What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel)

by Fennell, Judi

  Except that wasn’t happening. Just thinking about her naked got him as hard as this damn table and clouded his judgment, removing his focus from where it ought to be, making him rethink his investment. His business plan. Even his life.

  Wait—his life? Was he out of his mind? His business was his life. This place. This was the dream. The one he’d decided on when Liam had made his first hundred K. When Bryan had gotten that big movie role while Sean was still cleaning out moldy old B&Bs to get them into “quaint” shape to build his company. He wasn’t about to give up on all his hard work. All his determination. Hell, he’d even put dating on hold, electing to end relationships before they’d gotten too serious so that he could achieve his professional aspirations. He wasn’t about to let some bohemian-clothing-wearing free spirit with a penchant for barnyard animals over regular social niceties tear down what he was working so hard to create. He needed this estate. It would make all the hard work, all the sacrifice, all his principle-compromising worth it.

  He needed that damn clue.

  Sean set the crystal pyramid down, taking care not to ding the mahogany table. Baby cradle. What in the hell could Merriweather have meant by that? He hadn’t found anything in the nursery, and if there was a playground on this property, he had yet to see it. All his internet surfing had gone nowhere. He was going to have to see what Livvy had come up with once she returned home.

  Which she did while he was eating lunch, flouncing through the kitchen door with a flash of midriff that all but dried up his mouth and sucked every bit of breath from his lungs. The memories of her creamy, toned skin had kept him up—and hard—half the night. The woman was a menace on so many fronts.

  “Hey, Sean! How are you?” she asked, her hair billowing out around her in the sunshine spilling in through the glass panes like a corkscrew halo. “Where are the dogs?”

  He took a gulp of his iced tea. How was he? Hard as hell and frustrated to match.

  Then there was the whole nightmare of this situation and what he was going to do about it, not to mention sounding like Merriweather’s stupid poems.

  “Uh, good,” was the safer answer. “And I let them out. I’m surprised you didn’t see them. Ah, shit. Maybe they ran away?”

  Livvy shook her head. “That’s the thing with rescues; they’re grateful for the home you give them. They won’t go anywhere. Probably just scoping out their new territory. They’ll be back.”

  Good. He didn’t need to take her four-legged family away from her, too. “So, any luck?”

  She shrugged and there went that midriff peeking again. The woman needed new clothes. Preferably something drab like a burlap sack. Though she’d probably look gorgeous in that, too. Livvy was gorgeous, and her sunshine personality only made the outer packaging more appealing.

  “I found the cradle. My grandmother claims I slept in it, but that’s not possible. I’m wondering if her mind was going at the end.”

  Sean had his own reasons for questioning the workings of Livvy’s grandmother’s mind, but her having lost it wasn’t one of them. “Merriweather seemed pretty sharp to me.” And pretty shark, too. She was driving him out of his mind, but Mac was probably right. Having dealt with her one-on-one while making his plans, Sean could attest to Merriweather being a savvy businesswoman. He’d bet she’d known exactly what she was doing by changing her will yet still letting him believe the place was his.

  Then again, betting hadn’t done him much good recently.

  Livvy hiked herself up onto the countertop next to the barstool he was sitting on, smelling too damn good for his liking, and he rethought that bet thing.

  “The cradle was cordoned off so I couldn’t get close, but I doubt there was anything in it or on it for me to see. My grandmother would have known how the museum would treat it, so she couldn’t have expected me to be able to inspect it all that closely.” She pulled a digital camera from the sack that functioned as her purse. He’d never seen such a sorry excuse for a bag, but then, things around Livvy were always skewed a little left of center. “Here, read this. Tell me what you think it means.” She zoomed in on a plaque.

  Read it? He didn’t think so. Sean picked up his glass and stood. Trying to make sense of the letters was too humiliating to do around other people, even his own family. He hated showing that weakness, and he’d be dammed if he’d let Livvy see it. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to pull out his tablet to have it read to him. Over the years he’d learned tricks to keep people from learning about his “issue.” He’d had to; they’d look at him pityingly once they found out and it’d taint their opinion of him. If there was one thing Sean hated it was to be pitied. “Sometimes it makes more sense when you read it aloud.” He made a big production of getting more iced tea from the fridge. “Why don’t you read it to me?”

  Livvy nibbled on her bottom lip—damn her—then cocked her head to the side, those gorgeous auburn curls cascading down her arm and over her breast, the ends almost reaching the countertop, and Sean had to swallow a groan trying not to imagine what they would feel like trailing across his skin.

  Damn stupid pants.

  He slid back onto the barstool before the thinness of the fabric became any more evident, but then he was treated to the site of Livvy’s perfectly shaped calf as she swung it over the other in a rhythm only she could hear, her silly combat boot making the slightest contact with his arm and Sean wasn’t about to move.

  Pitiful. So damn pitiful that he had to struggle to focus on what she was telling him instead of the sexy way her lips moved while she was telling him.

  “I think the clue has something to do with whoever made the cradle. The plaque mentions work a craftsman was doing around here.” She tucked the hair behind her ears, which made it swish against her breast again, and Sean’s cock jerked at the movement.

