What A Girl Wants (Harlequin Blaze)

by Jamie Sobrato

  “I find the closest spot.”

  “How about when it’s dark?”

  “I find the darkest, most out-of-the-way spot available, preferably situated between a spooky van and a Dumpster.”

  “Very funny. Do you actually think about safety when you’re in a dark parking lot?”

  “Of course I do. What woman doesn’t?” Jane asked before she took another bite of pizza. It was getting better, the more she allowed Luke to distract her. In a few minutes she might even have a real appetite worked up again—maybe even for something besides Luke.

  “We’ll need to work on some basic self-defense techniques this week. Just to make sure we’ve got all the bases covered. And I’d like to practice some more sophisticated techniques with you, too, things we hope you won’t ever have to use.”

  Jane was liking his ideas better and better. Her memories of two days ago in the park, their bodies pressed together, dominated her thoughts on self-defense lessons.

  “So this will involve lots of, um, close contact?”

  His expression remained neutral. “Yeah, lots of it.”

  “Hmm. That could be interesting.”

  He cracked a smile. “We’ll have to keep ourselves focused on the task at hand, of course. This is serious business.”

  Jane finished her pizza with visions of Luke wrestling her to the ground and showing her all the techniques he knew dancing through her head.

  “How about we get started tonight? With the lessons, I mean,” she said without thinking.

  Stress again. It had to be stress that took her from worrying about crazed stalkers to having self-defense lesson fantasies in a matter of minutes.

  Luke glanced at his watch, an expensive Swiss brand that suggested exactly the sort of clients he normally worked with—probably not people who attacked him with breath spray and gave him oral sex in the bathtub. Jane smiled to herself.

  “Not tonight. I need to meet with another client at eight tomorrow morning, and I’ve still got some work to do before the meeting.”

  Jane quirked an eyebrow, not sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved. “You wouldn’t be brushing me off, would you?”

  He smiled slowly. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than go back to your place, but after what happened yesterday, I know we wouldn’t get much sleep.”

  She blinked, amazed at the sudden rush of emotion in her chest. Was she actually offended that her bodyguard had just turned down an opportunity to get intimate with her? Had that really been her only motive in asking him back to her place? She swallowed a dry lump in her throat.

  Maybe it had.

  And she’d become the sort of woman she scolded soundly in The Sex Factor for letting sex control her life. How had this happened? But the question no sooner formed in her head than she knew the answer.

  She needed only to close her eyes and imagine the most amazing Sunday afternoon of her life to know.

  “Jane? Are you okay?” Luke was peering at her as if she’d just fallen asleep on her plate.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she said, shifting in her seat.

  “How about we meet up tomorrow for the self-defense lessons? I should be free after lunch.”

  She frowned, pretending to go over her schedule in her head. It was true she had writing to catch up on, and in spite of the way her body responded at the thought of seeing Luke tomorrow, she decided it was best to finally start following a bit of her own advice and make him wait.

  “I really need to catch up on work all day tomorrow. How about later in the week?”

  “We need to get an overall security plan for you in place as soon as possible. I don’t want to wait too long until our next meeting.”

  Uh-huh. Jane resisted a smile. “How about Thursday?”

  But then she caught a glimpse of his hand resting on the table, so large and perfect. Smooth café-au-lait skin sprinkled with dark hairs, long capable fingers that had worked with such skill—had made her cry out and writhe around shamelessly. She squeezed her thighs together and frowned. So much for her newfound self-control.

  “Are you sure you can’t make time on Wednesday? I just don’t want to put this off any longer than necessary.”

  “Wednesday is perfect,” she blurted with a little too much enthusiasm.

  Luke tossed her an odd look but said nothing.

  By the time they paid for dinner—arguing over the bill and finally settling on Luke getting the tab and Jane leaving the tip—and made it out to the parking lot, Jane was nearly humming with pent-up desire. She wanted to grab him, tug him into the back seat of her car, and demand a quickie to get her through the next two days.

  Two entire days. How would she survive? How would she focus on writing when an onslaught of erotic images filled her head and threatened to drive her mad?

  Jane drove home with her teeth clenched together, tried to listen to National Public Radio for all of two minutes before a discussion of some obscure poet became too much, and eventually gave up trying to resist thinking about Luke. She wanted him desperately. Wanted to feel the heat and firmness of his body against her again, wanted to feel him pumping inside her again, wanted to try out all the techniques and positions and scenarios she’d read about with a clinical detachment in magazines like Excess over the years, but had never had the urge to try before.

  By the time she reached her town house, which was blazing with lights thanks to the automatic random light settings Luke had installed with the security system, she feared she’d be awake all night.

  Jane found it oddly soothing to enter a house with the lights already on. Homer the cat greeted her at the door with a yowl. She’d forgotten to feed him that morning, she realized then. Great—all the craziness with Luke had even turned her into a bad-cat mom.

  She fed the cat, wandered around the house switching off unnecessary lights, and then slumped on the sofa, completely frazzled. The night stretched before her like an endless jail sentence. So she did what any writer would do—she went to her computer.

