Not This Guy!

by Glenda Sanders

  He drew in a breath and released it slowly. “Samantha...”

  She stiffened visibly, setting her jaw and squaring her shoulders against the rejection while she gathered her wits to respond to it. Finally she said, coolly, “You’re not even going to give it a chance?”

  “I just don’t think we should rush into anything.”

  She laughed, softly, but haughtily. “I wasn’t asking for a lifetime commitment.”

  Mike shrugged. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was just too weary to invest his energy in a liaison that had nowhere to go and no ambition to head anywhere.

  Her chin tilted at a defiant angle. “Too bad,” she said. “It might have been fun.”

  He’d never been more relieved to climb into his van and drive away from a place in his life. So much for the perfect woman, her perfect dress, her perfect house and her perfect cats.

  He was halfway home before he realized that he didn’t want to go there. Not yet. He was too cold and empty inside. Too disheartened to settle only for the company of a mellow old dog. He needed human companionship, conversation, emotional connection.

  The sports bar Jerry favored was just a few miles up the road. He could go there, see how Jerry’s Saturday night was panning out. He’d been there often enough that he’d probably run into someone he knew, even if he missed Jerry.

  But a noisy bar didn’t appeal to him, either. He wanted—

  Stopped at a red light, he stared blankly into the night and gave up the battle he’d been fighting with himself ever since he’d first laid eyes on Angelina Winters. He didn’t want a cold, perfect woman, and he didn’t want to go to a noisy, smoky bar filled with strangers pretending to know one another.

  Loosening the knot of his tie, he opened the top button of his shirt and heaved a sigh of relief at having finally accepted what he really wanted: he wanted a woman with a soft voice and a warm smile that reached her eyes. He wanted to relax in a room designed for living instead of projecting an image, a room where a puppy could cajole a pat on the head from a caring owner. He wanted to put his arms around a woman who felt like a woman when he held her close, who responded like a woman when he kissed her. A busy woman generous enough to spend an afternoon—or a morning—baking cookies to thank a man for a favor.

  The light turned green. Mike pressed the accelerator with renewed conviction, knowing now where he was going and accepting why he was headed there. The check for the old washing machine, still tucked under the elastic strap of the window visor, provided him with an excellent excuse to drop in on her unannounced. Who would complain about getting unexpected money?

  Heartened by the light shining from her living room windows, Mike parked in front of her house. He took off his coat and laid it across the passenger seat before taking the check from the visor and heading for the door.

  He rang the bell and waited, practicing his story in his mind, telling himself he must act casual even as the anticipation of seeing her set his pulse racing.

  “Who is it?” came a shouted query from deep within the house.

  Mike tensed. Was he imagining the distress he heard in the cry? “It’s Mike. Mike Calder. I have—”

  “Come on in. And hurry. Please. I need hellllllp!”

  Adrenaline surged through Mike’s veins in response to the panic in her voice. She was in danger.

  He grabbed the doorknob and twisted. It didn’t budge. Frustrated, he shouted, “The door’s locked!”

  “Key...under the flowerpot,” came the muted cry. “Hurry...please—”

  Seconds ticked away as he overturned flowerpots, startling lizards but finding no key. Finally, he found it sandwiched between a flowerpot and the clay saucer in which it sat. Getting the key into the lock seemed to take an eternity but, at last, the tumblers clicked, the knob yielded and he was inside the house, rushing like a bull, running blindly, shouting her name for direction.

  “The kitchen!” she cried just as he came to the doorway and caught sight of the carnage.

  8

  “WHAT THE—?” he said.

  “Do something!” she cried. She was at the sink, holding an inverted pot over a geyser rising from the faucet, trying to divert the gush of water into the sink. Despite her efforts, water was everywhere—on the floor, the cabinets, dripping from the ceiling, drenching her hair, her face, her clothes.

  “We’ve got to get that water turned off,” he said, entering the soggy room. Relief that she was okay hit him like a bag of bricks.

