All he knew was that their clothes were getting in the way, and he wanted to see if her panties were made of the same sexy lace as her bra. He slid the little black skirt up to her waist and expelled an appreciative groan when he saw dark hair revealed through black lace. Then he knew he had to taste more than just her breasts.
He trailed kisses down her stomach, over the smooth flesh of her thigh, and up her inner thigh to that mesmerizing triangle of black lace. Kneeling between her legs, Luke wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so dizzy with sexual desire, and just as he was about to plant a kiss on the fabric over her most sensitive spot, Jane went from panting and whimpering to dead silent.
“What are we doing?” she finally asked in a shaky voice.
“Last I heard, this was called—”
“No, I mean what are we doing? This is crazy.”
Luke stood up and regarded her at eye level again. She was right. This was crazy. He had an erection that could drive nails into a wall, but that didn’t make this the right place or time for them to have sex, or even foreplay.
Damned if she didn’t turn him into a crazy man.
“You’re right. We should stop.”
Jane crossed her arms over her bare breasts and let out a ragged sigh. “Yeah. My sisters are probably taking turns pressing their ears to the door.”
“This isn’t a chapter from your book, is it? ‘How to Drive Men Insane’?”
“No, that’ll be the title of my next one.”
She fumbled into her bra and then tugged her shirt back on. Luke lifted her down from the counter and smoothed her skirt back over her hips, pinning her with his gaze the entire time to let her know exactly how hard it was for him to put on the brakes.
“We’d better go back—” Jane said, glancing at the door.
“We’re not finished yet.” He held on to her hand as she tried to escape. “I don’t want my date panting over some other guy.”
“I wasn’t panting.”
“You might as well have been.”
She shrugged. “Okay, maybe you’re not completely wrong, but couldn’t you just help me make him a little jealous?”
“You ask me that right after I had my face between your legs?”
Jane blushed, and Luke felt a pang of something in his gut—jealousy? Was he really jealous that a woman he’d only just met had a crush on some loser she’d mistaken for Prince Charming? Okay, so he was. But regardless of the fact that they’d just met yesterday, Luke knew there was something different about Jane.
Something maddening.
“I think we need to establish some guidelines for our…working relationship. You’re my bodyguard, or personal security specialist, or whatever, but you’ve also asked me out on a date. So what are you expecting here?”
Yeah, what was he expecting? Luke wished like hell he knew, but he gave the obvious answer. “I’m just looking for the chance to prove you wrong about sex.”
“If you want to know the truth, I find you attractive, but I’ve been interested in Bradley for a long time. He and I have a sort of connection, and I’d really like to see what might come of it.”
“A connection? Is he aware of it?” An image of Brad’s uninterested body language when Jane approached him earlier flashed in Luke’s head, and he realized in that moment that she was completely delusional when it came to this guy.
“I don’t know. I think he and I just need a chance to spend some time together, but I haven’t quite worked up the nerve to ask him out.”
Luke tried to ignore the blow his ego felt at having this conversation with a woman he’d just kissed for all he was worth—a woman to whom he was wildly attracted, no less. But then he reminded himself that he was dealing with the author of The Sex Factor, and he assured himself his attraction was purely sexual, probably born of sexual deprivation brought on by her book.
“Just be careful, Jane, that’s all. You can’t afford to let your guard down around any guy right now.”
“Even you?”
“Even me.” He closed the space between them and brushed his fingers against her cheek. “My motives are very, very questionable,” he whispered right before he dipped his head down for one last kiss.
JANE LET LUKE LEAD HER by the hand down the hallway and back out into the party. Her head was in a fog, her body in turmoil and her panties in a bunch. Having Luke around was a crazy sort of torture—hot, dizzying, insane, fantasy-inducing torture.
And what the hell had just happened in the bathroom? One minute she’d been moping about Bradley, and the next she was in a lip lock with Luke. So much for being the guru of sexual restraint. Offer up one testosterone-pumped male and she had her legs wrapped around him in record time.