  A minute later her office was aglow in the light of her laptop. She logged on to her e-mail account and downloaded seventeen messages. Most looked like letters from readers, another few were junk mail, one was a forwarded joke from her great-uncle Millard, and two were from Heather about the bridesmaid dresses. Jane couldn’t bring herself to open any of them. Instead, she found herself wondering what Luke’s e-mail address was, and whether he’d check it tonight.

  She had to stop thinking about him. She opened the document that contained her work-in-progress, Sex and Sensibility, and realized she was the least qualified person on earth to write that book. Its subtitle, How to Be a Twenty-first-Century Girl with Nineteenth-Century Values glared at her from the screen.

  She was not that girl.

  Panic seized her chest. Would she have to abandon the entire project, break her contract with the publisher and ruin her writing career? She certainly couldn’t keep writing about issues like abstinence and self-control while she was in a lust-induced frenzy over her bodyguard.

  Her life was spiraling out of control, and all she could think about at that moment was her weekend spent with Luke. What she needed was to regain a bit of her former mind-set. Prior to the day she met Luke Nicoletti, she’d been a different woman. She’d had sensible desires.

  Of course! All she needed to do was to get her mind back on Bradley, and she’d forget all about Luke. She closed her eyes and tried to summon up a picture of Bradley. Blond hair cut meticulously short—none of that rebellious long, silken hair… Hair that tickled her face when he kissed her, when he made love to her—

  Stop it!

  Okay, back to Brad. Skip the hair. There was always his face. His face that, that…that she couldn’t picture right now if her life depended on it. Well then, she just needed to go back and imagine how they’d first met, in college Psych 203. The course had been titled Social Psychology, and… She couldn’t remember a damn thing about it—or Bradley—ri
ght now.

  Jane propped her elbows on the desk, buried her face in her hands, and sighed. She was so incredibly horny, so in need of release, there was only one way to get past it and get herself thinking clearly again.

  Her hand slipped down between her legs, giving the slightest bit of pressure to her throbbing core. No, she couldn’t do this, not with that damn manuscript title glaring at her. She closed Sex and Sensibility, then stared at her e-mail again. Then she remembered Luke’s business card, sitting on her desk only inches away, and it suddenly became very important that she touch that one little possession of his.

  She found it in her business card file and pulled it out, let her fingers glide over the black raised lettering on the white card—Lucas Nicoletti, Personal Security Specialist. And that was when she saw it—his e-mail address, printed there clear as day.

  She could e-mail him. Maybe give him a little taste of the torture he’d inflicted on her by not coming home with her. Yes, that was what she would do.

  She opened a new message, typed in his address, then tabbed to the subject header. She typed in “A Bedtime Story,” then tabbed down to the message field.

  Once upon a time there was a woman who was wide awake on a lonely Monday night. She couldn’t banish from her mind thoughts of a certain man, a man who’d brought her unimaginable pleasure only the day before. But tonight, he’d gone home alone too, and she wondered if his body ached for her the same way hers ached for him.

  She lay awake, haunted by images of what they might have been doing if only they’d been together. She would take him to her bed, explore his flesh with her hands and mouth, find all the places that made him cry out with pleasure. She already knew a few of those places. She knew the feel of him, hard and throbbing inside her mouth, or buried deep inside her.

  She longed for that feeling again, had a burning need for it, and when she finally fell asleep, she feverishly dreamed about it, about him, about the magic their bodies worked together.

  Jane stopped and reread what she’d written. Not the most inspired prose she’d ever penned. And not in a million years could she ever actually send such a message. She wasn’t sure what she’d intended to write to Luke, but this wasn’t it. No, she’d just delete the whole thing.

  She moved the mouse arrow over to the appropriate spot and clicked one time. A little message popped up on her screen: “Your message has been sent.”

  Sent? Jane blinked, and her stomach clenched into a golf ball.

  Yes, sent.

  Oh. Dear. God.

  She’d accidentally gone on autopilot and hit the same button she always hit when she finished composing a message—the send button.

  She heard a strangled sound escape her throat, and she gripped the sides of the computer screen. “No! No, no, no, no, no!”

  This couldn’t be happening. She absolutely could not have just sent an erotic e-mail message to her new bodyguard. Her breathing grew shallow and she had to force herself to take slow steady breaths.

  Count to ten. Don’t panic. One, two, three…

  Just to be sure she hadn’t gone insane, she opened the sent folder in her e-mail program and saw it—the message entitled “A Bedtime Story” had been sent to Luke’s e-mail address at 9:49 p.m. on May 2.

  Damn. She double-checked the recipient address against the one printed on Luke’s business card, hoping she’d somehow gotten it wrong, but no, it matched exactly.

  Jane reopened the message and read it with fresh eyes, imagining how Luke might actually interpret it when he read it. By the time she finished, her face was burning and she had the sort of light-headed, giddy sensation that came from blood rushing to the wrong parts of her body.

  Damn.

  There was only one way to interpret her message. Blatantly sexual. She hopped out of her seat and paced around the office.

  Did this make her a pervert? A hopeless weirdo? Would Luke want to stop working with her after this?

  No, she had to calm down. He was, after all, a more-than-willing party in their haymaking yesterday. Maybe he’d even be flattered. Or turned on.

