by Marie Force
He’d left the respect of his colleagues, along with his ascending career in horticultural sciences, to come home to help his brother, Paul, run their family business on Gansett and manage their mother’s rapid plunge into dementia. A year ago, she’d been running the business their father started on the island more than four decades earlier. Now he and his brother were doing their best to keep the business afloat while dealing with their mother’s illness, too.
At times Alex felt like his head was going to explode from thinking too much about the staggering array of demands on his time as well as the overwhelming challenge of trying to care for their mother within the confines of the small island they called home. If they’d lived on the mainland, he and Paul would’ve investigated long-term residential facilities by now, especially after their mom strolled out the front door of their home recently and walked miles into town on bare feet.
That incident had scared the hell out of both brothers and brought home the very real need for more qualified medical care than they could provide, even with the amazing support of Dr. David Lawrence, the island’s doctor.
If one good thing had come from the tomato-chucking incident, he’d discovered that he was, in fact, still a man who could be moved by a sexy woman, even when she was spitting nails and hurling tomatoes at him. That was one hot lighthouse keeper, he thought, remembering the way she’d looked in the baby-doll nightie that barely covered all her most important assets. Too bad she was so unfriendly. He might’ve been interested in getting to know her better—as if he had time for such frivolous pursuits. Who was he kidding?
God, he was overheating, and he was only halfway done with this massive lawn. Thinking about the way she’d looked in that barely there nightgown wasn’t doing much for his temperature. Filled with frustration and unable to remember the last time he’d had sex because it had been so long ago, Alex shut off the mower and crossed the wide expanse of lawn he’d already cut to the lighthouse, where a hose lay coiled next to the lighthouse.
He turned on the water, let it run until it went cold and then stood under the spray until he began to cool off. While he knew he should get back to work, he stood there for a few extra minutes, relishing the refreshing shower. So little about his life was enjoyable these days that he had to take pleasure where he could find it, and this cold shower was feeling pretty damned good.
Alex pushed wet hair back from his face and startled when he saw the lighthouse keeper watching him take a shower under her hose. She’d put on a skimpy tank top and short-shorts that did awesome things for her legs. She was staring at him as if she’d never before seen a half-naked guy take a shower under a hose.
He expected her to chew him out for helping himself to her water, but then she licked her lips and something in him snapped. He dropped the hose, and his stride ate up the space between them until he was standing right in front of her.
Big brown eyes widened with surprise, but she held her ground as she gazed up at him.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Not a damned thing. What’re you looking at?”
He zeroed in on her lips, which were moist and very appealing. The entire package was very appealing. Well, except for the tomato incident. But he wasn’t thinking about tomatoes just then. Strawberries came to mind as he stared at her ripe lips and wondered if they’d taste as sweet as they looked. “Nothing.” Alex took another step that put him right in front of her.
Her lips parted with surprise as she looked up at him, probably trying to gauge his intentions. And what were his intentions, exactly? Damned if he knew.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Alex.” Since he had absolutely nothing to offer any woman, he gave her only his first name. “Who are you?”
“Jenny.”
He’d begun to rethink his plan to steal a taste of those lips when she moistened them again and made his decision that much easier. “If you don’t want this, say no.”
“I, um…”
His hands curled around her hips, drawing a gasp from her as he tugged her against him. “That’s not no. Last chance…”
She didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything as she continued to look up at him with big, startled eyes that had him thinking about melted chocolate. And then her hands landed on his bare chest, and he realized she was bringing him closer, not pushing him away.
He lowered his head and moved slowly, giving her time to say no at any point. She didn’t. His lips landed on hers, and the impact was nothing short of incendiary. He told himself it was because it had been so long since he’d done this, but he suspected that wasn’t entirely the case.
It was her and the sweet taste of her lips and the moan that came from her throat as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. He pulled her even closer, not caring in the least that she’d feel his instant arousal or that he was getting her wet. Her breasts flattened against his chest as her mouth opened to his tongue.
Oh my God. This was the hottest kiss he’d ever experienced, and he’d had his share of hot kisses. Just as he was sinking into her sweetness, though, she began to withdraw. He wanted to cry out in protest, but then she grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door to the lighthouse.
“Not out here,” she said, her voice hoarse and sexy.
As he followed her through the door, his gaze firmly planted on her ass, Alex gave thanks to the god of hot kisses that she wasn’t done with him yet. And while he was at it, he said thank you, Jesus, too. In the mudroom, she spun around to face him, and that was when he saw that his wet chest had soaked her thin top, making her nipples visible. He took a good long look at that gorgeous sight.
Lust pounded through him as he reached for her at the same instant she reached for him. The second kiss made the memory of the first one pale in comparison. He reached down to cup her ass and lifted her in tight against his erection. When she wrapped her arms and legs around him and gave as good as she got, Alex decided he’d truly died and gone straight to heaven.
Hello, Jesus.
