do long-term, at all. Two to three dates max was about all he could manage. He wasn’t a stranger to sex but didn’t use that as a reason to scope out women either. No, Max was not the normal Donovan on the inside. On the outside was another story entirely. Then again, he knew that people were going to see what they wanted to see in a person. So the reputation preceded him, that didn’t mean he had to live up to it.
It was a warm afternoon so since he’d worked for the better part of the day, Max decided to take a little time for himself. Leaving his room, he took a back staircase that led down to the first floor and a door that opened right up to the large pool at the back of the house. The water looked refreshing in the early summer heat of South Carolina. So, after dropping his towel on a lounge chair, he wasted no time diving in.
He was swimming underwater when a pair of legs caught his attention. Heading directly for them, he surfaced and was rewarded once again with one of the prettiest smiles he’d ever seen.
“Hi, again,” she said with a little chuckle.
“Hello.” Max grinned, a quick punch of lust landing in his gut. Was there anything this woman wore that didn’t look absolutely sinful?
Her bikini top was a deep purple color this time, cupping high, full breasts that had his mouth watering. Through the crystal clear water he could see a skimpy bottom and swallowed to keep from drooling like a horny teenager.
“Great minds must think alike,” he said.
“They must.”
“I thought you were writing.”
“It was too hot. I wanted to come outside, enjoy some of the scenery. Well, enjoy the pool.” She laughed.
“I hear you, I couldn’t resist it either.”
“You have great form,” she said.
He looked a little lost for a minute so she amended her words. “I watched you dive in. Do you swim often?”
He grinned. “Yeah. I try to hit the gym every day. A swim always follows my workout. What about you? How often are you at the gym?”
“How’d you know I go to the gym?” she wondered.
He took her wrist, lifted her arm out of the water into the air. “This type of toning is not natural. So whatever you’re doing in the gym, keep it up. You have a terrific body.”
If she were hot from the temperature outside, Max Donovan had just wracked up the degrees with that comment. Deena had watched a little more than just his diving form when he’d joined her in the water.
She’d seen him the moment he stepped from the house. His trunks weren’t anything fancy, but gave her a terrific view of his muscled thighs. A bare chest had every nerve in her body tingling and great biceps sort of topped the entire package off. He looked good but didn’t carry himself like he knew he looked good. She liked that. A lot.
“Thanks,” she responded. “You’re not too bad yourself.” She was trying to sound nonchalant, like she swam with gorgeous guys with enticing bedroom eyes all the time. Not!
They frolicked in the water awhile, racing each other, then dunking each other like little kids. Deena’s side hurt from laughing so much. She was loving the idea of taking this trip now, despite what anybody else said, she had a feeling this was going to be a great summer.
And as she came up from another one of Max’s sneak-attack dunks, his hands circled her waist, holding her close to the rigid contours of his body.
“I’ve never met a woman like you,” he said, his pensive green eyes staring down at her.
She was nervous, but refused to show it. “Is that a good or bad thing?” she asked, treading water.
He licked his lips. “I’m beginning to think it’s a really good thing.”
His head began to lower and Deena’s toes began to tingle. Oh goodness, he was going to kiss her again. The kiss this morning still lingered on lips, another one would surely be the end of her.
“Good,” she whispered seconds before his lips could touch hers.
“Very good,” he said before sweeping his tongue over her bottom lip.
Her arms were reaching up to circle his neck immediately. He pulled her body even closer as he licked along her lips again. She trembled and opened her lips to him. But that wasn’t what he wanted. Thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, he captured her tongue and suckled.
She would have sank right to the bottom of this pool with that quick erotic act if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly against him. As it stood, all she could do was give herself over to his clever ministrations.
He took the kiss deeper, plunging her into a heated swirl of desire she’d never felt before. One of his palms went to her bottom as the other one centered in the middle of her back. She wrapped her legs around his waist and tilted her head to take some control over the drugging kiss.
In her mind it didn’t really matter who controlled the kiss, all she knew was that she didn’t want it to end. Maxwell Donovan was definitely a man she wanted to get to know better. In and outside of this pool.
“Time fo’te middleday meal. You just sit down. I’ll be back in just a minute.”
The next afternoon, Max led Deena to the large dining room table and, pulling out a chair for her, he obeyed the tall, military-looking woman’s request. From her greeting the first day he’d arrived, he knew she was Dalila Contee, the supervising maid and cook. She’d been here at Sandy Pines for more than thirty years.
“What did she just say?” Deena asked when they were seated and alone.
“She said it’s time for lunch. She’s speaking part Gullah and part English.”
“Gullah?”
Max nodded. “It’s a popular language in the sea islands of the south. Slaves from the Sea Islands of South Carolina and northern Georgia were brought to America largely from different communities on the Rice Coast of West Africa. They spoke many different languages, so in order to communicate with each other they combined the similarities of their language with the English they learned and formed the unique Gullah language.”
“Wow, I never knew that.”
“Most people don’t. I didn’t until I started researching the island of Hilton Head. It has a rich history in our rise from slavery, one I’m thinking we should preserve.”
“You’re probably right.”
“What other ideas do you have for Sandy Pines?”
There were already plates set on the table, good china, he surmised by looking at it closely. The glasses were most likely crystal, both in an older-looking pattern, that meant they’d been in this house and in his family for a while. It was certainly something to see firsthand some of what his ancestors had accomplished. Most people of African American descent didn’t even know from where they came, let alone the opportunity to sit at a table that a great-grandfather had probably used.
“Right now
