One-Click Buy: February 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Betina Krahn

  He ran his hands over her silky skin, tracing those curves while her gentle moves and hot kisses pumped his body to life. And when he slid a finger into her slippery heat his cock twitched and jerked with demands that it take over.

  “Ohh,” she groaned. “You always know right where to touch me.”

  When it came to Kitty, everywhere was the right place to touch her. But he kept that to himself, opting to let her believe he had some magic power. In reality they just made a really good team.

  He reached into one of the compartments, pulled out a condom and sheathed himself, not ready to sink in yet but getting closer by the minute. Every press of her mouth, each easy stroke of that butt against his cock turned the dial up a notch until the temperature in the room reached a boil.

  Grabbing her hips, he nudged her so that the length of him stroked against her clit, then he urged her to rock and massage herself against his shaft.

  “That’s it, babe,” he said, holding his penis to up the pressure. “Stroke like this.”

  She did, grasping his shoulders and sliding back and forth until those brown eyes darkened and her rosy cheeks flushed.

  “Ooh, this is nice,” she moaned. Her long blond hair slipped over her shoulders and tickled his cheek. After a night of sex and a morning of cruising on the calm glassy water she looked tousled and mussed. Her makeup was smudged, her normally tidy hair hung haphazardly around her shoulders, and her fresh soapy scent was laced with sweat and sex. To Josh it was the ultimate turn-on, the unraveling of something pure that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get enough of.

  Pulling back, she raised her hands and clasped the porthole over the bed, stretching out that long body of hers where he could watch as she moved and stroked over him. It nearly broke him, watching her go from pleasure to ecstasy to urgent as the pressure built and she reached the edge.

  Her breath deepened. “Inside,” she urged.

  “Not yet.” He ground his hips, upping the rhythm. “Come for me, babe.”

  She moved her focus to the spot where their bodies met, taking slow and deliberate strokes and then speeding up the pace until that faint squeak began to lift from her lungs.

  “It’s here,” she urged. “It’s—” But the words drowned out with her climax.

  The second she came, he pulled her up and buried himself into that tight pulsing space. Her muscles squeezed and quaked, thrusting him from aroused to the edge of orgasm in only a few strokes. He began pumping hard, drawing out her pleasure as he reached his peak. She threw her head back and cried out, riding the waves as far as they would take her, pushing into him, churning over him, until everything exploded.

  He came hard, wrapping his arms around her and dragging her to his chest, flipping her over on her back so he could take control. It nearly devoured him, the fierce desire and greed, the carnal ache to pillage and possess. It raked the air from his lungs and the light from his eyes, leaving him nothing to do but surrender himself as his body spilled and thrust.

  He came to rest against her, his mouth pressed to her warm, sweaty cheek, his face crushed against hers and her body wrapped within his arms. Short of his heavy breath and the soft caress of his lips, his muscles were too spent to function. And yet, despite everything he’d given his mind to concentrate on, no matter how numbing this round of magnificent sex, he couldn’t stop harking back to Kitty’s comments.

  Distant memory of a sordid affair, my ass.

  He’d had fond recollections of women before. There were several notable evenings keeping hold in his memory banks. But his experience with Kitty overshadowed them all. And as much as it shouldn’t, he couldn’t stop being bugged by the notion that this deserved something more notable than a melancholy tale from a gray-haired lady.

  This was special. And it was really, really good. The problem was he wasn’t at all prepared to deal with what it should be.

  8

  “THE CROWNCRAFT rep is thrilled with my ideas for Auntie Bea’s,” Kitty said, holding up the Inventory Clearance Sale banner she’d made while Jennifer taped it to the window.

  “You mean Cassandra’s?” Jennifer corrected.

  Kitty smiled. “She even liked the name change. She’ll be up in the area next week and wants to talk about swapping out their inventory for products that will be more suitable for the new store.”

  She stepped back to check the sign. “I guess, for a while at least, I’m out of hot water with them.”

  “So you’ll be going to the trade show.”

  “Booked my plane ticket yesterday.”

  “And will you be staying for Valentine’s Day?”

  Kitty eyed her friend, not missing her look of insinuation.

  “I saw Howard the other day,” Jennifer added. “He asked how you were doing.”

  “And you said?”

  “I didn’t tell him you’ve been sleeping with The Beek, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  Kitty frowned. “You don’t have to lie. My relationship with Josh is no betrayal to Howard.”

  “Is that what it is? A relationship?” Kitty didn’t have an answer, prompting Jennifer to add, “Valentine’s Day is only a few weeks away, you know.”

  “I know what day it is, I’ve just been—busy.”

  Jennifer picked up the stepladder and carried it to the storage room. “Busy whiling away your nights with yet another man who will get you nowhere. This one even told you on day one not to expect a relationship.” She sighed and eyed Kitty pathetically. “Tell me you don’t actually think that situation’s changed.”

  For two weeks now, Jennifer had been warning Kitty about getting too involved with Josh, reminding her that it was supposed to have been a one-night stand. It wasn’t that Jennifer didn’t like Josh. It was that, for ten years now, she’d been on the receiving end of Kitty’s romantic frustrations and broken hearts. She’d listened to hours of sobs and woes and was the brainchild behind the idea of Kitty using her head instead of her heart to find the man of her dreams, since the other way around hadn’t gotten her anywhere.

