Xandra took one look into the bag and got a good whiff, and then crumpled it closed. It was definitely too early for visitors and especially too early for bran. She set the bag on a magazine stand near the door and turned to head upstairs.
The bleakness of the room stopped her and she simply stood there for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the sofa and coffee table that occupied the center of the living room, the small stereo system in the far corner. There was nothing else in the room. He'd taken his Chanel lamps and his stainless steel end tables. And the framed print from the Museum of Modern Art he'd brought back from one of his business trips to New York. And even the authentic Persian rug he'd brought her as a gift from one of his trips overseas.
The cold hardwood floor seeped through the soles of her feet and creaked when she shifted her weight. He'd hated the hardwood floor. And the frieze work that lined the upper portion of the walls. And the wooden staircase. And the entire house in general.
But she'd fallen in love with it at first glance because its wraparound porch and gingerbread shutters reminded her of the house where she'd grown up with her sisters and her grandmother. Her parents had lived in the five-bedroom, two-story house, as well, but they'd always been off somewhere. Her mother had had book tours and speaking engagements and her college professor father had been away fighting for animal rights or doing research for one of his textbooks. And so it had been Xandra and her sisters and her grammie.
She'd loved that house because she'd been safe there. Safe from the boys who'd chant “Here comes Mrs. Boss Hogg”—the overweight wife of the villain in the hit TV show The Dukes of Hazzard—when Xandra had always longed to be sexy, svelte Daisy Duke.
At home there'd been no one judging her or ridiculing her. There'd just been Grammie and the sweet scent of vanilla extract and acceptance.
She blinked back a sudden rush of tears and squared her shoulders. She wasn't going to get caught up in the past. It was all about the future now. Time to be proactive. To take charge of her life again. To turn back the clock, pick up where she'd inadvertently left off, and make things happen.
She headed up the stairs, into the bathroom and over to the medicine cabinet. She eyed the extra large box of unused condoms sitting inside and burst into tears. Not because she loved the person who'd purchased the box or because she wanted him back, but because she'd wasted eight years on a man. The wrong man. Eight long years with the wrong man. Eight of her best years with the wrong man.
She wasn't wasting another minute.
Downstairs she cranked up the Aerosmith CD to a level that would have driven Mark nuts, lit the log in her fireplace, and watched the flames flare to life.
“Here's to new beginnings.” Tearing open the box of condoms, she pulled a package free and tossed it into the fire. The plastic curled and sparked as she listened to Steven Tyler wail about lost love.
She hiked up her Jon Bon Jovi robe around her calves and sat down on the stone ledge that extended from the fireplace. She positioned herself near the grate, facing the fireplace, the box next to her.
“You're a jerk,” she said as she tossed another condom into the fire. “And a commitment-phobic control freak. You're insensitive. You're juvenile. And overall, you suck.”
By the time the song had faded into the next, she'd tossed a handful of condoms and called Mark every name she could think of. She actually felt a little better.
“You definitely suck,” she said again as she leaned in with another condom package. Flames licked at the plastic. “You suck, you suck, you really suck.”
“I've never liked that brand of condoms myself, but don't you think you're being a little harsh?”
The deep voice came from behind her, just above the wail of music. She half turned. Flames licked at her fingers and she dropped the package with a loud yelp.
Pain shot through her and scrambled her brain for the next few heartbeats until the voice sounded again and jerked her back to reality.
To the fact that she had a stranger standing not more than a few feet away.
Her gaze swiveled from her singed fingertips to the shadow outlined in the bright morning sunlight spilling through the bay windows behind him. Her heart revved faster than her brother-in-law's infamous #62 Chevy at the starting gate of the Daytona 500. But the cause had nothing to do with excitement and everything to do with fear.
There was a stranger in her house. This close to her. Towering over where she sat on the ledge of the fireplace. Planning to do only God knew what.
She opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a frenzied yelp as heat licked at her thigh. Her attention snapped back to her lap.
