center of his palm. “Megan,” he said hoarsely, “unbutton my shirt Touch me before I die.”
Her willing, anxious, eager fingers complied. She combed through the fine hair spread over the hard muscles and ribs. His breath stilled, then was expelled on an anguished moan. “Yes, yes,” he growled before welding his lips to hers again.
The front clasp of her bra fell away. Like a blind man, he educated his fingers to the feel of her. The softly rising mounds, smooth flesh, and delicate peaks were stroked, petted, smoothed, teased by his curious fingers, which demanded to know all of her. He enticed her nipples to heightened passion with his skillful thumb.
“Josh, Josh,” she whispered.
His other hand fumbled with the button and zipper of her slacks. As if ready to do his bidding, they came undone. The swathe of lace in the shape of panties provided little barrier to his sweet exploration. And then he was there, touching her, exciting her, arousing her with an undaunted intimacy that she knew should be forbidden, but which she couldn't deny him or herself.
It wasn't until he began to grapple with the zipper of his trousers and she felt the weight of his body lowering onto hers that she realized with stark clarity what would happen next.
She panicked.
It wasn't time. She hadn't set her ruse up properly. She had never meant it to go this far.
She began to struggle, and he ceased his movements immediately. “Megan?” he asked tenderly. “Megan, what is it? What's the matter?”
She groped for a plausible excuse why they couldn't make love right then. She said the first thing that popped into her mind. “James. I … we're betraying James.”
Six
There was only a heartbeat between the gentle kisses he had been planting on her for
ehead and the abrupt rising of his head. She had succeeded in jarring him out of his passionate daze. That it was taxing his willpower in the extreme was evidenced by his rapid, ragged breathing.
She knew he was looking at her, willing her to open her eyes, but she couldn't risk letting him see the truth—that she regretted calling a halt as much as he did. Instead she squeezed her eyes shut, until twin tears eked out from beneath her has and rolled down her cheeks.
He raised himself off her and left the bed. The quiet rasp of his zipper being refastened in the silent room was as obnoxious as fingernails raking down a blackboard.
For a long while Megan lay perfectly still on her back, with her eyes closed. She wished he would just leave without saying anything. Her greatest desire was to curl into a ball, to bury herself, to wallow in regret. She regretted ever having met him, danced with him, kissed him the night before she got married.
She regretted ever having consented to come here. If she'd been more adamant, Doug wouldn't have forced her to come. He knew how stubborn she could be. She could have worn him down by insisting she simply had too much work to do.