  Really damn stupid pants.

  “With the size of this place, that could take a lot longer than two weeks to figure out.” She held out the camera again and the scent of her perfume or soap—or with his luck, her normal, everyday, drive-him-out-of-his-mind scent—circled around him like a net, reeling him in. “What do you think?”

  He was thinking more about the act that filled cradles than the cradles themselves. “I think you might not want to sit so close.”

  She cocked her head some more, looking way too cute. “I won’t? Why?”

  She really had to ask? Sean’s confidence shrank a little at that—but that was the only thing that did. Man, she looked amazing with that wild hair and her bright eyes and those breasts that were straining against her top so much he could see the outline of her nipples.

  Especially when they perked up right before his eyes.

  The mood changed in an instant. He felt it before he saw the way she was looking at him. At his lips, specifically. Which was fine with him because he could then look at hers and wonder how the sheen of moisture her tongue left behind when it slicked across them would taste. And he could stare at the flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat and allow himself to imagine it against his tongue. Or how those nipples would feel against—

  Back off, Manley.

  He didn’t listen to his voice of reason. He couldn’t. Not with the wide-eyed look Livvy was giving him and the way she put the camera on the countertop, then leaned back onto her palms, her breasts changing angle just enough so those temptingly perky nipples were trained on him like a heat-seeking missile and, yeah, that was exactly what he had inside these damn stupid pants. She really shouldn’t be sitting so close.

  “Why?” Against his better judgment, he stood. “Because of this.”

  He dragged her the ten inches across the countertop until she was right in front of him, her legs on either side of his hips, his hand clamped firmly to the perfect muscles of her insanely delectable ass, with her heat inches away from where he wanted it to be.

  “I’m going to
kiss you, Livvy.” He threaded his fingers through her hair like he’d been itching to do since he’d first seen her looking so imperiously sexy in the foyer. “And you’re going to kiss me back.”

  “I am?” She licked her lips again.

  He didn’t answer. Well, not with words.

  He spread a palm against the curve of her waist, caressing the skin that had been teasing him since she’d flounced in, sucking all the oxygen from the room. Her skin felt so damn silky good beneath his fingertips. Her fluttering breaths ratcheted up his own until the next thing he knew, he’d speared both hands into that wild, frothy concoction she called hair but he called heaven, and his tongue was discovering all those sweet secret places in her mouth. Her hot breath seared fire through him and surged to that one part of him that was against that part of her he wanted to get to know better, and her hands clung to the damn flimsy pants that suddenly weren’t flimsy enough because he wanted to feel every clench and tug she made. God, he wanted to lay her back on the counter and take her until neither of them could think straight.

  Hell, if he was considering doing that, he already wasn’t thinking straight.

  Which was the perfect excuse to do it.

  He sank down onto her, pressing her against the granite, shifting so her legs could wrap around his waist and her amazingly, wonderfully soft breasts were cushioned against his chest, her head angled to take the kiss deeper while she moved against him. Sean had to focus on not coming in these stupid pants, which wasn’t easy to do when his hands were skimming surfaces he’d only dreamed about—recently—hugging curves he’d fantasized over, and the temperature spiked in the kitchen faster than Merriweather’s seven-thousand-dollar professional convection oven.

  “Big mistake. Huge.” Orwell punctuated his commentary with a set of talons to the shoulder blades.

  “Sonofabitch!” Sean shot up.

  “Sonofabitch! Sonofabitch!” Orwell even had his voice down pat.

  “Oh, no!” Livvy raised herself up on her elbows. “You have to watch what you say around him, Sean.”

  “Sonofabitch!” Orwell flapped his wings, sending feathers scattering all over the countertop.

  Sean took a deep breath, willing his body to calm the hell down. Jesus. One two-minute kiss and all the blood had left every cell in his body except the ones in his groin.

  He stepped away from the cradle of Livvy’s thighs.

  Bad idea. Gravity had done what his hands had wanted to do to her skirt, draping it around her hips, revealing, holy hell, the skimpiest triangle of baby pink fabric between her legs. Something so utterly feminine against the camo skirt, those chunky boots, and the drab olive green shirt that, on her, was incredibly sexy, and Sean felt all those southern blood cells go on the march.

  Orwell fluttered onto Livvy’s belly. “Sonofabitch.”

  Sean could have sworn the damn bird winked at him. “Sonofa—”

  “Okay, now that we’ve established that particular bit of profanity firmly in Orwell’s vocabulary, I think it’s time for him to learn something else.” Livvy sat up, managing to pull her top down and her skirt back into place in one fluid motion that was as effective as slamming a vault door closed. She transferred the parrot onto her shoulder where it looked at him with a smirk.

  “Livvy.” Sean put a hand on her arm.

  The bird swiped at it.

  Sean yanked it away just in time. But it was going to take more than that to deter him. “Livvy, we need to discuss what just happened.”

  “Why?”

