Quade: The Irresistible One

Dressed in the same cute little skirt as yesterday morning, she stepped up to the first in a line of balls and adopted the stance. After swiveling her hips in a way that caused Quade’s mouth to turn dry, she started into her backswing. With his gaze fixed hip height, he saw her lower body lock up and wasn’t surprised when she lost the ball way off to the right.

She rolled her shoulders, stiffened her spine and moved on to the next ball. One after another she sent them spraying all over the closely mown pasture that fronted her house.

Suddenly her squirrel-like behavior made sense. She’d been scurrying about collecting golf balls, bringing them back, then hitting them all out there again. Time after time after time. He’d witnessed that same dedication firsthand working alongside her, but golf was supposed to be a game of relaxation. And this was Sunday afternoon.

After the last ball rebounded off a tree trunk at least forty degrees off-line, her shoulders dropped again.

“Do I take it yesterday’s game didn’t go well?” he asked.

Near black with startled indignation, her gaze swung his way. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough.”

“Well, there you go.” She laughed, but it was a short, sharp, humorless sound. “You’re a firsthand witness to my disproving an old adage. Practice does not always make perfect.”

“Ever heard the one about not reinforcing bad habits through practicing them?”

“What bad habits?” she asked warily.

“You’re locking up in the lower body. You need to keep loose, relaxed.”

Eyes narrowed and faintly indignant, she watched him approach. “You were watching my lower body?”

“Guilty. But in my defense, you are wearing that skirt.” Quade allowed himself a pleasurably slow inspection of that skirt, before lifting his gaze to meet hers. She did that surprised blinking thing he’d noticed before, the one that made him think she wasn’t used to handling flattery. Strange from a woman with her looks.

Then she straightened her shoulders and looked him right in the eye. “So, Quade. I’m sure you didn’t come down here to critique my golf swing. What is it you want to know?”

Quoting his words right back at him…how like a lawyer! He almost smiled and it struck him that ever since he walked into her orchard he’d been enjoying himself. A discomforting notion, given the company. “After you left yesterday it struck me that I hadn’t thanked you for the effort you put into my house. I know it’s belated but thank you.”

“You walked down here to say thank you?”

“And to repay you for the cleaning service and shopping.”

“Godfrey took care of the accounts.”

Quade’s lips tightened. This wasn’t good enough. Not the way she deflected his thanks or the way she dismissed his attempt to recompense her. “Fine,” he said shortly. “But I do owe you for the time and the inconvenience.”

“That’s not nec—”

“How about a quick golf lesson?” He rode right over the top of whatever objection she’d been about to make. “We can work on your lower body.”

A faint, rosy flush tinged her throat as her gaze fell away from his. Hell. He hadn’t meant that kind of work but now his lower body responded. “I do mean golf.”

“Of course.” She lifted her chin. “How do I know that you know what you’re doing?”

“Good question.”

Did he know what he was doing? Did he really want to tempt himself with hands-on-Chantal-Goodwin lessons? In anything?

But when her expression narrowed with skepticism he took the seven-iron from her hand, grabbed a handful of balls from the pail by her feet and tossed them to the ground. After a couple of idle swings to limber up, he hit one with a macho swagger he’d forgotten he possessed. It felt good.

“Easy as that,” he concluded as they both watched the ball soar into the next paddock.

“You’re a man. You hit long without even trying.”

“Sure, length’s important.” And he was talking about golf, despite the way her gaze flicked down his body. Despite the way his…length…felt compelled to answer for itself. “But it’s not the only consideration. Accuracy is crucial.”

He illustrated by turning around and knocking the next ball smack down the center of the gap between two rows of fruit trees.

“You do realize you’re going to have to fetch those balls you’re hitting all over the countryside.”

“Later, but first you’re going to hit a few yourself.”

