Jake sat at the desk in his office, sliver pen flashing as he scribbled his name to the stack of forms and letters piled in front of him. But his mind wasn’t really on his work. Signing his name was routine. He could do it in his sleep. Where his thoughts were really focused was on the young woman smiling sweetly at him from the framed photograph on the corner of his desk. His Kitten. His little ‘sex kitten in heat’, he’d teased her only just last night as they made love, christening practically every room in the apartment before they’d raced up to the loft for one last hot, passionate session before bedtime.

They had been together for five years and it never ceased to amaze him that they were still wild for each other. Oh, he’d had the casual fling on occasion with a buxom, good-looking secretary or one of the pretty new waitresses at his favorite lunch time haunt, and once, even a very sexy, very willing female client, but he and Kitten were perfect for each other. There really was no other woman for him but her and Jake was wise enough to realize it. Her real name was Katrina, but to Jake, who knew her best, she had always been his “Kitten”. And a kitten was exactly what she had reminded him of the first moment he set eyes on her; soft, sleek, sensual, with a bit of mischievous playfulness that he adored.

Kitten had been born and raised in the mid-west before attending college out here on the east coast. Her innocence and naiveté in the ways of the world had attracted him as strongly as the soft, golden highlights of her hair, those beautiful, large green eyes, full pouting lips and a figure that the majority of the world’s women spent thousands of dollars to acquire through professional workouts and liposuction.

Once Jake set his sights on something, the relentless businessman in him wouldn’t allow him to rest until the thing he desired was in his possession. One look at Kitten and he knew that he desired her and that he would have her, no matter the obstacles. For Jake, no obstacles existed where Kitten was concerned. He wanted her and that was enough for him.

She had been all of twenty-two years old and Jake, thirty-seven, when he first set eyes on her. She was a child compared to the hard-bitten, worldly-wise women in the tony set he socialized with.

His friend, Griff, had thrown open his beach house one Fourth of July to all his friends and neighbors, associates and co-workers, to those he was only mildly acquainted with and to the many more that he wasn’t. Griff had been Jake’s ‘partner in crime’ during their college days, well over twenty years ago, but Griff hadn’t outgrown the fast-paced, college-party mind-set. Griff’s parties were famous for the crowds, the decadence, the noise. And this particular party was no exception. The music was loud, booming out the open windows onto the beach below, the booze was flowing freely with a wet bar on each floor of the house and Jake could detect the heavy sweet odor of pot wafting beneath closed bedroom doors as well as the white tracks of powder smeared atop low tables scattered about the house.

And then, of course, there were the women. Griff stock-piled women the way some men would stock-pile a wine cellar. Griff surrounded himself with beautiful, sexy women and was always generous enough to pass them around among his friends. Jake being no exception, he was the first to admit that he’d enjoyed his fair share at a number of Griff’s parties in the past. Of course, there were those men who brought their wives or girlfriends, but once the alcohol and recreational drugs infiltrated the party-goers, inhibitions were low and it wasn’t unusual for any of the guests to do anything with anyone.

Unlike Griff, however, Jake had sowed his wild oats sometime ago. He was no saint, he readily admitted to himself, but with the big FOUR-O looming just ahead, he was looking to settle down a bit. He just hadn’t found the right woman . . . . . . . until that night.

Jake found himself wandering from group to group, talking with people he knew through association with Griff and getting acquainted with a few he didn’t. The women were plentiful as always. And by one a.m. he had already had a bit too much to drink, had taken a couple of deep drags on a joint that was being passed around and earlier, he’d let some bare-breasted red-head blow him in one of the upstairs bathrooms. But already, the party, as well as Griff’s guests, was beginning to bore him. The pot and the red head had left a bad taste in his mouth and the idea of his own apartment, the comfort of his own bed, was sounding more and more appealing.

He had almost made up his mind to make his excuses and leave when he looked up from his position at the wet bar and saw her for the first time. She was standing on the steps leading down into the sunken living room, framed by the Spanish-arched entryway, reminding him of something like a little lost kitten in the midst of this self-centered, tough-minded, hard-to-impress crowd of sophisticates. It was from that moment that he nicknamed her “Kitten” in his mind. The name seemed to fit and he couldn’t think of her in any other way.

Jake was intrigued, becoming more so by the second as he watched her, searching the faces of the crowd as if she were looking for someone she had lost or who had lost her. He wondered what she was doing here. She wasn’t the usual type of female to attend one of Griff’s parties. Those large, beautiful eyes scanned the crowd in the living room and he felt a sudden impulse to move closer, to satisfy a surprising deep curiosity to know what color her eyes were.

