He started at the bottom and didn’t miss one millimeter of her body. His slow gaze traveled up past her feet and calves, paused on her thighs and then continued up to her breasts, where it stopped and lingered.
As though a switch had been flipped, her breasts swelled to aching, until it felt as though all the blood in her body had been diverted to her nipples. They were pointed and prominent now, she knew.
Eric knew it, too. His gleaming gaze zeroed in, as though he understood how her tank top abraded the sensitive buds every time her chest heaved for air, as though he wanted to suck her, hard, into his mouth as much as she wanted him to—needed him to.
Breathless with anticipation, she couldn’t think or move, and, worse, was forced to indulge in seconds of unadulterated staring because Eric was still the best-looking man she’d ever seen, bar none.
He’d changed his clothes for bed and now wore black shorts and had a towel slung around his neck. Not exactly Armani, but with a body like that it hardly mattered. He moved and the simple gesture of rubbing the top of his head caused a rippling chain reaction of muscles all over his torso. Those wide, sculpted shoulders and arms pulsed with sinew and he was so beautiful—so incredibly stunning—that she wouldn’t mind being struck blind at this very moment as long as she had this memory of him to sustain her through the darkness.
His lower body was as incredible. Butt, thighs, calves…muscles, muscles, muscles. Gleaming skin, too. Vast stretches of smooth brown skin, as though someone had taken a can of walnut spray paint to one of Michelangelo’s statues and then breathed life into it.
It wasn’t just the way Eric looked or looked at her that had her hot and bothered and tied her belly up in delicious knots. His masculine energy took up all the space in the bedroom, leaving none for the air she desperately needed to breathe.
Feeling feverish suddenly, shivery, she wished she’d turned on the ceiling fan earlier. Yeah. Like that would help. Paralyzed, she waited for him to speak.
And waited…and waited…and waited.
Finally he gathered his thoughts. “I, ah—”
His voice was hoarse, so he cleared his throat and ran his tongue along his lower lip. That hot gaze flickered to her legs again and then abruptly snapped to her face, as though he’d realized he’d been ogling her. He flushed until his color was as bright as his glittering eyes.
“I forgot my toothpaste.”
Toothpaste. Right.
This confession killed the sexual tension and left an awkwardness so excruciating she felt her cheeks flame.
“Oh,” she said. “Sure.”
Keeping her eyes lowered to the rug, she hopped down from the bed, hurried into her dark bathroom, and rummaged in the cabinet for the extra tube she always kept on hand. Nervous and clumsy, she knocked her plastic cup into the sink, where it clattered like a thousand metal trash cans. It took her two tries to grab it and three to replace it on the counter.
When she walked back into her room, she saw, to her uneasy surprise, that Eric was now standing right by the bed holding Zeus and absently scratching the rapturous creature behind his ears. Though Eric had been in her room millions of times before, he looked all around as though he’d never seen any of it and had to memorize every detail.
She watched while his gaze touched the gray walls he’d helped her paint when she moved in four years ago, the white trim…the nightstands with pictures her family and friends…the candle…the blue and white paisley duvet on the bed, the pillows…the TV…the bed again. The bed…The bed…The bed.
Isabella couldn’t stand it—not the awkwardness, the tension or the unexpected and unwelcome heat in her body—anymore.
“Here,” she said.
Focusing on some vague point over his shoulder, she thrust the tube at him and hoped he’d go back to his own bedroom where he belonged. When he didn’t take it right away, she made the mistake of looking directly at his face and immediately regretted it.
Eric the friend was back, and she knew him well enough to see that he was bewildered. Troubled. Those dark eyes and lowered brows told her he couldn’t figure out what’d just happened between them any more than she could, and his confusion touched her. Made her want to comfort him.
But she couldn’t do anything like that now. Anything involving Eric’s continued presence in her cozy room this late at night was way too dangerous, and she knew it.