Fear faded into full-blown panic as she realized she wasn't just facing off with an intruder.
She'd dropped the flaming condom into her lap and now she was on fire.
Chapter Four
Okay, so she wasn't actually on fire.
The condom package was on fire, flaming right there in her lap, the flames licking at the terry cloth of her robe, turning the faded pink a crisp black…
Cripes, she was on fire!
Her heart jumped into her throat as she slapped the package out of her lap and swatted at the sparks. But it wasn't enough. While one spark died, another flared. And another. And—
The thought stalled as the Madonna pillow she'd unearthed from her box of treasures hit her square in the lap and smothered everything beneath.
“Christ, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you,” the deep voice sounded far away this time and barely penetrated the frantic bam, bam, bam of her heart.
Her gaze hooked on the back of Madonna's head and she slowly turned her favorite pillow over to see the damage to her robe. The material was so thick that the flames hadn't reached her skin, but her robe was a mess. Several spots had been singed. Madonna didn't just have black ringing her eyes now. Half of one cheek was singed and burnt spots mottled her Marilyn Monroe hairdo.
Xandra had the sudden insane urge to cry.
Not that she was going to. It was just a pillow and a robe. Granted, her favorite pillow and robe. The pillow and robe, in fact, that she'd curled up with every Saturday night to watch TV with her grandmother while she'd been growing up. Meanwhile, all the rest of Georgetown High had been keeping company at Uncle Funkel's Bar-B-Que out near Interstate 10. The hangout for all the popular kids.
Xandra, of course, had been there only once and that was on a weekday when she'd gone with Grammie to pick up sliced beef sandwiches and potato salad for dinner.
“I knocked, but you didn't answer,” the voice went on, drawing her attention away from the past and back to the present. “I don't normally walk into anyone's house, but we're on a time limit with this project. The plans have to be approved by Monday morning, or we lose an entire day of work.”
Project. Plans. Work.
The words registered in her mind and sent a rush of relief, followed by a wave of anxiety because she knew he wasn't some anonymous intruder. His voice was too deep. Too stirring. Too familiar.
Memories pushed and pulled at her brain and images rushed at her. A tall teenage boy wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey and worn Levi's. A sunny Saturday afternoon. A flat tire on her grammie's old Bonneville. Strong, tanned fingers working at the wrench. A twinkling, violet-colored gaze that caught and held hers and made her stomach hollow out. A deep, rich voice that made her hands tremble.
Like now.
She clutched the throw pillow, glanced up and found herself eye level with the zipper of his jeans. She meant to look north. She really did. But he was so close, and it was right there and she wasn't exactly thinking straight thanks to all the memories buzzing inside her and her near death experience with the flaming condom.
Soft, worn denim cupped a rather impressive bulge. Her stomach fluttered and she actually swallowed.
A crazy reaction for a woman who'd seen more than her fair share of male members. Sure, most of them were rubber reproductions, but they were
so realistic—thanks to her fabulous engineering department and Wild Woman's quest for perfection—she might well have been staring at the real thing. She was a seasoned veteran when it came to penises. Her stomach simply did not flutter, particularly when the penis in question was completely concealed beneath the faded denim.
Then again, maybe that was the charm. A penis-in-hiding opened the door for tremendous possibilities. It made her think of a hot, moonlit night and slippery bodies and lots of gasping and moaning and…
Him.
She forced her gaze upward, and the stomach fluttering only got worse because the view got even better.
He wore a soft, white cotton T-shirt, the ends tucked into the waistband of his pants. The material clung to a wide, impressive chest. The faint outline of his nipples pressed against the cotton. The chest spread into a broad set of shoulders. A dark, tanned neck extended from the neckline of his T-shirt. The neck gave way to a broad jaw covered with dark stubble, a strong chin and lips that would have seemed a tad too large if they hadn't been so damned sensual at the same time. His mouth crooked up at the corner and a dimple cut the side of his face. Her heart actually skipped a beat, and then it stopped altogether when her gaze collided with his.