Suddenly, their gazes met and held for what seemed an interminable moment. Jake was as startled as she was. He had been leaning negligently up against the bar, watching the other guests with an expression of boredom, but now his interest peaked. He straightened to his full 6-foot height, his drink forgotten in his hand, the music, the chaotic chatter and laughter of the crowd around him fading suddenly into the background as he stared boldly back at her.

Most women of his acquaintance would have met his stare with a bold look of their own and more than a hint of invitation in their expression, but to his surprise and delight, this young woman blushed with embarrassment at his obvious interest in her, those lovely eyes shying away from his and then coming back to rest on him even as he watched. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a girl blush, probably not since high school, he decided. Were women still capable of blushing?

Griff came to stand beside him just then, handing his glass to the hired bartender to have his drink refreshed. Now, Jake nudged Griff with his elbow, nodding toward the girl.

“Who is that?”

“Who?” Griff turned to look over his shoulder.

“The girl standing over there, the one looking like a lost kitten.” Jake tried to make himself sound only mildly interested. He’d already nicknamed her Kitten in his mind, but he didn’t want to share that information with anyone else, least of all Griff. If Griff suspected that Jake found a particular woman attractive, the competitive mode would kick in between them, as it had during college, and Griff would rush in to test the waters first, whether he found the girl to his liking or not. He didn’t want to subject the girl to his friend’s crude fumbling and suggestive ‘come-on’s’. This newly-discovered protective instinct toward her, surprised him as much as the fact that he wasn’t about to share.

Griff eyed the girl up and down and then as easily dismissed her with a shrug of his shoulders as he turned back to retrieve his drink from the bartender. “I think her name is Katrina, something like that. She came with Brad.”

“And what’s Brad doing with someone like her?” Jake sipped from the crystal tumbler in his hand, eyeing her over the rim.

“She’s Brad’s front for the evening.” Griff informed him. “Jill, Eric’s wife, you know, she and Brad gotta thing going.”

“Good.” Jake murmured as if to himself.

“Huh? Dammit!” Griff spilled his drink down his shirtfront, distracting Jake for a second. By the time his attention returned to the entryway, Katrina had disappeared.

Jake’s boredom vanished in an instant and as Griff grumbled and cursed at his own clumsiness, blotting at the stain on his shirt with a paper napkin, Jake abruptly left him to go in search of Katrina.

He supposed he ought to thank Jill for this he thought with a self-deprecating smile. Jill was a prick-tease and a flirt and constantly in need of a man’s attention other than her husband’s. She’d certainly plied him with her expertise often enough in the past, but Jake had no respect for a woman who could so easily cuckold her husband.

He drifted slowly from room to room, his dark eyes scanning the clusters and groups of guests scattered about, but he didn’t see her. She wasn’t out on the deck either and he felt a keen sense of disappointment that perhaps she’d left the beach house altogether. Jake leaned his arms on the railing of the deck, letting the breeze that blew in off the water sift through his hair like seductive fingers.

He’d finish his drink, he decided, and then he’d go home. Just as he completed the thought, he saw her, walking along the water’s edge of Griff’s private stretch of beach, her feet bare beneath the sleeveless summer dress she wore.

He stood there at the railing just watching her for what seemed a timeless moment. Everything in him tightened at the sight of her. She was so lovely, he almost hurt. There was a sexy vulnerability about her that appealed to his male ego. He enjoyed the women at these parties and there were plenty of other women he took out on dates and subsequently spent time in bed with, but they were all women experienced in the ways of the world, who knew the score, who had slept with plenty of men before him and would sleep with plenty of men after him. There were also those females out to get their hooks into him, hoping to get a ring on their finger, yet he’d never been tempted to go that far with any woman.

What happened, he asked himself, to the days when men were men and women were women? When it was a man’s prerogative to court the lady of his choice without all the feministic backlash he despised? He was well aware that he lived by a double-standard; that the majority of women would hang him from the highest tree for his archaic thinking, but he refused to make apologies for it. He lived by his own set of rules. He was who he was.

And now he watched this intriguing creature wading in the surf, completely unaware that she was being observed. Why had she come with Brad tonight? She wasn’t his type. She surely had to know what was going on between Brad and Jill. And she certainly wasn’t one of Griff’s hard-as-nails party women. Who was she?

On impulse, Jake resolved to find out. He set the remains of his drink on a nearby table and descended the set of stairs to the sand below. He took off his shoes and socks, rolled up the cuffs of his faded denims and made his way toward the water’s edge and the little sea waif who had him so captivated.

