Playing with Dynamite

Lisa struggled to disentangle her bare legs from his. The brush of denim and the strength and warmth of his knees capturing hers sent a chaotic heat pulsing through her bloodstream. “I kept my eyes open except for two times,” she admitted, glaring at him when she freed her legs.

Mark glanced from Brick to Lisa quizzically. “You never told me how you two met.”

Trying to salvage what she could of this disastrous date, Lisa forced a smile and said casually, “As a matter of fact, we met here about nine months ago.” She shot Brick a warning look.

Brick’s eyes glinted dangerously. “Nine months and twenty-three days,” he corrected. “And that was just the beginning.”

Chapter Two

“He’s kinda scrawny,” Brick said forty-five minutes later when Lisa jerked open her door.

“Everyone looks scrawny to you,” she retorted, completely exasperated. Back at the bar Mark Lawford had picked up on Brick’s tone and looked at Lisa with questions just waiting to be asked. Lisa had been so embarrassed, she didn’t have a prayer of forming an adequate response. She wasn’t pleased with the sense of relief she’d felt when Mark hadn’t kissed her good night. She wasn’t pleased that her first date “with a goal” had ended so disastrously. And she wasn’t pleased that she didn’t know who she was more angry with, Brick or herself.

She would never have let him in except that he claimed to have her address book, and when she’d checked her purse, sure enough, she’d found it missing. Her address book was one of the keys to her search for a husband. In the wrong hands, the information it contained would be humiliating. Lisa held out her hand. “Where’s my address book?”

“In a minute,” he promised. “Let’s have a drink and a little conversation first.” He strolled past her into the small den.

Lisa’s grip tightened on the door, and she closed her eyes in frustration. She’d done pretty well in her quest to get past Brick and start looking for the future father of her children, until she’d run into her former lover. Former lover. The thought caused her stomach to tighten.

Lisa slammed the door mentally and physically. Determined to get rid of Brick, she whipped around and went into the den. “I’m not going to offer you a drink,” she said through gritted teeth to the man who lounged on her sofa. “I’m going to ask for my address book, thank you, escort you to the door and say good night. That’s the program. Got it?”

Brick locked gazes with her for a long moment. After seeming to measure her determination, he frowned and pulled the small paisley cloth-covered book from his pocket. He stood. “What are three stars for?”

Humiliation crowded her chest. Lisa felt her cheeks burn with heat. She snatched the book from his hand. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“Oh, but I do worry about you.” Brick took a step closer and looked down at her. “I wonder if you’re trying to cater too many parties. I wonder if you’re forgetting to eat dinner. I wonder if you’re working so hard that you forget to have fun.”

Lisa tried not to let his concern soften her resolve. “I ate dinner tonight, and I was having fun with Mark.”

Based on his expression of disbelief, Brick must have guessed that last comment was a stretch, but he let it pass. “I wonder if you’ve backed into something this week.”

Lisa pressed her lips together. The man knew entirely too much about her, even her little problem with backing into things with her car. Just that morning she’d barely missed a mailbox. “Not a thing.”

He paused and his face was utterly sincere. “Ever since you kicked me out of your apartment after making love to me like a wild woman—”

The reminder murmured in his low, husky voice singed her from head to toe. Taking a deep breath, Lisa stepped back. “I did not kick you out. It wasn’t as if we lived together or anything.”

He moved closer and lifted a strand of her hair. “Then what would you call it?”

“I—I—” She swallowed over her fumbling tongue. His nearness affected her as if she’d risen too fast after deep-sea diving. His gaze roamed over her from head to toe. He wanted to touch her everywhere he’d looked, she realized. Her body melted. “I invited you to leave,” she managed in a strained voice.

He lifted an eyebrow and twined his fingers through her hair. “Next time,” he said quietly, “I guess I’ll have to turn down that invitation.”

His thumb grazed the soft curve of her jaw, and Lisa had to resist the urge to turn her face into his wide palm. “Next time I won’t invite. Next time I’ll—”

He pressed his thumb over her lips, halting her threat. “I’ve missed you.”

She drew a shaky breath. His simple direct words had the impact of a bomb detonating inside her.

