by Jule McBride
Getting out in the icy drizzle, he heard a rumble of thunder and eyed the darkening sky as he began circling the bungalow, deciding he’d wait on the covered front porch. Set back from the road and within walking distance to the water, the little house was surrounded by pines and hardwoods, and it managed to look cute, despite its putty color, even on this miserable day in the dead of winter. It had green shutters and doors, a picket fence, and garden areas that looked well-tended even this time of year, the bushes neatly pruned. He imagined everything came alive in summer, and he damned her for that, suddenly glad it was so cold and dark and blustery, not wanting to imagine flowers. Not that she’d be here to tend them, since she was moving to Raleigh.
With any luck, a tornado really would hit this afternoon. He should have known somebody so full of life would garden. Just like he should have guessed it wasn’t her in the elevator. He’d known she was different, but...
“A twin,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair, slicking it back, feeling another rush of annoyance, since he was getting wet, and all because she’d walked off with his coat. If it hadn’t been a gift, he would not even bother to get it back. He was a smart guy. He had two PhDs, but he’d missed the obvious. No way could those two have been the same woman. Too late he’d registered the million tiny differences, including that they didn’t smell the same. Lizzie wore flowery perfume that, even in their brief encounter in the elevator, had given him a headache.
If Ari wasn’t a dental hygienist, what was she? She hadn’t wanted to share anything about her life with him. Not even her name. She hadn’t wanted him to know her. Hadn’t even left him a note.
Because her parents had insisted on driving him to his car, he’d gotten a crash course in the nutty family dynamics. It was clear the sisters had a good-girl, bad-girl thing imposed on them since birth. No wonder Aribella wasn’t a fan of shrinks. They could turn her family into a cottage industry. According to the Maddens, their wilder daughter never stayed with men long, unlike Lizzie who was getting married in three weeks. On the ride, it had clicked that the Unwelcome Incidents Aribella kept talking about had been weddings. As soon as her parents dropped him off, Bruno had called in sick, ruining his perfect attendance record, so he had Aribella to thank for that, too. Then he’d come here.
He shook his head, trying not to think about how he’d felt, waiting for her arrival at the mall earlier this morning. He’d been on her like a wolf. It wasn’t like he had sex in public places all the time, but Aribella brought it out in him. He’d paid for it, too. Being Tasered was no picnic. It had felt like his balls were caught in an electric fence, then he’d fallen over, temporarily paralyzed, and people crowded around him, staring. The pain subsided quickly, but his eye still hurt where Gavin had clocked him.
Gavin had been incredibly apologetic, like Lizzie and the older Maddens. Even the cops had been nice, once they’d realized Bruno wasn’t going to sue the town. He should have left it at that. But no...he was making house calls where he was uninvited, totally uncharacteristic. And since her Mustang was flying up the driveway, he’d better decide what he wanted to say.
She parked without noticing him, jerking to such a fast stop in front that her tires spit gravel. Hopping out, she ran for the door, clutching a reusable grocery satchel against her chest, a shoulder bag banging her side, her jumper blowing in the wind. She was moving her lips as if having a conversation with herself, something he understood perfectly since he’d been arguing with her all the way here. TMA had been bad enough, since she hadn’t left a note, but at the station, she wasn’t even going to admit they’d met.
He kept circling the house and stopped at the bottom of the porch steps as she fiddled with the door key. Six feet away and she still hadn’t noticed him! It must be quite some argument she was having with him in her head, he decided. She opened a glass storm door, then pushed a green entry door.
“Can I give you a hand?”
She whirled around so fast she nearly dropped the groceries. Gasping, she slipped back outside, pressing her back against the glass door as if to bar his entrance. It was the wrong time to notice how her jumper had hiked up on her thighs, clinging to rain-splashed white tights in the moist air, the wrong time to remember her heightened state of arousal when she kept calling him Mr. Electricity. Judging from the thunder, they were about to see electrical activity again any minute, and he suddenly decided it was too bad it was mother nature’s version, not theirs.
He didn’t feel the least bit sorry she was shivering, he told himself. She was more duplicitous than he’d first thought, but in a different way. Instead of being a goody-two-shoes by day and a wild woman by night, she was apparently wild all the time and accustomed to lying about her emotions. She must have raced out without a coat when her sister called, but that wasn’t his fault, either, since she could have forewarned him about the whole situation.
