Sultry Escapes: Waking Up to You

Eyeball to crotch with that familiar body, she swallowed hard and slowly lifted her gaze.

“Can I join you?” Oliver’s tone was almost conciliatory, as if he regretted the way he’d ended things last night.

She swallowed hard. Why on earth had he now sought her out when he’d been trying so hard to avoid her?

“Candace?”

“Aren’t you afraid I’m not wearing any underwear, or that I’ll ask you for one little kiss?” she couldn’t help asking.

Behind her, somebody started coughing. She ignored him.

“I guess I deserved that,” he said, not cracking a smile.

There was no way to refuse him, and she gestured toward the empty seat across from her. She heard grumblings from the baseball team and could only imagine what they thought. She’d shot them down, then had a romantic phone conversation and now invited a gorgeous man to take a seat. They probably thought she was a bored housewife on the prowl, cheating on her poor spouse.

“What are You doing here?” she asked after he sat down.

“Your grandfather asked me to check on you.”

Her brow shot up. “You two think I need babysitting?”

His scowl deepened, and he nodded toward the table full of guys behind her. “When I came in and looked over, one of those bozos was right above you, just waiting for you to move enough so he’d have a clear line of sight down your shirt.”

She jerked her head around and looked over her shoulder. The amateur ballplayers all immediately ducked their heads together, as if realizing they’d been caught out.

“So you came storming over to defend my honor?”

That was rich, considering he was the only man who’d come even close to sullying it lately. And oh, had she liked being sullied.

“No. They’re men, they’re out drinking beer and you’re beautiful. Of course they’re gonna look.”

The beautiful part echoed in her ears.

His jaw tensed, and he crossed his arms over his chest and raised his voice slightly. “But if any of them even thinks about touching you, he’ll be drinking his beer through a straw.”

She should resent this he-man protector stuff. But instead, she found herself feeling all warm and soft at the realization that he felt protective of her. Mainly because it meant he somehow felt possessive of her.

He could have possessed you yesterday—twice—and twice he turned you down.

Right. She straightened in her seat, determined not to relax her guard around him, or let him know she was still smarting over what had happened. She was determined to forget all about yesterday, pretend she’d dreamed the whole thing. Well, except the orgasm. She wanted to remember that. She wanted to hug and hold that memory because, as far as she could remember, it was the only time her head had completely blown off her shoulders and then settled back into place.

The waitress sauntered over, lazy and laid-back as she’d been all evening. But when she reached the table, she did a double take and offered Oliver a much bigger smile than she’d offered Candace. “Hey, there, Mr. McKean. Nice to see you again!”

The woman practically simpered. Ugh.

“You want the usual?” the woman asked.

“Sure.”

She was back with his beer in record time. “Can I get you something else? Anything at all?”

Candace gripped her hands together under the table, determined not to react. It wasn’t easy, especially when the woman responded to Oliver’s request for a menu by leaning over him to grab a paper one standing between two condiment bottles on the back of the table. Her ample breasts rubbed his shoulders. He didn’t appear to mind.

Once the waitress had walked away, after telling him to think about what he wanted, Candace said, “Gee, who’s going to defend your honor?”

His jaw may have softened a bit. “You offering?”

“You didn’t look like you needed—or wanted—any help.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound jealous.”

“How fortunate that you know better.”

She reached into her purse, tucking her phone back inside. Before he’d shown up, she’d been planning to pull out some cash, pay her bill and leave. Now that he was here, though, she found herself wanting to stay.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, let me order, then I’ll walk you to your car.”

And leave him here to be the blue plate special for the big-boobed waitress? Not a chance.

“I’m fine,” she replied sweetly. “I was thinking about ordering dessert.” She grabbed another menu, skimmed over the offerings and decided on her very favorite: a dish of ice cream. Simple, easy, nonsuggestive, delicious vanilla ice cream.