He was too close. So close that his delicious, familiar scent—clean, fresh man, with sporty deodorant and a little spice thrown in, something from the Orient, she thought—blocked the candle’s fragrance. So close that she could see the tight pores on his face, the beginnings of stubble on his chin and the sparks of blue, green and yellow in those piercing eyes she’d always thought were purely brown.
“Thanks,” he said faintly.
His mission accomplished, he should have taken the stupid toothpaste and left. He didn’t. Instead, he stared at her as though he’d been hypnotized to forget all about the original purpose of his trip to her room and to linger as though he couldn’t bear to leave her.
Her frustration grew. “Here,” she said again, thrusting the toothpaste toward his chest, determined to get rid of him as soon as possible and by forcible expulsion if necessary.
He finally blinked. In slow motion, he grasped the top of the tube, brushing her hand in the process and holding—but not taking—the toothpaste.
For that one electrifying moment, as his hot skin touched hers and he stared into her eyes, her entire body sang with the beauty of Kathleen Battle at the Met. Sexual energy surged between them and it was both strange and right. That one touch of Eric’s hand was erotic, breathtaking and unlike anything else she’d ever experienced.
It was also way too much for her.
“Anything else?” Dropping her hand and her gaze, she backed away, hurried toward the bed, and busied herself with the useless task of fluffing pillows. “I’m a little tired, so—”
“I’m good,” he said, but still didn’t move. After a pause, he said, “I can’t believe Frank and Terri are getting married. Can you?”
She tried to grin, tried to pretend that feeling dizzying lust for him was normal, tried to put the desire behind them. But the new fever in her blood still burned hot and her hands still itched to glide over his skin.
It took her a long moment to answer. “I can’t believe Frank and Terri ever managed to graduate. Remember that all-nighter we pulled to help him finish some lit paper junior year? That wasn’t pretty.”
He made an uncomfortable sound that was part laugh, part snort, and then lapsed into staring again. A good four or five beats passed before he opened his mouth, and another three or four before his voice activated.
“Well…I guess I’ll just—”
“Yeah.” She spoke quickly and focused her gaze on the pillows…the bed…the dog…anything but him. “Good night.”
“Izzy?”
There was a plea in his voice, but she didn’t want to hear it. She wouldn’t hear it. If she heard it, she would look at him, and if she looked at him, she would go to him, and if she went to him they would make love. She knew it. There would be no stopping it. If they made love—oh, man, she wanted to make love—they would no longer be friends and, no matter what else ever happened between them, she always needed to keep Eric just as a friend.
“Good night.”
She kept her voice soft but firm, and it worked. He moved away and then the quiet click of the closing door told her he’d gone at last. Weak with relief, she collapsed on the bed, listened to the hot rush of blood in her ears, and waited for sleep to come.
It never did.
“Don’t touch that,” Eric said the next morning when they set out for her parents’ home in Greenville on the first leg of their trip.
Isabella snatched her hand away from the dashboard—cockpit, Eric called it—and shot him the angriest sidelong look she could manage.
They sat in Eric’s pride and joy, a Mercedes SUV ML
something-or-other. The gleaming black car had leather seats, a sunroof, a computer, satellite radio and enough bells and whistles for a respectable small aircraft. She was not allowed to touch any of them, not even, apparently, the knobs that controlled the air conditioning on her side of the vehicle. She supposed she should count herself lucky he’d let her sit in the stinking car at all without some sort of inspection to make sure her butt was worthy of the honor.
She’d had just about enough of Eric Warner.
He’d emerged from the guest bedroom this morning in a pissy mood, and it had gotten pissier as the hours wore on. He hadn’t liked the coffee she’d bought, hadn’t wanted Zeus to come along and possibly get hair in his precious car, and she hadn’t moved fast enough when it was time to leave. No doubt she was also breathing too loudly, blinking too often and looking out the wrong window.
“I’m hot,” she snarled.
He rolled his eyes behind his dark sunglasses. Without a word, he reached out and flipped a couple of switches and vents until a blast of arctic air hit her face, threatening the tip of her nose with frostbite.
