by Lori Foster
She wouldn’t try to make a move on him tonight, she decided. After all, she hadn’t even read the books yet. And since Guy was the only man she could ever remember wanting, she knew nil about turning a man on. But she could test the waters, so to speak. And if she could get him to open up just a little, maybe she’d be able to find out specifically what it was he liked—and then she could use it to her advantage.
A few months ago, when she’d confided in Lace that she wanted Guy, Lace had given her several suggestions on how to find out if Guy was indeed interested in her or not. And true to Lace’s predictions, he hated it if she flirted with other men, if she went to a singles’ bar, even when she dressed in clothes that showed her more feminine side.
But then, so did both her brothers, so that really hadn’t told her a thing.
Maybe now was as good a time as any to try another experiment. Her heart raced with nervousness—and anticipation.
She gave Guy a fat grin. “Call and order the pizza, then make yourself comfortable. I have a few quick things I have to do.”
He nodded, his gaze wary now as he focused on her bright smile. Annie wondered just how he’d look at her when she finished getting ready. One thing was certain. Before he tied himself permanently to someone else, he would see her, actually see her, as a woman, and not just the younger sister he never had.
And then he could make his choice.
3
GUY LET OUT the breath he’d been holding as the bedroom door closed behind Annie. He felt tense from his toes to the roots of his hair, and that was saying something since his hair was so short, roots were about all he had.
His present mood had nothing to do with this wedding business, though he was half-dreading that already, too. No, it had to do with Annie. It was all her fault.
Seduction? What the hell did his sweet little Annie know about carnal seduction? Guy snorted to himself. Nothing. She knew absolutely nothing about it, he was sure of that. Why, she’d seldom even dated, and never seriously! Not that she couldn’t if she chose to.
Most times she seemed unaware of it, but Annie was a real looker. Though she might be a petite little thing, her gentle curves were in all the right places, perfectly symmetrical, perfectly balanced. Perfect.
Good God, now she had him thinking about her curves.
He swiped a hand over his face and paced to the couch. The phone sat on an end table and he called the familiar number of their favorite pizza place. After he replaced the receiver, he looked around, trying to find something to occupy his mind other than Annie’s body.
Or her plans for seduction.
Or her selection of reading material.
The books were impossible to ignore, given that they were scattered everywhere, the titles fairly screaming up at him. Sex, sex, sex. In Annie’s apartment, where sex didn’t belong.
He didn’t want to, but he picked up The Joy of Sex and skimmed through it. He got hot under the collar and hot in his pants, at the same time. His brain felt confused and bruised as he imagined Annie looking through the same book, planning on incorporating what she saw with some faceless, nameless man. Dammit.
Guy paced some more. Whoever the guy was, he wasn’t good enough for her. Not if Annie had to resort to seducing him. Was the guy a blind fool?
Women like Annie were rare. She was kind and gentle and smart and she knew how to take care of herself, though her brothers spent the better part of their lives trying to do that for her. Guy supposed he was guilty as well, only to a lesser degree. But she was such a tiny thing, with such an enormous capacity for compassion, it would be easy for someone to take advantage of her.
The thought of someone breaking her heart filled him with a killing—and jealous—rage.
He knew what he had to do then. Once he resigned himself to his fate, he actually felt a bit better. Guy sprawled on the couch and put his feet up on the square glass coffee table. While he formulated his plans to save Annie from her own curiosity, he idly flipped through the books. They weren’t without their appeal, he had to admit. In fact, they were downright sexy as sin. And Lace had been right; the pictures were exquisite.
Annie definitely needed his protection. A sweet little thing like her could easily be swept away by the sexual promises the books described. It would be a great injustice for Annie to waste her innocence on a jerk who didn’t really want her, who might not appreciate her. A guy she had to seduce.
An image of that damned Perry fellow came to mind, the way he looked at Annie, with the familiar sign of lust in his eyes. Guy’s palms started to sweat. He definitely would not let Perry touch her.
He wiped his hands on his jeans, then decided he’d just have to help her, whether she realized she needed help or not.
It wouldn’t even be that difficult. There was an easy camaraderie between them. Guy had felt it from the first time he’d met Annie, when she’d been no more than elbow high to him. With ten years separating them, he’d always considered her something of a baby. She’d been all big blue eyes and wild dark hair then, with skinny little legs and a shy smile. But she’d trusted him. And he’d liked her. Whenever Daniel had been too busy studying, or Dan had been working, or Max had been harassing, she’d come to him. Her faith in him, her friendship, was something he’d always hold dear, something he valued more than anything else in life.
Their relationship had been strained on occasion as Annie matured; there were times when his riotous hormones possessed his mind and his body, blocking out all rational thought. He’d forgotten that she was his best friend’s baby sister, and done things then he shouldn’t have done.
Like kiss her.
And touch her.
And want her.
But for the most part, he suppressed those urges. For the most part.
There were still nights when his subconscious took over and he woke up from a dream of loving her and suffered immense disappointment. What he needed, he’d decided—thanks to Dan’s less than subtle hinting—was his own woman. Then he wouldn’t use Annie to fill all the gaps in his life. It wasn’t fair to her to make her a surrogate mate just because he couldn’t find a woman he wanted to get serious with. It was a lamentable breech of friendship to use her that way.