“Do you mind some company?” He called out, still some distance away. He hadn’t wanted to startle her and it was pure pleasure to watch as she made a graceful turn toward him, the sea breeze pressing her dress flat against the lithe, slender contours of her body. His eyes fell to the sharp peaks of her breasts, the small pointed nipples thrusting against the floral thin material. He felt his loins tighten imperceptibly within the confines of his jeans.

She smiled at him. Oh my god, that smile, Mark thought, suppressing the groan that threatened to escape him.

“No, I don’t mind.” She responded. “It was too noisy inside. Too many people . . . too much . . . smoke. I needed some fresh air.”

Her voice was low, soft, sweet. He liked it.

“I saw you inside earlier. My name is Jake, by the way.”

“Yes, I remember you. And I’m Katrina.” She began walking again, the waves lapping at her bare toes.

Falling into step beside her, Jake commented, “I take it you don’t come to many of Griff’s parties.” He cast her a side-long look. “If you did, I would have remembered you.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” She gave him a slow, shy smile. “I’ve only been to one other. I plan on making this my last.”

Jake chuckled at the warm conviction in her words. “Not to your taste, then?”

She folded her arms protectively over her breasts as they walked, smiling down at the sand. “You must think I’m an awful prude. Or very Victorian.”

“Not at all. In fact, I was thinking, what I’ve been thinking since I first saw you, is what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

There was a second of silence before they both burst out laughing simultaneously at the old cliché.

“So what happened?” Jake asked a moment later. “Did your date desert you?”

“Something like that.” Katrina smiled again, not at all put out by his question.

Jake was quick to notice, and glad of it, that it wasn’t a smile of regret over the likes of Brad.

“I’m sorry.” Jake offered because it seemed to be the thing to say, then on second thought, shook his head, “Actually, no I’m not sorry.”

Katrina paused mid-step, stared back at him unblinking and Jake wanted nothing more in that moment than to tangle his fingers in her hair, draw her to him and kiss her until they were both down on the sand.

“You’re quite candid, aren’t you?”

“If Brad hadn’t left you high and dry, I wouldn’t be out here sharing a walk on the beach with you right now. I’ve wanted to meet you since I first saw you inside. In fact, I spent the last hour wandering the house looking for you. I thought you’d left, until I came out on the deck and saw you down here. Is that candid enough for you?” He gave her a boyish grin.

“I like it.” She tried unsuccessfully to suppress her own smile.

“You’re not from around here, are you? Mid-west?” Jake guessed.

“Yes. I’ve been away from home for six months now and I’m already thinking I might have made a mistake. Maybe it’s time I should go home.” But she didn’t really sound as if she wanted to do that.

Still, a sudden tightening in his mid-section caught him off-guard at the idea of her leaving. He’d only just met her and here she was talking about going back home.

“Why?” Jake swallowed the constriction in his throat, ignoring the hard, heavy thump of his heart in his chest. “Six months isn’t a lot of time. Do you think you’ve given yourself a fair chance?”

She looked back at him, her expression one of consideration. “I always felt somehow misplaced back home, even as a young girl.” She told him. “One year, my family came out east for vacation. I think I was eight years old. It was the first time I’d ever seen the ocean and I fell in love with it, everything about it. I promised myself that when I was out on my own, I would come back here to live, just to be near the water.”

A companionable silence fell between them as, together, they turned and began the slow trek back down the strand.

“Why the change of heart?” Jake asked quietly.

“Don’t get me wrong. I love it here, but the people are different from anyone I know back home. They seem harder somehow; more self-centered; concerned with their own interests or what someone else can do for them.”

He fell silent, contemplating what she’d said.

Apparently, Katrina must have mistaken his silence for disapproval of her criticism. Embarrassed, she said, “I’m sorry; small-town girl comes to the big city and discovers how unsophisticated she really is.”

Jake stopped, took her hand unselfconsciously. “Don’t apologize.” He shook his head. “You’re right. It’s refreshing to have an outsider to remind us. But,” he paused, and then took the plunge, “I wish you’d reconsider and stay anyway. I promise, we’ll try to behave ourselves.” He gave her that lop-sided grin again.

Katrina stood in the surf, the waves lapping at her bare ankles, the water darkening the hem of her dress, looking for all the world like some moonlit mermaid emerged from the sea. Jake’s loins throbbed in his jeans. His heart pounded in his chest. He held her hand in his, squeezing her slim fingers, holding his breath as he waited to hear what she would say.

“Why?” She looked up at him and Jake could have sworn he saw the same hope deep in those sea-green eyes that were in his own.

“Because I’m asking you to. And because you would make me a very happy man if you stayed.”



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