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“Anna might have gotten a little turned around,” she said, not wanting to speculate to this stranger about their landlady’s motives. That would open up other questions—like why Anna felt the need to matchmake for her when Mimi had a date standing out in the backyard, probably wondering what on earth had happened to her. A date she was planning to have sex with tonight.
Wasn’t she?
“Hey, I just remembered, we haven’t been introduced,” he said, sticking out his hand. “I’m Xander McKinley.”
Not introduced. Right. He’d seen her bare, uh, everything, and she’d almost crushed his skull with a vase. But they hadn’t exchanged names.
She stared at his hand for a moment, struck by its strength, which matched the strong, bare arm. And the strong, bare shoulders. And the strong, bare chest. Below which was a rippled, bare stomach, covered with a light sprinkling of dark hair that wound down into the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
The man must have lived a previous life and known Webster, because he’d surely provided the definition of sexy. Hottie, Anna had called him? What a ridiculous word. He was a flaming inferno.
And wrong. Wrong guy. Wrong time. Wrong situation. Good grief, he’d practically face-planted himself into her naked crotch and wasn’t the least bit repentant about it.
He’s flirtatious. He’s charming. He’s a bad boy. He’s your next-door neighbor. He’s freaking off-limits.
Keeping that in mind, she thrust her hand out, stiff and businesslike. “Mimi Burdette.”
She took his hand in hers, noting its calloused, masculine strength. Dimitri was well-built, but his body was the working-rich-man-goes-to-the-gym-four-times-a-week variety. He worked in an office and lifted nothing more than a pen most of the time. He had staff to cut his lawn and a shop to fix his car and hands that proved it.
She shivered. Literally shivered at the thought of this stranger brushing that rough palm and those fingers over all the parts of her he’d already touched with his eyes.
She yanked her hand away. Somebody else was supposed to be touching her tonight. Somebody right. Somebody well-suited for her life and her job and her family. And her.
This guy wasn’t him.
“I really need to get back to the party,” she said.
He eyed her for a moment, saying nothing, as if he, too, had experienced something strange the moment their fingers had touched. Heck, what hadn’t been strange about them so far? This whole encounter was already beginning to feel surreal and she wondered if, someday in the future, she’d believe it had been some weird dream.
Not if he’s living right under your nose from now on. She was going to be reminded of his hotness and her nakedness every time she bumped into him while getting the mail or carrying in the groceries. Fun times ahead. Only, not.
“The dude … the one who’s brainless enough not to like your thong. Is he outside right now?”
She bit her bottom lip, then slowly nodded.
“You’re not sleeping with him, though.”
“Do we have to repeat that it’s-none-of-your-business part of this conversation?”
One corner of his mouth lifted and a twinkle appeared in those deep, dark eyes. “Hey, I feel like I know you intimately already.”
True. He knew her almost as intimately as her gynecologist.
“It’s not very gentlemanly of you to remind me of that.”
He ignored her. “So you and this guy … it’s not serious, right? Anna told me you weren’t involved with anyone.”
Her jaw fell. “You discussed my love life with Anna?”
His turn to flush a little. He looked away, as if wishing he hadn’t revealed that much. “Just in passing.”
Interesting. Had he asked about her, noticed her outside, the way she’d noticed him?
It doesn’t matter.
Still, something made her admit, “It’s not serious. Yet.”
“But tonight’s his lucky night, huh?”
She swallowed, suddenly unsure of that. Unsure of everything.
One B—Xander, his name is Xander, and how sexy is that?—stepped closer. “Can I just say, if you’ve got to work so hard at it, maybe it’s just not supposed to happen?”
Her mouth went dry as the warmth of his body washed over her. She could smell his skin—a mix of soap and sweat and male—and breathed a little deeper. “Work at it?” she whispered.
He lifted a hand, tracing his fingertip down her cheek, until it rested on the corner of her mouth. “If he wants you badly enough, you could be wearing a nun’s habit and he’d still have refused to let you walk into the house without coming after you to try to get you alone.”