“Uh...I didn’t know you were here.”
She looked glad he was still standing at the bottom of the steps, too. “And why do I suspect you wouldn’t have invited me?” he asked dryly.
“I don’t know.” That she looked so unhappy about his visit rubbed him the wrong way. He could have any woman he wanted in his circle in D.C. Until now, no woman had ever actually run away from him.
She added, “Maybe you’re just suspicious or something.”
“Maybe because you would have let me stay in jail for a crime I didn’t commit.” Of course, he had committed the crime, or tried, but only because he’d thought her sister was her. Now she seemed to be considering what he’d planned to do to in the elevator, and the color rising in her cheeks wasn’t from the weather.
“Nobody ever mixes up me and Lizzie.”
“You said that at the station. You wanted to pretend we’d never met, too. And I didn’t mix you up, by the way.”
When her lips parted in shock, he damned himself once more for remembering how sweet those lips had tasted, how the sharp hot spear of her tongue had felt while probing his, and how much he’d wanted to feel it on other parts of his anatomy. She was professing not to want him, but she did want him, and what guy wouldn’t react to the girly-girl getup? The bottoms of the strawberry braids were bound with white ribbons, and the gathered hair brushed the exposed tops of her breasts like little brooms. The only outfit he would have enjoyed more would have been a maid’s uniform, or maybe thigh-high lace-up witch boots and a matching leather bustier.
“You knew it was Lizzie?”
“I didn’t know there was a Lizzie.”
“Then why did you say you kne-kne—knew it was Lizzie?”
Even with her teeth chattering from cold, her voice was sexy. Lizzie’s was similar, yes, but different, too. It hadn’t affected him in the same way. In fact, the second he’d touched Lizzie, he’d started wondering if the passion he’d felt was only in his imagination. Now he knew only Aribella made him feel this way.
Her exposed skin was bright pink from the cold, but she didn’t want him warming her up, did she? Exhaling an annoyed breath, he listened to a low-pitched howl of wind circle her house. In the yard, the gust blew two plastic chairs a few feet away like tumbleweeds, and the For Rent sign nearly toppled. Her jumper had flown up, too, and she nearly dropped the groceries in an effort to push it down, looking as stricken as when she’d seen him at the police station. He went from feeling sorry for her to having his heartstrings tug to having his temper flare, all in the space of a second. Fighting not to roll his eyes, he watched a tight fist form around the dress hem, and the way she pressed the fabric against her thigh, it was as if to say he really was the kind of guy who’d attack a woman. Yeah, right. In his life, he’d never seen a woman want sex with him as badly as she.
“It’s not like I haven’t already seen everything you’ve got under there.”
Licked. Probed with his fingers, too. He was so intent on the memori
es that he barely noticed a jagged bolt of lightning when it flashed like a strobe, illuminating the landscape. For a second, he was back in bed, his hands splayed on her creamy thighs, pushing them open. Another gust brought him back to the present as the wind changed direction and thunder clapped, bringing a driving rain that fell in sheets. He had no choice but to go up the steps of the covered porch, out of the downpour, and he wasn’t the least bit surprised when she practically shrank against the door. “It’s raining, Aribella,” he said, feeling genuinely annoyed, and hardly inclined to be like the men she’d dated whom her parents described. The men who hadn’t persisted. “And it’s cold. Why don’t you invite me in?”
She hugged the groceries more tightly, as if to make clear she wasn’t relinquishing her stance in front of the door. “Only my parents call me Aribella, and they mostly do it when they’re mad.”
“That seemed the case when they drove me to get my car.”
She made a strange little sound, not quite a yelp. “They drove you?”
“It’s not like you offered.” He paused. “Ari.” In the car, he’d learned they said it like airy, not aurey, and just like her outfits and the bungalow, the name suited her. Lizzie would have been all wrong. “Everybody offered me a ride, including Lizzie and Gavin.”
“Sorry,” she said, her voice sounding strained and even sexier than usual. “I thought the police could....uh...handle it.”