Chapter 2
In all her life, Jenny had never done anything even remotely close to what she was currently doing in the mudroom with Alex, the lawn-mower guy. She’d never kissed a guy she wasn’t involved with, let alone one she’d been throwing tomatoes at in a fit of rage only an hour ago. She didn’t even know his last name and didn’t really want to know. Somehow, rage had turned to lust, right around the time she saw him taking a shower under her hose.
He was smoking hot, and he knew how to kiss, too. Christ have mercy, the man could kiss. She kept thinking she should put a stop to this. Her emotions were all over the place after the dream and her thoughts of Toby, so this probably wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. But damn if she could bring herself to call a halt to it, especially right when it was getting interesting.
Shifting ever so slightly, he pressed her back against the wall, which freed up his hands to move from her waist to her ribs, stopping just below her breasts.
Jenny wanted to beg him to keep going, but since he was currently sucking hard on her tongue, she couldn’t exactly use her words. So she used her body, arching her hips into tighter contact with the hard column of his erection and placing her hand over his, urging him to keep going.
In addition to being one hell of a good kisser, the man could also take a hint. His big hand covered her breast, and Jenny nearly passed out from the surge of pleasure that coursed through her when he roughly pinched her nipple. Her audible gasp ended the kiss, but he didn’t stop what he was doing to her nipple.
Right when she feared that he was going to end the encounter, he tipped his head and went to work on her neck, licking and nibbling and sucking lightly on the skin just below her ear. Jenny had forgotten how much she liked to be kissed there. He rolled her earlobe between his teeth, biting down harder right as he squeezed her nipple again. The combination made her cry out. She wasn’t sure if she was asking for mercy or begging f
or more.
He leaned his forehead against her shoulder, seeming to summon control or sanity or something that would help him deal with this situation.
Jenny was oddly moved by the sexy stranger and curled her hand around the back of his neck, hoping to offer comfort and keep him from getting away. Not yet anyway.
“How did we get here?” he asked.
She breathed in the scents of freshly cut grass and tomatoes that clung to him. “I’m not quite sure.”
“One minute I was borrowing your hose, and the next…”
Jenny smiled at his summary of events. “I don’t do things like this.”
“Like what? Like this?” He tweaked her nipple again, making her gasp and squirm against his tight hold.
“Yes, like that. And this.” She dragged him into another torrid kiss, this one skipping right over the preliminaries and going straight to open mouths and tangled tongues.
His hands were under her shirt now and moving up, pushing her bra out of the way to cup bare skin. The work-roughened calluses on his hands sent her halfway out of her mind when they made contact with her nipples. He played with her breasts until she was on the verge of explosive release, which had never happened to her before. It usually took much more than that to get her to that point, but it had been such a long time since she’d experienced this kind of desire. A very long time indeed. Sudden thoughts of the last time she’d been kissed with such unrelenting passion brought visions of Toby to mind and had her pulling back from Alex as sanity returned.
“What?” he asked, his voice rough against her ear. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
“Do you want to stop?”
“We probably should.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Even though he agreed, he didn’t sound like he wanted to. He removed his hands from under her top, and Jenny wanted to cry from the loss as she slid down the aroused front of him. When her legs wobbled under her, he held her steady until she regained her footing.
“I, um—”
With his hands on her face, he kissed her softly. “Don’t.”
“I was only going to apologize for the tomatoes.”
“Don’t do that either. I’ve never had a woman throw tomatoes at me or made out in a lighthouse. And here I thought this day was going to totally suck.”
She smiled up at him, dazzled by his gorgeous brown eyes, the darkly tanned skin, the scent of freshly cut grass and the ripple of muscles under her hands.
“Thanks for letting me borrow your hose.”
“Is that like a metaphor or something?”
“Or something.” He kissed her nose and then her lips, lingering for a full minute of pure lip-on-lip contact. “I gotta go.”
She let her hands drop from his shoulders. “I know.”
“I’ll see you around, Jenny the lighthouse keeper.”
“See you around, Alex the lawn mower.”
He kissed her again and was gone, leaving her to sag against the wall as she tried to comprehend what had just happened here. Jenny reached under her tank to adjust her bra, which rubbed against abraded nipples. Through the window, she watched his long stride eat up the yard as he made his way back to the beast. When he bent to retrieve the discarded headset, she zeroed in on the flex of his ass as a bead of sweat rolled down her back.
She might’ve never done anything like that before, but she sure did hope she’d get to do it again. Soon. After all, the grass needed to be mowed regularly, right?
Jenny blew out a deep breath and tried to find her scattered senses as she went upstairs to check on the brownies she’d put in the oven for the lunch she and some of her friends were taking to Sydney Donovan, who’d recently had surgery. Thankfully, the brownies hadn’t burned while she was heating things up with Alex in the mudroom.
Alex… She liked his name. She’d always liked that name. Naturally, she was filled with curiosity about him. Who was he? What was his story? At their age, everyone had one. Some, she knew, were better than others. Of course, she could ask her friends, who would probably know every detail about him and his life. But as she took the brownies out to cool, she decided she’d keep this morning’s interlude to herself. Who knew if it would happen again, and her friends had gone to so much trouble to arrange the dates with Mason and Linc and were working on others. Why would she sacrifice the chance to meet some nice guys because of what would probably turn out to be a one-time lapse in judgment with the lawn guy?