  “No, I don’t,” Kitty confirmed. “And you’re right. Wasting my time with men like Josh is exactly what’s left me single and pushing thirty. And, no, I haven’t given up plan Howard. I just—”

  She just hadn’t wanted to let go of the wonderful time she was having, or the sexy way Josh made her feel, the way her tummy tingled every time she set eyes on him, how he touched her, the passion in their lovemaking, that he could make her laugh at the slightest things, or—

  Kitty had to sit down. Plopping onto one of the crates they’d been emptying, she wrapped her arms around her waist and groaned. “Oh, no. Jennifer, I’ve fallen in love with him.”

  Jennifer stood and stared. “What?”

  “I knew I had it bad, but not as bad as this.”

  “Kitty, Kitty.” Jennifer’s tone was chastising, as if Kitty were the stupidest woman on earth, and she couldn’t argue. She’d played with fire and something had ignited. What had she expected?

  And worse, it only proved that Kitty had a serious problem when it came to men. After all, if it weren’t for Tori and Sam and the pact they’d made last year, Kitty wouldn’t even be considering Howard right now. She would have continued this fling with Josh indefinitely until he ultimately tired and broke her heart. And how much more of her life would she have wasted while she watched more of her friends marry and start families?

  No, she wasn’t going there. She was going to stick to plan Howard, give the guy a solid chance, and if things didn’t work out between them, she’d at least know it wasn’t because she’d made another stupid mistake.

  “I need to break it off with Josh,” she said.

  Jennifer eyed the restaurant across the street. “Now would be the perfect opportunity.”

  “He’s busy. I can’t bother him at work.”

  “He’s never too busy to chat with customers. He’ll make time for you.”

  “But—”

  “Kitty,
I know you. You’re a softie and a sucker for charm. If you get him in private, he’ll just talk you out of it. Don’t you remember Ron?”

  Ron was a distributor whom Kitty had managed to get involved with a couple years back. On a biweekly basis, the man waltzed into town, wined and dined her, talked business, had sex, then headed back to Los Angeles until next time. Over and over again, Kitty had intended to break it off, but he’d kept stringing her along with stories about how he was thinking of relocating to the area. Until, of course, he took a job in New York and was gone forever.

  “Yes, I remember Ron.” She sighed and stared out the window. “You’re right. I need to start making better choices when it comes to men, and I need to start now. I’m going over there, and as soon as I’m done, I’m walking down to Hollies Paints and asking Howard on a date.”

  She stood and smoothed the creases from her slacks. “One big swoop before I can change my mind and back out.”

  “Go,” Jennifer urged. “Plan Howard was a good one. He’s a nice guy and I really think that if you gave it a shot you’d find something special with him.”

  Kitty had already found something special with Josh. That she knew all the way to her soul. But without two sides to that street, she was only headed for another dead end on her road to something lasting. So, with her chin up and her shoulders squared, she headed over to Beekers, determined to do this before she lost both her heart and her nerve.

  She walked in and found him at the grill. “Josh, can we talk?”

  He turned around and his face lit up. She tried not to let the sparkling smile affect her, but with three weeks of blissful memories running a slide show in her brain, she couldn’t help feeling a solid lump in her throat. And it didn’t help that he was standing there in those sexy chef’s whites that broadened his shoulders and trimmed his waist. No wonder the women fawned all over him when they came into the restaurant. With the delectable smells sizzling off the grill at the hand of the mouthwatering man creating them, all the senses were plundered and no female was left with a fighting chance.

  “Hey, it’s my favorite gift-shop owner,” he chimed. “What can I do for you, darlin’?”

  She swallowed hard and shored up her will. She’d have all the time in the world to feel sorry for herself when this was done. Right now, she had to grow a stiff spine.

  “I know you’re busy, but we need to talk. It’ll only take a moment.”

  The other chef at the grill eyed her then Josh. “Sounds serious.”

  Josh’s smile turned inquisitive. “Sure.” He grabbed a towel and wiped his hands as he rounded the bar. “What’s up?”

  “Could we talk in private? Maybe out back or—”

  “Follow me.”

  He led her to a storeroom, where he turned on the lights and shut the door. “What is it, babe?”

  “I, um…” Her fingers found her pearls and she began toying with them nervously. “I don’t mean to do this suddenly, but this—relationship—we’ve been having.” She waved a finger between them. “This thing between us—this, well, you know.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to keep going.

  She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Valentine’s Day is coming up, and if you remember my pact with my friends at the trade show.”

  Then in a rush everything she’d told him that first night in her apartment came spilling out. She sounded more like a kid explaining a broken lamp than a grown woman taking control of her love life, but it didn’t matter. She was conveying the message somewhat coherently, and Josh was getting it, judging by the way his bright mood darkened and his lips went flat. Most likely, the man had never been broken up with before, and though Kitty garnered no pleasure from that notion, it helped to explain the sorry look on his face.

  “Plan Howard,” he said, his voice flat and unadorned.