  She cocked her head and her curls tumbled over her breasts, and Sean had to tuck his hands into his pockets to not only keep them off her, but also to gain some margin of dignity so that his raging hard-on wasn’t outlined against the stupid fabric.

  “Because we can’t pretend it didn’t.”

  She tucked some curls behind her ear. “Were you going to? I wasn’t. I like kissing you.”

  Her candor was so unexpected, so disarming, that Sean didn’t know what to say. He went with “You do?” which almost had him crawling under the counter in mortification. She made him feel like a teenager again.

  Though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  “You couldn’t tell?” The corner of her mouth curved up, highlighting the sparkle in her amber eyes.

  Once again desire socked him in the gut and stole his breath.

  “Sean? You okay?”

  Actually, he was a little put out that she was able to breathe. And to joke. And to hold a conversation. He obviously didn’t affect her like she affected him. “I should apologize. I don’t normally go around kissing clients or—”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Huh?”

  She set the bird on the overhead wagon wheel with the pots hanging from it, and the damn menace climbed around it like it was a jungle gym. Sean just waited for it to christen him with his reconstituted morning meal—for all of about a second because Livvy hopped off the counter in front of him.

  Right in front of him.

  “I said, maybe you should go around kissing your clients. You’re quite talented in that area. Not that you aren’t in the cleaning department, but I don’t see why we can’t combine the two. It’s not as if we’re going to be able to ignore what’s between us, and unless you quit or I fire you, we’re stuck here together. And I’m pretty sure if I fire you, that’d be grounds for a lawsuit.”

  Sean got breathless just from listening to her. Among other reasons. “You seem to have given this a lot of thought.” He didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.

  She shrugged and it brought his attention front and center to those gorgeous breasts that shifted so provocatively beneath her shirt.

  He was going with flattered.

  “Yes, some thought.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. Which were adorable.

  Jesus. He had it bad.

  “I mean,” she went on, oblivious, as if they were discussing the weather forecast, “it’s not as if I can ignore you or your effect on me. Plus, I don’t want to.”

  “Are you always this candid?”

  She shrugged again. An added bonus. “Pointless to beat around the bush. Life’s too short. We’re attracted to each other. Nothing wrong with that.” Her fingers made a little foray up his shirt and Sean felt every touch clear down to his toes. “So if you want to kiss me again, I’m not going to complain.”

  Did she have to make it so freaking easy for him? Which only made it so freaking hard. It made a lot of things hard, but Christ. He was trying to take her million-dollar inheritance out from under her. What kind of guy would he be if he took her up on her offer, and then did that?

  She stood up on her tiptoes, put her hands behind his head, angled it down, and pulled him into another kiss.

  He’d be a foolish, desperate guy who wanted just one more taste.

  Her tongue sought out his, her fingers threaded through the hair at his neck, her nipples tightened against him . . . and Sean was lost.

  It was a lot more than one taste.

  GOD, he tasted so good. He smelled so good. He felt so good.

  Livvy couldn’t get close enough to Sean. She ought to be worried about how inappropriate this was, but hanging out with him, playing racquetball, being with him . . .

  She was lonely. Her co-op family was nice, but they weren’t this. She hadn’t had this in far too long and she missed it. It wasn’t as if she had this spark with everyone and hell, what was the reason not to act on it? She wasn’t moving in here forever, so it wouldn’t cause awkward complications for the rest of their lives.

  Yeah, but is it a good idea? Like, what do you really know about the guy? Maybe he’s only into you so you’ll be his sugar mama. Gotta admit, this house is good incentive.

  No she wasn’t going to admit it. It wasn’t as if they were going to pled
ge their undying love to each other. . . Sex wasn’t happily ever after. They could just enjoy their time together. If there was one thing she’d learned from Merriweather, it was that she couldn’t count on anything or anyone, so she was living in the moment. The here and now. Which consisted of his arms and his lips and oh, God, his hands . . . They’d migrated to her backside and were igniting a thousand sparks beneath her skin, so her conscience could just take a hike and let her enjoy this.

  She rubbed her belly against his erection. It’d been a lot longer for that.

  “Livvy, we need to—”

  She stuck her tongue back into his mouth. That way he couldn’t speak. She didn’t want him to speak. She wanted him to moan. And groan. And maybe even call out her name on a long drawn-out cry. But no speaking. No reason to say no or stop or wait . . . She didn’t want to wait and she definitely didn’t want to stop.

  “I want you, Sean.”

  Three words and the floodgates opened. Whatever protest he’d been about to utter disappeared into her mouth as he thrust his tongue inside and took over the kiss.

  She was more than willing to let him.

  One hand cradled her butt, and the other trailed the sweetest bit of heaven up her spine and knotted in her hair, tugging it back with just the right amount of want and sexy that Livvy almost melted at his feet.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” he muttered against her throat. But he didn’t stop kissing it.

  “I disagree,” she gasped amid the effects the swirls of his tongue were causing.

  “We have to live together.” He nipped the cord in her neck and Livvy wanted to swoon.

  But she didn’t. Swooning women missed out on the good stuff. “So the issue with this is . . . ?”