Had he really gotten naked with her? It seemed impossible at the moment, but yes, each of her sighs and moans was imprinted on his brain forever. Her voice was like a brand, burning into his skin. She hadn’t been faking, either. He’d been with enough women to know what was real and what wasn’t, and what she’d been experiencing in bed was very, very real.
“Look, I have your coat,” she said. “If you’ll stay right here, I’ll go in and get it for you, or if you’d like to leave it another day, I can still have it cleaned. That’s what I was going to do.”
The coat was a gift and he wanted it back, but her little speech rankled, and now he was more interested in hearing her admit she remembered their night together. She’d been tipsy, yes, but the awareness in her eyes said she was remembering some hot details he’d like to start reliving.
“Wait here.”
As she went inside, he closed the distance between them, caught the edge of the glass door and followed, putting the howling wind behind him, the door latch catching like his own breath. Despite the dampness of the day, the living room was inviting, with a cozy fireplace, beam ceilings, and overstuffed armchairs big enough for two. The couch was sumptuous, with brown silk upholstery and fluffy, fringed throw pillows. The place was perfect for intimate entertaining, but according to her parents Ari never stayed with men long, unlike Lizzie. Somehow, that angered him. He’d only slept with her once, but he wanted to take a wrecking ball and crash through the wall she’d built around herself.
He listened to the clomp-clomp of clogs on the wood floor, then he heard a refrigerator door open and figured she was putting away ice cream or something. When she returned, she looked startled to see him inside her home, but the wide-eyes and parted lips were a put-on, he decided. She’d known damn well he’d follow her. He wasn’t like the other guys who’d always skedaddled. She thrust forward his coat, and as he lifted it off the hook of her finger, he knew he was supposed to say goodbye.
“I’ll have it cleaned if you’d like,” she offered again. “It’s a really nice coat.”
It was. But was she really going to keep talking about a coat, when they’d come close to having sex in an elevator an hour ago? Would have, if it hadn’t been Lizzie. This sister would have gone for it. Loved every minute, too. So, why was she pretending otherwise? “It was a gift.”
She wanted to ask from whom, but she didn’t even have the guts to openly express that much interest in him. Glancing to where his hand wrapped around rumpled fabric, he realized she hadn’t taken a cab, TMA. Given the mussed state of his coat, she must have walked. “Why didn’t you wake me and ask for a ride?” he muttered. Somehow, that pissed him off more than anything else.
He turned to go, his fingertips on the glass door. Lightning flashed in a bright, electric zigzag in the sky. Pines swayed. Leaves on hardwoods rustled, then blew across the sky, looking like migrating birds breaking formation. She was behind him, watching the whirlwind, close enough for her scent to tempt him. Maybe it was only his memory, but the heady, wild aroma of her musk seemed to be in the air, teasing his nostrils and making him want to recapture what they’d already shared. In his ears, he suddenly heard her husky whisper begging him not to stop.
Abruptly, he turned. Instinctively, he circled her, something male and predatory propelling him. Now she, not he, was standing against the door, so there was nothing to shield her from the storm coming from inside the house, from him. Thunder clapped as he tossed his crumpled coat to a chair. “That’s not all I came for,” he muttered, his voice almost hoarse.
“Then what?”
“I think you know.”
Her skin was flushed, the pulse ticking visibly at her neck. She said, “Look. Let me just lay it on the line here. It was a one-night thing, okay? I’m not like Lizzie, just like my parents probably told you. I’m never going to settle down in Blackwater Inlet. I always felt like a misfit here. I’ve been planning to leave and day before yesterday—”
“Night before last,” he interjected, determined to remind her of it and thinking she could be saying she hated his guts and her voice would still get to him. “I know you’re moving to Raleigh, Ari. It’s one of the few things you bothered to tell me about yourself. I can read For Rent signs, too, in case you were wondering if I’m even literate. In case you had any curiosity about me at all.”
“Of course I’m curious, I really am, but I have so much to do! My sister’s getting married in three weeks, and I’m in the wedding. Right after that, I’m moving. I have an entire house to pack, and—”
“I’m going to hold you back?” He couldn’t believe her flimsy excuses. “That is so lame.
