Sultry Escapes: Waking Up to You

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, realizing what he must look like, shirtless, wearing dirty jeans and, he suddenly realized, still holding a sharp, threatening-looking rake. The woman, who was beyond sexy, with a pair of blazing green eyes and a beautiful face surrounded by that thick, honeycolored tangle of hair, was eyeing him like he’d popped up in front of her in a back alley.

“I’m not going to…”

He was going to say hurt you. But before he could say a word, a pot flew toward his head. He threw up an arm to deflect it, groaning as the metal thunked his elbow, sending him stumbling back into the hallway. He barely managed to stay upright. If not for the rake on which he suddenly leaned, he might have fallen flat on the floor.

But the rake couldn’t help him when the frying pan followed the pot.

One second later, he was flat on the floor, rubbing the middle of his chest. He focused on trying to catch his breath, which had been knocked out of him as if he’d been KO’d by the love child of Ali and Tyson. That skillet must have been made of cast iron, and she’d flung it like a discus wielded by an Olympic champion.

He held his hands up in surrender, trying to form words, though his body had forgotten how to breathe and his ribs were screaming for her head on a platter. Meanwhile, the rake, which he’d been clutching as he fell, toppled forward. Just to add a little insult to the injury, it landed on his shoulder, then clanged to the floor beside him.

Pain, meet agony, pull up a chair why don’t you?

“Get out, I’m calling the police!” she ordered as she scrambled to grab another pot out of the sink.

“Whoa, lady, cool it,” he finally gasped. “I’m not…going to…hurt you.”

“That’s what any sick, raping, ax-murdering psycho would say.”

If his chest didn’t hurt so damned much, and if he wasn’t afraid she would reach for the knife block next, he would have mulled that one over, wondering which she thought him to be: sick, raping, ax-murderer or psycho. All of the above?

Active imagination on that one.

“I’m the…groundskeeper,” he said with a groan as the ache in his chest receded, only to remind him of the ache in his elbow. Funny bone, my ass. “I work here.”

She froze, another pot in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and stared at him from a few feet away. “You work here?”

“Yeah, for Buddy. My name’s Oliver McKean. I saw the lights and was afraid somebody had broken in.”

She eyed him, her stare zoning in on the blood he could feel trickling down the side of his arm. Obviously she’d broken skin, if not bone, with her mad pot-slinging skills.

Nibbling on the corner of a succulent lip, she whispered, “Oh, dear.”

“Yeah. Oh, dear. That’s some swing you’ve got there.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m Candace Reid.”

“Oliver McKean.”

“You said that.”

“I know,” he mumbled, realizing he wasn’t making any sense. The one place she hadn’t hit him was his head, but his thoughts were still a whirl as he tried to figure out why on earth he was reacting so strongly to a woman who’d just tried to kill him.

“Are you Irish?” she asked with a deep frown, sounding more concerned than when she’d thought him a maniacal ax-killing rapist.

“My father is. We lived in Cork for a few years when I was a kid,” he admitted, wondering if his voice still held a hint of an accent. Also wondering why it mattered.

Not seeing the need to discuss his ethnicity, he staggered to his feet. He was none too steady on them, and his lungs still burned. She’d practically knocked him senseless. Dizzy or not, he was incredibly lucky neither of those flying missiles had hit him in the head. They really could have done some damage. But worries about what might have happened dissipated as he stared at her from across the room. Now that he wasn’t afraid for his life, he found himself struck into silence by the beauty of her gently curved face. Dark brows arched over expressive jewelgreen eyes that were still widened with fear and surprise. Beneath a pair of high cheekbones were soft hollows that invited tender exploration. Her amazing lips were made for lots of deep kisses. Her chin was up, determined and strong, as if she wasn’t about to let down her guard completely. He liked that…he especially liked that she remained firm even though her long slender throat quivered and worked as she swallowed down her instinctive anxiety and mistrust.

She wore a delicate, filmy blouse, all cloud and color. It clung to the edge of her slim shoulders, revealing a soft expanse of chest and collarbone. Her skin was creamy, smooth, and his fingers curled together as he imagined touching that softness. The scooped neck of the blouse fell to the tops of her full breasts, revealing a hint of cleavage that left him more breathless than he’d felt after taking a frying pan to the chest.