Okay, finding the gray hair last night had been bad enough. Humiliating. The worst moment of her life.
Until now. It was him.
“My life really sucks,” she murmured, and then she did the only thing a woman could do when faced with the man who'd given her the worst five minutes of her sexually active life.
She started to laugh.
Beau Hollister loved women and so the hard-on pressing tight against his jeans came as no surprise.
He'd fallen hard and fast years back the first moment he'd set eyes on Susie Thorton's Malibu Barbie. Susie had lived next door to Beau's family—an all male household that consisted of his father and three younger brothers. Since Beau's mother had passed away from breast cancer when he'd been seven years old, the only female he'd ever kept company with had been a wheat-colored lab named Honey. But then Susie had moved next door. He'd done his best, like any ten-year-old boy when faced with a cootie-carrying girl, to make her life a living hell. He'd trampled her baby doll with his bicycle, shot spit wads at her while she played tea party on the back porch, and fired his water gun straight into the window of her first slumber party.
He'd hated her, and she'd hated him, and all had been right with his male-dominated world. Then one summer afternoon everything had changed. That had been the summer he'd turned eleven and spied his dad kissing his fifth-grade music teacher. 1of all things.
Beau had been hurt, then he'd been mad, and then he'd glimpsed an actual tongue and he'd been intrigued. For a few seconds. Then he'd been mad again and he'd raced off to gather some chinaberries for his slingshot. He couldn't wait to see how many shots it took to get his dad away from Miss Cline.
He'd been up in Susie's tree gathering berries when she'd wandered outside with her Barbie. He'd meant to shoot off a few practice shots at her, but then her mother had called her back inside. He'd climbed down and been about to stamp the daylights out of her Barbie when he'd realized that it wasn't just any Barbie.
It was a Barbie.
Just like that, his belief system had done a complete one-eighty. One glance at all those interesting curves and that long blonde hair and those bluer-than-blue eyes, and he'd started to wonder at the possibilities.
Not that he fancied blondes.
Beau loved all women. From brunettes to redheads to platinum blondes, and everything in between. They could be short or tall. Thin or voluptuous. Outgoing or reserved. It didn't matter. They were females and there was just something about the softness of their skin, or the way their eyes twinkled when he let his gaze linger a little too long, or the way their terry cloth robe gaped at the neckline when they leaned over and tossed a condom into the fireplace, or the way their full lips formed the word “suck”…
Yep, Beau loved women, all right, and so it only made sense that he would be turned on right now.
Especially when faced with the one woman who'd given him the best five minutes of his life, and a world of hurt thereafter.
Xandra Farrel.
It was her. Right here. Right now. In the flesh.
While he'd recognized her name on the job order weeks ago, he'd been pretty certain it wasn't his Xandra Farrel. After all, Houston was a huge city. There were thousands of Farrels. Undoubtedly one of them was named Xandra, and so he hadn't really thought that it would be her.
At the same time, he'd known there was a chance and so he'd offered to drop off the plans for his assistant so she could take her son to a birthday party. Annabelle usually handled all the residential jobs and assigned them accordingly, but this one was different. This wasn't just a renovation. It was a complete restoration of one of the oldest houses in downtown Houston, and the chance to turn his glorified handyman service into a reputable contracting and construction business. Beau was spearheading this job himself and he wanted things to go perfectly, and so he'd needed to know the truth about the owner before it posed a threat to his concentration.
Right now he didn't have a hammer or a saw in his hands, but come Monday he would, and he would need to be completely, totally focused. He couldn't afford to be caught off guard by a woman. The woman.
Aw, hell.
His gaze swept from her pale blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail to her toes and back up again. Her soft, terry cloth robe was belted loosely at the waist. The edges parted to reveal one creamy white thigh that tapered down to a shapely calf and trim ankle. Pink-tipped toes rested on the hardwood floor. With each deep breath, her cleavage played peekaboo with him and his chest hitched.