  “No fooling?” she said with uncharacteristic sarcasm. Obviously, plumbing crises played hell with her disposition.

  “What...how did this happen, anyway?”

  “I was changing the whatchamacallit,” she said, tilting her head toward a package of washers on the counter that sat next to an illustrated how-to manual on plumbing maintenance. “I unscrewed the handle, just the way the directions said, and suddenly—”

  “You’re supposed to turn off the water before you take the faucet apart,” he said.

  “I know. I did. It was the first step.”

  “How?”

  “How?”

  “How did you turn off the water?”

  She gave him an exasperated frown. “I turned the knob, the way I always do. The faucet was still dripping, of course, that’s why I wanted to change the thingamajig in the first place, but I didn’t think that would make it—”

  “Wrong knob, Angel,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You’re supposed to turn it off at the source, not at the faucet.”

  “The source?”

  “The shutoff valve. Under the sink, probably.”

  “Oh,” she said. Crestfallen. Soggy. Sexy as sin. “Well, can you—my arms are so tired they’re shaking.”

  “How long have you been holding this like this?” he asked, stepping behind her and putting his hands on the pot near hers, trapping her between his body and the counter. Under drier circumstances, the position would have had great potential.

  “Forever,” she told him.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “You look for the shutoff valve.”

  She released the pot and wiggled out under his arm, another physical maneuver with promise. “Under the sink?”

  “Uh-huh. Probably against the back wall.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “A handle of some sort. You’ll know it if you see it.”

  She accidently bumped his knee with the corner of the cabinet door. “Sorry!”

  Mike twisted his knees away to let the door open. Angelina removed half a dozen bottles of cleaning products and sponges from the cabinet and stuck her head and shoulders inside.

  “Can you see anything?” he asked.

  From where he stood, the view was excellent. It was amazing how wet denim clung to female flesh, especially when the female inside was on her hands and knees and her backside was in the air.

  “I think...is it...?” She backed out and looked up at him. “I’m pretty sure I see it, but it’s not going to be easy to get to.” She pulled out an aerosol can of carpet cleaner and several scrub brushes and disappeared up to her waist into the cabinet again.

  A series of bumps and thumps came from within the cavelike opening. “I can’t...I’m not sure...my arm isn’t long enough—”

  Mike couldn’t stand it. Spying a dish towel on the counter, he shoved it up, inside the pot. Tentatively, he released the pot, hoping the towel would stanch the geyser somewhat and the weight of the pot would hold it in place. It worked. It probably wouldn’t stay in place very long, but with luck, he should be able to get the water cut off before it completely shifted away.

  He did a quick survey of the room. As if a few hundred more gallons of water would make any difference!

  Writing off his pants as a total loss, he knelt on the wet floor and poked his head in the cabinet, where Angelina was straining to reach the knob she’d located. Spotting the knob, he reached for it, but the garbage disposal b
locked his access. He pulled his arm back and moved to the other side of the cabinet—the side Angelina was already occupying. Wetness quickly seeped from her wet shirt into his, and he suspected that his sudden warmth was telegraphed to her just as swiftly.

  “What did you do about the wa—” She stopped midsentence, then screeched as a loud thunk sounded just above their heads and a torrential shower peppered their legs.

  Concentrating on the immediate task, Mike got his hand around the valve handle and twisted. Gradually, the waterfall abated to an occasional drip.

  “Thank God!” Angelina said, backing out of the cabinet.

  Mike also backed out. “Your life is just a string of exciting Saturday nights, isn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t—until I met you,” she said. Surveying the havoc around her, she emitted a dismal sigh and sank from her knees into a sitting position, disregarding the flood on the floor. She looked at Mike. “Your good clothes—you’re all wet.”

  “So are you,” he said, blatantly studying the knit molding her breasts.

  Involuntarily, she crossed her arms over her chest. Her eyes were large limpid pools, starkly revealing. Mike saw in them vulnerability, but also a smoldering sensuality as her expression changed from utter dismay to curiosity.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked. “Besides rescuing me, I mean.”