“That’s too cold.”
“Dammit, Isabella.” Keeping one eye on the road, he did some more adjusting of knobs and whatnot.
“Don’t swear at me. I’m tired of your potty mouth.” She’d been getting a steady stream of dammit, Isabellas today, and she was sick to death of it. It wasn’t like she’d done anything wrong or was high maintenance or anything.
Well, sure, she’d made a couple of requests, but so what? Was it a big deal to ask once or twice for the driver to pull over so the passenger could use the bathroom? Was it really a hardship for him to switch from one of his ten thousand preprogrammed jazz stations and let her listen to a little Celtic guitar for a while? Was it her fault she’d forgotten her purse at her apartment and they’d lost half-an-hour while they drove back to get it? Of course not.
Maybe a walk down memory lane would help his mood. “Remember that time we drove to Florida for spring break? What was that—junior year? In a brown Honda Civic? That car was so old.”
“Yeah, I remember. You forgot your makeup case and we lost an hour going back for it.”
Isabella sighed. So much for distracting him with memories. “You’re going to need to stop soon.” She watched the green hills of Kentucky streak by her window and squinted against the sun’s glare. “Bathroom break.”
Another colorful curse. “We just stopped half an hour ago, Izzy. For God’s sake.”
“That was to eat. Now I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Well, why didn’t you go then?”
“Didn’t need to,” she told him. “And if I have to stop a thousand more times between here and Florida, you’ll just have to stop, won’t you?”
He seemed speechless with rage, which she found oddly gratifying after his snippy treatment this morning. All sorts of cords and veins in his neck throbbed with tension, and she could have happily watched them all day. But then she realized she was being childish, and, really, they couldn’t drive all the way to Jacksonville like this. With her luck, he’d kick her out before they even got to Greenville.
It was hard to believe that all this misery resulted from their interlude last night. In the cold light of day, the episode seemed so…surreal. It hadn’t really happened, had it?
The quivering, low in her belly, answered her.
Well, maybe it had really happened, but it was one strange, never-to-be-repeated moment out of time that she was perfectly willing to chalk up to too much wine at dinner.
They needed to talk, she decided, smoothing the hem of her skirt and staring down at her scarlet-painted toes in their fancy jeweled flip-flops. A good talk cured most problems, so that’s what they’d do: talk, have a good laugh and move on with the rest of their lives. In ten minutes his black mood would be gone and everything would be back to normal.
“Look.” Feeling fidgety and needing something to do with her hands, she grabbed another cinnamon candy from her cup holder, unwrapped it and slid it into her mouth. “I think if we just talk about what happened last night—”
“Can you pick that up, please?”
“What?”
“The wrapper.” He loosened one tight-knuckled hand from the steering wheel and pointed to the red wrapper, which, sure enough, had dropped to the floor. “I don’t want a lot of trash in the car.”
“If you boss me around one more time, I’m going to jam this wrapper up your right nostril.”
“Don’t even try it.”
She snatched the wrapper from the floor and shoved it into his stupid little Mercedes trash can instead. “So we had an awkward moment last night. Big deal. We just need to talk it through, and then—”
“Everything doesn’t need to be talked through, Izzy.” He seemed to have difficulty speaking through his rigid jaw. “I know you’re big on that touchy-feely emotional nonsense, but I’m not. Everything does not need to be debriefed and dissected. Okay?”
Well, okay. She didn’t need to be a nuclear physicist to know she was skating on thin ice and needed to back off. When Eric got like this, the best thing to do was give him a little space, let him sulk in peace and then wait until he was ready to talk.
Only how on earth was she supposed to give him space like this? They were stuck with each other until Monday. Monday. Three days from now.
Enough was enough. Mr. Passive-Aggressive was just going to have to deal with her right now.
“It’s normal for us to feel a little attraction to each other, Eric, and—”
“I’m getting off,” he barked.