He offered her the iron, but she didn’t take it. Annoyed by her hesitancy—and, hell, couldn’t she have at least acknowledged the sweetness of that last shot?—he folded her unyielding fingers around the handle. They remained stiff, so he wrapped his hands over hers, molding them into a grip. Soft hands, he noticed, with a sinking feeling in his gut. Exactly as he’d feared.

“What have you done to your hands?” she asked, her question hitching a little in the middle.

Quade followed the direction of her gaze, down to where his large hands completely overlapped hers on the iron. For a moment he could only think of that, her soft warm hands under his, wrapped firmly around the hard shaft…

“Your hands?” she repeated.

Dragging his mind up out of the gutter, he noticed the raw scratches. He’d forgotten about the thorns. Standing this close, with erotic imagery pumping through his body, he could be excused for not remembering his name.

“I’ve been gardening,” he said shortly.

“I thought you intended doing nothing aggravating.”

“I intended doing whatever I felt like. Today I felt like gardening.”

“Gardening or attacking blackberries with your bare hands?” She drew a breath, then let it go. “Have you put anything on those wounds?”

“Such as?”

“Antiseptic. Salve. Peroxide. I don’t know what you’re supposed to use.” Her voice rose sharply, aggrieved, and when he looked into her eyes he noticed they echoed her distress. Something stirred deep in Quade’s gut, something that wasn’t lust.

Something that scared the bejeebers out of him.

He let her hands go and took a quick step backward. Away. “I guess that means you’re not going to play nurse,” he teased, desperate to lighten the mood.

But the words acquired a sensual weight of their own and hung there between them as her gaze roamed his hands, his forearms, his abdomen. Color rose from her neck to taint her cheeks, and he knew she was thinking about tending his wounds, about touching him in all those places.

This time the heat in Quade’s gut was lust, pure, simple and so intense it held him paralyzed while he imagined the soft hot caress of her hands on his skin.

She lifted her face to look right at him. Standing this close he could see the black rim of her coffee-dark irises, could feel the allure of their rich depths. Eyes a man could sink right into, he thought, if a man wanted to lose himself. There had been times these past months when Quade had wanted to lose himself, badly, but never to another woman whose only passion was career.

“I’m not much good at playing anything,” she said finally, and her voice held a husky edge that stroked every place her roaming gaze had missed. “Nurse, sports, golf.”

Smiling at her wry quip, he took another mental step backward, although his libido lagged behind. “And your golf swing needs a lot more attention than my scratches. Come on, Chantal.” He gestured from the iron in her hands to the golf ball at her feet. “Show me what you’ve got.”

“You want me to just hit it?”

“Yup. Relax and slog it.”

“What about the accuracy you mentioned as crucial? What about caressing the ball?”

Quade lifted a brow. “Who’s been telling you about caressing the ball?”

“Craig.” The admission came slowly, reluctantly. “The local pro.”

“Huh.” So that’s why she was all decked out by Golfers R Us. To impress Craig, the ball-caressing pro. Feeling unaccountably snippy, he watched her go through the same shoulder-rolling attempt at relaxation he’d witnessed earlier. Her white-knuckled grip indicated a distinct lack of success. “Didn’t your Craig mention two hands as one?”

“He’s not my Craig.” Adjusting her grip, she stepped up to the ball. “And I usually get that bit right.”

Quade stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Through the plush warmth of her sweater he felt her tension ratchet up a notch and had to stop himself kneading the tightness. “Just relax, no pressure. We’ll start without the ball. Transfer your weight,” he instructed quietly.

“Like this?”

“Not bad.” With a sense of fatalism riding him hard, he moved close behind her, puffed out a breath. Okay, he could do this. Adjust her hands without allowing his to linger. Guide her arms without wrapping his around her waist. Steady the sway of her hips without drawing them snug into the cradle of his. “Can you feel the difference?”

“All I can feel is you breathing on my neck,” she murmured in that sense-stroking voice.

Quade closed his eyes for a moment. He decided not to tell her he’d been thinking about putting his mouth on her neck, right there on the delicate pale skin behind her ear.

