T is for Temptation by Jianne Carlo Read Free Book Online

mass coating his hands served as a brief impediment, and he spun around to investigate the peculiar phenomenon when the loud thrumming of powerful engines met his ears. Jake spotted Tee in the boat, hopping over a tackle box to unsnarl the docking ropes. A quick choice had to be made, so he jogged down the wooden pier and barely jumped onto the boat’s deck before the cruiser blasted into full throttle.
    Strong whipping air slicked the hair back from his face, renting his skin with stinging licks. With considerable difficulty, he made his way to where Tee stood behind the wheel, almost losing his balance as the boat slapped through the Remous current she described earlier. As they rounded the craggy promontory, Jake spotted the fishing trawler listing in the waves, sliding close to shipwreck-dangerous gray boulders.
    “What can I do?” he shouted into her ear, realizing the urgency of the situation.
    “I’ll line the boat up as close as I can to him,” she yelled as she squinted at the other vessel.
    Foam-crested waves walloped the gleaming yellow sides of the boat, and he grabbed the metal rail near the curved plastic windshield to stabilize his unsteady strides.
    “Twist the towing line in the back into the grappling hook and tie both ropes together. You can do a sailor’s knot?”
    He nodded.
    “Get going on it, and then throw it to him. Hurry, we don’t have much time.”
    They worked in unison, Tee giving cryptic, concise instructions while he relayed them to the caretaker. It took neck-bunching minutes before they secured the two ships together, and Tee edged the engine’s speed up a notch at a time as the trawler swung away from the rocks and followed in their wake.
    The cruiser drew a semicircle in the rough waters, a wave trough dipped the boat, and he stumbled. Regaining his balance as they completed the U-turn, out of the corner of one eye, Jake caught the caretaker’s gaze, and he recoiled at the blaze of seething rancor the man barely kept in check. Not fifteen feet separated the two vessels, and the flash of insolent malice from the caretaker couldn’t be mistaken. The man had it in for him for some reason, or maybe for Tee. He followed the caretaker’s gaze. Since they stood parallel to each other, it could be either of them. Jake filed the observation for further analysis.
    They conducted the twenty-minute ride back to the yacht club in complete silence. Hostility radiated with Tee’s every abrupt movement, and distracted by her sullen mood, Jake focused on regaining lost momentum, making up with her. Uncertain, unconvinced she and the caretaker didn’t have some sort of connection, he had to admit one salient, intractable fact; she’d been a virgin scant minutes ago, so they couldn’t be involved physically.
    Jesus, thinking about Tee’s reactions to his lovemaking had him hard from inhale to exhale, one breath, one second. In his fantasies, they made slow, luxurious love, and he brought her to the point over and over until she begged, pleaded for release.
    He snorted. She’d climaxed upon penetration, mewling, “Oh my,” but the words echoed around the bay, and he’d lost control.
    By the time a huge trailer dragged the caretaker’s boat onto dry land, his tension matched Tee’s collected anger, and not a single brilliant resolution to their impasse came to mind.
    “I need to get back to the Main House,” she said, marching through the club’s opening glass doors. “I’ll call a cab. I’m sure you have business matters to deal with.”
    Tee disappeared past wooden doors with the words Ladies’ Lockers carved into them.
    He followed her in.
    At the far right end of the locker room, three women in various stages of undress emitted a sequence of shrieks, gasps, and squeals. A swift survey to the left showed a low bench opposite shower curtains and farther down a series of gleaming metal toilet stalls. Jake propped one foot on a burnished wooden bench away from the women’s