Memories of his kiss, his touch, his mouth on her breasts, flooded her brain all at once, and she nearly had to go back to the bathroom and provide herself a little self-induced satisfaction.
It took her a few seconds to notice that every eye in the house was glued to herself and Luke. She scanned the room for Bradley and spotted him standing across the dining room staring at her with what she couldn’t help but call new interest.
It figured. She’d answered letters in her column from what seemed like a thousand disgruntled men who were suddenly head over heels in love with their ex-girlfriends after they’d been dumped for another guy—the old “don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone phenomenon.” But Bradley hadn’t even gotten her yet, so she couldn’t quite be sure if the phenomenon applied here.
“Janie, you’re just in time for the gifts. They’re opening them in the family room,” Jennifer said, appearing from behind them.
Probably, Jennifer had been the most recent eavesdropper. Jane blushed to think of anyone overhearing the conversation about Brad—making out with Luke, no problem, but the last thing she wanted her sisters knowing was that she’d been silently pining after the same guy since college. Had they been speaking loudly enough for anyone outside the door to hear? She couldn’t remember. She’d been too keyed up on lust to pay attention to her volume.
They followed guests into the next room, where people were already gathered around a big pile of gifts on the coffee table. Heather and Michael were perched on a sofa, unwrapping a box that looked to be some kind of crystal serving tray. Once the gift was opened, people made appropriate oohing and aahing sounds, and Jane glanced over at Luke to find him studying her. He kept his gaze leveled on her, and after a few moments she looked away again. Fine, he’d won the staring contest, if that’s what he wanted.
She immediately searched out Brad again and spotted him standing on the other side of the sofa. Their eyes met, and he smiled. Not a friendly I-barely-know-you smile, but a flirtatious, you’re-kinda-cute smile, if she weren’t mistaken.
Jane’s insides did a weird quaky thing, something halfway between giddiness and the urge to barf, and she looked away quickly before Luke could accuse her of panting again. After a few more minutes of watching paper being torn from boxes and her sister making up charming comment after comment about the endless array of gifts, Jane felt a tap on her shoulder. Lacey was standing there.
She leaned in and whispered, “We need to talk in the kitchen.”
Jane followed her sister out of the crowd, and into the kitchen where a few caterers were still scurrying around putting finger foods on trays.
“What’s up?”
“What is going on with you and Luke Nicoletti?”
Jane shrugged, hoping she looked nonchalant. “Nothing serious.”
Lacey was the most perceptive of the triplets, especially when people were hiding something from her. “You were in the bathroom with him for twenty minutes.”
“You were timing it?”
“He doesn’t seem like your type. You always date brainy guys, not megababes like Luke.”
“I date all different types of men—and what makes you think Luke isn’t gorgeous and intelligent?”
Lacey narrowed her eyes at Jane, clearly aware
there was more to the story than what Jane had told her so far.
“Heather said he’s your bodyguard—and he’s sleeping with you? Who knew having a bodyguard came with such perks.”
“For one thing, we’re not sleeping together, and for another, why are you so interested?”
“I’m just curious, that’s all. I guess I need something to distract me from my own problems.”
Like what? Split ends? “What’s wrong?” Jane asked, dutifully donning her big-sister hat then.
“It’s Jennifer. She knows I’m interested in Mike’s friend, Eli, and she’s going after him herself!”
“Eli, one of the groomsmen in the wedding?”
“Yes. They’ve been flirting with each other all night. I’m going to kill her.”
Oh boy, this was serious. The triplets almost never broke rank, and for a guy to come between them—it was unprecedented.
“You actually told Jennifer you were attracted to Eli?”
“Yes!”
“What, exactly, did you say?”
Lacey bit her lip and thought for a few moments. “I said, ‘That one’s hotter than a Texas summer.’”