  “Silly question,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers.

  The kiss was immediately intense, hot, deep, desperate. Mike hadn’t been expecting resistance, but her ardor surprised and delighted him. She slid her arms around him, clung to him, stroked his back restlessly, strained against him as if she couldn’t get close enough.

  Their wet clothing provided little barrier between them as the lushness of her breasts pressed against his chest. Mike debated only a moment before finding the bottom edge of her shirt and slipping his hands inside. Angelina made a mewling sound in her throat as his hands curved caressingly over her bare ribs, and his thumb grazed the underside of her breast.

  She tore her mouth away from his with a groan of protest. “Damn!” she said, prolonging the word.

  Mike’s racing heart skipped a beat as he wondered if he’d pressed his advantage too far. But suddenly she flung her arms around his neck, knocking him backward with her momentum and landing atop him as she dropped urgent kisses on his face.

  Mike shifted his leg from its awkward position and they both gasped as her lower body sank between his thighs. “Do you...think,” he asked in the midst of a renewed barrage of kisses, “that we...might—” He sighed in ecstasy. “Find someplace—” His ahh intensified into a feral groan. “A little...less...wet?”

  She paused her nibbling of his neck. “A bed?”

  “Excellent suggestion,” he said, praying that she wouldn’t change her mind between the kitchen and the bedroom.

  Once again, she did the unexpected. Grabbing his tie, she yanked it, forcing him to tilt his head upward. She thrust her face an inch above his. “Are you a prepared little Boy Scout?”

  “What?” he asked, struggling for breath.

  She pulled a face of sheer exasperation. She wasn’t breathing too easily, either. Her ribs expanded and contracted under his hands as she drew in and exhaled a ragged breath.

  “Prepared,” she repeated, looking acutely uncomfortable. “You know. Responsible.” Her eyes widened. “Safe sex,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

  “A condom?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes!”

  He chuckled from sheer astonishment. “Yes.”

  “Show it to me.”

  “Show it—”

  She gave the tie a yank. “I’m not kidding!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, grinning. Reluctantly withdrawing his hand from her shirt, he thrust it into his pocket, took out his billfold and held up the foil pouch. “Satisfied now?”

  “No,” she said. “But I’m going to be.”

  Still holding his tie, she rolled off him and rose, leading him behind her. “Whatever you do,” she murmured, “don’t drop that envelope.”

  Reasonably confident now that she clearly wasn’t going to have a change of heart, Mike was a compliant captive. When a beautiful woman wanted to make him a love slave, his philosophy was Que sera, sera. Not that it had ever actually happened before.

  In the bedroom, she simultaneously kissed him and undressed him—or tried to, peeling his shirt down to his wrists and his pants around his ankles. He helped a little, wrestling with the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt and tossing it aside before removing his shoes and socks and stepping out of the pants.

  “Your turn,” he said, giving her wet, clinging clothing a lascivious once-over.

  “Get into bed and close your eyes,” she said.

  “You don’t get...real kinky, do you?” he asked, with just a twinge of concern.

  “I can’t take my clothes off in front of you with the lights on,” she said, as if explaining something quite simple to someone quite stupid.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Trust me,” she said with a soft, vulnerable sigh. “This isn’t all that easy for me.”

  Mike turned back the bedding and climbed in. “Do I have to pull the covers over my head?”

  Angelina’s forehead creased in a most intriguing way as she scowled at him. “This isn’t going to work if you make fun of me.”

  “I’ll close my eyes.” He pointed. “See. They’re closed.”

  “And—”

  “Don’t peep,” he said with her.

  Listening to her move was strangely erotic: her footsteps on the carpet, the odd rustle as she removed her wet clothing, her breathing, her swallow of determination before she walked to the bed and slipped between the sheets.

  She lay beside him, still and silent for almost a full minute before saying softly, “You can open your eyes now.”

