Page 28 of A Lone Star Love Affair
“We have to stop now,” she finally told him, swimming away from him and looking for her top. She found it floating at the edge of the pool. While she pulled it on with her back to him, he swam up to her to kiss her nape.
She turned to him. “Let’s get out and go have that drink.”
His dark eyes devoured her, making her heart hammer even when she tried to resist reaching for him. She was telling him one thing, wanting another badly.
“Sure,” he said, turning to swim away to climb out on the other side of the pool.
Trying to remember the reasons she should withstand his appeal, she swam after him. Now she knew why she had succumbed so easily that college night. He had turned on the charm at the party, his later kisses and seduction impossible to resist.
He waited beside a lawn chair with a navy towel wrapped around his waist. She climbed out, aware of his steady gaze on her, knowing he was still aroused, ready for love and wanting her.
Every inch of her tingled and her pulse still raced. She pulled on a T-shirt and stepped into her shorts, conscious of Tony’s fiery attention.
He embraced her. “I want you, but I know how eager and passionate you can be when you lose your reluctance. I’ll wait because I want you that way, with no worries about consequences, wanting to love as much as I do. I remember our night together.”
She suffered both relief and disappointment with his declaration. He kissed her again and she couldn’t hold back. Even though she was on fire with need, she wasn’t going to go into a relationship that could tear up her world. If only she could hold to that stance.
Later, she stopped him. “I want to dress and then I’ll meet you for that drink.”
“Let’s go. I’ll walk you to your suite and wait while you change. Unless I can help.”
Her head snapped around and then she smiled, realizing he was teasing, perhaps trying to lighten the moment between them.
“You can go to my suite with me and wait, but I don’t need your help. Or you can go change and I’ll meet you.”
He nodded, smiling at her, but his eyes still burned with longing, keeping the tension high. “Meet me in the lobby. How long?”
“Give me half an hour.”
He nodded. They had reached her door and she unlocked it.
He gazed at her with desire. “I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”
She closed the door and hurried to shower and dress while her thoughts spun. Still surprised that he had flown to San Diego just to see her, the past hour replayed in her thoughts. He wanted an affair. Physically, she wanted the same. She was attracted to him, more than to any other man she had known, yet Tony would be the most disastrous man to become entangled with no matter how she viewed their relationship or the scenarios she played out in her imagination. She wanted marriage. Tony didn’t. Even without marriage, she didn’t want to give her heart to a man whose deepest love was his work. A thorough workaholic, Tony was driven to make money. She didn’t want any kind of intimate relationship with a man whose thoughts were on his work most of the time. A man whose work came first always. It was a simple situation, but a resolution wasn’t easy.
As Isabelle stepped out of the shower, she continued to weigh her options. Have an affair, maybe he would fall in love. For over hundreds of years, how many women had fooled themselves with that reasoning?
She dried her hair and began to dress in a conservative navy blouse and slightly flared matching skirt.
An affair would put off chances of meeting someone who had marriage in mind. An affair with Tony would complicate her life at work. He didn’t seem to think so, but he owned everything. It was his company. Even if he succumbed to marriage, he didn’t want a family and she did and therein was the strongest reason of all to keep Tony out of her life.
There was no happy solution in a relationship with him except the satisfaction of lust.
Go have the drink, let him politely know his trip was for nothing and get him out of your life, she told herself. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror as she twisted her hair to clip it on top of her head. There would be no politely brushing aside a man as dynamic and determined as Tony. So far, she wasn’t getting the message across to him at all.
She looked at herself, hoping she looked poised, cool, reserved. By this time Sunday night she would be back in Dallas and, hopefully, she and Tony would part ways except at work.
All the way to the lobby, she kept telling herself to keep their time together short and then go her separate way. Her lips still felt his kisses, as well as his hands on the rest of her. She couldn’t forget and there was nothing easy about dealing with him. Right now, her heartbeat raced, because in minutes she would be with him again.
When she entered the lobby he was waiting. His knit shirt and chinos were casual. The look in his eyes was not. Passion was a flame still detectable.
Her heart jumped as she smiled at him. He took her arm to steer her toward the elevators.
“I’m still surprised you flew out here.”
“I’d hoped you would be,” he said as they went to a small bar on the ground floor of the hotel. A few couples danced to piano music. Tony found a table in a corner. After they had ordered drinks, he held her hand to dance.
The moment they touched, her heartbeat sped up. “This is better,” Tony said, pulling her closer. “I’ve wanted you in my arms and I’ve waited all week. Isabelle, I’ve found you again and I don’t want to let you go.”
