She put down the bagel and took a long drink of coffee. It was her second cup, but she still hadn’t quite gotten out of the funk of a poor night’s sleep. And the hormones raging through her veins didn’t help, either. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so keyed up and horny, and yet she still couldn’t explain her behavior the night before.
Jane had always been in control of her emotions and her actions, but with Luke, she never had any idea what crazy thing she might do from one moment to the next. Being in his presence was a little terrifying. The fact that he was due to arrive in a matter of minutes didn’t help soothe her nerves.
She glanced at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of the computer screen. Nine forty-five. She had fifteen minutes to steel herself to his caveman charms. All she needed to do, she decided, was focus on Bradley.
Yes. That was it. If she concentrated on the things she loved about Bradley Stone, she couldn’t help but notice how each of those qualities was missing from Luke Nicoletti. Okay, so focusing on Bradley hadn’t helped her much last night when she’d nearly had sex in her parents’ bathroom and then on her kitchen counter with Luke. But she had to believe it would work this time.
Jane turned her laptop to low-power mode and carried her uneaten breakfast to the kitchen. On her way to the boxes in the hallway, she caught herself checking her reflection in the mirror. She’d definitely done more to get herself ready this morning than she normally would on a lazy Sunday, going so far as to apply light makeup and put on her most flattering pair of jeans and a snug black top.
She scowled at herself and turned her attention to the nearest box. She tore through the wads of paper until she came to a framed photo of her parents. She’d just grabbed a hammer and nail off the top of the next closest box to hang the photo, when her doorbell rang and her entire body went on alert.
A peek through the peephole revealed Luke’s outrageously handsome face on the other side of the door, so she took a deep breath and opened the locks.
Her lower belly clenched when she took in the full view of him, dressed in a faded pair of jeans, a tool belt and a black T-shirt pulled tight over his chest and shoulder muscles. His hair was secured back in a ponytail, and he gazed at her with those dark-chocolate eyes that seemed to see exactly how much he aroused her.
“I finished your book last night,” he said.
“Good morning to you, too.” Okay, she was dying to know what he thought of it, but she wasn’t about to let him see how interested she was in his comment.
Jane stepped aside, and Luke filled the doorway, a big black toolbox in one hand. He entered the hallway and set the box down.
“Don’t you want to know what I think of it?”
“You’ve already made that clear.”
“Maybe I changed my mind. I’d only read half the book yesterday.”
Right. A guy like Luke admitting that he’d changed his mind was about as likely as Jane admitting she was wrong.
“You read the most controversial chapter last night. I’m betting it didn’t exactly sit well with you.”
“Which one is that? The one about sexual control through deprivation, or how men want what they haven’t conquered?”
“It’s not deprivation, it’s restraint.”
“Control Your Sexuality, Control Your Life” was the central chapter of The Sex Factor, the one that defined in the most specific terms Jane’s relationship philosophy, and the one that pissed off most men.
“Yeah, you were all about restraint last night,” he said as he bent and opened his toolbox.
“I did put the brakes on.” Jane felt her cheeks burn. She hadn’t been nearly as restrained as she urged other women to be.
“I thought the ‘men want what they haven’t conquered’ chapter was the most ridiculous one.”
“Ridiculous? It’s a scientifically proven fact.”
Luke withdrew a drill from the box and gave Jane a wry look. “I hate to tell you this, babe, but you’re wrong.”
“You can believe that if it makes you feel better,” Jane said as she picked a spot on the wall and hammered the nail into it with a little too much enthusiasm.
“You know, you should find a stud for that.”
Jane resisted making any smart-ass comments about how there wasn’t a stud to be found. When she glanced over at Luke, he wore a vague smile.
“I can hang a picture without your expertise, thanks.”
He tucked the drill into a holder on his tool belt and stood up, then walked to the front door again. “I’m going to install your new security system.”
“Okay, I’ll be here if you have any questions.”
“I’m not wrong, by the way. You assume all men are sex-obsessed asses who do their decision-making with their dicks.”
Jane feigned a look of wide-eyed innocence. “I stand corrected, then. I’ll title my next book, Men Are Really Nice Guys. I’m sure it’ll be a bestseller.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s what all your male-bashing is about, isn’t it? You’re ruining people’s sex lives just so you can cash in.”
The picture of Jane’s parents slipped from her hands and landed on the hardwood floor. A crack formed a path across the glass in the frame. Jane believed absolutely in her relationship theories, but she had been a bit bothered by the way her editor had encouraged her to strengthen certain assertions—especially the ones that made men look like jerks. Jane had known in her gut that the editor was operating on the wisdom that the more extreme the opinions, the more books would sell, and she’d tried to remain true to her own vision while still pleasing the editor.
Had she gone too far? The thought that even one relationship might have been unnecessarily damaged by her book made Jane sick to her stomach.
No. Luke was just trying to rile her up. He was angry, like most men, for having his sex life dampened by the truth.
