Читать книгу Blazing Midsummer Nights - Leslie Kelly - Страница 9
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ОглавлениеLOOKING DOWN AT the incredibly gorgeous, hot, sexy, shirtless man lying at her feet, Mimi at first thought she’d had one too many glasses of wine and was seeing things. But considering she’d only had one, she doubted she was intoxicated.
Her second thought was that she was about to be attacked.
She grabbed a vase off her dresser. It was a heavy, leaded crystal thing, that would probably crack the pervert’s skull open. She came close—so incredibly close—to dropping it on his head, when a voice whispered in her mind, He’s Mr. Hot. He was at the party. Anna knows him.
It seemed crazy to suppose that before attacking, a sexual predator ditched his clothes and socialized at parties in his victims’ backyards. So who was he?
“Who are you and what were you doing in my closet?” she asked, still not letting go of the vase.
“Your closet …?” he mumbled, rising to his hands and knees. On all fours, he turned his head from side to side, looking around the room, and added, “I’m in the wrong apartment.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Now who are you?”
He lifted his head to look up at her. And his big brown eyes—gorgeous, beautiful, velvety-brown eyes that were ringed by the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man—got even wider.
That was when she remembered she was naked but for her bra. And that he was kneeling at her feet. About eye level with.
“Oh, my God,” she groaned, lunging for her dresser. She plopped the vase on it, grabbed her robe and thrust her arms inside, quickly wrapping it around her body.
She couldn’t stop shaking. Adrenaline had put her on high alert. Now humiliation and embarrassment were doing their darnedest to make her quiver into a ball of mush.
Had she really just flashed her goodies to a complete stranger? And, for the briefest, most wicked second, had she not been tantalized by the image of that incredibly hot, sexy stranger moving a few inches closer for a more intimate look?
She’d been in here planning to seduce a nice man she’d been dating and was about as aroused as a stick of wood. But playing a Sharon Stone-type game of peek-a-crotch with a gorgeous mystery man got her all warm and melty down there?
She clenched her thighs together. Yeah. Warm and melty. Like chocolate left in the sun.
Just waiting to be tasted.
She winced and clenched harder. What on earth was wrong with her? “This can’t be happening,” she said with a moan.
“Tell me about it.”
The stranger, all slick-skinned, broad-chested and rippling muscles, slowly rose to his feet. He continued to look around the room, shaking his head slowly, as if in a daze.
Up close, he was more attractive—not to mention at least twenty degrees hotter—than he had been from across the party. His jaw was so square, his face so lean and masculine. Such masculinity shouldn’t have looked right with the accompanying long lashes and the downright full lips, but managed to come across as perfect.
“This really isn’t my bedroom.” He still sounded thoroughly confused.
“I think we’ve established that. It’s my bedroom. Did you not happen to notice the pink sheets and lingerie?”
Of course he noticed the lingerie, idiot.
Feeling her face flame, and the rest of her get a little warmer, too, she tightened her arms around her waist, conscious of how silky and thin the robe was. Could he see the pucker of her nipples against the cloth? Was there any way he could tell that her thighs were quivering and she badly wanted to lean against the edge of the bed for support?
“I noticed,” he admitted, his eyes darkening.
She licked her lips, reminded herself to breathe. “How did you get in here?” It made no sense. Hadn’t he been outside at the party when she’d entered the screen porch? And while she’d left the door unlocked on the way out earlier, she’d flipped the lock when coming back in.
He lifted his hand, showing her a small key.
She gaped. “Where did you get that?”
“From Anna. I locked myself out of my apartment.”
All the breath left her lungs as she suddenly realized who he was. Not some random, lost party guest. Not a drunk who might forget this night ever happened. Not a handsome stranger she would never have to see again. No. She’d just come face-to-coochie with her new next-door neighbor.
“You’re 1B,” she whispered.
“Excuse me?”
“The new tenant across the hall in 1B.”
He slowly nodded. “Yeah. I moved in today. And, uh, am I to understand that you’re 1A?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated a long moment.
“Well, uh … nice to meet you?”
The guy had just been kneeling face-level with her—fortunately neatly trimmed—va-jay-jay and all he could manage was nice to meet you? Where the hell was the sorry I was creeping in your closet and spying on you naked?
“Seriously? That’s all you’ve got?”