“How was that?” she asked, finishing off her swing.

“Better, but follow right through.”

He kept her at it, correcting, adjusting, suggesting, encouraging. Trying not to admire her determination, trying not to admire anything about her.

“The trick is having your weight in the right spot when you connect with the ball.”

Dark gaze hot with frustration, she swung around to face him. “When do I get to connect with the ball?”

“When you stop lifting your head.”

“Craig said my head position is just fine.”

“Craig was probably too busy watching your ass to pay any attention to your head.”

Outraged, her eyes widened along with her mouth. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. He placed a hand at the back of her neck and directed her head into the correct position.

“Head down, like this, when you strike the ball.” The tension in her neck vibrated into his hand. The heat of her skin hummed into his blood. He moved his palm, just a fraction, massaging gently. “You’re not relaxing.”

With an angry exclamation she swung away from him. “How can I relax with you touching me?”

Holding his hands out, palms up in a conciliatory gesture, he retreated several yards. “Hey, I’m not feeling too relaxed, either, not with that club aimed in my direction.”

She lowered the iron she’d been brandishing like a weapon and sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”

“You’re right. But before we pack it in, how about you give that swing one last try?”

She looked dubious.

“I’ll stand way over here. No breathing. No instructions.” He gestured toward the ball. “Have at it.”

When she connected with a solid thunk, when it sailed out in an almost straight trajectory, he could see the delight in her face. In her smile. Felt it shining as brightly as the late-afternoon sunshine, reaching out to wrap him in its warmth. What could he do but smile right back?

“There you go,” he said through his smile.

“No need to sound so smug.” She swung the club around in several rapid-fire circles, like a gunslinger after a showdown. “I was hitting an occasional decent one before you happened along.”

“You were woeful.”

“Was not.”

Quade laughed out loud—at her belligerence and because he simply felt like it—and when she closed the distance between them and stood smiling up at him, he felt a powerful urge to capture that delight between his hands, to taste it on his lips. When he felt her gaze focus on his mouth, he knew he’d been staring at the source of his temptation.

That full-lipped, soft-textured, smart-talking mouth.

Sobering instantly, Chantal stared up at him. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he replied with equal gravity.

As she absorbed the shift in mood, everything inside her stilled. He was looking at her as if it had been a pleasure, as if he’d enjoyed standing close enough to breathe on her neck, as if he wanted to kiss her.

Now. On the lips.

A wave of longing washed through her, blindsiding her with its intensity, urging her to move closer, to place her hands on the broad wall of his chest. His heart pounded reassuringly loud so she slid her hands higher, up toward his neck.

She moistened her lips. Her lids drifted shut.

Suddenly hard fingers circled her wrists, forcibly removing her hands, setting her firmly back on her feet. When Chantal opened her eyes he was already striding out across the pasture, bending to pick up a golf ball, then moving on. Dang. No, this situation deserved a much harsher word than that old crock. Damn.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

She’d been a whisper away from his lips, from his kiss. And she had no doubt that Cameron Quade would kiss with the same confidence, the same sure-handed skill, as he’d employed when tutoring her golf swing. Missing out on a kiss like that was enough to make a woman weep, especially a woman who’d never been kissed by a true craftsman. With a heavy sigh, she picked up her pail and stomped off after him.

Had she read him wrong? She didn’t think so, although perhaps she’d moved too fast. How fast was too fast? Some men didn’t like aggressive women…although her lame attempt at a kiss hardly fit that tag. And that girlfriend he’d had at Barker Cowan, that Gina Whatsername in Contracts, she hadn’t possessed a passive bone in her long, tightly strung body.

Perhaps she should have grabbed hold of his sweater. Or his face or his hair. Lord knows, she wanted to bury her fingers in that thick dark head of hair. Whatever, her prekissing technique obviously needed as much work as her golf game. Perhaps she should enquire if the local community college ran any classes along those lines. Seduction for Beginners. Or Bedroom Technique 101.

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