Perfectly Saucy

Those words, coming from any other rich white woman, would have irritated him. But somehow, coming from her, they didn’t sound selfish or childish, but…frustrated. And very human.

They hinted at the girl he’d known all those years ago. Was the sensitive and kind girl still buried inside this gorgeous creature? The way his hope leaped at the idea made him chuckle.

Dang, but he was susceptible to her.

Her gaze snapped back to his. “You think that’s funny?”

“No, I just…” His hasty reassurance caught in his throat. Her eyes—startlingly blue at this close range—were wide and vulnerable. “It was just unexpected.”

She frowned. “In what way?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Back in school you were always the perfect rich girl. The perfect student. I guess I never pictured you as the impatient type.”

A hint of a smile tugged at her lips. “I’m surprised you bothered to picture me at all.”

Oh, man, she had no idea. If she knew how many times and how many ways he’d pictured her back then, she wouldn’t want him putting his hands anywhere near her kitchen. He could guaran-damn-tee it.

Keeping his mouth firmly shut on the subject, he said, “I’ll tell you what—” He pulled his tape measure off his belt and his notepad out his back pocket. “I’ll take some measurements, make some notes. We’ll see what we can come up with.”

Just holding the tape measure made him feel more at ease. Jessica may have money, but he had skills. He’d come a long way from the boy he’d been back in high school.

Moving from one end of the kitchen to the next, he measured the length and width, noting the depth and locations of each of the cabinets. He put his pad down on the countertop and began making a quick sketch of the kitchen as it was. She stood beside him, closer than was necessary, throwing off his concentration. And damn, she smelled so good he could barely think.

He shifted away from her, propping his hip against the countertop. “Are you willing to give up storage space? Maybe a wall?”

“What do you think?”

What did he think? He thought she was standing awfully close for someone who just wanted her kitchen remodeled.

Think about the money, he ordered himself. If she wanted to drop forty or fifty grand on a whim, he’d be happy to help her do it.

Think about that. Not about how she smells—fresh and clean, yet spicy. Like Ivory soap mixed with something decadent.

He cleared his throat. “If you’re going to do it, do it right.”

“So you think I should…”

“Knock out that wall.” He pointed to the wall separating the kitchen from the living room. “You open up this space, the kitchen and the living room will feel bigger.”

“Really? You can do that?”

“Sure.” He crossed to the wall and rapped on the dry-wall beneath the upper cabinet. “We tear out this wall, put in a structural beam to support the ceiling and you’ve got a whole new kitchen. What’d you say?”

Come on, baby, take a bite. Just a little nibble.

She glanced at him, then back at the wall. Her eyes glazed over, just a little, as if she were trying to imagine what the room would look like. “It’d look great. I—”

She seemed to catch herself just short of saying yes. Shaking her head as if to clear it, she smiled shyly. “I should probably think about it first.”

He’d almost had her. Then, bam, she was gone. Just like that.

Just his luck.

And if his luck didn’t turn soon, he’d be flipping burgers down at the Dairy Barn. Work was scarce in Palo Verde. Scarce, if your name was Alex Moreno.

When he’d moved back here, he hadn’t anticipated the animosity people in this town still harbored against him. But he was determined to prove he wasn’t still the pain-in-the-ass kid he’d been back then. He’d do just about anything to prove it. He’d damn near beg if he had to.

“I’ll tell you what…While you’re thinking about it, I’ll work up a few drawings. Give you an idea of what I’m picturing.”

She looked unconvinced. And again it struck him as odd that she seemed so interested in him, yet so uninterested in her kitchen, when she’d been so insistent on the phone. If she’d been any other woman—anyone other than perfect Jessica Sumners—he’d have assumed she was hitting on him.

The Jessica he knew from high school was smart and fair and always treated people with dignity. And she absolutely did not invite guys she barely knew over to her house for a quick tussle in the sack.

She stepped even closer and placed her hand on his arm. She moistened her lips in a movement that somehow looked both outrageously sensuous and slightly embarrassed all at the same time. “Or maybe we could talk about it more over a drink.” Her voice trembled and her hand felt surprisingly warm against his bare skin.