After they’d ordered, they spoke briefly about her grandfather, and his reaction to their find in his wine cellar. The old man had been ecstatic, and had immediately started making plans for what he would do with the money. Most of his ideas had to do with helping out his family—her included—and for a moment, Candace had allowed herself to think she would not have to marry for money. Then she remembered. She wasn’t really marrying for money. She was marrying for friendship. And no amount of money could ever replace Tommy in her life.

However she felt about Oliver as a man—and potential lover—she had to give him credit: he was a conscientious employee, though she suspected the relationship between the two men had moved beyond professional to personal. Grandpa liked him…that was quite obvious, and the feeling appeared to be reciprocated.

She was a little surprised by their conversation. Once they’d turned the focus away from them—the sexual tension that was so thick between them she was surprised she could see him across the table—she found Oliver very easy to talk to.

They chatted about the wine, and the results of the phone calls Candace had made today to an expert in the region. He had given her the number of an auction house in San Francisco, saying if she really did have the bottles she’d mentioned, they’d be begging for the chance to sell them. If not rich, Buddy was at least going to be a lot more comfortable soon.

The waitress returned with Oliver’s hamburger a short time later, and brought Candace’s ice cream. She waited until the woman had left to pick up the spoon and help herself to a small amount. Lifting it to her lips, she almost cooed, seeing the tiny black flecks of vanilla bean. This was her favorite treat. Not terribly decadent or exciting, but she had always had a thing for plain vanilla.

“You gonna marry that stuff or eat it?”

Startled, she almost dropped the spoon. She’d apparently been oohing and aahing over it before she’d even brought a spoonful to her lips. And, for a change, there had been absolutely nothing deliberate about it. She wasn’t trying to tease him, taunt him or make him regret walking away from her yesterday. She just liked ice cream.

“I don’t usually eat dessert.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

She inserted the spoon into her mouth and sighed in pleasure, closing her eyes as the creamy sweetness hit her tongue and made her taste buds burst to life. “How can something so plain and simple taste so incredibly good?”

The question had been a rhetorical one, but Oliver looked like he was giving it serious thought. Very serious. He appeared contemplative and stared at her, hard. Some devil within her made her dip the spoon into the dish and draw more toward her mouth, knowing he was watching, rapt and attentive.

“Mmm.” She licked every drop, loving the tingle as the cold refreshment slid over her tongue and down her throat.

Okay, so now she was being deliberately provocative. But he so totally deserved it.

He grabbed his burger and started to eat it, not looking toward her again. Which made eating the ice cream a little less fun, though no less delicious.

She knew she shouldn’t mess with him, shouldn’t play with fire, but he’d been sending her mixed signals since the moment they’d met.

Takes one to know one.

True.

She scooped more, making another sound of satisfaction.

“You’re such a brat.”

She smiled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She licked the spoon clean, wiggling with delight.

“Would you stop it?” he asked after she’d swallowed.

“Stop what?”

“Stop licking that spoon like you’re thinking about sex.”

“I am thinking about sex,” she admitted, licking again. She saw no reason to be coy and wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “I’ve been thinking about it since last night. How could I not?”

He leaned over the table, coming closer, making everything around them disappear. “You’re playing with fire.”

“Funny, I don’t feel like I’m getting burned. In fact, it’s quite chilly.”

He took another bite of his burger, chewing the thing like he had to wrangle it into submission. When she began to help herself to another spoonful of her dessert, he cast her a warning look. “Time for either a subject change or a table change. Your choice.”

Meaning he would get up and leave her here alone if she didn’t stop tormenting him? How cute was that? She honestly hadn’t realized he would be that affected by her engaging in a little food foreplay. But she didn’t want him changing tables. Not when the waitress might very well decide to take a break and plop down on his lap.

“Okay, subject change. Grandpa mentioned that you had a connection to the estate. Your great-grandfather was the silent movie star who built it?” That had surprised her, especially given Oliver’s apparent disdain for the movie business.

“Yeah.” He looked relieved she’d done as he asked. “A million years ago. I never knew him.”

“Have you ever seen any of his movies?”

