Sweet Attraction

by Melanie Munton

  Hell, adults saw each other naked all the time and they moved on. She needed to grow up and stop being so awkward around him. And falling prey to his predatory advances. Even if they were just imagined.

  She cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t look up. “Like I said, I’m helping you. I saw your light on driving home. Figured I’d stop by to see how it’s going.”

  “Does this mean that you’re officially helping me now?” she asked. “In a professional capacity?”

  He gave her a half grin as he walked over to reposition the ladder against the wall. “You know the answer to that, Red.” He stepped up the ladder and examined the wall. “Looks like you’ve got some splitting in the molding up here.”

  She didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t sound good.

  Instead of simply waiting for him to get down so she could look for herself, she felt compelled to climb onto the ladder with him, placing her body right next to his. It took her half a second to realize what she’d done, and they both froze. She felt his shoulders tense, and she waited with bated breath to see what he’d do or say next.

  This was the longest they’d been in physical contact with each other since the night at the hotel. And they were both clearly still feeling the same electricity. The chemistry between them was definitely there, quickly sparking back to life.

  Gathering her nerve, she whispered, “What are we going to do about that?”

  She actually heard him swallow. “Can you hand me the caulk over there?” he asked, his voice cracking.

  She almost choked. Did he say cock?

  “The what?” she managed.

  A vein jumped in his neck. “The white gun-looking thing over there by my toolbox. C-A-U-L-K,” he spelled. “So I can reseal the molding.”

  But that meant she would have to stop touching him.

  She reluctantly did as he asked.

  She gave him the distance he needed to complete his task but sated herself by watching the way his arms bunched and rippled as he used the caulk—not C-O-C-K—gun. She may have even released a few sighs of awe as she remembered the way those muscles had pinned her arms to the wall while he ground his hard dick against her.

  Obviously, her internal pep talks were doing absolutely no good, whatsoever.

  “So, I hear you went to the Southern Sisters Salon the other day,” he said, turning to face her when he’d finished caulking.

  She self-consciously ran her hand over her hair. She had just gotten a simple trim. “Why? Does my hair look bad?”

  He focused on the long braid draped over her shoulder. “Definitely not.” He gave a small shake of his head and blinked several times. “I mean, no, it looks fine. I was just asking because the whole town is talking about you. Even more than before.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut again, and this time added a groan. “Please tell me it’s just about the store.”

  His expression turned apologetic. “That, too. But in case you hadn’t figured it out, those sisters are the biggest blabbermouths on the east coast. Now everyone’s talking about the ‘darling sweetheart with the gorgeous red hair who owns that fancy new bikini store.’”

  Her head fell forward and she had to laugh. “I should have known never to trust sisters named Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia.” No joke. Those were their actual legal names. “They just seemed so sweet and innocent. Like three homey grandmothers.”

  He snorted. “Well, they are grandmothers. But everyone knows they also run the town’s rumor mill. They’d sell every last one of their porcelain cat figurines for the latest news on the most recent scandal.”

  “It’s a good thing I’m not hiding any scandals, then,” she muttered.

  His eyes flew to hers, dilating with unspoken thoughts. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice. “Some might call at least one thing you’ve done pretty scandalous.”

  Her pulse spiked, her insides melting to liquid goo. The man had no idea how potent his attraction was, nor how it affected her. “Then it’s a good thing that scandal hasn’t made its way into the rumor mill.”

  He seemed to register what she was saying, and his forehead smoothed out in understanding. As she’d told him from the beginning she didn’t want everyone to know what she’d done the second she rolled into town. She didn’t want a big scarlet A painted on her forehead. To be forever identified as that woman.

  “I said you don’t have to worry about that. I’ve never had a big mouth,” he said.

  Oh, but he had such a gifted mouth.

  And she might have to worry about that.

  “Good to know.”

  Silence fell between them as they gazed intently at each other, so many thoughts going unspoken. Everything was so still that when he made a move in her direction, her entire body involuntarily jolted backward. She threw out her arms to catch herself and her hand hit the ladder, knocking over a small can of white paint she’d been using to touch up the wall trim.

  “Shit!”

  She watched in horror as white paint splattered onto her freshly painted coral wall, and quickly looked around for something to clean it up. Before she was able to react, though, he sprang into action and started wiping up the spilled paint with a gray cloth. She couldn’t drag her eyes from the mess, hoping she hadn’t somehow ruined that section of wall.

  When he pulled the cloth away, most of the white paint had been removed, though a distinct smudge lingered on the coral. Still, she’d expected it to be much worse. She breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  Then sucked it all right back in.

  Because that was when she looked over to see him standing there in all his tanned, muscled perfection…half naked. The gray cloth he’d used was his T-shirt. He was standing there in jeans, boots, and a tool belt. Without a shirt on.

  Was it her birthday?

  “You’ll just need to repaint that small section,” he said. “But it’s not too bad.”

  She stared at his chest hair, remembering the way she had run her fingers through it as he thrust inside her. And the way he had moaned as she touched him, asking her not to stop.

  She wanted to do it again.