“I’ve missed holding you, kissing you, making love to you. And I’ve missed talking to you.” He lowered his head closer to hers so that she didn’t just hear his words, she felt them. He dropped his thumb from her mouth and curled his hand around her waist. “Tell the truth, Lisa. Haven’t you missed me just a little bit?”

Lisa experienced a rush of emotion inside her so intense that it hurt to look at him. She squished her eyes closed. “Oh, Brick,” she whispered.

His warm mouth captured hers, his tongue slid gently past her lips, and Lisa’s knees and resolve dipped. It was an I-don’t-want-to-do-without-you kiss packed with tender seduction. Her hands groped for his shoulders, and she was immediately enveloped in his arms.

With his hand at the small of her back, he matched their lower bodies together so that she felt him intimately against her abdomen. Lisa’s heart nearly burst. She’d missed him in this way too. Missed his arms around her, missed his hungry kiss, and missed the way he openly showed his need for her, a need he wanted her to satisfy.

Undiluted arousal surged through her like straight whiskey, robbing her breath and sanity. Her thighs tingled, a restless ache settled low in her belly, and instinctively she wanted to touch him where he grew taut and hard. He’d always liked it when she touched him. She skimmed her hand down his chest to his belly.

He gave an encouraging groan that vibrated deliriously through her mouth. She slipped her fingers closer to the very edge of his straining masculinity.

He shifted his pelvis toward her hand and pulled his mouth from hers. His head dipped toward her shoulder, and his uneven breaths matched hers. “God, I’ve missed you, Lisa. It’s been too long. Let me take you to bed.”

The word bed slapped at Lisa like two cymbals crashing against each other, reverberating throughout her overheated consciousness.

One of his hands rose to caress her breast, and she felt another sensual tug inside her. “Lisa,” he muttered, pressing his erection into her hand again, seeking her intimate touch.

Her mind and body were in total disagreement about what she should do next.

What was she doing? her conscience screamed. Lisa pulled back her hand and pushed against his shoulder. Three weeks away from him, one kiss, and she’d lost it. “Oh, Lord, what am I doing?” she whispered brokenly, turning away from him and immediately missing his warmth. She wrapped her arms around her waist.

Brick’s body rebelled at the sudden distance between them. He reached for her, but she jerked away from him. His hands felt empty beyond belief. What had happened? One minute she was the epitome of feminine heat in his arms, the next, she’d pulled away. Brick shook his head to clear it. She sounded almost as if she were crying. The notion nearly tore him in two. Wanting to hold her, needing to hold her, he touched her arm.

“No!” Lisa nearly jumped out of her skin. She pushed back her hair. “I don’t want—” She swallowed and shook her head. “I don’t want this. I didn’t want this.”

Brick paused, absorbing the quick hurt. “Yes, you did. We both did.”

“Okay,” she admitted. “My body did.” She took a deep breath and finally met his gaze. “But my brain didn’t. This—whatever it is between us.” She waved her hands in exasperation. “It’s useless. I tried to tell you before.”

Brick plowed his fingers through his hair. “It didn’t feel useless to me. Making love with you has always been more than—”

“That isn’t what I meant.” Her eyes darkened. “It was exciting. It’s always exciting, but after it’s over…” Lisa sighed and her explanation faded out.

“After it’s over, what happens?” he asked, feeling a sting of remorse. Had he been so inconsiderate that he’d foregone her pleasure for his? Lord knew, when he made love to Lisa, he had the sensation of a five-alarm fire that had to be put out, but her pleasure had always been important to him.

“After it’s over,” she began, and hesitated again. “You’re still you, and I’m still me. You still want no strings, and I still want a family. You usually go home, and the next morning I feel…” She shrugged. “Empty.”

Brick was the first to admit that the feminine psyche was a complete mystery to him. “Is this about me staying overnight? Because if it is—”

“It’s about you staying every night.”

Brick felt a muscle spasm in his jaw. Uneasiness grabbed and clutched at his gut. He shoved his clenched hand into his pocket. Hell, he simply was not ready to cut Lisa loose. He didn’t want to give her up yet. When he’d seen that little book of hers with his name crossed out, he’d felt undiluted panic. “We could live together.”