“Sure. My great-grandfather bought a bunch of them when his studio went bankrupt. My father has a box of them. We sometimes had family nights watching them when I was growing up.”

“How very Norma Desmond,” she murmured.

He nodded, getting the Sunset Boulevard reference.

“When he found out I was living here, he mailed me a few so I could show them to Buddy. I haven’t had a chance to do it yet.”

“What a fascinating era it must have been. So much more mysterious and glamorous than today, given the 24/7 coverage of every gruesome detail of a famous person’s life.” She knew her voice contained a hint of bitterness, on Tommy’s behalf, but he didn’t question her on it.

“They sure knew how to party, from the sound of it.”

“I’d love to see one of those films.”

He reached for his beer. “They’re on big reels. A pain to operate, but they certainly make for an authentic experience. Buddy borrowed a projector from somebody, but we never got around to showing them.”

Meaning he couldn’t just give her a disk to pop into her laptop. He’d have to come in and set up a whole viewing room. Stay and operate the machine. Spend time with her, watching it. Like one of his family movie nights growing up, only it would just be the two of them.

“We can watch one some evening if you’re bored.”

This was sounding a little like a movie date, and she suddenly wondered if he would live to regret having her change the subject. She could eat all kinds of ice cream while watching a movie. And if he dared to offer her two kisses, she might finally get that multiple orgasm she’d been craving.

“I’d love that,” she murmured. “It might make you feel like you’re at home. Speaking of which, where does your family live now?”

“San Diego. I was born and raised there.”

“Big family?”

“Parents, two sisters, one brother-in-law, one niece.”

“All in Southern California?”

“Yes.”

“So why aren’t you there with them?”

“I was close, in Orange County, until four months ago.”

Finally she was getting somewhere. “What on earth made you come up here?” she couldn’t help asking. “I’d normally guess one of the three biggies—romance, legal trouble or job. But you appear to be single and don’t look like the law-breaking type.”

“I am. And I’m not.”

She went over the answer in her mind, realizing he was admitting he was single—hallelujah—and an honest guy.

“Okay. So, number three. Job? I don’t mean to offend you, but it seems to me your field isn’t necessarily one that would require you to move so far away.”

He sipped his beer again, not meeting her eye. She didn’t push, sensing he was trying to reach a decision about how much to say. Finally, with a sigh, as if he realized she wasn’t going to back off and would be around long enough to wear him down if she chose to, he admitted, “I was with the district attorney’s office in L.A. until earlier this year.”

“With…wait, you mean you’re a lawyer?”

She shouldn’t have been surprised, considering she’d already seen evidence of his intelligence, his memory and his darned interrogation skills. But it was just so strange to think of a big Los Angeles attorney moving up here to work as a laborer for her grandfather.

“It’s a long story.”

She merely stared.

“I don’t want to get into it.”

“Come on, you’ve got to give me more than, I was a lawyer, quit and came up here to plant grapes.” She suddenly remembered what he’d said the night they met, about feeling cleaner digging in the dirt here than he had in his previous life. Then she thought about the kinds of cases he must have been involved in. Los Angeles was a glitzy haven to starry-eyed actors and actresses. But anyone who actually lived there knew it could be incredibly seedy. Ugly, violent, with crimes and murders happening often enough to immunize its residents to the shock of them, unless they involved a movie star.

“One crappy case too many?” she speculated.

“Yes,” he replied, staring straight into her eyes, looking a little surprised she’d understood so easily.

“I can see why you’d want to come here, then, if you needed a change. Better hard manual labor than a mental breakdown.”

A smile appeared. “I don’t know that I was near that point, but I was definitely feeling on the verge of a moral one.”

“Oh?” Now he had her really curious.

He idly rubbed the tip of his finger on the rim of his beer mug. “You might not believe it, but criminal law is one hell of a competitive place.”

“Well of course I believe it. I read John Grisham.”

“Multiply that by a hundred and you might have an idea of how brutal the atmosphere can be, especially in a place like Hollywood, with the money and the star factor added in. There’s a winner-take-all attitude, a scorepoints-on-the-other-guy mentality. It’s not about guilt or innocence, not about finding the truth, not even always about justice. More than anything it’s about winning.”