  Those pep talks had definitely not prepared her for seeing any part of him naked.

  “Uh, Jade?” His voice sounded so far away. “Jade.”

  Her eyes snapped up. “Yes, hair?” She coughed in an attempt to mask her embarrassment and tried to ignore his wide grin. “I mean, yes, Hunter?”

  “I was just saying the paint didn’t do much damage.”

  She glanced back down at the coral wall, attempting to hide her furious blush. “Thanks for that. I forgot to put the lid back on.”

  His laugh drew her eyes back up to his. “I don’t know,” he said, crossing his arms over his bare chest. She knew he’d done it on purpose, especially when he subtly flexed his biceps. The man was pure evil. “Maybe your plan all along had been to get me naked.”

  “Hey, I didn’t tell you to take your shirt off.”

  His eyebrow raised. “No, but I don’t hear you complaining about it, either.”

  And he wouldn’t. “I don’t think seeing a man’s chest is going to traumatize me,” she replied. “Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  His tongue ran over his bottom lip as his eyes roamed over her figure. “And you saw quite a bit that night. Didn’t you, Red? I’d be happy to refresh your memory on the rest.”

  Her pulse spiked. “That’s not necessary.”

  He took a step toward her. “Why is that?”

  “I have a good memory.”

  He grunted and took another step. “Trust me, I do, too. But memories aren’t as sweet as the real thing.”

  He continued to stalk her across the room as she retreated. “Some dishes are best sampled only once.”

  He slowly shook his head. “Not if you develop a craving for them.”

  “You can’t develop a craving after only one night.”

 
He snorted out a laugh. “Tell that to my dick.”

  He couldn’t start talking dirty to her or she would be finished. She had to nip this little encounter in the bed—er, bud. Hunter and beds were a dangerous combination. “Sorry, but I have nothing to say to your dick.”

  “What a shame,” he said with a sexy smirk. “Because it might be me who spills the paint next time.”

  “I’m not taking off my shirt to clean it up.” Her voice didn’t sound as convincing as she would have liked.

  He chuckled darkly. “I was actually talking about using my pants, but I sure as hell wouldn’t stop you. We wouldn’t want to make a mess, now, would we?”

  It would be so very easy to give in to him. But she forced herself to put her hand up, blocking his path. Of course, he walked straight into it and didn’t stop until her fingers were actually grasping all that wonderful chest hair.

  “I think it’s time I call it a night,” she said on a rasp, swiftly removing her hand.

  He hesitated, as if waiting for her to change her mind. When he saw she wasn’t going to, he reluctantly nodded. “Okay. But just remember, I’ve got lots of extra paint cans in my garage.” He bent down, closing the distance between their mouths until his lips were a hairsbreadth away from hers. “We could clean up messes all night long. Whenever you’re in the mood for that, you let me know.”

  She didn’t breathe again until he walked out the store’s front door less than a minute later.

  But his manly scent stayed on her fingers for the rest of the night.

  Damn chest hair.

  Chapter Ten

  “Just because these parts are numbered does not mean you’ve made the instructions any easier to interpret!” Jade yelled at the piece of paper in her hands.

  A person needed to have an engineering degree just to assemble a damn elliptical.

  What the hell had she been thinking, assuming she could put it together herself? She should have gone up to Connecticut to pick up her old elliptical from her father’s house.

  But no. No way was she diving back into that snake pit. Not with her father gone and buried and the house’s only two occupants her nasty stepmother and bastard stepbrother.

  She would rather go get an engineering degree.

  The ringing of her cell phone cut through her angry haze. She crawled across the living room floor to the sofa where she’d left it, and her stomach dropped when she saw the name on the screen. Her bad mood suddenly plummeted to the depths of fiery fury in an instant.

  “Why are you calling me?” she barked into the phone.

  “That’s some way to greet your only brother,” Lane Brigdon sneered over the line.

  “Stepbrother,” she corrected. “What do you want, Lane?”

  He sniffed in her ear, as if he couldn’t believe he was actually having to speak to her. “I see that coastal living hasn’t cured you of your perpetual bitchiness. Pity.”

  His insults glided right off her. After so many years, she knew his game. “Big talk for someone who’s still living off mommy’s ill-gotten gold-digging gains.”

  The snarl he released sent a cold shiver down Jade’s spine. His game might be all too familiar, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still creep her out.

  “Because you didn’t mooch off your father for your entire life?” he shot back.

  She ground her back molars together so hard it hurt. The one thing he knew would get her truly riled up was mentioning her father.

  “At least I moved away and got a job. Found my own place, paid my own bills. Now I have my own business. I’m earning my way, Lane. Which is a lot more than I can say for you. By the way, how did you know I was living on the coast?”

  She hadn’t dared tell him and Cassandra where she’d moved. The goal was to cut them completely out of her life for good. She didn’t want them knowing anything about her, especially where she lived. She was going to have to switch her phone number—again.

  The laugh he bit out held no humor in it. Only condescension, Lane’s specialty. “Please. Do you really think you’re clever enough to hide where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing? We know all about your little bikini shack down there in redneck country. Somehow, your choice of location seems fitting.”

