BARELY MISTAKEN

by Jennifer Labrecque

  "Let's get you to bed."

  She laughed, a soft seductive murmur. "I knew you'd see things my way."

  "Alone. You're going to bed alone."

  "But I do that all the time." He was damn near ecstatic to have that confirmed. He could barely stand the thought of another man touching her.

  She leaned against his arm, the pebble-hard tips of her breasts scorching him. "And I'm frustrated."

  "Join the club." He couldn't muster much sympathy considering his own sorry state.

  "Then let's do something about it."

  The curve of her behind teased against his hip. The scent of her arousal nearly obliterated rational thought.

  To hell with it. She was right. She wanted him. He wanted her. Tomorrow was another day.

  Luke threw open her bedroom door. The smell of plastic wrapping and new mattress assaulted him like a splash of cold water.

  "You can't keep buying new mattresses." He pushed her down on the edge of the bed. She flopped backwards.

  Kneeling at her feet, he grasped her slender ankle in one hand and pulled off her shoe. A high instep and that sexy-as-hell red polish on her nails tempted him. He traced a delicate blue vein with his thumb, his other hand flexing around the smooth muscle of her calf.

  "Hmm," she murmured in appreciation, as her toes curled around his palm. Luke put her foot on the ground and wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead before removing her other shoe. When had it gotten so damned hot in her room? She flexed her foot against his palm and sighed in satisfaction. "Uhh, feels sooo good."

  She seemed to have very sensitive feet. He'd read somewhere that the feet were an erogenous zone. At least it seemed to be the case for Olivia.

  He rose from his knees and leaned over her, sucking in a fortifying breath of resolve. He'd make her comfortable and leave. Her glasses had slipped to the end of her nose and her lashes fanned over her cheeks. He balanced one knee on the mattress and reached up to remove her glasses. Her eyes fluttered open and she captured one of his hands in hers. Even sleepy, a wicked gleam shone in the gray depths as she took his thumb into her mouth and suckled it against the tender moistness of the inside of her lips.

  Luke swallowed hard as he tugged his hand free and placed her glasses on the nightstand. "Behave, Lady Olivia." The rush of blood below his waist threatened to prevail.

  Her eyelids closed again, a slight smile curved her full lower lip, as if she quite enjoyed her newfound role of seductress. Save it for when you're sober, baby, he silently encouraged her.

  Reaching beneath her hips, he found the zipper to her skirt and tugged it down. Olivia arched upward. Luke wasn't sure whether it was instinctive cooperation or instinctive seduction. He slid the material down past the flat slope of her middle with the indent of her navel, her bare skin unbelievably arousing against the drag of his knuckles. Past the lace edging her satin panties. His breath lodged in his throat as he tugged her skirt over her satin-covered mound. Eyes still closed, her hips undulated in mute entreaty.

  The material between her thighs was darker than the rest, damp proof of her desire. Her musky female scent assaulted him. His fingers shook with the need to push aside the silky fabric and cull her honeyed desire. He could so easily bring her a release both of them would savor.

  Until she was sober.

  He dragged the skirt the rest of the way off and dropped it in a heap on the floor. She'd just have to sleep with her sweater and pearls on. He'd never make it through taking those off. Her dusky nipples pouting at him through lacy cups, demanding attention… Desperate to get the hell out of Dodge, he pulled one edge of the comforter over her and almost tripped over her fat cat in his haste to get out the door.

  Being noble sucked.

  * * *

  Olivia tentatively touched the floor with a toe and groped at the bedside table for her glasses. 10:08. Light filtered through the curtains. Must be morning. It wasn't dark enough to be night. She'd slept for fifteen hours, or something close to that since she wasn't exactly sure of the time when she'd passed out.

  Moving with great care, she sat up, waiting for a pounding head, a churning stomach. She waited. And waited. And waited. She stood up, anticipating the onslaught of a hangover.