That did sound like something Lacey would say. “Have you told Jennifer how you feel about her flirting with him?”
“He came over to the house last week with Mike, and she was flirting with him then, too, so I told her to back off, and she acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“Well, for Jennifer, flirting comes as naturally as breathing, so maybe she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.”
“That’s a load, and you know it. She’s just trying to get even with me because I’m looking into getting breast implants.”
Jane blinked, making a conscious effort not to look horrified. Telling Lacey not to do something was the same as daring her to do it. “Hmm. Have you researched the health risks of breast implants?”
Lacey waved one perfectly manicured hand in the air. “The doctor says they’re perfectly safe, so don’t start lecturing me. I need to know what to do about Jennifer.”
“Why don’t you just start flirting with Eli yourself and let him choose which of you he’s interested in?” Lame advice, but Jane was too baffled to think of anything more helpful at the moment.
“I’ve tried that. He just gets me confused with Jennifer.”
One of the many disadvantages of having sisters identical to oneself in appearance. Jane looked over Lacey’s shoulder and saw Luke standing in the doorway, motioning her over.
“Why don’t you try wearing name tags, then,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”
She hurried to the doorway, as Lacey stood there staring after her. “Jane…! Janie?”
Once she’d escaped the kitchen, she whispered her thanks to Luke.
“Sister problems?”
“You have no idea.”
“What do you say we slip out of here early and find some place that serves food you have to eat with a fork and knife?”
Jane glanced around at the crowd, her gaze settling on Bradley for a split second before she looked away. That giddy-barfy feeling appeared again, and she frowned. It had to be a physical reaction to making out with one guy while the object of one’s affection was sitting in the next room.
She’d feel guilty leaving her sister’s wedding shower early, but she was all showered out for the night. And then she spotted her mother—whom she’d somehow managed to avoid all evening—headed straight toward her. Visions of a discussion about using the bathroom with her bodyguard popped into her head.
“Let’s go, now! Hurry!” She tugged on Luke’s hand and wove her way past a clump of couples to the front door.
“Shouldn’t we give our regards to your sister and Michael?” Luke asked as she hurried them out the door and onto the porch.
“No time for that. They’ll never notice we left, there are so many people here.”
When they’d made it safely inside Luke’s sport utility vehicle, he gave her a quizzical look. “Care to tell me why we just flew out of there like demons were chasing us?”
“That’s not as much of an exaggeration as you might think.” She glanced at the front door to make sure her mother hadn’t followed them outside. “My mom was coming.”
Luke started the engine and pulled away from the house, then steered the SUV out onto the neighborhood street, lit up in the night by wrought-iron roadside lamps.
“Is Italian food okay?”
“Sounds great,” Jane said.
“This is quite a neighborhood,” Luke murmured as they passed stately home after stately home. “I’ve had a few clients in this area.”
“We grew up in that house. The people who live around here, they’ve got problems like everyone else—probably more than the average family. Money screws up most people.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said without elaborating.
“There was a family that used to live next door to us—the parents are divorced now—whose lives would have made a good soap opera. Daddy boinking the maid and the pool boy, Mommy too high on drugs to notice, kids running so wild you wouldn’t believe it. I think they must have forgotten they had kids until the older daughter drove her dad’s Ferrari into the side of the house.”
“What about your family? Are they screwed up like that?”
“No, I guess I’m pretty lucky compared to them. We’re just garden variety dysfunctional.”
Luke gave her a questioning look that she guessed meant he wanted details.
She wasn’t quite sure what else to say. For a moment, she just studied his profile as he drove. Strong jawline, perfectly straight nose, thick, dark hair hanging loose on his shoulders.
“You’ve met my parents and sisters. You see what they’re like.”
“I want to hear it from your perspective.”
“Well, my dad, you’ve probably seen him on the evening news doing the weather report. That handsome airhead act of his isn’t totally an act. That’s pretty much what he’s really like. Some dads teach their kids how to play ball—he taught me suntan oil application strategies.