His gut clenched at her touch. He sucked in a deep breath and the air around him seemed laden with her scent.

Then her words hit him. A drink? She wanted to go out for a drink? Damn, she was hitting on him.

He jerked his arm away from her touch. “By ‘go out for a drink,’ do you mean, go out on a date?”

She shrugged, her shoulders shifting in a movement of graceful self-doubt. “I just thought…well, yes. I’d love to catch up with you. If you’re interested.”

He shook his head, laughing bitterly. Did he want to go out on a date with Jessica Sumners? Hell, yes.

But there was a gleam in her eyes that told him this wasn’t just for old times’ sake. How in God’s name had he been so wrong about her?

One by one, the implications hit him square in the chest.

She’d asked him here to hit on him. Which meant she wasn’t interested in hiring him. Which meant he wasn’t going to get the job he desperately needed. Finally—and strangely, this was the blow that hurt the worst—she wasn’t the sweet, open girl he remembered. She was, however, the kind of woman who liked to order in a little blue-collar fun for the afternoon.

The pisser was…he was tempted.

Staring down into her eyes, breathing in her scent, and the heat of her touch still burning his arm…Yeah, he was tempted. Jessica—rich, beautiful and damn near saintly in the eyes of this town—was hitting on him. If the look on her face was any indication, she wanted more from him than just a drink.

The temptation to give it to her, to toss his dignity out the window, to pull her into his arms and explore that luscious mouth of hers almost overwhelmed him. Not just because she was beautiful, but also because kissing Jessica…hell, pulling off her expensive dress and nailing her right here in her kitchen…would be the ultimate teenage fantasy brought to life. Making it with the most beautiful, well-respected girl in town. The girl he’d wanted so bad it had made his teeth ache.

The temptation was too strong. Finally giving in to what he’d wanted ever since walking through that front door—hell, to what he’d wanted all his life—he reached out and ran his fingertips down her cheek to her jawline and nudged her chin up. His thumb brushed against her moist lower lip, tugging it open.

“Is this what you want?” he asked. He inched closer to her, a little surprised when she actually swayed toward him, instead of shying away.

“Yes.”

Her bare knee brushed against his jeans, her foot nudged his. He glanced down. The simple intimacy of the touch, her bare foot against his sock, struck him. Her perfect, pampered foot nuzzled up against his dirty work sock.

He dropped his hand from her face and stepped back, angry with himself for wanting what he couldn’t have. And with her for making him want it.

“That’s why you called me, isn’t it? That’s why you needed me to come over right away?”

She blinked, her eyes wide with surprise, and maybe confusion. “No.” Her no wasn’t forceful enough to convince even herself. “Maybe.”

“You don’t really want to have your kitchen remodeled, do you?”

Her gaze shifted nervously from his. “No. I just…” She took in a noticeably shaky breath and pressed her palm to the countertop as if she needed something to hold her up. “I just thought…”

“What? That it would be fun to jump in the sack with the manual laborer?”

“No!” Her spine stiffened.

“Then what?”

“It’s complicated,” she insisted, her voice now firm. “This was obviously a mistake.”

“Right. Obviously.” He ripped the top page out of his notepad and crumpled it into a ball. “Did it ever occur to you that this is my job? This is how I make my living?”

She arched one perfect eyebrow. “Did it ever occur to you that I might honestly have wanted just a date? That not every woman wants to jump in the sack with you?”

If he hadn’t been so angry, he might have laughed at her bravado. From the way her voice stumbled, he’d be willing to bet good money she’d never used the phrase “jump in the sack” before in her life.

“Not interested, huh?” Before she could protest, he wrapped his hands around her arms, pulled her to him and kissed her.

He told himself he was doing it to prove a point.

But the second he felt her body against his, he knew he’d lied. The only point he wanted to prove was that she was as kissable as she looked. Man, was she ever.

Her lips were warm and smooth beneath his. She tasted like red wine, which surprised him, because he would have sworn she was the kind of woman who drank white wine.

When her tongue darted out to brush against his lips, surprise was the least of his reactions. Hot, aching desire hit him hard in the gut.