Jane looked up from the broken photo and glared at him. “Now you’re accusing me of being unethical, too? You sure know the way to a woman’s heart. Oh, and by the way, you certainly weren’t proving me wrong about the sex-obsessed part last night.”
Luke approached her, his gaze steady and penetrating. When he was mere inches away, he bent and picked up the broken picture.
“Point taken. I don’t know anything about your ethics, so I’ll take back that last comment for now.” He studied the photo. “You don’t look much like your parents.”
Considering the number of nips and tucks both her father and mother had had, they were lucky to even look like themselves. “I take after my paternal grandmother—dark-haired, fair-skinned, black Irish.”
“You’re lucky.”
Jane blinked, waiting for the punch line. That was the first time anyone had ever called her lucky for not inheriting her parents’ blond good looks, the way her sisters had. “You haven’t seen my grandmother in her old age.”
“Anything is more interesting than looking like a Barbie doll.” He nodded at the photo, and Jane realized that at a quick glance, her parents really did look like duplicates of Barbie and Ken—an oddly youthful-looking middle-aged pair of plastic dolls.
Jane looked up to find Luke studying her face. Okay, so he was getting sneaky, trying to win her over before seducing her and then rubbing it in her face that she was wrong.
“You can spare me the flattery.” She took the picture from him and placed it on a nearby box, then started digging through the packing paper to find something else to hang.
“I’ll be outside if you need me,” he said, ignoring her hostility, and when she heard his footsteps on the way out the door, Jane couldn’t resist turning and watching him walk.
Why had she hired the sexiest bodyguard on earth? Why had she hired one at all? Probably, the threats she’d been getting were nothing to worry about, just hotheaded guys talking trash. Surely she didn’t need Luke storming into her life and turning it upside down.
Jane had pounded two more nails into the wall before she
realized that she hadn’t bothered to space them out or even select pictures to hang on them. She was losing her mind, and it was all Luke’s fault. She wasn’t going to endure another minute of it.
Forget that dumb idea about proving her relationship theories with Luke. Proof seemed pretty irrelevant when her sanity was at stake.
To ensure that she didn’t use it in a way she’d later regret, Jane put the hammer down and went out the front door after Luke. He was leaning into the back of his sport utility vehicle, and as she neared him she had a prime view of his perfect rear end and his well-muscled back. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember what she’d just been so annoyed about.
Images of Luke’s bare rear end and back filled her thoughts—how he would feel to touch, how he might react if she ran her fingertips lightly over his flesh, or if she dug her nails into his skin in the heat of an orgasm. Did he like it a little rough, or nice and gentle?
Everything else about him suggested roughness and hard edges, so Jane would have been willing to bet fingernails in the back were just his style.
He stood up and turned to face her. “What’s up?”
“Um…”
In the truck behind him, she spotted the wires and little boxes that must have comprised her new security system, and she remembered. She’d come out here to fire him. Right. Because he wanted to seduce her just to prove her wrong. Anger rose up in Jane’s chest again.
“This isn’t going to work.”
Luke looked at her as if she’d asked him to dance naked in the street. “Trust me, it’s the best security system around.”
“I mean this—as in, our arrangement. You working as my security specialist is a really bad idea.”
His forehead formed an annoyed crease down the middle. “Didn’t we already have this conversation?”
“And you talked me into ignoring common sense.”
“Common sense should tell you that when you have angry men everywhere threatening you, security should be a priority.”
“I haven’t had anyone actually try to harm me. They’ve all been empty threats.”
“Why don’t you let me determine that. Show me all the letters and e-mail you’ve gotten, let me hear the phone messages, tell me everything that’s happened since the book came out, and I’ll decide how much extra protection you need.”
Jane thought of the radio caller, the way the hairs on her neck had stood up at his words.
Okay, Luke was already here. What would it hurt to let him take a look at all the evidence and then decide how much protection she needed. Maybe he’d just install the security system and then leave for good. Maybe he’d decide all she had to do was change her phone number and vary her routine, or whatever it was personal security specialists advised people to do.
“Fine.”
She led him to her office and sat down at her desk. Across from her, Luke sank into the old red sofa that had been with her since her college days and looked around at her mess of an office. Normally, she didn’t invite people into this room, but when she did, she usually took some time beforehand to shove papers and books into boxes and closets.
Jane flipped through her file cabinet, found the unlabeled file near the back, and withdrew the letters she hadn’t turned over to the police yet, plus copies she’d made of the letters she had given to them. She handed them to Luke and watched as he leaned back on the sofa and began reading.
His expression turned from neutral to disgusted as he slowly made his way through the pile, and Jane caught herself tapping her fingers on the desk, nervous to hear him say that the letters were nothing but the work of novices, pranksters and harmless idiots.
She studied her desk calendar and began making mindless notes on it about things she needed to do in the next week—tasks she couldn’t help but remember to complete, like going grocery shopping and taking out the garbage. Anything was better than contemplating what Luke’s scowl might mean. Just as she’d run out of space on her calendar for the week and noticed that she had an oil change coming up, Luke put the papers on the corner of her desk and sighed.