A slow, lazy grin tugged at his lips and he glanced down at her robe-covered body. “Uh, really nice to meet you?”
She reached for the vase again.
He held a hand up, palm out. “Sorry. But, I mean, you gotta admit, that first meeting is going to be hard to top.” He glanced at her thong, still lying on the floor between them. His stare grew a little more heated. “Not to mention bottom.”
She growled. Literally. “Just how long were you watching?”
“Long enough to wonder if you’re dating a eunuch.”
“What?”
“Hey, only a guy with no balls wouldn’t like the way you looked in that thong.”
Her face reddened and she was torn between thanking him or kicking him. Not only had he seen her—lots of her—but he’d obviously heard her talking to herself. Hopefully he hadn’t arrived in time to hear her ask the pretend Dimitri in the mirror if he was into anything naughty and kinky.
Hmm. Wonder if 1B is?
She swallowed the lump in her throat, wishing her brain would stop tossing out these sexy curveballs. She was on the straight-and-narrow, nice-guy-and-a-future path, please-her-father-and-show-him-she-could-do-his-job path. She didn’t need any distractions, physically or mentally.
“What were you doing, anyway? Going through your underwear wardrobe, trying to figure out what to wear to entice him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He ignored her. “Because, honey, just saying yes would be enough enticement for any heterosexual guy on the planet.”
Pleasure curled in her when she noted his sincerity. But she crushed it out, remembering she didn’t like this man who’d spied on her and gotten two eyes full of her private parts. Not to mention she’d sworn off hot men and this one was so on fire he should have a smoke detector strapped around his chest.
Offering her a sheepish grin, he added, “Look, I’m really sorry I spied on you. I wasn’t there for more than a minute. To be honest, I was caught off guard. I just didn’t know what to do.”
“Going back out the way you came in would have been good.”
“I thought this was my apartment. But I was going to leave anyway. Then I, uh, opened my eyes and saw you drop your pants.”
He’d closed his eyes? Cute.
Well, cute until she thought about what he’d opened them to see. She glanced down at her thong, lying there between them, a small green circle that looked like a Go sign. Grabbing at the flimsy material with her toes, she yanked back the thong, hiding it beneath the folds of her robe.
His lips twitched.
“And instead of leaving, you decided to introduce yourself?” she snapped, more flustered than before.
“Instinct. I just wanted to stop you.”
“From doing what? Changing my underwear?”
“I thought you were in my bedroom, remember?”
“Okay, still, what was the big emergency? Were you afraid I was going to leap on your bed and roll around naked, and you wanted to make sure I didn’t dirty your sheets?”
That image hit both of them, her words hanging there in the empty air. She suddenly pictured rolling around in the sheets with this man, getting hot, sweaty, dirty. Doing all kinds of wild things that had never even crossed her mind when she’d begun planning a seduction for tonight. Because, deep down, when she’d voiced that pretty/sexy/kinky question to the invisible Dimitri, she’d already known the answer—pretty. Soft, sweet and romantic, that was Dimitri’s style. He was a missionary guy all the way, she’d bet her last dollar on it.
One B? Well, he looked like he’d be up for about anything.
It all came back to that camel-in-the-desert question—was she looking for a canteen or an oasis?
She breathed deeper, willing her heart to slow down. It wasn’t as if she could lie down and drink from the delicious waters of this particular oasis—she didn’t even know this guy!
He, meanwhile, lifted a hand and rubbed his lightly grizzled jaw. She heard the faint rasp of it and suddenly had the image of those unshaven cheeks brushing against her skin. His eyes gleamed as he glanced at her bed—prettily rumpled, the comforter turned down, the pink sheets soft and inviting. She trembled, remembering that ten minutes ago she’d been imagining asking Dimitri to share that bed. Right now, though, she was practically thinking, Dimitri? Who’s Dimitri?
“I wasn’t really thinking,” he finally admitted. “I guess I just didn’t want to be the kind of guy who’d watch something like that and then skulk away like some kind of pervert.”
“So you lunge out and terrify me instead?”
“You didn’t look that terrified, and I didn’t lunge.”
“I was scared to death, and that was some serious lunging.”
“I had my hands up to try to block the view.”
“You should have watched where you were going, then maybe you wouldn’t have tripped and landed at my feet.”
Those lips quirked into a grin. “My intentions were good.”
“The results weren’t.”