With no further warning, he turned the wheel. The car, which was in the fast lane, skidded and hurtled across the other three lanes of the highway, dodging traffic at seventy-five miles an hour and headed for the off-ramp to a rest stop nestled at the foot of a tree-lined hill.
“WILL YOU BE CAREFUL, YOU MANIAC?”
Startled, Isabella stomped the invisible brake on the floor of her side of the car, grabbed the door handle for stability, and glanced around to make sure Zeus and Fluffles were okay in the backseat of this luxury deathmobile. Poor Zeus had slid across the leather and looked a little green under his fur, but his yellow bandana was still in place around his neck and his doggy harness had prevented any real harm. Catching her eye, he yapped and wagged his tail at her in a clear I’m okay, Mommy signal.
The car screeched to a halt in a space in front of the rest stop. Eric snatched the keys from the ignition, unlatched his seat belt and threw his door open. He leapt out, slammed the door and stalked away—Buh-bye, jerk!—but then he wheeled around and came right back.
Furious she braced herself for the onslaught.
Eric ripped the door open again and leaned down to shout at her. “Use the bathroom. Walk the damn dog. Get a snack. Get a drink. No, wait. Don’t get a drink. Do everything you need to do because we are not stopping this car again until we reach the state of Tennessee.”
Isabella flashed him a sweet smile and a rude hand gesture.
Eric’s face went purple. Vibrating with rage, he slammed the door again, hard enough for the SUV to rock on its wheels and stomped off towards the vending machines. She could almost see steam coming out of his ears.
Isabella leaned against the enormous oak at the top of the ridge and enjoyed the light breeze on her face while Zeus, at the end of his long leash, bounced through the grass like a gazelle. It was probably wrong to envy a dog, but she did. Ah, to be young and free, with no worries in the world other than when you’d get your next slice of bacon. That was the life.
She, on the other hand, felt as edgy as a rat trapped in a tank with a python, and all thanks to her so-called best friend. Jerk.
Raising her hands high overhead, she leaned left, then right and tried to work out some of the tension in her shoulders and waist, but no dice. What good was stretching, anyway, when what she really needed was a tall margarita, heavy on the tequila?
She was j
ust about to call Zeus so they could head back to the car and subject themselves to more of Eric’s—she’d started to think of him as Captain Ahab—maniacal behavior, when his furious voice came up the hill behind her.
“Is-a-bell-a!” he roared.
She sighed and turned, wondering what grievous misdeeds he thought she’d done in the ten minutes since he’d seen her. Maybe she’d dropped another candy wrapper on the pristine floor of his car or, worse yet, gotten out of the car without fully retracting her seat belt.
“Yes, Eric?” She kept her voice sweet, knowing it would drive his blood pressure off the charts.
“I’ve been looking all over for you! I had some woman check the restroom for you! Where the hell have you been?”
“Right here.”
“Here?” He summited the hill and stood under the tree, right in her face. “Here?”
“Problem?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” Those same cords in his throat, the ones that had merely been vibrating earlier, now thrummed like harp strings, and she watched with detached fascination. “You might not want to hike half a mile away from an interstate rest stop without telling anyone where you’re going—”
“I am not half a mile away,” she began in an automatic denial, but then faltered when she glanced over Eric’s shoulder and realized that the parking lot and building were, in fact, pretty far away and well beyond yelling distance.
“—because this is a good setup for a woman to get abducted, although I imagine anyone who abducted you would regret it before he got to the on-ramp.”
“Oh, knock it off,” she said. “I’m as abduct-able as the next woman.”
“Is that an I’m sorry I worried you, Eric?” Cocking his head to the side, he held a hand to his ear as though he wanted to make sure he heard her forthcoming apology.
Now she felt bad, but this whole situation was not her fault. She’d only wandered so far because she was trying to work off a little of the stress he’d caused. If only he would stop being so stubborn and discuss the incident like the adult he pretended to be, they could have a perfectly lovely trip to Florida and back.
Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) Page 4