Abruptly he pushed her away. She looked as shell-shocked as he felt. She pressed her fingertips to her mouth, glaring at him.

“That was rude,” she finally said.

He laughed out loud, gathering up his notepad and measuring tape before heading for the door. “It’s rude to kiss someone who’s clearly asking for it, but not rude to interrupt the middle of someone’s workday and waste their time?”

She trotted after him. “I didn’t think you would mind. I—”

He spun back around to face her. “Well, I do. Apparently you have nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon but jerk people around. But I’ve got work to do.” She flinched as if stung by his criticism, but he didn’t stop. As he shoved first one foot and then the other into his boots and tugged them on, he continued. “Real work, princess. Not imaginary work that bored debutantes make up because they want a playmate. Work I’ll get paid for.”

“You don’t think I work?”

Shaking his head at her indignation—her indignation!—he snapped, “I don’t care whether or not you work. I don’t care if you’re bored or lonely or horny or whatever it is that made you decide you wanted someone to come over and play. I care that you’re wasting my time. Goodbye, princess.”

AND WITH THAT, he was gone. The door slammed behind him hard enough to actually rattle the windows.

For a second she stood there, fuming at the closed door and shooting angry glares around the empty foyer. Then she propped her hands on her hips and said—to no one in particular, “You are the last man I’d invite to come over and play, even if I was bored or lonely or—” she sputtered, then forced herself to say the word “—horny. Which I am not.”

Except she was.

It was as if her body had come alive again at Alex’s touch. And as if it had gone through electric shock treatments at his kiss.

She felt hot and tingly. Exposed.

She spun on her heel and stomped to the kitchen where she poured herself another glass of wine. She sipped it slowly, making sure she was perfectly calm before taking the last sip. Then she carefully poured herself some more, even though what she really wanted to do was to throw the goblet to the floor.

Halfway through the glass, she set the crystal aside, propped her elbows on the countertop and buried her head in her hands.

How in the world had that gone so wrong?

How had she so drastically underestimated how she’d respond to him? She’d just wanted to see him again. To size up his potential as a “Passionate Fling-ee.” Instead he’d made her all googly-eyed and she’d practically attacked him. No wonder he’d gotten the wrong impression.

He was a different person than he’d been in high school. Taller, for one thing. And he’d lost some of his wiry thinness. Now, he was lean, but muscular. Powerful. And so handsome, it made her ache.

One thing was sure. Seeing him answered the question of whether or not he still got to her. From the moment she’d opened the door, she’d felt his pull deep in her gut.

When he’d asked her what she’d wanted, her mind had just gone blank. She’d wanted him. Some part of her had always wanted him.

And now he’d probably never talk to her again, which was going to make apologizing very difficult.

She straightened and turned around. Propping her back against the counter, she reached for her glass of wine. From the corner of her eye, she saw the crumpled ball of paper Alex had tossed aside.

She picked it up then flattened it with her hand to work out the wrinkles. There was a black-ink sketch of her kitchen, surprisingly accurate, with measurements written on the side in Alex’s masculine handwriting.

The seriousness with which he’d approached the project only humiliated her. Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she carefully folded the note in quarters.

Yep, she owed Alex an apology. And if she knew him half as well as she thought she did—

No, scratch that. She clearly didn’t know him at all. But she suspected he wasn’t going to make it easy on her.

She crossed to where her Day-Timer sat propped in one of the kitchen chairs and opened it to her Priority Action sheet. There was The List.

1 Find Your Fling.

2 Don’t Be a Homebody.

3 Go Tribal.

4 Release Your Inner Dominatrix.

5 Be a Diva in Bed.

6 Drop the Drawers.

7 Live in the Fast Lane.

8 Just Admit It.

9 Shake Up Your Space.

10 Conquer It.

Number one—Find Your Fling—taunted her. How could she have a passionate fling without Alex, when he was the one man she felt passionately about?

Then she scanned down to number eight: Just Admit It. “Own up to a big mistake.”

Well, it looked as though she’d soon be able to cross one of the items off The List after all.