“My mom is the original Southern belle. She still thinks women go to college to find a husband, and she can’t imagine why I’d want to focus on a writing career instead of trying to bag a wealthy man. And my sisters—they’re every guy’s fantasy. They’ve never had to do much but sit around and look pretty to get by in life.”
“They’re not my fantasy.”
She flashed him a suspicious look, but she couldn’t help asking, “What is your fantasy, then?”
“Lately, I seem to have developed a taste for sexy relationship gurus with bad attitudes.”
Jane couldn’t think of a witty response, so she squirmed in silence, staring out the window. Did he really expect her to believe she was his fantasy woman? Maybe a one-night kind of fantasy, but not an enduring one.
“You don’t believe me? You’ve gotten messed up in the head being around too many superficial people.”
“I just think you’ll say what you need to say to get me into bed.”
“You might be the most jaded woman I’ve ever met. But I’m still very attracted to you. Maybe because you’re a lot less aware of your own beauty than the typical beautiful woman.”
Jane gnawed at the inside of her cheek and tried to think of the most graceful way out of this conversation. Having a guy as gorgeous as Luke compliment her looks was sort of like Albert Einstein telling her she was a real smart gal. Was he right? Had her perspective gotten skewed by having the blond bombshell triplets to grow up with? Or was he really just trying to get in her pants?
“What about you? What kind of neighborhood did you grow up in?” she asked, hoping to take the subject far, far away from herself, though the thought of Luke getting in her pants lingered in her mind.
And the memory of what they’d almost done in her parents’ bathroom sent a jolt of heat to her groin. What had gotten into her? How had she gone from a restrain
ed, sensible woman to a lusty maniac so quickly? The answer to her questions sat only a foot away.
“I’m from Miami originally, and nobody in my neighborhood drove a Ferrari. El Camino, yeah—Ferrari, no way. Our street was mostly Puerto Rican. My mom is from Puerto Rico, and my dad was half Italian and half Heinz-57, but they were divorced by the time I was old enough to remember anything.”
“Do you know your father at all?”
“Yeah, I got interested in him and started asking to go visit him in Texas where he’d moved. So I spent summers here in Texas from elementary school on. The summer visits are how I met my cousin Michael and became friends with him when we were kids.”
“You two must be close still, if he asked you to be in his wedding.”
“No, not really. I guess there will always be that childhood bond, but we have almost nothing in common as adults.”
Jane found herself inexplicably satisfied to hear that Luke wasn’t a member of Michael and Heather’s shallow party crowd.
Luke went silent as he turned into the parking lot of Vittorio’s, an old-time Italian restaurant that was low on polish and high on great food. They made their way into the restaurant in silence, and a waitress led them to a dimly-lit U-shaped booth. This was exactly what Jane had always dreamed of as the perfect setting for a casual date.
They sat down and took the menus offered by the waitress, and Jane opened hers and tried not to notice how close Luke sat. Instead, she stared at the monstrosity of a candle flickering on the table, a big glob of wax in a bottle crisscrossed with what looked like a decade’s worth of hardened wax drippings.
“You ever been here before?” Luke asked.
“A few times, but it was years ago.”
“Everything is good, but the manicotti al forno is unbelievable.”
“Okay, I’m sold.” Jane slapped her menu shut and noticed that Luke had never opened his. “Is this one of your favorite haunts?”
“Yeah, I don’t live too far from here. The smell of garlic lures me in every time.”
A waitress came to take their orders. She knew Luke by name and flirted with him in a natural sort of way that didn’t even seem offensive given the fact that his “date” was sitting right beside him. When she left, Jane’s thoughts wandered to Luke’s background again. Maybe it was just writer’s curiosity, but she couldn’t help wanting to know what made her sexy bodyguard tick.
What A Girl Wants (Harlequin Blaze) Page 6