  Nothing. Except for a dry mouth that tasted like a dirty sock had been stuffed in it, she felt fine. Olivia considered crying, but tears wouldn't change the brutal truth. All these years she'd thought she was different from her family. The clothes. Her house. The 400-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. Her job. Her volunteer work. She'd spent a lifetime trying to prove she wasn't the little white-trash girl from the shack on the outskirts of town. But when all was said and done, they were merely tenuous props she hid behind.

  She sank back onto the mattress, her face burning with the memory of Luke bringing her home. Unfortunately, she remembered every miserable detail. She'd practically begged him to make love to her. Okay, she had begged. Enticed. Tried desperately to seduce. She grudgingly admitted few men would've turned down such a forward invitation.

  It unnerved her that Luke knew her so well. He was right. She didn't want to respect him for walking away, because then that left only herself to vilify for her behavior.

  She would stay away from punch forever. The next party she went to, she'd stick with water.

  The next time there won't be any mask, no mistaken identity, no alcohol to hide behind. Luke's words filled her head. As if next time was a given. She also clearly recalled the strained promise in his voice when he told her he wanted her on the counter. Wearing only her pearls. Heaven help her, but even now, in the face of the previous evening's humiliation, the idea aroused her. Her body, still keyed up from last night, quickened, tightening and throbbing at the thought of Luke, hot and hard, filling her while she braced against the cool, smooth tiles on top of the island. Moisture seeped onto her thighs even as she tried to dispel the image.

  There wouldn't be a next time. She had no clue as to who he was the first night and yesterday she'd been inebriated. Luke was right, next time there wouldn't be a mask or mistaken identity or a rum punch haze simply because there wouldn't be a next time. There wouldn't be any making love to him in the kitchen, wearing pearls.

  No, Luke threatened every aspect of the life she'd so carefully cultivated for herself. This wild ache he fostered deep inside had no business in her life. She'd never meant to start anything with Luke, but she sure as heck intended to end it.

  She dragged off her sweater and underwear, her skin sensitive to the lightest brush of her hands as she took off her bra and panties. In sheer defiance, she left on her pearls. He wanted her naked, wearing only her necklace. She wouldn't run like a coward. She'd take his fantasy and make it her own.

  Olivia bent to scoop her skirt up off the floor. The movement was fraught with her own brimming sexuality and need for release—the weight of her breasts as they fell forward, the swing of the rope of pearls around her neck, the upward thrust of her bare bottom.

  Olivia tossed the clothes into the hamper in her closet and crossed to the bathroom. Her breasts felt heavy and full, her thighs tingled and ached with each step.

  She reached into the shower and turned on the water, allowing the temperature to adjust. Turning, her reflection in the mirror arrested her. The woman who stared back was a stranger. Full. Brimming. Engorged nipples. Rounded breasts. Smooth thighs. Aching.

  She watched the woman in the mirror until the steam from the shower blurred the reflection. Stepping beneath the spray of hot water, she reveled in the sluice against her scalp and down her back, against the sensitive curve of her buttocks, the backs of her legs. She luxuriated in the sensation of water coursing over her breasts as she lathered her hair and massaged her scalp. Her vaginal muscles clenched in anticipation as she finished rinsing her hair and turned her shower massage to pulse.

  Luke may have started this ache, but she could take care of it on her own. There wasn't much a pulsating shower massage couldn't handle. She leaned agains
t the wall of the shower and embraced the relief promised by the surging stream. Cupping the weight of her breasts in her hands, she rubbed the rounded pearls against her distended nipples.

  The erotic impact bowed her against the pulsing water. Olivia closed her eyes and reveled in the sensation. In her mind, Luke appeared, watching her through the steam as she toyed the pearls around and against her breasts. Without her consent, he wrestled the fantasy back from her and made it theirs. The sexual fervor inside her pitched to a higher point as she performed her solo for him.

  Within seconds she shuddered her release. And it was Luke's name that echoed off the shower walls as her muscles spasmed and clenched.

  * * *

  7

  « ^ »

  Olivia turned off the water and reached for a towel and her glasses. Through the closed bathroom door, she heard the resonance of the doorbell. She wrapped her dripping hair turban style in a towel and tugged on her robe.