That surprised her. She’d always been one of those idealists who believed in the justice system. But it sounded like Oliver no longer did.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, suddenly remembering some of the news coverage she’d seen last winter, about corruption uncovered in the district attorney’s office. She didn’t remember seeing Oliver’s picture, or hearing his name, but she hadn’t really been paying attention, and the timing certainly made sense. “Were you the whistleblower?”

He stared into her eyes, not looking surprised she’d remembered the story. She didn’t recall any of the details; she just knew the media had had a field day with the previous D.A., whose own employee had accused him of judicial misconduct, including hiding evidence of innocence in a high-profile murder case.

“Yeah,” he said, lifting his mug and downing his beer.

“You were involved in that case where the kid in the gang was accused of murdering the pregnant mother?”

“It was my case. I was all set to go to trial when I found proof that he hadn’t done it.”

“And your boss buried it,” she murmured, remembering more.

“Tried to.” He leaned back, dropping his napkin onto his plate. “The kid was a punk, but it was mostly swagger. Maybe the close call will make him clean up his act.” he frowned. “Or he could get worse and end up killing somebody after all.”

“But he didn’t kill that woman?”

“No, he didn’t. I’d let myself go along with some of the crap you have to do to score convictions. Did stuff I’m not proud of. But I couldn’t be a part of convicting an innocent young man of murder, no matter what he might do in the future.”

Stepping forward and doing the right thing had been noble and admirable. But it had also probably cost him his job.

“Were you blackballed?”

“Blackballed, dumped by the woman I’d been seeing, shunned by people I’d thought were friends,” he said with a harsh laugh.

“That’s awful,” she muttered, focused more on the dumping than anything else. How could any woman do that to this gorgeous, amazing man?

He went on. “I can never go back to any D.A.’s office in California, and I’m not ready to switch sides just yet.”

“Defense attorney, you mean?”

“Right. I’m too jaded, too quick to see the bad side of humanity to start defending people I automatically assume are guilty. So for now, I dig, I shovel, I fertilize, I test pH, I till, I haul, I study. And I drink wine.”

“I think that last one’s my favorite.”

This time, his laugh wasn’t angry…it was soft and genuine.

Candace sat there and let the masculine sound wash over her. She’d seen him angry and tense, seen him sexy and aroused, seen him concerned. This was the first moment, though, that she truly believed she was seeing the real man, with his guard completely down. Seeing the Oliver he had been before his world had fallen apart last fall. She liked this man. Liked him a lot.

And oh, God, did she ever wish she had met him before she’d agreed to marry her best friend.

7

OLIVER WASN’T CERTAIN what had caused that warm, tender look to appear in Candace’s lovely eyes, but he figured it was bad news. He liked it better—felt safer—when she was snapping at him, taunting him, even flirting with him. This softness, this sweetness, this emotion he saw in her now, was way outside of his comfort zone.

He should have kept his fat trap shut. He should never have told her anything about himself—his past, his regrets, his shame. Because now, he greatly feared, he’d opened up a window through which she could climb, going around his instinctive defenses.

So let her.

Huh. Maybe he should. He still wasn’t ready for a relationship, still hated the idea of messing around with Buddy’s granddaughter while the old man was laid up. But he had to admit, he found Candace incredibly easy to talk to. She had heart and brains to go with that boatload of sex appeal, which made her a triple threat. He couldn’t deny he was tempted to take what she’d offered yesterday morning and last night. Maybe hooking up with someone who would be leaving in a week or so was exactly the right way to get back in the game of life.

Unfortunately, now that he’d realized he liked her as much as he wanted her, hooking up seemed less appetizing than it had before. He sensed it would satisfy him physically, but would just make the emotional strings that much harder to untangle. And emotions were still not his strong point.

“Will you excuse me a minute? I need to run to the ladies’ room,” she said.