And maintaining his friendship with Annie was definitely a priority. He was close to Daniel, but the male-based friendship had restrictions, rules that couldn’t be ignored. With Annie, he didn’t have to worry about being one of the guys, about maintaining his macho image. He loved Daniel—and even Max—like brothers. But it was Annie he was totally at ease with.
Because they were so damn close, it was easy to let his thoughts go wandering into taboo directions. But it shouldn’t be that way. And as soon as he married, it wouldn’t be. There would be someone else to fill the void.
Before he got engaged, though, and everything changed between them, he’d take care of this one small problem for her. That’s what friends were for, and Annie was still his best friend. She always would be. She deserved a guy who’d chase her, not the other way around.
After coming up with a course of action, Guy immediately felt more relaxed. Hell, if he was home and in his own bed now, he might even be able to sleep. God knew he hadn’t gotten a wink of rest last night, he’d been so keyed up with thoughts of his future.
He was busy reading a small book on sensitive parts of the female body, nodding in recognition of most and raising a brow over those he doubted, when Annie walked in. He looked up, and the book fell from his hand, landing with a thump on the carpeted floor.
Every male-inspired cell in his body sprang into full alert, shooting his relaxed state straight to hell.
He gulped twice, tried to speak, and decided the effort was beyond him. He shook his head instead, trying to gather his frayed senses. Annie gave him a slow, sleepy smile, and glided—he’d never seen her glide before—on bare feet over to the couch.
“I thought about what you said, Guy.” Her voice was low, throaty. Seductive! Guy gripp
ed the sides of the couch to keep himself from joining the damn book on the floor. “And I decided I should talk to you. Who better to tell me what I’m doing wrong around the…uh, man I want to seduce?”
Guy eyed the slinky little outfit she had on with grave misgivings. This was definitely not a good thing. Oh, it looked good enough. Real good. Perfect in fact. And that was the crux of the problem.
Very, very slowly, he came to his feet. “Uh, Annie…”
“Do you think this dress would turn him on? I have high heels to wear when I’m actually going to seduce him. That way, we’ll be on more even ground.” She gave him a sly look. “He’s a lot taller than me.”
His eye sockets felt singed. “Everybody’s a lot taller than you.” He spoke deliberately, trying to give his mind time to catch up with his tongue, which suddenly felt clumsy. And that was probably because his tongue had thought of much better things to do than talk.
The dress, a beige, sweater-type material, literally clung to her small body, outlining her soft breasts, displaying her flat belly and rounded thighs. The damn thing landed well above her knees and perfectly matched the color of her pale, smooth skin.
When he finally managed to lift his gaze to her face, he saw she was blushing and watching him very intently. She was probably waiting for a compliment—damned if he’d give her one! He’d take no part in encouraging her to wear such a provocative dress out in public.
He’d take no part in her seduction.
He felt his brows pull down in a vicious frown. He jutted his chin toward her, knowing he was about to hurt her feelings, but not seeing any other way. “You look more naked than not.”
She didn’t even blink an eye at his harsh tone. “You’ve never seen me naked, so how would you know?”
His blood seemed to pump hotly through his veins. Moving closer so that he towered over her, he said in a low, drawl, “I’ve seen you. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”
He hoped to embarrass her just a bit, and then she’d go and change back into her requisite jeans and loose top.
Only she didn’t do that.
Annie immediately averted her gaze while scuffing her bare pink toes on the carpet. “I was only seventeen then—and a very late bloomer. It wasn’t like there was much to look at.”
Tenderness swelled inside him, almost obliterating his shock at seeing her appear so sexy. He could remember that day as if it had just happened. Hell, he’d go to his grave remembering.
“The way you carried on,” he said, his tone low and gruff, “I was afraid the whole neighborhood would know what had happened.”
“I was mortified,” she admitted with a shrug. “When Marcy and Kim convinced me we could skinny-dip without getting caught, I stupidly believed them. But of all the people to catch us…”
He couldn’t help but smile at the memory of their combined high-pitched girlish wails. He’d had a headache for an hour afterward. “I’m not sure who was stunned more. Me or you three girls.”
“Marcy and Kim both swore they were in love with you after that.”
He’d barely noticed them that day. All his attention had been on Annie. “Marcy and Kim were both trouble. I should have told their parents instead of just walking away.”
“Walking?” She peeked at him, then quickly away again. “As I remember it, you stomped off cursing and even your ears were bright red. After you gawked for a good five seconds or so.”
Chuckling now, he touched her chin to tip her face up. “I was set to strangle you when you got home. Here you were, all ready to hide for the rest of your life, and I wanted to wring your neck. Neither of those two girls would leave me alone after that. They both thought I’d be overcome with lust for their adolescent bodies after seeing them in the raw.”
“Actually,” she said, now smiling too, “I believe they were counting on it.”