Her eyes rounded in surprise. Uncertainty flashed across her face, but only for a second. Lisa looked away. “I don’t think so,” she said quietly.

“Lisa, maybe this is just a stage,” he said, voicing what he’d been hoping because he couldn’t accept not being with her anymore. “Look at how wrapped up in your job you’ve been. Now, all of a sudden, you want marriage and a baby. Maybe this will all blow over in a couple of weeks or a month.”

“It’s not all of a sudden,” she wailed. “And I don’t expect you to understand because I don’t think you really know me that well.”

Affronted, Brick stared at her in disbelief. “What the hell—”

Lisa held up a hand. “You know me sexually, but not in other ways. The other ways a woman wants to be known by a man.”

With a sinking sensation, Brick sensed her resolve. It was something new, and he hadn’t come to grips with it. Before, she’d always been flexible, almost malleable, and he’d hoped he’d be able to talk her around this latest glitch the way he’d always done before. But she looked as if she’d faced something inside herself and come out stronger because of it.

Even though he topped her by five inches and outweighed her by a hundred pounds, Brick, who was known for his power, found himself envying her strength.

Lisa had made a decision grounded in what she thought was best. What she’d decided, he realized, was that she didn’t want him.

Brick pulled off the handkerchief he’d tied around his head to keep the sweat from his eyes and accepted the chair and cold beer his sister, Carly, offered. “Thanks.”

His brother-in-law, Russ Bradford, took another chair and saluted Brick with his own beer. “Appreciate your help. When you said you were coming down for the weekend, I swear I wasn’t planning to work you to death.”

“I’m a long way from dying,” Brick said, though he felt miserable inside. He knew Russ needed help, and Brick needed something to quell the restlessness within him. So far, he hadn’t found it. “Since I’ve been here so often lately, I thought I’d better earn my keep.”

“It’s no problem and you know it,” Carly said. “Are you sure you don’t want to come along for the dinner cruise on Matilda’s Dream? I could make space for you.” She grinned. “After all, you used to be part owner.”

“One of eight owners,” he said wryly. Brick’s six brothers, he and Carly had inherited the riverboat from an aunt. Russ had bought out the brothers’ shares and Carly had taken it over and made it into a successful business.

Brick wasn’t in the mood to socialize. If he were honest with himself, he wasn’t in the mood for much of anything. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll stay here tonight.”

Carly frowned in concern. “Business okay?”

“Booming,” Brick said.

She exchanged a sidelong glance with Russ. “Anything else bothering you?”

Brick shrugged. “Nothing that a few more beers and a shower won’t cure.”

“What’s her name?” Russ asked.

Brick stopped midmotion in lifting the can to his lips, then set it down on the table. He didn’t look at Carly or Russ. He knew what he would see. Russ would be wearing that probing, no-nonsense, give-me-some-answers expression, and Carly would look worried. And Brick had thought he’d fooled them all. “It’s no big deal. It’s all over, anyway.”

“If it’s no big deal, then why have you been here five of the last six weekends?”

That stung. Brick tried to shake it off and forced a grin. “Hey, if I’ve been imposing, you should let me know. I’m sleeping all the way over on the opposite side of the house, so I’ve only heard you scream once or twice.”

His younger sister didn’t blush. She rolled her eyes. “I knew we wouldn’t get a straight answer from you. The CIA could take lessons from you on how to keep from disclosing secrets. You must not have been too serious about her, or you would have brought her down here for us to meet.”

Brick rubbed his finger in the condensation on the can. “Why would I do that?”

She looked at him with ill-concealed impatience. “Because that’s the normal thing to do. When you really care about a woman, you want her to meet your adorable younger sister and all six of your brothers. You don’t just want her to meet them. You want her to like them.”

“Yeah, well, maybe she didn’t want to meet my family.”

Silence hung heavy in the room, and Brick looked up to meet his sister’s gaze. “And maybe I waited until it was too late.”

The next day Brick returned to Chattanooga with Russ’s words ringing in his ears: “Too late is when she’s got somebody else’s wedding band on her finger.”

