done to deserve this. Having to act like a wailing wall for a gorgeous woman who was totally offlimits, considering she was his employer’s beloved granddaughter, simply wasn’t fair.
“Just let it out, darlin’. You’ve already maimed and injured me, so you might as well use my one good shoulder to cry on.”
That elicited a sob that verged on a giggle and she gave in to the invitation. The tall, soft woman melted against him. Burying her face in his neck, she wrapped her arms around his waist, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that she should snuggle up against a half-naked stranger in her moment of need.
He stroked the small of her back, felt the wetness of her tears against his neck and murmured consoling words in her ear. She calmed—her slow shudders growing further apart as she took what he was offering. They swayed a little, as if dancing, and he mentally acknowledged that needing a shoulder to cry on wasn’t just an expression. Sometimes that was just exactly the right solution to a problem. Not for nothing was he known as the best brother in the world to his two sisters.
Only this woman was not one of his sisters. Oh, no. She was a beautiful, vulnerable stranger, who, he soon realized, felt incredibly good in his arms. Soft and pliant, warm, all curves and skin and heat and sex appeal. He could feel her gentle exhalations against his bare skin, feel the faint brush of her lips on his nape and was slowly going crazy at the scrape of her nipples through her silky blouse against his chest. He had never been more aware of being shirtless in his life.
He stiffened. Some parts more than others.
He should never have let his mind wander from her mood. Because, while the embrace had started as a comforting offer to a stranger, now he was much too aware that he hadn’t had sex in months and a woman shaped like a centerfold had curled up against him like a vine around a trellis.
Shifting back a little, he hoped like hell she wouldn’t realize he was getting hard while she wept. But she didn’t let him make a gentlemanly getaway. Instead she edged close again, pressing even harder against him. He could feel the warmth at the apex of her thighs, which, with her deliciously long legs, was lined up just perfectly with his groin.
She noticed. She had to notice. Because suddenly, she lifted her head and stared at him. Her soft face was tearstained, but her eyes were wide with shock, confusion and awareness.
Her lips trembled. She licked them, and he held his breath, wondering what on earth she was going to say. Was she about to snap at him and slap his face or issue an invitation? What?
In the end, his wild guesses didn’t even come close. Instead, with a soft, regretful sigh, she drew away and whispered, “Why, oh, God, why did I not meet you in Paris?”
A SHORT TIME later, after Candace had asked the sexy stranger a dozen questions about her grandfather’s condition, she finally allowed herself to think about something else. She now knew for sure that Buddy would be all right. She’d see him tomorrow, but for tonight, she could do nothing else.
Slowly, her fear and worry began to ease away and she let her thoughts drift in another direction. Enough so that, as she sat at the kitchen table and slowly sipped sweet, hot tea with the sexiest man she’d ever seen, she found time to wish two things: that she’d left the pots in the sink, and that she’d never even thought about him in connection with her canceled trip to France.
If she hadn’t seen him, reacted like a high school virgin defending her hymen from a horny football team and attacked him to the point of bloodshed, she wouldn’t have gotten all giggly, weepy and hysterical. If she hadn’t gotten giggly, weepy and hysterical, he wouldn’t have taken her into his big strong arms. If he hadn’t taken her into his big strong arms, he wouldn’t have drawn her against that rock-hard, rippling, sweat-tinged, powerful male body. if he hadn’t drawn her against his body, she might not have felt the rigid proof of his virility pressing deliciously against her sex.
And if he hadn’t gotten hard, she wouldn’t be sitting here vacillating between worrying about her grandfather and wondering when this hot stranger would wake up and smell the estrogen, and realize she was sitting in damp panties.
She shifted in the hard chair. Seriously damp.
Of course, fair was fair. He’d been seriously hard.
Yum.
No. Not yum. You can’t have him.
Sighing, she inhaled the fragrant tea and murmured, “If you give a mouse a cookie…”
“I don’t think your grandfather has any milk,” he replied, hearing her. “He’s lactose intolerant.”
She had to smile that this strong, rugged-looking man understood the reference to a popular children’s book. Especially since his voice was all deep and gravelly, sultry and alluring, and completely inappropriate for uttering rhymes to a little kid.
Uttering sexy, needful growls to an adult woman would be much more up his alley.
“I have a niece. She’s four,” he explained with a shrug. “You?”
Are you asking if I’m single?
She curled her left hand around the cup. The bare left hand. The left hand that was not yet weighed down with the five-carat diamond she suspected Tommy would put on it the minute she got back to L.A.
Remembering Tommy, and everything that ring would entail, she gave a guilty start and dropped her hand into her lap, reaching for the cup with her right one.
“Younger cousins,” she finally replied.
There was no point in letting this man know she was single. No possible reason to want him to realize she had gotten all gooey inside the moment he’d pulled her into his arms to offer her some warmth and human comfort. And it would be pure insanity to hope he’d figure out that the goo had boiled into lava once she’d felt the volcanic rock in his pants.
She didn’t allow herself to feel terribly flattered. Any bare-chested, slick, hard, virile—stop with the adjectives —man would probably stir at the feel of a woman pressing herself against him like she wanted to climb into his skin. That’s what she had done, she realized with embarrassment. She might as well have asked him if he could prettyplease comfort her on top of the hard, broad table, or up against the refrigerator. And wouldn’t it be nice if the comforting didn’t include clothes?
You’re engaged, remember?
Right. Engaged. Which meant the Candace Volcano was going to be all Mt. St. Helens from here on out—i.e., dormant. There might be rumbles, but there would be no eruptions for a hell of a long time. Five years, at least. Oy.
She would be staying here to help her grandfather for as long as he needed her, which meant there would be no time for a trip to Paris. No chance for a wild fling. Tommy wouldn’t want to wait too long to announce their engagement, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d have no time to sow any wild oats and bank some sexy memories. But she couldn’t truly be upset about it. She adored Grandpa and would do anything for him. Including missing out on her one-and-only chance to be a sex tourist.
So go for the gardener.
She flicked the thought out of her head, not for the first time. That wasn’t going to happen. A spring fling in Paris had sounded ideal, but there was no way she was hooking up with someone