Ooh. That was so much like what she’d thought earlier, she wondered if he’d read her mind.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t have let you out of my sight.”
She swallowed hard, heat slamming into her, both at his words and the serious, almost dangerous way he’d said them.
“I would have had to stay right beside you throughout the party, just to reassure myself you weren’t going to disappear. To make sure no other man even dared to look at you, and to remind myself that I could wait, because, by the time the night was over, you’d be mine.”
“Good Lord,” she whispered, her eyes falling closed. Her feet shifted; she edged a tiny bit closer, feeling almost mesmerized by his throaty voice. Not to mention by the faint brush of his hand on her mouth. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. That hand moved, until he was cupping her head, his fingers tangling in her loose hair. She arched her face into his palm, unable to resist, turning to him the way a flower turned to the morning sun. “If I had been crazy enough to let you go inside without me, I would have been watching your door, counting down the seconds until you got back. And you can bet your last dollar I would have done something about it if some strange, shirtless dude walked through it after you.”
His words held an accusation, but she was too stunned by the feelings rolling through her to launch any kind of defense of Dimitri. Right now, she was finding it hard to concentrate on anything except his scent and his warmth and oh, heavens, the way he was stroking her cheekbone with the side of his thumb.
She opened her eyes, staring at him, realizing she’d already memorized his face, his eyes, his mouth. This stranger was already imprinted on her brain.
“What would you have done?” she whispered. She leaned closer, her body swaying almost against her own will.
“I would have made sure you knew who you were ending the night with.” He moved closer, inching toward her. “I would have made you forget any other man existed.”
Another inch, then he did it. He covered her mouth with his and made her forget every other man existed.
Shocked at first, Mimi froze for a second, then melted under an onslaught of pure fire. He licked her lips, demanding she part them, and she did, not questioning it. Their tongues met, exploring, hot and wet and hungry. There was nothing polite about this kiss, nothing rehearsed or restrained. He didn’t delicately taste her; he devoured her, as if he hadn’t eaten in a week and she was his ultimate dessert.
Time, space and reality were lost. Mimi was riding a wave of pure, sultry instinct, every one of her senses humming, all of her nerve endings jangling against his big, rock-hard body. The air she breathed, he provided. She stayed upright only because she had him to lean against. Every delicious flavor she’d ever tasted seemed concentrated in his mouth and she started to shake as they all flooded into her.
Even as a tiny voice inside her tried to remind her he was a stranger, and that she should stop this, she lifted her arms, twining them around his neck. Tangling her fingers in his dark hair, she held on tight, instinctively wanting to make sure he didn’t go anywhere. Not before he satisfied this deep, carnal urge she had to be kissed the way every woman ought to be kissed every so often—like she was the sustenance for a man’s very soul.
Nobody had kissed her like this. Not ever. Not even men who’d been buried inside her at the time.
“Xander,” she groaned against his mouth when he started to pull away.
Hearing his name on her lips seemed to inflame him, because he dove back in again, his tongue plunging deep. He dropped his hands to her hips, claiming her, tugging her even harder against him. When he cupped her bottom, she sighed into his mouth, arching against the delicious, unmistakable ridge of heat pressing against her groin.
He wanted her, there was no denying it, and he wasn’t making any effort to keep her from realizing that.
Quivering, almost crying, Mimi pressed harder against him, needing that strength, that pressure. She barely knew him, but she knew she wanted that power, that thickness. All the long pep talks she’d given to herself about being sensible and not needing this kind of heat, this much passion, evaporated and she knew she would do just about anything to have him.
And then it ended, just as abruptly as it had begun. He drew his mouth away from hers, dropped his hands and took a step back. Mimi swallowed hard, trying to regain control of her heart and her lungs, which seemed to be grasping for air.