He continued his perusal, seeing those curvy hips from the front—just as delightful—and the thighs clad in tight denim, on down to the high-heeled boots. Hell, she should have used those things for a weapon; the spiked heels could have carved out a hole in his heart.

Hmm. He suspected this woman could carve her name on any man’s heart. If, of course, he had one still capable of opening up and being carved.

“You’re Buddy’s granddaughter, I presume?” he finally asked, once his brain started working again.

His words snapped her out of her long moment of decompression. Apparently realizing she wasn’t about to be raped, ravaged by a maniac or ax-murdered, she nodded quickly. “Yes. I’m such an idiot. My mother told me that Grandpa’s groundskeeper had been the one to call with the news that he was in the hospital. I can’t believe I took you for a home invader.” She spun around and grabbed a handful of paper towels, striding toward him, her eyes glued on his bleeding arm. “I really am sorry. Let me help you.”

When he saw that she was still armed, he took a step back. “Drop the lethal weapon first, would you?”

Looking down at the pot, she nibbled her lip sheepishly and did as he asked, opening her fingers and dropping the pot to the floor.

Well, not quite to the floor. It had his bare foot to land on first.

The pot fell to the floor with a bang, crushing his toes, then rolling onto the linoleum. “Ow, Jesus,” he yelled, grabbing his flattened foot and hopping on the other.

Her beautiful green eyes saucered as she realized what she’d done. With a strangled sound, she reached for him, but he leaped out of striking range and leaned back against the wall.

“Stay back. Please. Just stay away from me.” His entire body throbbing, he added, “Jeez, lady, you ought to come with a warning label.”

She threw her hand over her mouth in dismay, and bent over at the waist. Sounds like tiny sobs were bursting from her lips and her body trembled.

Great. Just great. Tears.

He quickly shoved away his instinctive reaction, realizing she’d had a hell of a night. Obviously she’d raced up here from Southern California to be with her injured grandfather. She’d been high on fear and adrenaline even before she’d thought she was about to be attacked by a shirtless stranger wielding a rake. Anyone would be a little overwrought.

Realizing she was really mortified, Oliver dropped his foot, praying there were no broken bones, and tried not to wince as he tested his weight on it. “It’s okay…I’m all right. Accidents happen.”

She straightened and peered at him, those green eyes assessing. But she didn’t lower her hand, and her shoulders were now shaking as she made muffled sounds. Funny, her eyes weren’t glossy, as if filled with tears. In fact, if he had to guess, he’d say they were almost twinkling instead.

A sneaking suspicion entered his mind. He reached out, yanked her hand away from her mouth and realized the truth.

She wasn’t crying. She was giggling almost uncontrollably.

2

“WAIT, YOU’RE LAUGHING?”

Oliver couldn’t contain his indignation, not sure whether to retaliate by dropping a pan on her foot or shaking the laughter off her oh-so-kissable lips. She was damned lucky he was not the violent sort, because the shaking thing was definitely winning the internal battle in his mind.

She was also lucky he wasn’t the ax-murdering-maniac sort because wringing her neck was a close second.

Then his gaze landed on those kissable lips, and he thought of something else he’d like to do with them. A few somethings, in fact.

She sucked them into her mouth, obviously trying to control herself. “I’m so sorry,” she said, her laughter deepening and sounding a little frenzied. “That was just so…so Three Stooges!”

“You break my arm, smash a few ribs, crush my shoulder, pulverize my toes and you think it’s hilarious?” His voice was tight with anger. Maybe tomorrow he’d look back and think the situation was funny, but right now he was too concerned about a punctured lung to join in the hilarity.

“I really am sorry,” she murmured.

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Her laughter fading to the occasional little snort, she explained. “I laugh when I’m stressed. It’s awful, I know.”

“Awfully strange, anyway,” he snapped.

“It’s just been such a long day. I was in the middle of a surreal moment even before I got the call about my grandfather. I have been so afraid for him.” She swept a shaking hand through her hair, which looked like it had been swept through a lot recently. “The flight up here was a jam-packed nightmare. The kid beside me spent an hour flinging Cheerios and boogers at my head.”