She wouldn’t. It would be stupid to share what’d happened with Alex with her friends. First of all, she’d hate for them to think she was loose or easy, which she wasn’t. At all. Or at least she never had been. Until today. Anyway, she didn’t want them to think she was that kind of girl, and she didn’t really want to be that kind of girl.
Girl. Woman. Whatever. She’d never been loose with guys and had no intention of starting now. If anyone had told her yesterday that this day would unfold the way it had, she would’ve called them crazy.
Jenny stood in the kitchen for a long time, attempting to collect herself. She needed to go out to the main road and open the gates to let in the tourists who swarmed the lighthouse property every day. It was one of the more popular spots on the island, and it was time to open for the day.
She usually walked the half mile to the gate and back because she enjoyed the exercise. Except she’d have to walk by him as he worked on the lawn. So she made an exception to her usual routine and grabbed her car keys. She could easily blame the heat for her cowardice, she thought as she got into her car and blasted the air-conditioning.
In her former life in New York, she couldn’t have conceived of a life without air-conditioning. And for the most part, she was fine without it at the lighthouse. She could always count on a cool ocean breeze, but the unusual heat wave had made for some sweaty days and nights. And it had led a sexy lawn guy to take a shower under her hose.
She giggled when she remembered the punch to the gut she’d experienced watching the water sluice over his muscular frame. God, the guy was H-O-T, and the combination of the heat and the view had positively fried her brain cells. That was the only possible explanation for her wanton behavior.
If you don’t want this, say no.
The memory of his gruffly spoken words was like a flashpoint of heat that even the air-conditioning blasting in her face couldn’t overcome. She hadn’t said no. Rather, she’d said yes, yes, yes—not with words, but with actions so brazen he probably thought she was a total slut. But he hadn’t seemed put off by her behavior. If anything, he’d encouraged it.
Jenny blew out an uneven deep breath as she felt him watching her drive down the long dirt lane that led to the road. She continued to feel his eyes on her as she unlocked the gate and swung it open. How in the world had he gotten his truck and that beast of a lawn mower onto the property? He must have a key, she decided. Great…
On the way back, she drove by the green Martinez Lawn & Garden pickup truck with the trailer attached for the beast and could tell he was still watching her. Martinez Lawn & Garden… She wondered if he was an owner or an employee and hated herself for wanting to know more about him. Owners of a company like that didn’t usually do things like cut the grass, did they?
“Oh for God’s sake, Jenny. Knock it off, and let it go. It was a couple of kisses. Stop making it into a federal case.”
She was still muttering to herself when she stepped into the mudroom and stopped short as images from the carnal encounter flooded her mind, making her mouth water for another taste of him. This was utter madness, and it was enough already.
After stomping up the stairs to the bedroom, she sat at her computer to record the weather conditions and seas on the Coast Guard website she reported to every day, which was another of the regular duties required of her position. The job wasn’t exactly the best use of the MBA she’d earned at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, but she liked her life at the lighthouse and on t
he island, where she’d made friends she greatly enjoyed.
They kept her busy and engaged in island life, which was exactly what she needed after years of floundering following Toby’s death. She finally felt rooted again and ready for the next phase of her life, whatever that might be. The morning passed quickly as she replied to several emails from her parents and sisters, who worried about her far more than they should—not that she hadn’t given them ample reason to worry over the years.
Her parents were talking about coming to visit this summer, and she hoped they would. She’d love to show them “her” island and introduce them to her new friends. Speaking of her friends, it was time to get ready to go to Syd’s. She’d offered to arrive early so Syd’s husband, Luke, could go to work for a few hours.
Suddenly, she realized she could no longer hear the beast and went over to the window to look out at the lawn, which was devoid now of the mower and the hot man who ran it. He was gone. That was fine. She had to go, too. But as she drove away from the lighthouse on her way to Syd’s, she wondered if or when he’d be back.
* * *
Jenny arrived at Sydney and Luke’s oceanfront home a short time later. She was accustomed now to the breathtaking views the island afforded, but theirs was one of her favorites. Carrying the brownies she’d baked, Jenny tapped on the glass door and heard Syd’s dog, Buddy, bark inside.
Luke came to the door and smiled when he saw Jenny there. “Oh, good, you’re here. Syd can’t wait to be rid of me.”
“That’s not true,” Syd called from her perch on the sofa. She had decorated the room in shades of navy and cream and made the most of the exquisite view. Jenny absolutely loved this room. “He can’t wait to go to work.”
“Also not true,” Luke said with a wink.
“Glad to see you two lovebirds getting along so swimmingly,” Jenny teased.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time together,” Sydney said. “And not the fun kind of time.” Her long red hair was piled into a messy bun on the top of her head, and other than the dark circles under her eyes, she looked great.