Embarrassed as he’d been, Guy had known he had to talk to Annie right away, or she’d be avoiding him forever. He was older, mature, a grown man despite how the sight of her had affected him, so he knew it was up to him to relieve her embarrassment.
He’d pretended outrage, both to help her through the awkwardness of it, and to hide his own unaccountable discomfort with the situation.
She might not have considered herself physically ripe, but his reaction to her was staggering. He’d felt like a lecher because he’d even noticed her, much less that he couldn’t get the image out of his mind. It was the first time he’d ever really thought of Annie being female, of being someone other than Daniel’s little sister, or a cute kid who he liked as a friend. She’d stood shivering in the shallow water, one hand over her very small breasts, the other splayed over the notch of her thin thighs, and his knees had damn near buckled. He’d had to limp away like a man with two broken legs.
He still felt guilty when he remembered it—and he remembered it more often than he should.
At ten years her senior, he was far too old then, and too trusted by the Sawyers’ clan, to be thinking the things he’d thought. At the time, he hadn’t even known there were such vivid, carnal things to think about. He certainly never had in the past. Not that he was a prude. Hell no. But females had come and gone in his life without a lot of notice from him. He’d taken pleasure in them, enjoyed them, and then gotten on with his plans.
Annie, well, she had inspired him to new depths of lust.
And he’d been fighting himself ever since because no matter what he told himself, no matter how much he loved her as a friend, his gonads insisted she was uncommonly sexual and appealing. He and his gonads had been on very bad terms ever since then.
Guy groaned and walked away from her. He’d felt so damned disgusted with himself then, as if he’d done something obscene to her when, in fact, he hadn’t even looked for more than the few seconds it took for her nudity to register. And as much as he hated himself, he’d carried that picture in his mind ever since as a teasing reminder of Annie’s shy, innocent femininity.
She wasn’t acting so shy now.
“Guy?”
Her tone made his spine stiffen. He kept his back to her, thinking that might be safer than actually looking at her, so soft and sweet and curious. “You can’t really be thinking of wearing that thing in public?” he grumbled.
“Of course not.”
His knees turned to butter. Thank goodness! He was just managing to regulate his heart rate when she said, “It’s for private viewing only. Maybe at his apartment. Or mine.”
Before he could think better of it, Guy whirled to face her again. “Who the hell is this jerk you want so badly? If it is Perry, I swear I’ll—”
Annie crossed her arms under her breasts and he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. He started to shake.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, sounding annoyed, oblivious to his struggle for control. “You’ll try to intimidate him into staying away from me, won’t you?”
That was exactly what he intended to do. He was beginning to feel just a bit desperate. “Honey, any guy who doesn’t want you, isn’t worth all this trouble.”
As she turned to pace away, Guy got a tempting view of her backside in the dress.
To hell with the pizza. He had to leave.
He started to reach for his jacket, but Annie forestalled him.
In a very small voice, she asked, “What if he has good reason for staying away from me? What then?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but she was torturing him by slow degrees. “What possible reason could he have? No, the guy’s just an idiot, and you don’t really want to bed down with an idiot, now do you?”
Staring at him in what appeared to be humble exasperation, she muttered, “Unfortunately, I believe I do.”
He drew a long breath. “Annie, honey, let me explain something to you about sex.”
Her brows lifted, her expression intense and fixed.
Guy faltered, then forced himself to go on. “Sex isn’t all romantic.”
“It isn’t?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s hot and sweaty and sometimes crude and…”
Her eyes darkened, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed. “You make it sound wonderful,” she breathed.
Guy had absolutely no idea how to reply to that.
The doorbell rang.
Annie took a deep, shuddering breath, then started toward it.
Guy grabbed her arm. “Don’t even think it.” He knew he sounded panicked, but there was no way in the world he’d let her go to the door in that dress.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, and damn if she didn’t sound amused.
Guy pulled her toward the hallway and out of sight. “The poor pizza kid would likely have a heart attack. He’s young and vulnerable, and probably horny enough as it is without you flaunting yourself in front of him. Here, stay out of sight while I get rid of him.”
Annie grinned, but thankfully, she didn’t fight him.
After he’d accepted and paid for the pizza, then closed the door, Annie came up to stand very close to him. “So you think my dress looks good enough to turn on the pizza deliverer?”
“He’s nineteen. A strong wind would turn him on.”
Surprise replaced her expression of anticipation. “Really?”
Guy moved away from her, needing the distance from her barely veiled body. “I think your body looks good. The dress isn’t even noticeable.”
“You mean it?” Annie skipped next to him to keep up with his long-legged, agitated stride. She stared up at him anxiously with those big blue eyes.
“You honestly think I have an adequate body?”
Adequate? Guy thunked the pizza onto the counter in the kitchen and turned to glare down at her. Was she yanking his chain, or did she really have no notion of how sexy she was? Right now, in her bare feet, she probably stood five-two. Her hair, a rich shiny shade very close to black, but softer in color, fell past the middle of her back and made a man wonder what it would feel like drifting over his chest, his abdomen.
Other places.
Her blue eyes were huge, thickly lashed, staring up at him while she awaited his reply.