Eww.

“The cab ride to the house was an exercise in nausea. I needed a drink, but Grandpa appears to have hidden his stash the way he did when I was a kid. And to top it all off, you skulked into the kitchen, looking all big and bad and scared the shit out of me.”

Okay. At some point in that litany of woes, between the boogers, the liquor and the big-n-bad, he got the picture.

She was hysterical.

He understood the reaction. He’d worked with witnesses whose terror had revealed itself via uncontrollable laughter and knew that deep inside, she was churning with anxiety. The laughter had held a tinge of frenzy, her fear and reaction to his presence had been a bit extreme, and now she looked like she was going to…“Oh, hell, please don’t,” he muttered.

But she did. She segued from snickers to sobs in the drawing of a breath. Before he could even take a second to remind himself how utterly useless he felt around crying women, he saw big fat tears roll from her eyes and drip down those soft cheeks.

“Is my grandfather okay?” Sniff. “And are you?” Sniff sniff. “Do I need to take you to the hospital? I can’t believe I attacked you. Believe me, it was my first assault and battery.”

She literally wrung her hands in front of her, clenching and gripping them, as if needing something to hold on to. He had to imagine she was running on empty emotionally and was imagining the worst.

He knew of only two ways to calm her down, to make her stop trying to maim him with kitchen utensils, snort herself to death laughing or sob until she had no tears left.

He started with option one. Reason.

“Buddy is going to be fine, I promise. His doctor said he’ll need surgery and then rehab, but when I left the hospital he was high as a kite on pain meds and pinching the nurses.”

Her lips twitched, and she managed to lift them a tiny bit at the corners.

“And I’ll be fine, too.” He eyed the kitchen sink and tried for humor, hoping to coax another laugh, or even a tiny snort out of her. “Just don’t ever flash a pot at me or I’ll go into post-traumatic shock and instinctively dive for the floor.”

The lips curled a wee bit more. But he didn’t get his hopes up yet.

“How did it happen? My mother didn’t give me any details, just that he’d broken his hip.”

He hesitated, before admitting, “He fell down the front steps off the porch.”

Another sniff. “Such a short fall and so much damage.”

“It happens,” he said, knowing brittle bones could easily be broken. “But he’s going to get a brand-new hip and come home better than ever. Before you know it, he’ll be running marathons.”

“Oh, great, then it’ll be his other hip or his knees.”

He wished he’d quit while he was ahead. She was obviously now picturing her grandfather’s much-loved arms and skull being shattered. Sure enough, to prove it, the bottom lip began to stick out the tiniest bit and she welled up again. Those churning emotions just weren’t going to let her go without a fight.

“C’mere,” he said with a sigh, knowing he had to move on to option two.

Not giving her a warning or a chance to get away, he gently took hold of her shoulders and pulled her closer. She resisted for the briefest moment, as if unsure of his motives.

He reassured her, sighing deeply as he wondered what on earth he’d done to deserve this. Having to act like a wailing wall for a gorgeous woman who was totally offlimits, considering she was his employer’s beloved granddaughter, simply wasn’t fair.

“Just let it out, darlin’. You’ve already maimed and injured me, so you might as well use my one good shoulder to cry on.”

That elicited a sob that verged on a giggle and she gave in to the invitation. The tall, soft woman melted against him. Burying her face in his neck, she wrapped her arms around his waist, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that she should snuggle up against a half-naked stranger in her moment of need.

He stroked the small of her back, felt the wetness of her tears against his neck and murmured consoling words in her ear. She calmed—her slow shudders growing further apart as she took what he was offering. They swayed a little, as if dancing, and he mentally acknowledged that needing a shoulder to cry on wasn’t just an expression. Sometimes that was just exactly the right solution to a problem. Not for nothing was he known as the best brother in the world to his two sisters.

Only this woman was not one of his sisters. Oh, no. She was a beautiful, vulnerable stranger, who, he soon realized, felt incredibly good in his arms. Soft and pliant, warm, all curves and skin and heat and sex appeal. He could feel her gentle exhalations against his bare skin, feel the faint brush of her lips on his nape and was slowly going crazy at the scrape of her nipples through her silky blouse against his chest. He had never been more aware of being shirtless in his life.