  Jane froze in her tracks. She was right back where she’d started, trying to act with restraint and ending up sending an erotic message to her bodyguard. Her professional career was going to be ruined.

  She’d be labeled a hypocrite, a crackpot and a harlot.

  And still, tonight, the only thing she wanted to think about was making love to Luke.

  All the labels were true.

  She wandered around the house, feeling jittery and feverish, until she found herself in the bathroom, staring at the tub where they had shared the most amazing sexual experience of her life.

  Without thinking, she turned on the water and stripped off her clothes. She poured a bit of peppermint bath oil into the water, lit a candle, flicked off the lights, then stepped into the bath. It was nearly hot enough to scald, just the way she liked it. Jane settled inch by inch lower into the water until she was reclined back in the very spot Luke had been only a day ago. After a few minutes, she turned off the water with her foot and sighed into the silence.

  With her eyes closed and her body immersed in the hot water, she could let go of the panic and let desire take control.

  She slid her hands over her aching breasts, down her belly, and she paused. She didn’t want her release to happen without him. But she did want to clear her head. He wasn’t here tonight, and if she didn’t do something about her half-crazed state of arousal, she’d never get a word written, nor would she sleep at all that night.

  So, she’d be doing it for her career. Better to have a little solo pleasure than to give in to one’s inappropriate desires for a man she shouldn’t have been sleeping with.

  That was it!

  Yes.

  She’d just add a chapter to Sex and Sensibility about the occasional need for masturbation, and she’d be demonstrating to herself how life experience only improved her outlook on relationships. It didn’t have to be a contradiction.

  Not a contradiction at all.

  Jane slid her hands down farther, exploring, then stopped again.

  This wasn’t what she wanted. Feeling herself up in the tub didn’t even compare to the exquisite pleasure she’d found with Luke. She expelled a ragged breath and opened her eyes. The bathroom clock read 10:42 p.m. She glared at the flickering candle, feeling a strong urge to inflict damage on something.

  That was when she heard the doorbell ring.

  9

  The trouble with casual sex is that there is nothing casual about spreading your legs and inviting someone else in to play.

  —Jane Langston, in Chapter Five of The Sex Factor

  LUKE STOOD at the front door he’d sworn he wouldn’t enter tonight. He’d thought he might gain a little perspective on the intense emotions bombarding him where Jane was concerned if he had a little time to think. But then he’d gone home, intent on getting a full night’s rest after the night before of barely sleeping at all. He’d been so keyed up about Jane, sleep seemed almost unnecessary, but missing it was catching up with him.

  He’d been beat, until he sat down at his computer to do a quick e-mail check before heading off to bed. It had given him a jolt to see Jane’s name and e-mail address in his inbox, and he hadn’t hesitated a moment in opening the message entitled, “A Bedtime Story.”

  What he’d gone on to read had sealed his fate. He knew he wouldn’t sleep until he’d had her, so he’d simply gotten back in his Land Cruiser and driven as fast as he could all the way to Jane’s house.

  He rang the doorbell a second time, and a few moments later he saw the curtain in the living-room window move. Then he heard the click of the locks and Jane was standing before him.

  She had a towel wrapped around her damp body, and her hair clung to her shoulders in wet ringlets. He caught the scent of mint emanating from her, and an instant erection strained against his jeans.

  “Damn it, Jane.”

  She assumed a lo
ok of wide-eyed innocence. “What’s wrong?”

  “I got your e-mail,” he said, his voice becoming strained by his arousal.

  He’d imagined maybe finding her still in her street clothes, up late working or drinking coffee or whatever it was writers did. He hadn’t imagined finding her like this, freshly showered and ready to be ravished.

  Her lips parted, as if she meant to speak, but he caught the look of arousal in her eyes and knew. She hadn’t been toying with him or joking when she’d sent that message. She’d meant every word of it.

  He stepped inside the door, closing the distance between them, and when she closed and locked it, he reached out for her towel and gave it a good tug. The lavender terry cloth fell to the floor, along with Luke’s stomach.

  Damned if she didn’t make the most tempting visual offer he’d ever seen. She didn’t even flinch at her sudden nakedness. Instead, she just watched him, her chest rising and falling with each breath, her silence an invitation.

  Luke pinned her against the door with his body while his hands snaked around her soft, damp waist and his mouth covered hers. In their kiss he unleashed all the desire that had built up in the last day—especially in the half hour or so since he’d read her message. His tongue brushed past her lips and found hers, and as they gasped and searched and probed, he savored the already-familiar feel of her.

  He broke the kiss and looked into her eyes, tracing her jaw line with his thumb. “Do you always take a bath this late, or were you expecting me?”

  “I actually didn’t mean to send that message. I was going to delete it, but…” She flashed an embarrassed smile. “I accidentally hit the send button.”

  Luke caught a glimpse in her eyes of the panic she must have felt upon hitting the wrong button, and he grinned. “Interesting. So you needed a bath to unwind after that?”

  “Um, yeah. I guess so.”

  An image of her, naked in that king-size tub, flashed in his mind, and the sense of urgency that centered in his groin grew.