  “You have to understand. There are things I want in life that you don’t. The years are getting away from me. I’ll be thirty next year, and I can’t go on indefinitely waiting for a lasting relationship to simply present itself.”

  He shook his head and agreed, “No, you can’t.”

  “I just—I wish I could be like you, happy with my career and my friends. If that were the case, I’d take you for as long as you’d have me. But I’m not. I want a husband and a family and stability, and—” Her voice hitched and she had to stop. And thankfully, by then, Josh didn’t need to hear anymore. Instead, he pulled her into his arms and gave her a warm hug.

  “Babe, I understand.”

  That was good. Maybe he could explain it to her. Because despite what she’d said, she really didn’t accept why, when two people had such a wonderful and intimate time with each other—who seemed to connect on so many levels bringing such pleasure to each other’s lives—why that wouldn’t be something a person would want to hold on to forever. She certainly wanted it. But apparently Josh saw things differently.

  Maybe what was a spectacular relationship to her was only run of the mill to him. She’d been across the street long enough to know that after her, a dozen other women were no doubt lined up, waiting for Josh’s attention. So what would be his motive to settle for a simple townie like her?

  She pulled from his embrace and threw on a phony smile. “I’m glad.” She took an awkward step back. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and my store. You’re a good neighbor.”

  And a good man, and lover, entertainer, chef, friend, confidant—

  “It’s been my pleasure,” he said quietly.

  His face was smiling but there was something hollow in it. Nonetheless, she wasn’t in a position to stay and analyze. She’d almost managed to get through this without completely humiliating herself in at least a half-dozen ways, so she needed to get out while she was still ahead.

  “I’ll see you around then?”

  “You know where to find me.”

  Then without another look, she scampered from the room, through the restaurant and into the chilly evening air, gulping a breath and telling herself that after pulling off that stunning performance, she should be capable of just about anything.

  9

  “THAT WAS SOME speech, man.”

  Josh jumped at the sound of the voice behind him before remembering the couch in the back of the storeroom and the fact that Nick, one of his prep cooks, often napped there while waiting for his wife to come pick him up.

  Great. Now, not only was he shocked and sad, his love life would be public knowledge.

  “So was that good news or bad?” Nick asked.

  “Come again?”

  Nick shrugged. “When a guy’s getting dumped you never know if the woman’s tearing him apart or doing him a favor. So which is it?”

  Josh blinked. “I’m not really sure.”

  Gut reaction? Kitty Clayborn had just taken his heart and put it through a meat grinder, seasoned it with arsenic then handed it back to him on a platter. But experience had taught him that having a woman do the breaking up was always a good thing. It was clean and easy. No hard feelings. A virtual get-out-of-jail-free card in the game of life. Besides, in the past, usually by the time they’d done the dumping, Josh had already moved on.

  Except this time he didn’t have any desire to move on. And this time, it didn’t feel anything like a good thing.

  “I vote for doing you a favor,” Nick said. “’Cause that woman’s so in love with you, if it weren’t for this deal she made with her pals, you would’ve been screwed.”

  Josh frowned. “What are you talking about? She never said anything about love.”

  “You’ve got to read between the lines, man.”

  Josh stared at Nick—a hippie, thirty years Josh’s senior—and wondered if all those drugs the guy had done back in the sixties had finally caught up with him.

  “All the stuff between the lines,” Josh repeated flatly. “And you managed to catch all that from behind the canned tomatoes?”

 
“I only heard what I heard. But take it from an old guy who’s been dealing with women since before you were crapping in diapers, that was not a girl happy about breaking up with you.”

  Dismissing Nick’s assumptions, Josh frowned and headed back to the kitchen, his heart aching and his head too confused for cooking, but he tried anyway. Burying himself in his work had always been cleansing. When problems arose, he’d always used the job to take his mind off things and adjust his attitude long enough to step back and see answers clearly. Only tonight, no answer came, and an hour later, all he’d done was burn two game hens, yell at his favorite server and spoil a batch of ziti.

  This wasn’t right.

  No matter how he turned it over in his head and tried to make sense of it, he kept coming back to the same place. That the breakup wasn’t right, his reaction to it wasn’t right, and plan Howard was a disaster waiting to happen. But dammit if he could sort through the clutter and make sense of how this should have panned out.

  He kept going back to the same thing: for Josh, marriage wasn’t an option. He knew that fact plain as day. Hell, he’d been repeating the phrase that he wasn’t a relationship kind of guy for fifteen years. So, remembering that, and considering that it was the only thing Kitty wanted, he should be thrilled and relieved she’d ended it. Except he wasn’t thrilled. Instead—in all irony—he felt as caged and trapped as he had that day so many years ago when the prospect of marriage and family had nearly ruined him.

  Josh had only been nineteen, just starting fresh in the culinary academy with a bright future ahead of him and world-famous instructors telling him he had everything it took to hit it big. Then his girlfriend—the love of his life—turned up pregnant, and suddenly school and bright futures and hitting it big disintegrated in front of him. Instead he faced a dingy apartment, a crap job that barely paid the bills and the stark realization that said girlfriend wasn’t anything close to the love of his life.