He pushed his plate to the edge of the table so the overly flirtatious waitress, who’d come on to him every single time he walked into this joint, could pick it up. “Sure. I’ll ask for the check.”

She reached into her purse.

He waved a hand. “Forget it. It’s on me.”

“No way. You don’t bring down the big bucks anymore.”

He lifted a brow in challenge, remembering she’d said she was between jobs right now. “At least I’m employed.”

“Good point. But I think I can spring for one hamburger.”

Frankly, it was worth every penny to pay for her meal, if only for the pleasure of watching her eat that cursed ice cream.

He watched her walk away, again noting the changes in her wardrobe since she’d stopped wearing her sister’s more loose, casual ensembles in favor of stylish, extremely colorful and bright stuff. Her jeans were fire-engine red. She wore them with spike-heeled black ankle boots, and a silky blouse that fell off one shoulder. Every guy in the place watched her go, Oliver included.

He would bet every other guy in the place would give his left nut to have kissed her, and touched her the way he’d touched her twenty-four hours ago.

You’re a brainless bastard to have walked out on her like that.

If he had the day to do over again, he sensed yesterday would have ended up very differently. He only wondered if it was too late to change things.

After she’d left, Oliver signaled for the waitress, cutting her off when she tried to engage in small talk. It had been fine that she’d flirted when Candace was around to see and get a little tight-lipped, but now that she was gone, he couldn’t be bothered to play along. He hadn’t been interested in this woman, or any of the others he’d met since coming here four months ago. Only one interested him.

So what are you going to do about it?

He honestly didn’t know. But the more he got to know Candace, the more he wanted to do something.

“Hey, dude, you better watch it. She’s toxic.”

Startled, he looked up to see one of the jocks from the next table leaning over the back of his booth. He gave Oliver a look of manly commiseration that looked a little fake, as if he enjoyed spreading tales. “She’s messing around on you.”

“What?”

“Your girl. I heard her on the phone before you got here. She was all into whoever she was talking to. Just sayin’, you should watch your back, man.”

His muscles contracting, he realized he should tell the guy to go screw himself, that he and Candace weren’t a couple and if she had been on the phone with anyone else, that was her business. Not his.

Instead, he simply ignored the jock, tossed some bills on the table and got up. No, he had no business questioning who Candace talked to. But she’d sure made it sound like she was single, and she’d certainly acted that way yesterday during their erotic encounters.

Could she really have a lover somewhere? Was she the type who got bored easily and was simply killing time with Oliver while she was stuck up here in Sonoma?

The thought bothered him more than he cared to admit. So much so that he couldn’t even force a tight smile when she got back and walked over to him.

She spied the bills on the table. “I told you I’d pay for mine.”

“Forget it,” he insisted, his tone brusque to match his attitude. “Are you ready to go? Because I’m leaving.”

He didn’t plan to walk out and leave her here, not now that he knew just how closely the table full of men had been watching her. But he didn’t need her to know that.

“Sure,” she said, blinking in surprise at his here’s-your-hat-what’s-your-hurry attitude.

He didn’t enlighten her. Telling her what the nosy softball player at the next table had said would only open up a conversation he really didn’t want to have. The only reason he’d need to know if she was available was if he intended to sleep with her.

He didn’t.

Right?

They walked outside to the parking lot. While they’d been inside, the early signs of a storm had blown in. This area didn’t get a whole lot of rain, and what it got usually came in the winter. But sometimes the spring brought wicked storms and it looked like they would have one tonight. The air was wildly alive, with gusts that had the trees bouncing and a whistling sound coming from under the eaves of the building.

Instead of tightening her jacket, ducking against the weather and racing to her car, Candace tilted her head back, smiled and closed her eyes. She apparently liked the feel of the wind battering her body. Liking it, too, he understood. There was something freeing about being in a climate so variable and elemental. L.A. and San Diego were pretty standard all year round—sunny, warm, beautiful. In the winter and spring months he’d been up here, he’d realized you couldn’t really count on anything. You never knew when the winds would change and the air would crackle with electric excitement.