2

THE THOUGHT OF SEEING Alex again made Jessica’s stomach twist into nervous knots.

At least, that’s what she told herself. Those knots in her stomach were knots of dread, not excitement. And the jittery feeling she got at the thought of seeing him again had nothing to do with the way he’d kissed her. The way his roughened palms had made the bare skin of her arms tingle. The way he’d smelled unlike any other man she’d ever known—an appealing mix of sunshine, dust and sweat.

She blew out a long, slow breath.

Yep. Just nerves. That was it.

She’d armed herself with his business card and an outfit less likely to attract snide “princess” comments—black capri pants and a black, boat-necked T-shirt. It was as good an outfit as any to grovel in.

According to the card she’d salvaged from the portfolio he’d given her, Moreno Construction operated out of his home, which turned out to be a small bungalow-style house on the outskirts of town. Finding the house was not nearly as difficult as finding the courage to walk up the overgrown path to the door. But, she conceded, owning up to mistakes was not supposed to be easy.

She rang the doorbell, waited a full minute then rang it again. The front door was open, and through the screen door, she caught glimpses of the darkened interior. But no sign of Alex himself.

Then from deep within, she heard a male voice shout, “Come in.”

She opened the screen door, stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind her. The entry opened straight into the living room, which ran the width of the house. A collection of standard-issue bachelor furniture sat clumped in the center of the room. Moving boxes flanked the walls in stacks three or four high. From where she stood, she caught a clear view of the dining room and the kitchen beyond. More bland furniture, more boxes. Only the kitchen looked lived in, with a couple of cereal bowls on the counter and a pizza box wedged into a trash can.

From somewhere at the back of the house, a power tool roared to life, so she followed the sound down the hall to a back bedroom.

And sure enough, there was Alex. He stood on an A-frame ladder, straddling the peak. The stance accentuated the muscles of his long legs. With one hand, he held up a sheet of drywall, with the other, he used a cordless drill to drive screws into the sheet.

With the exception of the spot where Alex worked, the walls had been stripped down to the studs. Chalky dust from the drywall hung in the air, making her cough.

He turned at the sound and stared at her for a second. Disbelief and then suspicion registered in his eyes before he turned back to the drywall and drove in three more screws.

Watching him move, Jessica found herself fascinated by the way his broad shoulders shifted under the threadbare cotton of his white T-shirt. By the hole in his jeans that bared his knee and the worn patches of denim along the length of his thighs and down his zipper.

She was used to seeing men dressed in Dockers and button-down Oxford shirts. Three-piece suits and tuxedoes. Clothes designed to advertise a man’s wealth and social position. Funny how none of those clothes spoke of a man’s strength—a man’s ability to work with his hands—the way Alex’s worn jeans and grimy T-shirt did.

Funny how she now noticed how appealing those qualities were. How they made her skin tingle with excitement.

When he swung one leg over the peak of the ladder and climbed down, she averted her eyes, trying not to gawk. After all, he’d made it clear he just wasn’t interested. As he nodded in greeting, he dusted off his hands, then wedged them into his back pockets. Not the warmest reception, but about the best she could hope for under the circumstances.

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. And to explain.”

At her words, the suspicion in his gaze seemed to flicker and go out, but his eyes were dark and mysterious regardless, so she couldn’t be sure.

Stepping to her side, he stopped just short of touching her and instead gestured toward the door.

“It’ll be less dusty outside.”

As with most houses in Palo Verde, the backyard sloped away from the house, up toward the foothills. A patch of overgrown fruit trees lined the far fence and crowded against the detached garage. A picnic table sat proudly in the center of a lawn of close-cropped weeds. It was a far cry from her own neatly manicured, obsessively maintained backyard.

When she turned her gaze to Alex, she found him watching her carefully, as if gauging her reaction. Once again she found his inscrutable dark gaze unsettling.

“It’s nice,” she said, carefully lowering herself to the bench seat of the picnic table.

He stared at her in blank disbelief.

“Come fall, you’ll really enjoy the apples from those trees.”

“My parents have worked in the apple orchards for over thirty years. I hate apples,” he said flatly as he sat opposite her.