After a long moment, he nodded. “Yeah, I definitely would have followed you,” he said, sounding a little breathless, which told her he, too, was affected by the kiss. “But that’s me.”
Reality finally started to sink back in. “What … how … you kissed me.”
“Glad you noticed.”
Noticed? Good grief, he’d made the earth rattle beneath her feet.
He turned away from her. “Now, I should go so you can get back to your party.”
The floor seemed to lurch, her mind spinning with it. It took a few seconds for her to process the quick change in mood and tone. From flirtatious, to tender to hot-and-kissing? Now to something like … disinterest. What the ever-loving hell?
He, on the other hand, seemed just fine. His smile was cheery, that twinkle had reappeared in his eyes. As if he was completely unfazed by their closeness and that amazing kiss, which had affected her clear down to her toenails. No, to the polish on her toenails!
“I guess I’ll go try this key on the other door,” he said, turning back toward the closet. “Maybe I’ll see you later at the party. I told Anna I’d come out.”
Still stunned, it took her a few seconds to grasp his words. Once her heart started to beat normally and her brain cells were firing again, she realized she did not want him coming out to that party. She didn’t like how easily he’d shown her how receptive she was to him. Especially since she hadn’t yet determined whether or not she was receptive to her date, who was waiting for her outside.
But it wasn’t exactly polite to order him to stay home until he forgot he’d seen her curl-covered hoo-ha. Or until she’d gotten over that kiss.
“By the way, what’d you decide?” he asked as he ducked into the closet.
“About what?”
He waggled his brows. “The thong? A nice bustier’s always a good choice.”
Glaring, she reached for the vase.
“Kidding,” he said, raising a defensive hand. With a smile that was positively wicked, he added, “Because you’re not gonna go through with it.”
“Says who?”
“Says the guy who just kissed you … the one you kissed back.”
He definitely had her there; she didn’t really have a response for that.
He dropped his attention to her lips, then looked down at her body, her thin robe, her nipples puckering beneath the fabric. He raked his way down the rest of her, to the tips of her toes, before going back up. Then, his voice dropped to a low growl. “Says the guy who loved how you looked in that thong and who really hopes to see it again sometime … caught between something other than your toes.”
She gulped, swallowing down a tiny, helpless moan. Because while she had never been the kind of woman who wanted a man to take her for granted, his self-confidence, his certainty of her—what she wanted, how far she’d go—was an incredible turn-on.
With one more smile, he disappeared into her closet. She heard a thump or two as he worked his way back toward the door. Right before he exited, she heard one more thing—his laughing voice.
“By the way, in case you want to know my preference, I vote for commando!”
3
WHILE XANDER HADN’T been looking forward to attending the party with a bunch of strangers before meeting his new next-door neighbor, now he could hardly wait. After all his determination to steer clear of Mimi Burdette, the wealthy heiress, now he could think of her only as the girl who dropped her panties—the girl whose mouth tasted like sin and satisfaction—and wanted to see her again.
He must have a masochistic streak. Because, as cocky as his taunting final words to her had been, for all he knew, she was already handing her date a condom and telling him where he could touch her that would make her howl like a she-wolf.
Hmm. Xander didn’t want to be told that. He wanted to explore until he found that spot himself.
He wanted her. Badly. He’d wanted her before he’d kissed her, and that kiss had been the X-factor that rocketed want into the stratosphere of bone-shaking desire.
He was going to have a tough time hiding that fact, which meant the wise thing to do would be to stay home. Stay away from the party, and especially stay away from Mimi. She had a date—for tonight at least. And she wasn’t his type. He’d figured that out before they even met. She was rich and spoiled and used to getting her own way. He was down-to-earth, and nearly broke after laying out money for first and last months’ rent, plus a security deposit. All around a bad combination.
Unfortunately, all those reasonable excuses weren’t working. He couldn’t get her out of his head.