“Says you.” He shrugged. “Hey, there are only so many things I can apologize for, and landing at the feet of a beautiful, nearly naked woman ain’t one of them.”
He was staring again. Not at the bed this time, but at her. His dark eyes traveled from her bare throat, down to the V in her robe, then farther. As if he liked what he’d seen, and wanted to see a whole lot more.
She reached out and grabbed the edge of her dresser, willing her legs to stop shaking.
“Did I really terrify you?” he asked, his voice lowering to a thick whisper. “I am sorry about that.”
“My heart’s still racing,” she admitted.
He didn’t ask her to evaluate whether that thumping in her chest was caused by fear … or something else. She didn’t ask herself to, either.
“Well, you came across as anything but frightened,” he told her, eyeing the vase. “I thought you were going to brain me.”
“It was a close call.”
“What stopped you?”
“Your bare chest.”
Oh, crap, had she really said that?
Laughter burst from him. “So you can notice I’m not wearing a shirt, but I’m not allowed to notice your lack of underpants?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I think you have to agree that pantsless woman trumps shirtless man in terms of intimate exposure.”
“I’ll give you that.”
How magnanimous. “And I meant,” she clarified, “I saw you outside with Anna. You were hard to miss, with no shirt and no shoes. You two looked friendly, so I figured you must know her.”
“Gotcha,” he said. Then he turned to face the closet. “I obviously misheard our landlady’s directions. I could have sworn she told me to come through the screen porch and take the door on the left.” He frowned. “Actually, at first, I thought I heard her say the right one, then she definitely said left. So maybe she was the confused one.”
Or maybe not. Mimi considered the prophetic statement Anna had made a little while ago about a half-naked man tripping at her feet. It was as if she’d known this jeans-wearing three-alarm fire in human form would emerge into her bedroom, trip and land on the floor before her. It couldn’t have worked out better if Anna had been there to stick her foot in his path to make him fall.
Aside from being a landlady, Anna also sometimes did some fortune-telling. She read tarot cards and tea leaves, operating out of a local mystic’s shop, doing readings under the name Madame Titania. Mimi had always considered it just good fun, nothing really “woo-woo” about it. Now, though. Well, it was interesting, to say the least.
Whether she’d seen something in Mimi’s future or not, Anna was probably doing some matchmaking, and had intentionally given 1B the wrong directions. She just hadn’t realized that her new tenant wouldn’t be the only one half-naked. Though, to be honest, Mimi had been more than half. She’d been three quarters of the way there.
Maybe seven eighths.
She took some small comfort in the fact that she’d still been wearing a bra when he’d seen her. She just wished that if she’d only been allowed to have on one piece of clothing when he’d stumbled in on her, it would have been the damn robe.
“Anna might have gotten a little turned around,” she said, not wanting to speculate to this stranger about their landlady’s motives. That would open up other questions—like why Anna felt the need to matchmake for her when Mimi had a date standing out in the backyard, probably wondering what on earth had happened to her. A date she was planning to have sex with tonight.
Wasn’t she?
“Hey, I just remembered, we haven’t been introduced,” he said, sticking out his hand. “I’m Xander McKinley.”
Not introduced. Right. He’d seen her bare, uh, everything, and she’d almost crushed his skull with a vase. But they hadn’t exchanged names.
She stared at his hand for a moment, struck by its strength, which matched the strong, bare arm. And the strong, bare shoulders. And the strong, bare chest. Below which was a rippled, bare stomach, covered with a light sprinkling of dark hair that wound down into the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
The man must have lived a previous life and known Webster, because he’d surely provided the definition of sexy. Hottie, Anna had called him? What a ridiculous word. He was a flaming inferno.
And wrong. Wrong guy. Wrong time. Wrong situation. Good grief, he’d practically face-planted himself into her naked crotch and wasn’t the least bit repentant about it.
He’s flirtatious. He’s charming. He’s a bad boy. He’s your next-door neighbor. He’s freaking off-limits.
Keeping that in mind, she thrust her hand out, stiff and businesslike. “Mimi Burdette.”
She took his hand in hers, noting its calloused, masculine strength. Dimitri was well-built, but his body was the working-rich-man-goes-to-the-gym-four-times-a-week variety. He worked in an office and lifted nothing more than a pen most of the time. He had staff to cut his lawn and a shop to fix his car and hands that proved it.