She looked up at him, but he didn’t speak.
“Well?”
“Taking a more thorough look at these, I noticed something. Did the police tell you most of these look like they’re written by the same guy?”
“Um, they mentioned the possibility.”
“A single angry stalker is more of a threat for you than a bunch of letters from random jerk-offs.”
“So you really think one person is behind all the threats?”
“Not all of them, but most. This creep should be taken seriously.”
Jane narrowed her eyes, opting for sarcasm to hide the chills that nearly overtook her. “Which means you think I absolutely need you, right?”
Luke’s gaze remained fixed on hers. “You need me more than you know.”
6
For men, sex is only slightly more complicated than shaking hands. They aren’t plagued by the emotional intricacies of it the way we are.
—Jane Langston, from Chapter Fifteen of The Sex Factor
LUKE FOUGHT TO KEEP his thoughts focused on the matter at hand. No more thinking about what he wished he and Jane had done last night. No more imagining what he’d do with her if she gave him half a chance today. Sitting here in her office wishing he could take her on that paper-strewn desk wasn’t going to help. Jane needed him to focus on keeping her safe.
She needed him to do his job.
If he did a little extracredit work in the bedroom, she could only benefit, but right now he had to keep his mind off sex and on how to keep Jane safe. She may not have been fully ready to accept how her life had changed in the face of sudden celebrity status, but it was Luke’s job to make her understand.
He went back outside to get the rest of the equipment to install the security system, and Jane followed him out the door. He turned and gave her a questioning look.
“I just noticed on my calendar that it’s time for an oil change,” she said. “I need to check the manual to remember which kind of oil to buy.”
He went to his SUV and opened up the back, then grabbed the spool of wire and a few stray tools. He was just closing the hatchback when he heard Jane emit a high-pitched screech.
“Luke!”
He peered around his Toyota to see Jane backing away from her car, the passenger door still open.
“What’s the matter?” he said, already dropping the tools and wire as he started up the driveway.
“C-come here!” She was staring at something inside the car, and when he approached, Luke saw a book—or the remains of one—lying mangled on the passenger seat.
“Is that how you treat library books?” he joked, then realized by her frightened expression that she wasn’t in the mood for humor.
“The car was locked. I had to unlock it.”
Hmm. He decided not to blurt any more stupid comments. Okay, so the car was locked, and she apparently hadn’t been the one who’d mutilated that book…
It was a copy of The Sex Factor that looked as if it had been attacked by a toddler with a black marker, then fed to a starving pit bull.
“You’re absolutely sure the car was locked?”
“Yes, I remember specifically hearing the sound of the lock clicking when I turned the key… And since all of this craziness started happening, I’ve been obsessive about checking and double checking all my door locks, including the car.”
A quick glance confirmed that the driver’s side was locked too. Okay, so the creep who’d done this knew how to pick car-door locks. Not a huge feat, especially on an older-model car like this one. The fact that he—or she—had chosen to lock the car again was meant as a message to Jane, to make sure she felt violated, to let her know she wasn’t even safe behind locked doors.
“Don’t touch anything else until the police come. Why don’t you go inside and call them while I look around and make sure nothing else is out of place?”
Jane t
ossed him a suspicious glare. “This isn’t your psycho way of proving your necessity, is it?”
“I don’t dislike your book that much,” Luke said as he peered into the back seat of the Mercedes, which was empty.
He let the insult to his professionalism slide. After all, Jane had reason to be suspicious of everyone, and it was smart of her to question even him. A hell of a lot smarter than jogging alone in the woods, so maybe there was hope for her after all.
While Luke inspected the rest of the car, the yard and the outside of the house, Jane disappeared into the house. Twenty minutes later, a police officer arrived and took their statements, gathered up the evidence and promised to let them know if they found any leads from it.
After the officer left, Luke followed Jane into the house. “Are you okay?” he asked as he watched her carefully lock the door.
She turned to him, hugged herself and shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like throwing up.”
“You have every reason to be freaked out. Just don’t let this creep ruin your life.”
“It’s not exactly reassuring to know I have such devoted enemies out there.”
“That’s why you’ve got me. We just need to talk about how this changes your security needs.”
She eyed him warily. Luke guessed she was even more freaked out by the mangled book than she was willing to admit, and he couldn’t blame her. Having one’s private property invaded and one’s work trashed in such a blatant way was a tactic meant to frighten and unnerve—a very effective tactic.
He made a mental note to get the names of everyone Jane came in contact with on a regular basis and run background checks to see if anything significant came up. He’d also have to do some surveillance, keep an eye on Jane’s place to see if he could catch anything suspicious going on. The thought of sitting in a car for hours on end never appealed to him, but it was infuriating to have someone break into her car right under his nose.
What A Girl Wants (Harlequin Blaze) Page 8