He stiffened. Some parts more than others.

He should never have let his mind wander from her mood. Because, while the embrace had started as a comforting offer to a stranger, now he was much too aware that he hadn’t had sex in months and a woman shaped like a centerfold had curled up against him like a vine around a trellis.

Shifting back a little, he hoped like hell she wouldn’t realize he was getting hard while she wept. But she didn’t let him make a gentlemanly getaway. Instead she edged close again, pressing even harder against him. He could feel the warmth at the apex of her thighs, which, with her deliciously long legs, was lined up just perfectly with his groin.

She noticed. She had to notice. Because suddenly, she lifted her head and stared at him. Her soft face was tearstained, but her eyes were wide with shock, confusion and awareness.

Her lips trembled. She licked them, and he held his breath, wondering what on earth she was going to say. Was she about to snap at him and slap his face or issue an invitation? What?

In the end, his wild guesses didn’t even come close. Instead, with a soft, regretful sigh, she drew away and whispered, “Why, oh, God, why did I not meet you in Paris?”

A SHORT TIME later, after Candace had asked the sexy stranger a dozen questions about her grandfather’s condition, she finally allowed herself to think about something else. She now knew for sure that Buddy would be all right. She’d see him tomorrow, but for tonight, she could do nothing else.

Slowly, her fear and worry began to ease away and she let her thoughts drift in another direction. Enough so that, as she sat at the kitchen table and slowly sipped sweet, hot tea with the sexiest man she’d ever seen, she found time to wish two things: that she’d left the pots in the sink, and that she’d never even thought about him in connection with her canceled trip to France.

If she hadn’t seen him, reacted like a high school virgin defending her hymen from a horny football team and attacked him to the point of bloodshed, she wouldn’t have gotten all giggly, weepy and hysterical. If she hadn’t gotten giggly, weepy and hysterical, he wouldn’t have taken her into his big strong arms. If he hadn’t taken her into his big strong arms, he wouldn’t have drawn her against that rock-hard, rippling, sweat-tinged, powerful male body. if he hadn’t drawn her against his body, she might not have felt the rigid proof of his virility pressing deliciously against her sex.

And if he hadn’t gotten hard, she wouldn’t be sitting here vacillating between worrying about her grandfather and wondering when this hot stranger would wake up and smell the estrogen, and realize she was sitting in damp panties.

She shifted in the hard chair. Seriously damp.

Of course, fair was fair. He’d been seriously hard.

Yum.

No. Not yum. You can’t have him.

Sighing, she inhaled the fragrant tea and murmured, “If you give a mouse a cookie…”

“I don’t think your grandfather has any milk,” he replied, hearing her. “He’s lactose intolerant.”

She had to smile that this strong, rugged-looking man understood the reference to a popular children’s book. Especially since his voice was all deep and gravelly, sultry and alluring, and completely inappropriate for uttering rhymes to a little kid.

Uttering sexy, needful growls to an adult woman would be much more up his alley.

“I have a niece. She’s four,” he explained with a shrug. “You?”

Are you asking if I’m single?

She curled her left hand around the cup. The bare left hand. The left hand that was not yet weighed down with the five-carat diamond she suspected Tommy would put on it the minute she got back to L.A.

Remembering Tommy, and everything that ring would entail, she gave a guilty start and dropped her hand into her lap, reaching for the cup with her right one.

“Younger cousins,” she finally replied.

There was no point in letting this man know she was single. No possible reason to want him to realize she had gotten all gooey inside the moment he’d pulled her into his arms to offer her some warmth and human comfort. And it would be pure insanity to hope he’d figure out that the goo had boiled into lava once she’d felt the volcanic rock in his pants.

She didn’t allow herself to feel terribly flattered. Any bare-chested, slick, hard, virile—stop with the adjectives —man would probably stir at the feel of a woman pressing herself against him like she wanted to climb into his skin. That’s what she had done, she realized with embarrassment. She might as well have asked him if he could prettyplease comfort her on top of the hard, broad table, or up against the refrigerator. And wouldn’t it be nice if the comforting didn’t include clothes?