She shivered. Literally shivered at the thought of this stranger brushing that rough palm and those fingers over all the parts of her he’d already touched with his eyes.
She yanked her hand away. Somebody else was supposed to be touching her tonight. Somebody right. Somebody well-suited for her life and her job and her family. And her.
This guy wasn’t him.
“I really need to get back to the party,” she said.
He eyed her for a moment, saying nothing, as if he, too, had experienced something strange the moment their fingers had touched. Heck, what hadn’t been strange about them so far? This whole encounter was already beginning to feel surreal and she wondered if, someday in the future, she’d believe it had been some weird dream.
Not if he’s living right under your nose from now on. She was going to be reminded of his hotness and her nakedness every time she bumped into him while getting the mail or carrying in the groceries. Fun times ahead. Only, not.
“The dude … the one who’s brainless enough not to like your thong. Is he outside right now?”
She bit her bottom lip, then slowly nodded.
“You’re not sleeping with him, though.”
“Do we have to repeat that it’s-none-of-your-business part of this conversation?”
One corner of his mouth lifted and a twinkle appeared in those deep, dark eyes. “Hey, I feel like I know you intimately already.”
True. He knew her almost as intimately as her gynecologist.
“It’s not very gentlemanly of you to remind me of that.”
He ignored her. “So you and this guy … it’s not serious, right? Anna told me you weren’t involved with anyone.”
Her jaw fell. “You discussed my love life with Anna?”
His turn to flush a little. He looked away, as if wishing he hadn’t revealed that much. “Just in passing.”
Interesting. Had he asked about her, noticed her outside, the way she’d noticed him?
It doesn’t matter.
Still, something made her admit, “It’s not serious. Yet.”
“But tonight’s his lucky night, huh?”
She swallowed, suddenly unsure of that. Unsure of everything.
One B—Xander, his name is Xander, and how sexy is that?—stepped closer. “Can I just say, if you’ve got to work so hard at it, maybe it’s just not supposed to happen?”
Her mouth went dry as the warmth of his body washed over her. She could smell his skin—a mix of soap and sweat and male—and breathed a little deeper. “Work at it?” she whispered.
He lifted a hand, tracing his fingertip down her cheek, until it rested on the corner of her mouth. “If he wants you badly enough, you could be wearing a nun’s habit and he’d still have refused to let you walk into the house without coming after you to try to get you alone.”
Ooh. That was so much like what she’d thought earlier, she wondered if he’d read her mind.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t have let you out of my sight.”
She swallowed hard, heat slamming into her, both at his words and the serious, almost dangerous way he’d said them.
“I would have had to stay right beside you throughout the party, just to reassure myself you weren’t going to disappear. To make sure no other man even dared to look at you, and to remind myself that I could wait, because, by the time the night was over, you’d be mine.”
“Good Lord,” she whispered, her eyes falling closed. Her feet shifted; she edged a tiny bit closer, feeling almost mesmerized by his throaty voice. Not to mention by the faint brush of his hand on her mouth. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. That hand moved, until he was cupping her head, his fingers tangling in her loose hair. She arched her face into his palm, unable to resist, turning to him the way a flower turned to the morning sun. “If I had been crazy enough to let you go inside without me, I would have been watching your door, counting down the seconds until you got back. And you can bet your last dollar I would have done something about it if some strange, shirtless dude walked through it after you.”
His words held an accusation, but she was too stunned by the feelings rolling through her to launch any kind of defense of Dimitri. Right now, she was finding it hard to concentrate on anything except his scent and his warmth and oh, heavens, the way he was stroking her cheekbone with the side of his thumb.
She opened her eyes, staring at him, realizing she’d already memorized his face, his eyes, his mouth. This stranger was already imprinted on her brain.
“What would you have done?” she whispered. She leaned closer, her body swaying almost against her own will.
“I would have made sure you knew who you were ending the night with.” He moved closer, inching toward her. “I would have made you forget any other man existed.”
Another inch, then he did it. He covered her mouth with his and made her forget every other man existed.
Shocked at first, Mimi froze for a second, then melted under an onslaught of pure fire. He licked her lips, demanding she part them, and she did, not questioning it. Their tongues met, exploring, hot and wet and hungry. There was nothing polite about this kiss, nothing rehearsed or restrained. He didn’t delicately taste her; he devoured her, as if he hadn’t eaten in a week and she was his ultimate dessert.