Wow. Could this go any worse?

He crossed his arms over his chest and eyed her speculatively. And though she felt her pulse leap at his perusal, there was little flattering in his expression. “So, did you come here to talk about my landscaping or did you just think it’d be fun to waste another of my afternoons?”

Just when she was starting to hope someone would come by and shoot her with a tranquilizer gun just to put her out of her misery, she noticed his lips twitching.

He was enjoying this. Not out of cruelty, she was fairly certain, but he seemed to like having her at a disadvantage. That should have annoyed her, but it didn’t. Something in his smile short-circuited her synapses. “As I said, I came here to apologize,” she said again, trying to be blunt. Get this over with as quickly as possible. After all, he may enjoy flustering her, but she didn’t enjoy being flustered. “I think you got the wrong impression yesterday.”

He arched an eyebrow in speculation. “You mean you do want me to remodel your kitchen?”

“No. But you seemed to think I invited you over just to…sleep with you. But that’s not why I called you.”

“So you don’t want to sleep with me?”

“No!” A second too late, she saw the teasing glint in his gaze. He was toying with her.

“You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“Tell me anyway,” he coaxed.

And, oddly enough, she wanted to. It’d been like that when they were in school, too. Something about Alex Moreno made her believe she could trust him implicitly. That she could tell him anything. And he’d never hurt her. Of course, it didn’t help matters that he seemed so much less angry than he had yesterday. Even less than he had when she’d arrived. Her apology had gone a long way toward softening him up. Score one for Saucy magazine.

“It all started with this list.” No, that wasn’t right. “Actually it all started with my trip to Sweden.”

“Sweden?” he asked, his mouth set in an inexplicably grim line.

“For business. I write software for PalmPilots. Companies hire us to write programs for them. Software that tracks sales, shipping, delivery, that kind of thing. So I went to Sweden to install it and train them to use it. I went with the understanding that when I came home, I’d have this big promotion.”

“Let me guess. You didn’t get the promotion.”

“Three days before I came home, they gave it to someone else. You know the really ironic thing? The whole time I was in Sweden, everyone kept talking about how hard I worked. That I did the work of three people. Everyone was amazed. But you know what? I didn’t work any harder there than I do here. But that’s when I saw The List.”

“The List’?”

“In a magazine I was reading on the flight home. ‘10 Things Every Woman Should Do.’ I decided right then and there that I was going to do everything on that list. I know it sounds silly, thinking that some list from a magazine will change your life, but I’m tired of settling for doing the work without the recognition. I’m tired of putting my life on hold while I wait for some promotion that may never come.”

She studied his face, looking for some sign that he found this as silly as she did, now that she heard herself saying it out loud. But his expression was carefully blank, so she said with a shrug, “I know it’s just a list, but it’s a start.”

“So how do I fit into all this? What exactly is on this list that you think I can help you do?”

The question she’d been dreading. But he certainly deserved her honesty, if nothing else. She swallowed hard, embarrassment burning her cheeks. The idea of discussing sex with Alex made other less visible parts of her burn, as well. “Number one on the list is ‘Find Your Fling.’”

He nodded and for a second she thought he wasn’t going to respond, but then he asked, “And you thought I’d be a good candidate?”

She shrugged, wishing desperately he wasn’t so blasé about this whole thing, as if women propositioned him all the time. Though, for all she knew, they did. For all she knew, she was just one in a long line of lonely women who wanted to have a passionate fling with Alex.

And if that was the case, no wonder he’d been so annoyed with her yesterday. Of course, she still hadn’t owned up to her mistake, not completely. So she sucked in a deep breath and said, “Yes, I thought you’d be a good candidate. And not because I wanted to fool around with the hired help.”

Something in his eyes caught and held her attention. Once again she felt the gut-level tug of attraction. Passion, yes. But something more. Something more unsettling than that.

She waited a moment, hoping he’d say something. When he didn’t, she moved to leave. “I should go.”

But he grabbed her arm to stop her. “Wait—”

For a moment they simply sat there, his palm warm against her arm, the delicate skin at the crook of her elbow sensitized to the touch of his work-roughened fingers.