He hadn’t ever spent much time thinking about why he didn’t want to get married, because it was one of those things that he had decided when he was twelve years old. His mother had died, and his father might as well have. For the sake of the kids he’d remarried a sour woman who’d grown more sour because his father couldn’t love her.

Carly had spent a year stuttering, his oldest brother, Daniel, had become an old man before his time. His stepmother had nearly ruined Garth. Brick had watched his family flounder, and in the middle of it all, he had felt lost.

His mother had been the silken thread of joy that had bound them all together. He’d been angry that she’d left them. His anger had turned to fear when he watched what her death did to his father. All this, Brick realized, because his father had loved his mother too much. It was a knowledge that seemed to spring from his very soul.

At the idea of marriage, Brick experienced a physical and visceral response. His skin grew clammy, his mouth went dry and he felt as if he were going to throw up. Even now, as he drove into Chattanooga, he felt it, the powerful edginess that went beyond simple aversion. In the past he’d always put it down to exceptional male survival instincts.

Since two of his brothers and his sister, Carly, had taken the plunge and gotten married, though, he was forced to reevaluate. Daniel had been acting like a kid out of school since he’d married Sara Kingston a few months earlier. Brick never would have believed it, but since Garth had hooked Erin Lindsey, he was happier than Brick could have imagined. And Carly seemed utterly content in her marriage to Russ.

But Brick thought of a friend who worked in construction. The guy used to work the high beams until one day when he fell. After that, Brick’s friend told him that even the thought of going up again made him break into a cold sweat.

For a sliver of a moment, Brick wondered if a man could develop the same clinical kind of fear of marriage. Uneasiness trickled in. Brick snorted in disbelief. A phobia about marriage? Get real. What would they call it?

Ten minutes later, he was cruising the parking lot of Lisa’s apartment complex. After noting that her car was there, he parked and rang her doorbell. It was a warm day, so he decided to check the pool too. He knew Lisa usually took a break from working on Sunday afternoon.

She was stretched out on a chaise longue, slathering sunscreen all over her nearly bare body. Her hair was loosely piled on top of her head, and a huge pair of sunglasses with white frames was sliding down her nose. She wore a purple one-piece bathing suit with flowers all over it and skinny little straps holding up the delectably filled bodice. It was cut low enough in front and high enough on the thighs that Brick could have used some aspirin to bring down the sudden surge of his body temperature. His mouth watered just looking at her. Didn’t women realize that one of most men’s top ten fantasies usually involved taking off a woman’s bathing suit, lathering her down with something slippery, then having her return the favor to him?

He dipped his hand into the pool, splashed some water on his face, and walked toward her. He shook his head. One look, he thought, and she’d turned him inside out.

“Need some help,” he offered.

Lisa’s head whipped around.

He saw a spark of recognition and excitement flicker through her eyes just before she shoved the glasses back into place. Hoping like hell he didn’t screw up, he pulled a chair closer and sat down.

“No. I’m about done.” She smoothed the cream over her shoulders one last time.

Brick noticed a dot of unspread lotion on the inside of her left breast and felt a ridiculous envy for her suntan lotion. He hadn’t touched her intimately in over a month. “You missed a spot.”

Lisa glanced down the front of her, her sunglasses slipping again. “Where?”

Brick lowered his voice. “Where you used to let me touch you.”

Lisa went completely still. Her gaze automatically went to her thighs, and then to Brick. A memory taunted her of his hands caressing and teasing her until she arched against him, and his hard legs brushing against her softer ones as he slowly slid inside her… With devastating speed, she felt the beginning of her body’s automatic response. She bit the inside of her cheek. Edgy, she sucked in a deep breath and crammed her sunglasses back up again. “Oh for Pete’s sake! Where is it?”

Before she could blink, he put one index finger on her breast and gently spread the dot of lotion. One second, she felt the sensuous stroke of his finger and was struck by the fascination his heavy-lidded gaze didn’t hide. Then his hand was gone, and she was trying to get her brain to work.

“I wouldn’t want you to get burned.”

Lisa cleared her throat. She pushed down the cap on the lotion and tossed it into her tote bag. “No, I, uh, wouldn’t—what are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “Just got back from Beulah County and thought I’d see how your—” He paused, wondering what to call it. “—search is going?”