  She opened the bathroom door and hurried down the hall. Someone pounded on the door. "Hold on. I'm coming," she yelled, belting her robe closed.

  "Olivia?"

  She cracked the door and peered around the edge in a combined gesture of modesty and vanity—swathed head to toe in terrycloth wasn't exactly flattering even if it was Luke and she hated him … well, not exactly hated, maybe resented was more accurate. Olivia tightened her grip on the doorknob. With a day's growth of beard, his dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and a stud glistening in one ear, he had big, bad wolf written all over him. Olivia had no intention of becoming a pork sandwich.

  "What…" she squeaked. She cleared her throat and tried again. "What do you want?"

  "Aren't you going to let me in?"

  Letting him in took on a whole new meaning as her recently sated body responded to him. Hadn't she just vowed he was out of her life? "No. I just got out of the shower." Water puddled around her feet. "I still need to dry off."

  "Honey, I don't mind at all if you're wet." His dark eyes glittered and his voice dripped seductive innuendo.

  Her body quickened and tightened. Just the thought… "I'm not dressed."

  "And the downside is?" Wicked intent crossed his face and lit his blue eyes. He propped one arm against the doorjamb and leaned closer. "Wet and undressed. I won't complain."

  "I don't trust you." She didn't trust herself.

  "Your sharp tongue wounds me, Lady Olivia. Particularly after my gallant behavior yesterday."

  Did he mean because he hadn't left her to make a drunken spectacle of herself at his grandmother's party or because he hadn't taken advantage of her when she had been so clearly willing or both? She couldn't bring herself to ask.

  "Thank you." Embarrassment stiffened her voice.

  "The pleasure was all mine. Now can I come in?"

  She cracked the door wider but clutched at her robe. "I don't think that's a good idea. I've thanked you for yesterday, so you can leave now." She, usually a role model for decorum and good manners, realized she'd just been outright rude. But she was talking self-preservation here.

  "I didn't stop by for a thank-you."

  As if he'd stopped by for much more than a mere show of gratitude. How could the simplest statement out of his mouth leave her quivering? Her pearls shifted against her bare skin beneath her robe.

  Luke reached into the V of her robe and fingered the strand. The back of his hand and the sprinkling of stiff dark hair brushed against her skin, feather-light. Despite her recent release, his touch evoked an immediate response.

  "Did you know the more you wear pearls next to your skin, the more luminous they become?"

  His touch, his scent, his voice left her poised on the edge of discarding reason. Her nipples stiffened, aching for his hand to slip lower. Her thighs trembled with the memory of his touch.

  "Yes. There's a chemical reaction between your body and the pearls," she rasped. She should close either the door or this conversation. Her body overrode her mind's warning.

  All playfulness disappeared. "Chemical reactions can be intense." He rolled the lustrous jewels between his fingertips, sliding the pearls against the slope of her breast exposed at the V of her robe, releasing clinging drops of water. Luke caught a drop on the tip of his finger, his touch thrumming through her body, delivering a low-voltage current of desire. "Do you always wear your pearls in the shower?"

  "No." Her tongue felt thick. Swollen. He knew. He knew what she'd done in the shower as surely as if he had watched her. The knowledge glittered in the blue heat of his eyes.

  Tension crackled between them.

  "Do you think you'll do it again?"

  Uninvited, but conjured up by his husky-voiced question, she pictured the two of them. Naked. Wet. Steamy. Aroused. She could never wear those pearls in the shower again without him being a part of it, just as he had earlier today.

  She wrapped the strand around her finger, freeing it from his grasp. "No. I won't be doing it again."

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I left my jacket yesterday."

  His jacket. He'd come for his jacket.

  "It's still in the kitchen. I'll be right back." She turned.

  Behind her, Luke crossed the threshold. She whirled and stilled him with her hand. His heart thudded beneath her palm. Touching him was a mistake. She jerked her hand back.

  "Don't come into the kitchen. Stay there. And don't close the door behind you." She was far too close to being naked on a countertop or slamming the door shut for a replay of the other night or dragging him into her shower to indulge in subtlety or good manners.