Time, space and reality were lost. Mimi was riding a wave of pure, sultry instinct, every one of her senses humming, all of her nerve endings jangling against his big, rock-hard body. The air she breathed, he provided. She stayed upright only because she had him to lean against. Every delicious flavor she’d ever tasted seemed concentrated in his mouth and she started to shake as they all flooded into her.
Even as a tiny voice inside her tried to remind her he was a stranger, and that she should stop this, she lifted her arms, twining them around his neck. Tangling her fingers in his dark hair, she held on tight, instinctively wanting to make sure he didn’t go anywhere. Not before he satisfied this deep, carnal urge she had to be kissed the way every woman ought to be kissed every so often—like she was the sustenance for a man’s very soul.
Nobody had kissed her like this. Not ever. Not even men who’d been buried inside her at the time.
“Xander,” she groaned against his mouth when he started to pull away.
Hearing his name on her lips seemed to inflame him, because he dove back in again, his tongue plunging deep. He dropped his hands to her hips, claiming her, tugging her even harder against him. When he cupped her bottom, she sighed into his mouth, arching against the delicious, unmistakable ridge of heat pressing against her groin.
He wanted her, there was no denying it, and he wasn’t making any effort to keep her from realizing that.
Quivering, almost crying, Mimi pressed harder against him, needing that strength, that pressure. She barely knew him, but she knew she wanted that power, that thickness. All the long pep talks she’d given to herself about being sensible and not needing this kind of heat, this much passion, evaporated and she knew she would do just about anything to have him.
And then it ended, just as abruptly as it had begun. He drew his mouth away from hers, dropped his hands and took a step back. Mimi swallowed hard, trying to regain control of her heart and her lungs, which seemed to be grasping for air.
After a long moment, he nodded. “Yeah, I definitely would have followed you,” he said, sounding a little breathless, which told her he, too, was affected by the kiss. “But that’s me.”
Reality finally started to sink back in. “What … how … you kissed me.”
“Glad you noticed.”
Noticed? Good grief, he’d made the earth rattle beneath her feet.
He turned away from her. “Now, I should go so you can get back to your party.”
The floor seemed to lurch, her mind spinning with it. It took a few seconds for her to process the quick change in mood and tone. From flirtatious, to tender to hot-and-kissing? Now to something like … disinterest. What the ever-loving hell?
He, on the other hand, seemed just fine. His smile was cheery, that twinkle had reappeared in his eyes. As if he was completely unfazed by their closeness and that amazing kiss, which had affected her clear down to her toenails. No, to the polish on her toenails!
“I guess I’ll go try this key on the other door,” he said, turning back toward the closet. “Maybe I’ll see you later at the party. I told Anna I’d come out.”
Still stunned, it took her a few seconds to grasp his words. Once her heart started to beat normally and her brain cells were firing again, she realized she did not want him coming out to that party. She didn’t like how easily he’d shown her how receptive she was to him. Especially since she hadn’t yet determined whether or not she was receptive to her date, who was waiting for her outside.
But it wasn’t exactly polite to order him to stay home until he forgot he’d seen her curl-covered hoo-ha. Or until she’d gotten over that kiss.
“By the way, what’d you decide?” he asked as he ducked into the closet.
“About what?”
He waggled his brows. “The thong? A nice bustier’s always a good choice.”
Glaring, she reached for the vase.
“Kidding,” he said, raising a defensive hand. With a smile that was positively wicked, he added, “Because you’re not gonna go through with it.”
“Says who?”
“Says the guy who just kissed you … the one you kissed back.”
He definitely had her there; she didn’t really have a response for that.
He dropped his attention to her lips, then looked down at her body, her thin robe, her nipples puckering beneath the fabric. He raked his way down the rest of her, to the tips of her toes, before going back up. Then, his voice dropped to a low growl. “Says the guy who loved how you looked in that thong and who really hopes to see it again sometime … caught between something other than your toes.”
She gulped, swallowing down a tiny, helpless moan. Because while she had never been the kind of woman who wanted a man to take her for granted, his self-confidence, his certainty of her—what she wanted, how far she’d go—was an incredible turn-on.
With one more smile, he disappeared into her closet. She heard a thump or two as he worked his way back toward the door. Right before he exited, she heard one more thing—his laughing voice.
“By the way, in case you want to know my preference, I vote for commando!”