You’re engaged, remember?

Right. Engaged. Which meant the Candace Volcano was going to be all Mt. St. Helens from here on out—i.e., dormant. There might be rumbles, but there would be no eruptions for a hell of a long time. Five years, at least. Oy.

She would be staying here to help her grandfather for as long as he needed her, which meant there would be no time for a trip to Paris. No chance for a wild fling. Tommy wouldn’t want to wait too long to announce their engagement, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d have no time to sow any wild oats and bank some sexy memories. But she couldn’t truly be upset about it. She adored Grandpa and would do anything for him. Including missing out on her one-and-only chance to be a sex tourist.

So go for the gardener.

She flicked the thought out of her head, not for the first time. That wasn’t going to happen. A spring fling in Paris had sounded ideal, but there was no way she was hooking up with someone who worked for her grandfather. She’d wanted someone from out of the country, preferably a stud who didn’t speak English. Gorgeous, hung, with a penchant for oral sex and dumb as a rock would have suited her just fine.

This man—as far as she knew right now—had only two of those qualities. He was gorgeous. And oh, had he felt hung.

As for the rest? Well, that mouth looked like it could give a woman incredible pleasure. But he certainly didn’t appear dumb. He spoke the language. And, worst of all, lived in her own state. Once she became fodder for the paparazzi, they could easily track him down. They would be very interested to hear that Tommy Shane’s beloved fiancée had been having a wild, outrageously sexual affair with a man right before she’d said, “I will.”

Mmm. Wild. Outrageously sexual. Oh, did she suspect it would be.

Just her luck that she’d met a man who appealed to her on such a deep, powerful level on the very night she’d agreed to give up sex for five years and marry her best friend.

“Warming up a little?” he asked.

She had been, sip by sip. Grandfather’s house was old, damp and chilly, and she hoped her suitcase got here soon with her warmer clothes. “Yes, thanks.”

“The nights’ll get warmer soon,” he said. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“You’re not from around here?”

“No.” He hesitated, then added, “I moved up from L.A. a few months ago.”

Ahh! The plot thickened. Had he been some kind of gardener to the Hollywood elite? She suspected any number of starlets would have been happy to have him trim their hedges and do some deep planting in their gardens.

“Why?”

“It was just time,” he explained, his expression and tone telling her that was all he was going to say.

Talk about cryptic.

The silence between them resumed, though it wasn’t an uncomfortable one. They both merely sipped their tea, as they had been for the past few minutes. Oliver—that was his name, Oliver, and what a strong, solid, sexy, old-fashioned name it was—had gently pushed her into a chair and insisted on making her some tea. He obviously did know her grandfather well. A cup of Earl Grey was Buddy Frye’s solution to soothe all the ills of the world. Tea had cured Candace’s scraped knees and hurt feelings, broken hearts and hangovers. And now, it had made her finally relax and brought her tension down a few notches.

She wondered if Oliver had adopted the habit from his employer, of if he was a similar type of man—a calm, deliberate man who always seemed to know how to offer comfort in exactly the right way at the right moment. Whatever the reason, like the hug that had gone from sweet to smokin’, it was a nice gesture, one she appreciated.

Of course, she would appreciate it more if the man would put a damn shirt on so she wouldn’t have to keep shoving her eyeballs back in their sockets every time he moved.

Deltoids and pectorals and biceps, oh, my!

The last thing she had expected to find when she’d let herself into her grandfather’s house, which she’d only ever visited once before, was a hunk of masculine sex appeal showing up in the kitchen. Her mother had, indeed, mentioned a groundskeeper when she’d called earlier today. But she hadn’t said anything about a groundskeeper with nearly jet-black hair, thick and wavy and hanging a little long around his stubbled, two-days-past-needing-a-shave jaw. Nothing could have prepared Candace for the dark dreamy eyes, the strong brow, the slashing cheekbones or the powerful body. Absolutely nothing.

She’d met a lot of handsome men in Hollywood. Probably some who were more handsome than Oliver—Tommy among them. But in terms of raw, masculine sex appeal, she’d seen nobody better.