“Until some demanding client pisses you off.”
“I can be tactful.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Ah, yes, you’re a master of tact, all right.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m simply pointing out what you seem determined to ignore, but then I believe we’ve already discussed your difficulties staying in touch with reality. Witness your lamebrained idea to work at the bookstore.”
“I’m not talking to you about that anymore.”
“Then let’s go back to your plan to sell minimansions.” He was getting steamed up again, and she gave him an uneasy glance as he moved away from the chair. “You need a realistic method of supporting yourself, not some scenario based on finding a painting that was probably destroyed.”
“I know! I’ll go to auto mechanic school.”
“That does it.” With no more warning than the flare of those aristocratic nostrils, he backed her right against the wall. He looked ferocious as he pulled her into his arms and growled, “God help me, I’ve never wanted to do violence to a woman, but we’re either going to make love or I’m going to beat you.”
That finally made her smile. “I choose door number one.”
He muttered a dark curse, then crushed her lips with his kiss. At the same time, he shoved his hands under her denim skirt . . . and she didn’t do a thing to stop him.
Within seconds, her hose and panties were gone. He clasped the backs of her thighs and lifted her against him. A china vase crashed to the floor near Gordon’s head, sending him scurrying into the kitchen. She wrapped her legs around Colin’s hips. He fumbled with his clothes. Shoved himself inside her.
She was ready for him.
He thrust deep, then groaned and began to withdraw. “No condom.”
She pushed against him, not letting him go. “It’s all taken care of.”
“Thank God.”
He pressed her back to the wall, his fingers digging into her bottom. She took his mouth and gave herself up to the hot, wet rub . . . the sounds and scents . . . his fierceness . . . his care.
She was falling in love with him.
The knowledge had been there for days, but she’d refused to examine it, and now she couldn’t, not when his eyelashes lay in tough dark spikes against his cheekbones, and he felt so good inside her. She sucked at his bottom lip. He moaned, drove deeper, and she abandoned herself to the tumult.
After it was over, she let him pull her upstairs where they took off the rest of their clothes and made love again, this time more slowly and with a tenderness that nearly undid her. She was losing her battle to keep the barriers between them in place.
When they were finally satiated, they took a bath together. She fastened her hair on top of her head. He sat behind her, his big knees bent, an elbow propped on the edge of the tub. “What did you mean about the condom?” His soapy hand stroked the curve of her breast. “When you said it was taken care of?”
The rosy glow from Tallulah’s ancient red Christmas candles made the old bathroom seem like a place out of time. If only that were true. She didn’t want to answer his question, but he had the right to know. “I had an ectopic pregnancy when I was twenty-two, a few other problems. I am, you’ll be pleased to know, incapable of mommyhood.”
He pressed his lips to the side of her neck. “You can’t catch a break, can you?”
He’d stirred dark waters, and she couldn’t manage a reply.
He stroked her other breast, gave her time to recover. Eventually, he tucked a lock of wet hair behind her ear. “How long has it been for you?”
She drew a spiral in the soapy water on his knee. “Emmett got sick two and a half years ago.”
“You hadn’t had sex in nearly three years?”
“Not with another person.”
He chuckled. One of the candles sputtered. He shifted his leg to a position that was only marginally more comfortable, dabbled with her earlobe. She rested the back of her head against his shoulder. Falling in love wasn’t exactly a red-letter event, since she’d done it so many times before. It was her old weakness, but she’d believed she’d gotten past the point where she didn’t feel alive unless she fancied herself in love. Apparently not. At least she was smarter now, and she knew exactly what she had to do about it.
“We need music,” he said. “Bach, I think.” But instead he began singing “Ain’t She Sweet” in a surprisingly mellow baritone, which made her smile despite her mood. When he was done, he caressed her shoulder. “Promise me you’ll tell Jewel you changed your mind, darling. Promise me you’ll stay at Frenchman’s Bride.”
Men had called her a lot of things over the years—honey, sweetie, babe, bitch—but never darling. “My days at Frenchman’s Bride are over, Your Grace.”
“Why, pray tell?”
In spite of herself, she had to smile. “Being a kept woman and all that.”
“You’re hardly a kept woman. You work for me.”
“Sleeping with the boss and all that.”
“You’re determined to be difficult. Fortunately, I’m in an exceptionally fine mood.”
“You should be after what I did to you tonight.”
That managed to distract him for a couple of minutes. Not long enough, though, because he soon returned to the subject at hand. “We’re going to approach this rather amazing chemistry we have in a logical fashion.”
“Okay, but I’m having my lawyer draw up an ironclad prenup to make sure I get Frenchman’s Bride after our divorce.”
Instead of scaring him to death, she’d amused him. “You won’t put me off that easily.”
“You should be shaking in your boots. Except for one thankfully short-lived period during the worst of my drinking days, I tend to marry my lovers.”
“Now, however, you are a wiser, more mature woman.”
“Not that wise, dawg, and I’ve got a powerful hankering for you.”
“Stop toying with me. I’m not so easily frightened. I’ll admit that what’s happened has been fairly astonishing. We seem to be one of those odd flukes of nature . . .”
Easy for him to talk about flukes of nature. He didn’t have a neurotic compulsion to fall in love with everything in pants.
“. . . and I believe I’ve come up with a rather tidy solution to our dilemma.”
“I don’t have to write a term paper, do I?”
“Not unless you plan to make it highly erotic.” His thumb found a tight muscle in the back of her neck, and he gently kneaded it. “What we most need is time, a chance to let this thing between us run its natural course.”
“Colin, you only like low-maintenance women, remember?”
“I like you well enough.”
“Be still, my heart.”
She sensed his smile.
“You really are an extraordinary woman.”
“And I’m not even at the top of my game.” Her defenses weren’t as strong as they should be, and it was time to take harsher measures. She fumbled for the plug with her toe. “You might remember that I’ve caused you nothing but trouble since I got here. And, forgive me if I’m hurting your feelings, but I’ve lost my taste for getting involved with the wrong sort of man. Or any man, for that matter.”
“Nonsense. I’m exactly the right sort. No one could be safer for you than me.”
The naked, workingman’s body pressed hard against her didn’t feel the least bit safe. “How exactly do you figure that?”
“We understand each other perfectly. I’m sarcastic and unpleasant. You’re headstrong and manipulative.”
“Bless our hearts.” She located the ring on the plug and tried to work it free.
“Exactly. Neither of us entertains any fantasies about the other, so we’re not in much danger of letting things get messy, now are we?”
The plug gave. “I’ve been married three times. Messy’s my middle name.”
“Which is exactly your problem. You get married. With me, that pressure will be off you from the beginning.”
Something ached inside her—not the fact that he didn’t want to marry her; she’d never go down that road again—but the knowledge that she was incapable of the uncomplicated, loving relationships that came so easily to other women. The time had come to play it straight, but she couldn’t do it with his body pressed so close, and she rose from the tub before she spoke.