  “And you can breathe again,” he said.

  She inhaled raggedly, but remained unnaturally still.

  “You know,” he continued, “if you moved just a little bit this way—”

  She moved swiftly, and not just a little bit. Suddenly, she was on top of him, kissing, stroking, squirming sensually and touching him in wild and whimsical ways. Frenzied, insatiable, uninhibited, she made love to him, unabashedly glorying in the pleasure of being with him.

  Still perplexed by the swift turn of events that had taken him from the cold calculation of Samantha Curry’s proposition to the spontaneous combustion of Angelina Winters’s bed, Mike closed his eyes and surrendered himself to the pleasure of her lovemaking.

  Her desire, forthright, undisguised, almost unbearably sweet, fueled the desire he’d always felt for her. Soon he was as aroused as she, aroused by the tenderness that survived the urgency of her caresses, the sincerity that surpassed the intensity of her quest for physical appeasement.

  Her fingers curved around him, hugged his swollen, aching flesh, making him desire her even more. “Please!” she rasped. “Now.”

  Seconds later she lowered herself over his sheathed hardness, crying out with a guttural sigh as her body accommodated their joining. Her soft, moist warmth surrounded him and she undulated above him, driven by primal need. Mike stroked and caressed her, cupping her breasts, chafing their peaks with his palms as her movements grew more mindless and desperate. Instinctively, when her release was imminent, he moved his hands lower to cup her bottom and assist her rhythmic rocking.

  Finally, she tensed and then, with a lengthy sensual moan, laid her cheek on his chest above his thundering heart. Mike wrapped his arms around her. Anchoring her close, he rolled her under him and sought his own fulfillment, which came with a shattering intensity.

  With his head buried between her breasts, he listened to her heart. Angelina soothed his back with gentle strokes and pressed gentle kisses on his temple. So nurturing, so...giving. Samantha Curry would never—

  The incredulity of where he was, who he was with and how he�
��d gotten there struck him full force. Things like this just never happened to Mike Calder. He was a passably nice-looking, relatively sophisticated single male professional, but he didn’t turn down one beautiful woman and go to bed with another the same evening. Women didn’t grab him by the necktie and lead him to their bedrooms and make mad, passionate love to him.

  “Holy cow!” he said. “Is Lily in bed?”

  “No, she’s at her father’s.” She hesitated. “Dr. Calder,” she said, obviously wanting to talk, but unable to find the words.

  Mike braced his hands on the bed and gingerly lifted his weight off her, then shifted positions to lie beside her.

  “Oh. You do remember my last name.”

  The sound she made was not quite a word. Her embarrassment was almost palpable. Finally, she managed to say, “About...what just—”

  “Just tell me one thing,” he said.

  Her forehead wrinkled in concentration.

  “Are you going to respect me in the morning?” he asked, stifling a chuckle.

  She responded with a gasp of outrage and turned onto her side, presenting her back to him.

  Mike pushed up on one elbow. “I’ll be right back.”

  Angelina didn’t acknowledge Mike’s return when he rejoined her in bed a few minutes later. She wanted to let him know she’d enjoyed their lovemaking, but she wasn’t sure exactly how to go about expressing herself. The only other man she’d ever been with was the one she’d married at nineteen, so she wasn’t exactly experienced in afterglow etiquette. Men didn’t like to talk about sex, anyway, if what she’d heard on talk shows was accurate.

  Obviously, the man in bed next to her didn’t like being ignored, either, because he began drawing circles on her exposed shoulder with his forefinger. Her entire body was still sensitized from their lovemaking, and his touch was like lightning dancing across her skin.

  He drew a line from her shoulder to the small of her back, brushing the sheet aside as his hand moved lower. “You have a great back,” he murmured. “You’ll have to let me see it sometime when the lights are on.”

  She rolled onto her back so she could see his face. He was propped up on one elbow, looking at her. He smiled gently, and she returned the smile, tentatively.