“Ooh, I like the sound of that.” She rubbed her hands together and reminded herself he was joking. “Where are we going?”
He grinned. “You’ll see.”
She kicked her sandals off and curled her legs beneath her. “I can’t wait.”
He studied her intently. His admiring gaze never left her face. “You look sexy in those lenses.”
She couldn’t doubt his sincerity and the compliment soothed her bruised feelings from earlier. “Thank you.”
His fingers brushed her bare shoulders, skimming the flesh her halter exposed, and she trembled. “That top is something else, too. Or should I say it’s the body beneath it that’s so spectacular.”
She laughed. “You can say whatever you want as long as you keep those compliments coming.”
“That’s no hardship, sweetheart.”
Her heart lodged in her throat. She couldn’t let his sweet-talking words go to her head. “Don’t you think we ought to get going before someone sees us looking and acting less than businesslike?”
“As usual you’ve got a point.” He shifted gears into drive, put his foot to the pedal and they hit the road. “And speaking of business, what’s going on with Rogers?”
Mallory shrugged. “He thinks he’s on to something. He’ll be in touch.”
“Soon, I hope. Lederman’s stalling is making me crazy. John Waldorf says things at the office are status quo and they’re handling his most recent business—no mention of Nantucket but it may be too new. We’ll see.”
She nodded. “But it’s all moot for the day anyway.”
“So let’s put it behind us for now, yes?”
She grinned. “Yes.” A day alone with Jack. She could handle that.
She’d let down her hair for his benefit and as the car picked up speed, the warm wind blew the longer pieces wildly around her face. She reveled in the freedom as he drove with one hand and laced his fingers through the strands with the other.
The sensual tugging on her scalp felt wickedly good. She leaned her head against the seat, shut her eyes and gave herself over to the sensation of the wind and his hands playing a seductive dance in her hair and against her skin.
“This is heaven,” she said aloud.
“Just wait till we reach our destination.”
Almost forty minutes of bliss and comfortable silence later they turned onto a road that ran parallel to the beach and boasted huge estates on the water.
Mallory peered through her sunglasses at the mansions, replete with gates, security systems and too many rooms to possibly count. Each one had a magnificent view. With the sun high in the blue sky and not a cloud in sight, the water seemed to go on forever.
Leaning closer to him for a better view out his side, his potent, masculine scent assaulted her senses. It was all she could do not to cuddle close. Thank heavens for the gear shift, she thought, which protected her from her baser impulses.
“Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live in one of those homes?” she asked instead.
His grunt let her know exactly what he thought of that question. “I grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in the city. One of those places was never within the realm of possibility.” His jaw clenched, making her think she’d hit a nerve.
She quickly changed the subject. “Well, I grew up in the suburbs. We used to go to Cape Cod and Rhode Island for a few weeks during the summers—as soon as sleep-away camp ended, which was how they got rid of me during the bulk of the summer.”
She shifted in her seat and glanced out the window at the ocean beyond. “My parents would drop me at an aunt’s house while they took off shopping or sightseeing. “‘You stay home, Mallory. You’re too young toappreciate antiques,’” she said in a perfect imitation of her mother.
“She sounds charming.”
“Cool is more like it. They both were. After dropping me off, they’d take these romantic drives around the beach or into town. I know this because it’s all my mother would talk about when they finally got back hours later—sometimes days if the whim struck.”
His assessing eyes bore into hers before he turned his focus back to the road. “You hated being left out.”
She gripped her forearms tight, hugging herself against the memories that surfaced as hard and strong as the ocean current. “I hated being the third wheel, which I was whether I was dragged along with them or left behind.”