  She hurried down the hall to the kitchen. Luke's jacket lay in a heap by the island. Olivia indulged in a few seconds of deep breathing. It was ridiculous that Luke's mere presence evoked responses beyond her usual range of emotions. One last deep breath and she was ready. Ready to take control, to prove she could maintain cool, calm, and collected with Luke.

  She picked his jacket off the floor, noticing a smear of pale pink lipstick against the black leather collar. She rubbed at it with her finger, but it didn't budge.

  She started back through the kitchen door, calling out to Luke, "I'm afraid I got lipstick on your collar—"

  She stopped in midsentence, horrified to find Marion Turner, a fellow literacy committee member and gossip extraordinaire, framed in the open doorway. Olivia's stomach heaved. It had nothing to do with the rum punch and everything to do with the contemptuous judgment on Marion's face.

  "Hello, Olivia. I'm sure I would've knocked, but the door was wide open. I was just dropping off the report for next week. It never occurred to me you wouldn't be dressed yet. But I can see—" her knowing look bounced from Olivia's semidressed state to Luke and back again "—you're busy."

  Luke caught Olivia's eye and held her gaze for a few seconds. His calm nonchalance curiously calmed her.

  Olivia pasted on a smile, determined not to look caught or guilty. She hadn't done anything. Not today anyway. "No, I wasn't busy at all. Do you know Luke Rutledge? He's starting our new library wing tomorrow." Olivia thrust the jacket toward him. "And he's just leaving."

  "I just got here." Luke intoned at the same time.

  "I remember Luke. He failed my English class. Twice." Marion's voice echoed her look of distinct disapproval. "And did he just get here or is he leaving? Never mind. Give me a call, Olivia, when you're not busy." She emanated disdain.

  The old, familiar rush of inferiority threatened to swamp her.

  Luke nodded his head with an arrogance that matched Marion's disapproval. "And it was a pleasure seeing you again, Mrs. Turner."

  Marion sniffed. "Just remember if you lay down with dogs, Olivia, you get up with fleas."

  Olivia saw Luke's slight flinch and felt it as if it were her own. Protective indignation quickly displaced insecurities. She might not like Luke, but she wasn't going to stand around while Marion took unwarranted potshots at him.

  "It takes a flea to know a flea." Wait a minute, that w
asn't right.

  "I mean it takes a dog to know a dog. And it's lie. Lie down. Not lay." Comebacks were not her forte.

  "Well, I never," Marion sniffed. "I trust you'll be dressed the next time I see you, Olivia."

  How dare this woman insult her and Luke while standing in her home? "And I trust you'll have found your manners, Marion."

  Marion whirled in a flash of green polyester and huffed down the sidewalk.

  Olivia stood torn between laughter and exasperation. "I'm so sorry, Luke. She had no right to say that."

  He shrugged, but she sensed her defense pleased him. "Let it go." The rigid set of his shoulders contradicted his words.

  Quite frankly she was a bit shaken by the ugly side of Marion she'd just witnessed. "Why did she fail you?"

  "I did a book report on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. She said Robert Persig was a pervert and she flunked me."

  She'd experienced Marion's narrow range of literary acceptability firsthand. "I'm not a fan of his, but he's not a pervert. Anyway, she said you failed twice."

  "She decided I could make it up by doing another book report."

  "And?"

  "Fear and Loathing in America. Hunter S. Thompson. She tried to get me expelled."

  "You could've just read something on the list." While Marion's attitude and actions were reprehensible, this was the very thing about Luke she inherently found maddening.

  "No. I couldn't." Luke shook his head slowly, an odd smile on his face.

  Olivia tried to understand, but for a girl who'd spent a lifetime trying to fit in, she just didn't get it. "Why do you go out of your way to antagonize?"

  "Why do you go out of your way to conform to everyone's expectations?"

  "Privilege offers the opportunity to fly in the face of convention. When all's said and done, you still have your family's name to fall back on."

  "So do you, Olivia."

  "You're right I do. One misstep. One wrong move and I prove to everyone I'm the white trash they thought I was."