Yep, it was her all right.
While he'd known there was a chance, imagining it might be her and having her right in front of him were two totally different things. His reaction was different from what he'd planned. More potent. More dangerous.
Aw, hell.
“It's nice to see you again, Beau.”
Bright, sparkling, familiar green eyes met his and his stomach hollowed out the way it had so long ago when she'd shown up at his daddy's gas station and asked him for an oil change and a date to the Sadie Hawkins dance.
She'd wanted more than a dance, however. She'd wanted him, and he'd wanted her, and it had cost him dearly.
“It's been a long time,” he said to her, desperate to reorganize his priorities. It was one thing to get turned on by just any woman, but he couldn't afford to be turned on by this woman. He'd learned that the hard way and he wasn't about to repeat the mistake. “Eleven years, isn't it?”
“Eleven years and six months.” Her gaze shifted away from his. “Not that I'm keeping track or anything. It's just that the dance was near Christmas and we're starting summer, which makes it six months.”
Beau stood there in awkward silence for the next few moments as he tried to calm his pounding heart. He wasn't excited or anxious or the least bit turned on anymore, despite the fact that she looked so good and smelled so sweet and wore nothing but a terry cloth robe with black singe marks…
“Are you okay?”
“I'm fine, thanks to you.” She held up the throw pillow. “That was quick thinking.”
“What can I say? I'm quick.” Do you really need to remind her? “What were you doing?”
“Killing my ex.”
“Come again?”
“My boyfriend and I split up and I was just getting rid of the last of him. You know, out with the old and in with the new.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Me, too. It seems like such a shame to waste all that time together. We were together for eight years.”
“That's a long time.”
“You're telling me.”
“So he likes Madonna?”
“What?”
“The pillow.” He eyed the box sitting next to her. “Are you getting rid of all this stuff, too?”
>
“No, no. This is my stuff. I packed it away because he didn't really like Madonna. Or this old robe. Or my CD collection. Or the Dallas Cowboys.” At his surprised gaze, she added, “He was a Packers fan.”
“Sounds like you guys weren't that great of a match.”
“No, no. We were the perfect match. This stuff is all old and people change. It's not really who I am anymore.”
“So you like the Packers now?”
She grinned and her face brightened. “Well, I wouldn't go that far.”
“So how long have you been here in Houston?”
“Since I graduated from the University of Texas. Mark and I moved here together. He took a job with a brokerage firm—he's a financial analyst—and I came here to work for Lust, Lust, Baby! They make sexual toys and enhancement products. They're the biggest in my industry. I've got a degree in sexology, as well as sales and marketing. I'm a designer.”
“A designer for the biggest company in the business. I'm impressed.”
“I don't exactly work for them.” She frowned. “I came here to work for them, but they didn't offer me the position I wanted.” She shook her head. “Who am I kidding?” Her gaze met his. “They didn't offer me any position. They consider their market primarily male-oriented and they didn't think a female designer could add to their current list of products. So I decided to start my own company, geared toward women, and prove that great sex isn't just for men.” Another shake of her head. “At least, that's what I started out to prove, but somewhere along the way I lost sight of that.” She met his eyes again. “All I wanted was to show them up and get them to hire me to head their design department. That's what I wanted. That's all I've ever wanted.” She seemed to think about her words. “That's probably more information than you need, right?”
He grinned. “It's okay. Feel free to talk. I've always been a good listener.”
She shook her had. “Enough about me. So you've got your own business, too, I see.”
“Ten years and still going strong, but then I'm sure you already know that since you've been meeting with Annabelle.” He handed her a business card out of habit and waited for the usual cheesy comments that came when he talked about his business. Everything from “I'd hire a hunk like you any day,” to “Can I get fries with that beefcake?”
Sometimes Naughty, Sometimes Nice Page 4