“Of course not. You didn’t even know it wasn’t me in the elevator. Nobody ever mixes up me and Lizzie. So, obviously, we don’t know each other at all—”
“I knew it wasn’t you. Not at first, but I knew.”
“Whatever the case, you’re moving into town. I saw your boxes. And I’m moving out.”
What did him buying a cottage have to do with anything? “You know how I knew?” he persisted, curling a hand around her upper arm, hating how her eyes darted away, as if to say walking into a tornado would be preferable to closer contact with him. You liar, he suddenly thought, stepping closer, his breath catching when their bodies brushed. Lizzie hadn’t made heat spark like this. Like static in the stormy air, everything super charged with electricity. No wonder he’d been waiting for Ari this morning. Always, maybe. Hadn’t he always wanted to find a woman who made him feel like this?
Registering the sweep of emotion through his whole body, he couldn’t help but marvel at it. Wasn’t that how love happened sometimes? All at once? Like this? Blindsiding you? It was crazy, but there was no denying how he felt. A year ago, he’d sworn to himself he wasn’t going to lie anymore. He was going to pursue life to the fullest and chase what he wanted.
“I knew something was...wrong when I touched Lizzie, but I didn’t understand why, didn’t understand there was somebody else who looks like you but...”
“Isn’t me?”
They were generating heat every place his jeans and her dress touched, and beneath the barrier fabric was pent-up turbulence waiting to be unleashed. He was getting hard, knew she could feel it, wanted her to feel it, so he pressed the insistent throb against her belly, the back of his throat going dry.
“Ari—” Licking his lips to dampen them, he dropped his eyes over her chest, feeling vindicated when her b
reasts heaved upward on a sharp inhalation of breath. “I’ve got PhDs in physics and engineering, but the energy between you and me is a mystery I can’t figure out. When I saw you dancing in Boondocks, I started thinking about hot currents and live wires. I didn’t feel anything like that when I touched your sister.”
“No?”
“No. And you know what I’m talking about, too. It’s what you’re afraid of. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get so freaked about me meeting your parents. You’d just screw me for the next couple of weeks until you left town. My house here is just a second home for me, by the way. So I’m not really moving here permanently. I have a condo in Georgetown and I own my own helicopter. It’s the very nice Robinson R44 Raven you probably noticed in my yard, but I’d like to upgrade, in case you’re starting to wonder about me. Anyway, maybe you’d arrange for some long-distance sex hookup, if that’s what you wanted. In fact, if your only goal was to get out of Blackwater Inlet, you’d try to figure out how much money I have, in case I could be your ticket out of town.
“Maybe you’d have me fly you to D.C. for dates or something. You’re a big girl. And you liked fucking me. You liked it a lot. So, you’re not pushing me away, because you think my move here is forever, or because you might get attached to me and want to stay in town.”
“It’s true I don’t want to feel tied down,” she interjected defensively. “A lot of women don’t. At least not until I have a chance to pursue some of my interests.”
“Maybe you felt threatened by the attentions of local guys for that reason, but I’m not one of them. And anyway, I’ve only been in town two weeks, and I’ve heard you have a reputation for pushing men away.”
“Exactly. The Blackwater gossip mill never quits.” Her voice shook a little. “And don’t get me wrong. It was a great night.”
“You never came like that in your entire life.”
He tugged her closer, a little more roughly than he’d intended, but she didn’t seem to mind. Savage relief flooded him when he felt the front of her body press against him. His erection was starting to strain the fly of his jeans, and he was hyper—aware of how her clothes smelled, so rain-damp and musty. He should have gotten away from her when it was still humanly possible, since she didn’t want him here. But now, through fabric barriers he needed gone since yesterday, her nipples tightened, bringing a surge of satisfaction at the telltale betrayal of her body. She wanted him, all right. His gaze swept the tops of plump breasts, way curvier than Lizzie’s, plenty of cleavage. No bra straps meant no bra, which meant she was that much closer to undressed, and the realization did crazy things to him. Abruptly, he lifted his fingers, caught the bow that gathered the neckline of the peasant blouse and tugged. It came undone, the neckline gaping, but not enough. Bending his knees, he lowered to her level, his eyes intent.
