Ocean of Love by Susan D. Taylor

excuses to keep fighting
her primal need to be with this man. What was the point, she asked
herself, unable to remember for a moment why she’d believed letting
him take possession of her body was wrong.
    Marissa gripped the table with her fingers.
She needed a drink. A glass of wine. She was ready to drink the
entire bottle, plus the ice and water in the bucket.
    “ My God, your skin is
flushed. Are you sunburned?” He pulled up a chair next to her seat,
and sat close enough so that their arms brushed up against one
another.
    “ No. The room is a bit
warm.” She closed her eyes to keep from yelling,
“ Uncle.”
    “ I don’t think it’s the
room. Here, try a glass of wine.”
    She heard him get up. She felt him brush his
fingertips across the top of her hand.
    Her eyes snapped open. She instinctively
turned her face and for a millisecond she held his gaze rooted to
the chair. “Ice,” she said. “Please, something to tone down this
heat.”
    “ Sweet Jesus.” He stared
back into her face.
    She croaked, “May I have a glass of ice
water? I didn’t drink much water today.” She imagined sitting below
a stream of cool water and exhaled.
    “ Good idea.” He leaned
over, pouring mineral water from a dark green bottle into a glass
filled with ice. The bubbles danced at the edge. He held the glass
to her lips. “Drink.”
    She took the glass in her hand and leaned
back, as far away from him as she could without falling off the
chair.
    “ Oh no, you don’t.” He
moved toward her, swiftly, gathering her as the chair
tipped.
    He must think she was a freak. This was
turning out to be the exact polar opposite of what she had
envisioned. Forget a love life. Her career would be threatened if
she continued on this collision course. The harder she tried to
avoid him, the more she chanced doing a face-plant into the floor.
Three times was no charm. One more time, and he’d salute her
goodbye.
    “ I’m better.” She bit her
lip, glancing back at him, wondering what he’d taste like. Or how
the skin at his jaw would feel under her lips. Never had she come
this close to taking a chance.
    “ I brought the information
concerning the properties. Everything.” She breathed heavily and
handed him a folder. “Apex Broker’s Report as you requested. We
should get some work done.”
    “ You never quit do you?
Well, then let’s get to it. Business first,” he said.
    “ It’s what you wanted.
We’ve got a great plan. I think if you let me, we can move quickly
through the information. But can we sit across from one
another?”
    She’d taken the damned high road, not
the seductive, dark, sensuous road she longed to drag this man
down. Marissa lifted her chin, staring into his eyes.
    One of his arms rested on the back of her
chair. With the other he rubbed his forehead, nodding before he
stood, and crossed to his side of the table.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    He’d not last through the first glass of
wine if this was any indication of how and where the evening was
headed. My God, his lust thundered, fiery from the feel of her
skin. Her proximity had him reeling.
    How would he even manage controlling the
urge to kiss her at this rate? She was so damn alluring and he was
at a loss. Other women tempted him with seductive clothing,
flirtatious smiles, a display of flesh. Not this woman. She came to
him tonight in clothing better suited to a Quaker’s grandmother.
She hid each inch of skin as though she were a miser of flesh.
    He studied the folder. The silver-stamped
letters spelling out Apex. He caught sight of her slender fingers
tapping against the table. “Wine?” he asked.
    “ Yes, please.” He combed
fingers through his hair, and picked up the wine bottle. He poured
a sample into her glass.
    “ Tell me what you think.”
He waited for her reaction. The curve of her breasts pushed against
her blouse. She gazed back at him over the crystal goblet. Try as
she might, pile on the blankets,