The Heiress. Cathy Gillen Thacker

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СКАЧАТЬ it mattered to her at all, but she had not wanted Jack to be there for any reason other than genuine concern for her, and what she was going through. Realizing that wasn’t the case, or anywhere near it, she strode past him, her temper climbing with every second that passed, and headed for the refreshment cove, located on the outside of the main lodge. The covered, concrete-floored portico had an ice dispenser and vending machines containing snacks and beverages. She put in her change, pushed one button. Nothing happened. She punched her fist against the next and the next. Finally, on the fourth try, a can of root beer—which she detested—tumbled through the machine and out of the slot. Daisy picked it up and popped open the top. Aware of Jack loitering just behind her, she held it to her lips and drank a big gulp of the sweet icy-cold liquid.

      She wiped the excess moisture off her lips with the back of her hand, and slowly turned around to face him. Wordlessly, he moved by her, and put some change into the machine, too. He also got a can of root beer. Looking content to be there all night, if need be, he popped the top and took a sip.

      Daisy didn’t know why Jack was getting to her—maybe it was the way he kept watching over her in that infuriatingly calm and deliberate manner—but she was determined to get a rise out of him. It was the only way, she calculated with a certain weary reluctance, she would ever get rid of him. And that was what she wanted most of all, because she didn’t like seeing herself and her inability to control her feelings reflected in his eyes. “It’s not going to work, you know,” she told him sassily as she leaned against the weather-beaten wooden post.

      “What?” Jack asked, taking up a position opposite her.

      Her throat unaccountably dry, Daisy watched him take another lazy drink of root beer. “You’re not going to win Tom Deveraux’s approval this way.” She looked him over from head to toe before returning her taunting gaze, ever so vampishly, to his eyes. “That is what this is about, isn’t it?” she queried softly, refusing to accept defeat, knowing this was one—maybe the only—battle she would win. “Your running interference with me for Tom, is simply a way to get in his good graces, to make him think of you as something more than an employee.”

      Jack’s broad shoulders expanded against the starched cotton fabric of his white shirt. “Why would you think I would be interested in that?” he asked gruffly.

      Knowing she had hit a nerve, Daisy rolled her eyes and continued goading him relentlessly. “Come on. It was all over your face tonight when we were at the Deveraux mansion.” The look in Jack’s eyes, as they had stood outside, had matched what Daisy had been feeling, not just at that moment, but all her life—like she was the little match girl, looking in. Wishing she could join the party. And feel loved and wanted. Like she belonged in such a warm and wonderful place. Only it couldn’t have been that wonderful after all, she reminded herself firmly, or Tom wouldn’t have stepped out on Grace. He wouldn’t have slept with Iris and, in the process, both made a baby and destroyed the happiness of his family.

      “What was on my face?” Jack shifted his weight restlessly, abruptly looking as on edge and ready to do combat as she.

      Raw emotion. The kind of vulnerability that was missing now that he had his guard up once again. Determined to pierce his armor the way he so easily seemed able to get through hers, Daisy taunted him softly, “You were mortified that you weren’t able to keep me from crashing that Deveraux family party tonight. You were afraid that Tom was going to be ticked off at you—which he clearly was. So now you’re trying to make it up to him by keeping me in your line of vision.”

      To her disappointment, Jack didn’t even try to deny it. “You could have tried harder to lose me,” he said, as if he could have cared less how the evening turned out.

      “Maybe I didn’t want to,” Daisy baited Jack lazily. “Maybe I was curious.”

      The muscles in his shoulders and chest becoming more pronounced, Jack drained his root beer and tossed the can into the trash barrel next to the soda machine. He turned back to her, his expression grim. “About what?” he demanded curtly.

      Daisy rubbed her bare toes against the cool concrete. She knew sparring with Jack this way was dangerous. But she couldn’t help it. She needed an outlet for her anger and frustration. Like it or not, this was it. “How far you’d go—or not go, as the case might be—to please Daddy Dearest. For instance—” Able to see she was getting to Jack at long last, Daisy let her lips curve in a soft, goading smile and tossed her soda can, too. “Would you deny yourself a chance to sleep with me?” Ignoring the racing of her heart and the weak funny feeling in her knees, Daisy held Jack’s eyes and undid the string tie at the back of her neck. When he didn’t move—didn’t react in any way—she reached behind her recklessly and released the zipper on her sundress.

      Jack’s expression grew even grimmer, more forbidding. Although obviously aroused, he was not in the least bit amused by her antics. “Don’t do this,” Jack said.

      “Why not?” Wanting to annoy him the way he had her, Daisy pushed the fabric past her hips, and stepped out of it. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. “Am I getting to you?”

      His eyes narrowed. “Put your dress back on,” he ordered roughly.

      “I don’t think so.” Daisy reached for the clasp on her strapless bra.

      He caught her hand before she could undo it. Perspiration beaded on his temple. “This won’t help your situation.”

      Daisy laughed, softly and bitterly. “You mean it won’t help you to be caught sleeping with the boss’s other daughter.”

      His fingers gently encircling her wrist, he forced her hand down between them. “It wouldn’t help either of us,” he said sternly.

      More tired than she could ever say, of being told what to do, think, even feel, Daisy replied back, “We’ll just see about that.” And before Jack Granger could respond, she stood on tiptoe, wrapped her free hand around the back of his neck, tilted his head down and pressed her lips to his.

      CHAPTER THREE

      JACK KNEW he could get fired for this, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from responding to the fervor of her soft lips, any more than Daisy seemed able to put an end to what she was doing. Not that Jack hadn’t known going into this assignment that Daisy Templeton was wild and reckless to a fault. But this was something different, Jack realized as Daisy flattened the softness of her breasts against his chest as she kissed him. Even through the starched cotton of his shirt, and the transparent lace of her bra, he could feel her nipples budding, her skin heating.

      “No,” he said, tearing his mouth from hers. Afraid of what might happen if he didn’t call a halt to this, and soon, he took her abruptly by the shoulders. Doing his best to keep his eyes from straying lower, to the tempting curves spilling out of her next-to-nothing underclothes, he forced her inside, to the safety of her cabin. “No.”

      The misery pouring out of her faded, ending the possibility that she might just burst into tears and get rid of her pent-up emotions that way. As Daisy locked glances with Jack, hurt flashed in her eyes, then defiance. And unbelievably, Jack knew he was in an even worse quandary than before. He was the protector here, the defender. Not the man who took advantage…of any woman in turmoil.

      “Okay.” Daisy smiled fiendishly and stepped back, reached behind her once again, and successfully unfastened her bra. She whisked it off and let it drop to the floor.

      Jack immediately grew hard as a rock—like never before. He swallowed again, his whole body СКАЧАТЬ