She eased back into her chair and closed her eyes. Perhaps if she didn’t look at him, her heart rate would settle down. “It’s going fine. I have a date tonight.”

“Is this a three-star man?”

Lisa refused to feel embarrassed about that again. “Of course.”

“You never told me what three stars means.”

“That’s right. It’s none of your business,” she said cheerfully.

“Must be damned convenient to be able to turn your feelings on and off like a faucet,” he said sincerely. “I haven’t had the same luck.”

Lisa blinked and stared at him. His words shook her. “Oh, for crying out loud, I never—”

“Just because you’re gonna marry another man,” Brick said the words, and felt as if he were chewing nails, “doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, does it?”

The sudden look of confusion on Lisa’s face would have been amusing if Brick hadn’t been fighting for his life. “Friends?” she said tentatively, as if it were a new word.

“Sure. It’s a lot better than being enemies.” It’s a lot better than nothing, he added to himself.

“We’ve never really been friends,” Lisa said, her voice laced in skepticism.

Brick had to work to take that jab in stride. “With all your…dates—” Brick forced the repugnant word out “—it would be nice to have a friend around, someone you’ve known for a long time, someone who knows you, someone you don’t have to impress.” He grinned. “Someone you could tell what those three stars represent.”

Lisa laughed uncertainly and shook her head. “You’re crazy.”

“C’mon,” Brick said, putting a little dare in his voice. “If I were your friend, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Lisa hesitated, looking doubtful. She cocked her head to one side, and Brick wished he could take off her sunglasses to read her eyes. She gave a sigh. “All right. The three stars mean the man likes women and children, and he’s not opposed to the general idea of marriage.”

“What about money, appearance, age and sex?”

Lisa gave a little shrug. “They’re all secondary to the other three qualities. Age and appearance can be settled on the first date, money by the second, and sex…”

Brick’s gut tightened.

“Sex would be last.”

Sex with another man would be never, if Brick had anything to do with it. He rubbed his hand over his mouth in restraint. “It sounds like a plan,” he muttered.

“It is. This book I’ve been reading says you can get married in less than two years. It talks about keeping a practical attitude and using your resources.”

The book again. “Using your resources?”

Lisa nodded. “One of the most interesting facts it reported was that many married couples are introduced by mutual friends, so the author suggested that you tell all your friends that you’re looking and ask for recommendations.”

Lisa looked at him and a strange expression crossed her face. Brick experienced an even stranger foreboding. In the back of his mind he could almost hear the cock of a gun. She leaned forward, and her sunglasses slipped again to give him a view of the complete sincerity in her eyes. Her lips curved into a slow, siren smile designed to drop a man at fifty paces. And Brick was at one and a half.

“Tell me, Brick,” she said sweetly, “can you recommend one of your friends to father my children?”

Chapter Three

She might as well have shot him.

Speechless, Brick stared at her for a full minute.

“Did you hear what I said?” Lisa asked. “I asked you if—”

“I heard you,” he finally managed, thinking he could use a double Jack Daniels straight up right now. Where had that breeze gone? he wondered as he tugged on his collar. “I’ll have to think about it and get back to you. I don’t usually evaluate my friends with an eye as to how good they’d be at fathering children.”

“I guess not,” she conceded, and spritzed her neck with a spray bottle of water.

His gaze homed in on the droplets dotting her chest. He wanted to lick every bit of water from her skin, spritz her, and do it again until his thirst was at least temporarily quenched. Instead he licked his lips and turned to the pool where a couple of kids played splashing games. “It sounds as if you’ve got this all planned out.”

“Some of it.” Lisa pulled a sheet of paper from her tote bag. “I got this in the mail the other day.”

Brick leaned forward to read it. “Meet your mate, not just a date. A dating service?” he said, unable to hide his horror. “Have you gone crazy? You’ll have every nut in Tennessee calling you day and night.”

She set her chin stubbornly. “It’s just one of my options. Senada’s also—”

“Senada!”

When Lisa’s chin rose another notch, Brick bit his tongue, laced his fingers together and cracked all his knuckles at once.

“She knows a lot of men.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” he muttered.

“She knows a lot more about men than I do and—”