  “Why the hell do you care?” she snapped. “If you have anything to say to me, you can call my lawyer and leave me the hell alone.”

  And thank God her father’s estate was paying for that lawyer, because there was no way she could have afforded it. All she had was her savings—every cent of which had been going toward the store—and her small monthly stipend from the trust fund her father had set up before he passed. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to cover most of her meager living expenses.

  But when her savings ran out in a couple of months, that stipend just wasn’t going to cut it.

  Not if her store didn’t get on its feet.

  Lane’s voice turned grave, an edge to the sound that made her skin crawl. “You know what we want. Come back to Connecticut and sign the papers that give Mother control over the trust. Do that, and we’ll play nice.”

  As soon as her father had died six months ago, Jade had hauled ass away from her stepfamily so fast she’d left a dust trail. But that didn’t mean they weren’t always there. Hovering like vultures. The second they’d found out about the trust—the one that was in Jade’s name and her name only—they’d become relentless. Trying to find a way to weasel in and steal even more money from her father’s estate than they already had.

  The monthly stipend wasn’t what they were after, though. Oh no.

  They wanted to get their greedy little hands on the bulk payout of the trust—over a million dollars. Something Jade wouldn’t be receiving for another three years, on her twenty-eighth birthday.

  Cassandra would have control over and access to those funds if Jade signed the papers they wanted her to. Her stepmother could possibly receive the payout even sooner than Jade could, which meant all of that money would disappear in about a week. Jade’s father’s money, which he’d earned through a lifetime of hard work.

  Did they think she was insane? No freaking way was that happening.

  “Give it up, Lane,” she told him. “You might as well stop trying. You and Cassandra are not going to squeeze one more dime from my family. Let it go.”

  “What the hell are you going to do with it?” he said caustically. “Waste it on your pathetic beach shack?”

  “As opposed to feeding your mom’s Botox addiction?” she retorted. “Or buying you another Ferrari that you’ll just wreck in a month? Definitely.”

  What her father had ever seen in Cassandra, Jade still could not understand. The woman didn’t have one redeeming quality as far as she was concerned. That went double for her son. She must have put on her innocent Stepford wife face around Jade’s father to get that ring on her finger. But as soon as he was out of the picture, that had morphed into a face of pure malice.

  “Do you really think you’re going to make it, down there on your own?” Lane snarled. “I give it maybe another two months before you come crawling back up here with your tail between your legs. Only this time, you won’t have daddy to bail you out—”

  She hung up.

  She couldn’t stand to hear Lane’s whining for one more second.

  Bringing her knees up to her chest, she leaned back against the sofa cushions and slowed her breathing. Why had she even answered the phone?

  She hated that Lane and Cassandra were able to get under her skin. It was the reason she had stayed away from Connecticut for so long. The one stipulation of Jade’s trust and getting the payout in three years was that she go back up there and sign the inheritance documents.

  That was it. Just sign the legal docs.

  A world of difference from signing the papers Cassandra and Lane wanted her to sign.

  But she hadn’t been able to do even that. It meant going to Connecticut.

  Ever since her father married Cassandra when Ja
de was in high school, all she’d heard from her stepmother and stepbrother was how weak Jade was, how much of a letdown she was to her father. How she couldn’t make it in this world without having the Hollingsworth name and money to fall back on.

  Going back to Connecticut would be like stepping right back into the lion’s den. And as much as she hated to admit it, she was afraid of being torn apart.

  Sitting here, being reminded of her father, made her heart ache. She missed him terribly. Memories of birthday parties and holidays where he was both dad and mom flashed through her mind. And of summers spent in the Hamptons. Of afternoons riding horses together.

  And as always when she thought of him, she thought about the letter.

  The one her father had written to her that she was supposed to have opened months ago, upon his death, but never had. She’d felt that by seeing his handwriting on paper, hearing his voice in the words, all the pain of his loss would come rushing back, making her relive it all over again.

  So it continued to sit there, unopened in her shoebox. The box she’d guarded with her life on the trip down South. It now sat on a shelf in her closet, gathering dust, as did the rest of her memories from happier times.

  Times when her father had been happy because her mother was still alive. After she died, Jade’s father had never been the same again. His heart had been utterly destroyed the day they buried her mother.

  And when he’d finally attempted to love again, his battered heart had once again been shattered by his new bride’s lying, money-hungry ways, which had only come out after the ring was safely on her finger. He’d been in a perpetual state of heartache for the last part of his life, and Jade hadn’t been able to bear it.

  One of the many reasons she would never fall victim to the same circumstances.

  Because she had no intention of letting herself fall in love.

  Ever.

  The way she saw it, love eventually resulted in pain. Always. In one way or another. Whether it was through a bad breakup, or from untimely death, relationships didn’t last forever. And when they ended, misery inevitably ensued.

  The heart was fragile and vulnerable, and frankly, she didn’t want to wind up miserable. Again. Losing her mother, then her father, had been bad enough. Losing a man she loved would finish her.