she was good. “Tea.” He drew a calming breath and said belatedly, “Thanks.”
How should he proceed? They weren’t teenagers. Hell, at forty, it had been a long time since he’d done any serious flirting. Before leaving Chicago, he’d known several women who wanted no more than he did—a good time with someone safe, and no commitments.
When they wanted him, they let him know. Or vice versa. There was no mind reading, no guessing, no need to use his rather rusty skills at wooing.
But that was before he’d moved to Delicious. Before he’d met Jenna. Before he’d even really known what he wanted.
Now he knew.
Jenna was different from other women, certainly different from the women he’d been with in the past. She was the commitment type. She’d been married, and by what he’d heard from the gossiping denizens of Delicious, her marriage had been a very happy one.
Watching while she poured tea into a tall glass of ice, Stan cautiously approached. Jenna always kept fresh drinks and cookies for the neighbors who visited her store. Book shopping at The Nook was more like visiting a favored relative, one who pampered you and made you feel special.
Everyone spoke to her, spilling out ailments and troubles or sharing news good or bad. And when Jenna listened, you got the feeling she really cared. When she said, “How are you?” she meant it.
Did she care about him?
If he kept listening to her very sexual thoughts, he’d end up climbing over the counter to show her just how hot the reality would be. Knowing she wouldn’t like that, he tried distracting himself. “Where’s the reporter?”
Jenna drew a deep breath, and no way in hell could he not notice that. Even nearing the big Four-Oh, she still had one of the best racks he’d ever seen. Her breasts were heavy, but suited her sturdy frame. She wasn’t a frail woman, but rather one with meat on her bones. Shapely in the extreme, sexy as hell. . . . His gaze zeroed in on her chest and got stuck there.
“He, ah, ran to the drugstore to buy new batteries. He should be here in just a few minutes.”
Stan’s gaze lifted and locked with hers. Sensation crackled between them. His awareness of her as a sexual woman ratcheted up another notch. Even without hearing her thoughts, what she wanted from him, with him, would be obvious to any red-blooded male. Heat blazed in her eyes and flushed her cheeks. A pulse fluttered in her pale throat. Her lips parted . . .
Amazing. A mom of two, a quiet bookworm, a woman who remained circumspect in every aspect of her life—and she lusted after him with all this wanton creativity.
Not since the skill had first come to him when he was a kid of twelve, twenty-eight years ago, had Stan so appreciated the strange effect the blue moon had on him. It started with the waxing Gibbous, then expanded and increased as the moon became full, and began to abate with the waning Gibbous. But at midnight, when the moon was most full, the ability was so clean, so acute, that it used to scare him.
His parents didn’t know. The one time he’d tried to tell them they’d freaked out, thinking he was mental or miserable or having some kind of psychosis. He’d retrenched and never mentioned it to them again.
When he was twenty and away at college, he signed up for a course on parapsychology. One classmate who specialized in the effects of the moon gave him an explanation that made sense. At least in part.
According to his friend, wavelengths of light came from a full moon and that affected his inner pathogens. With further studies, Stan had learned that different colors of lights caused varying emotional reactions in people. It made sense that the light of a full moon, twice in the same month, could cause effects.
In him, it heightened his sixth sense to the level that he could hear other people’s tedious inner musings.
Now he could hear, feel, Jenna’s most private yearnings, and for once he appreciated his gift. Nothing tedious in being wanted sexually. Especially when the level of want bordered on desperate.
She needed a good lay. She needed him.
He wanted to oblige her. Damn, did he want to oblige her.
Casually, Stan moved closer to her until he invaded her space, and her alarm thumped louder with every beat of her heart. He left himself wide open to her, relishing each tingle she felt, absorbing each small shiver of excitement—and letting it excite him in return. He no longer cared that he had a near-lethal erection.
Reaching out, he brushed the side of his thumb along her jawline, up and over her downy cheek, tickling the dangling earrings that suddenly seemed damn sexy. “Maybe you need the iced tea,” he murmured, his attention dipping to her naked mouth. Jenna never wore lipstick, and he liked the look of her soft, full lips glistening from the glide of her tongue. Oh, yeah, he liked that a lot. “You feel . . . warm, Jenna.”
Her breaths came fast and uneven. “I’ve been . . . working.”
And fantasizing. About him.
Lazily, Stan continued to touch her. “Me, too. Out in the sun all day. It’s so damn humid, I know I’m sweaty.” His thumb stroked lower, near the corner of her mouth. “But I didn’t have time to change.”
Her eyelids got heavy, drooping over her green eyes. Shakily, she lifted a hand and closed it over his wrist—but she didn’t push him away. “You look . . . fine.” Downright edible. She cleared her throat. “No reason to change.”
Stan’s slow smile alarmed her further. “You don’t mind my jeans and clumpy boots?” He used both hands now to cup her face, relishing the velvet texture of her skin. “They’re such a contrast to you, all soft and pretty and fresh.”
Her eyes widened, dark with confusion and curbed excitement, searching his. He leaned forward, wanting her mouth, needing to know her taste—
The bell over the door chimed.
Jenna jerked away so quickly, she left Stan holding air. Face hot, she ducked to the back of the store and into the storage room, closing the door softly behind her.
Well, hell. He’d probably rushed things, Stan realized, aware of her exaggerated embarrassment. But holding back had been impossible. Especially with her desire so clear to him—giving permission to his desire, leaving the way wide open for some mutual satisfaction.
With her in another room and the reporter looming, Stan’s focus on Jenna was diluted. He caught the garbled mental intrusion from the reporter and blocked it.
Teeming with frustration, he readjusted himself within the confines of his stiff jeans and then faced the reporter, who luckily had his attention on his recorder as he snapped in batteries. “Sorry I’m late,” he called out without looking up. “Batteries died.”
The sooner he got the interview over, the sooner he could get back to Jenna. Stan strode forward. “No problem, but let’s make it quick, if you don’t mind. I have a lot to do today.”
From behind her counter, Jenna Rowan watched Stan on the pretense of listening to the interview. Stan might be a renowned landscaper, author of several best-selling gardening books, and an expert businessman now featured on the local radio station every Saturday morning, but it was his colorful past that