Nor, he realized, did he want to. He’d already figured out that there was a lot more to her than the pretty, rich-girl package—and he didn’t mean just the grade-A ass, lickable thighs and oh-so-delectable everything else. She was funny, sharp, smart. Wrong for him in some ways—her being on the verge of going to bed with another dude being one of them. But right in others. So right he was going to have a hard time sleeping tonight without thinking about the softness of her skin and the sweet scent of her hair, and oh, the taste of that mouth, that soft tongue, those succulent lips. Heaven.
And belonging to someone else? Hell.
Was all the rest of her going to be someone else’s, too? He had to know. “So you’re going to that party,” he told himself. Because the one thing that would guarantee he got no sleep was if he tortured himself all night long wondering if his prediction that she wouldn’t go through with seducing her date had been right or wrong.
He needed to know if she was going home alone.
After cleaning up, taking a quick shower and changing into one of the few pair of dress pants and dress shirts he owned, he headed outside. The party had thinned out a little, but even if it hadn’t, he would have easily spotted his new neighbor. She had changed back into her green dress. Her hair was smoothed into place … as if he hadn’t had it tangled around his fingers forty minutes ago.
She sat at a table with Anna and Anna’s husband, who’d insisted on being called Obi-Wan. Obviously the guy was a Star Wars fan. A man and woman Anna had pointed out as the engaged couple sat there, too. And standing at the end of the table, behind Mimi, was a tall guy in a suit.
The boyfriend. No doubt about it.
He wished he didn’t immediately recognize that the guy was good-looking. Like, totally hetero male-model good-looking. He was well-built, broad-shouldered, masculine. He wore expensive-looking clothes and a half smile that said he owned the attention of every female in the crowd, and knew it.
Damn. He’d been picturing some sexually ambivalent, boring, pasty-faced, middle-aged guy who wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like Mimi and therefore didn’t grasp the appeal of a thong. Unfortunately, judging by the way this one was resting his hand with casual possessiveness on her shoulder, he knew. He was practically holding a mine sign over her head, and looked like a fourth grader waving around his brand-new Xbox in front of all his less fortunate buddies the day after Christmas.
Xander had no business curling his fingers into fists. None at all. But curl they did.
She’s not yours yet, pal, he silently told the other man.
Spying him, Anna immediately waved him over. “There you are—and looking so handsome!”
He handed her the key. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“I take it you found your way to where you needed to be?” the older woman asked.
The sparkle in her eye made him wonder if he’d gone exactly where she’d wanted him to. Was his landlady playing matchmaker? “Eventually. Getting there was a bit of an adventure.”
“Some people around here could use one,” she admitted.
Across the table, Mimi watched, silent, but definitely focused on their conversation. She looked back and forth between him and Anna, but didn’t appear surprised. So she’d apparently already figured out Anna had intentionally given him the wrong directions. Interesting.
“Everyone, I want you to meet our new resident, Xander McKinley,” Anna said.
They made the rounds saying hello, and he congratulated the bride and groom. Then, when his eyes met Mimi’s, he murmured, “Of course, Mimi and I have already met.” Some spark of wickedness made him want to pierce a tiny bit of air out of the stiff-necked male model still hovering over Mimi’s chair. “Did you ever figure out what to do about that problem you were having?”
She shot him a malevolent glare, but quickly forced a smile to her beautiful lips. “All figured out.” Her chin going up, she added, “Thanks for that last suggestion you called out. I have a feeling that’s definitely going to do the trick.”
His last suggestion. Commando.
Xander swallowed hard, trying not to think about how silky that dress must feel against her bare skin. And especially not to think about who she was wearing all that sexy nothingness for.
“Xander?” said the lucky son of a bitch, his smile tight. “What an … interesting name.”
“Thanks. Yours was Dimitri, right?” he replied evenly, letting his emphasis say what he wanted to say. Let the other guy’s hypocrisy come through all on its own. Who the hell was he, anyway, the name police?
“Okay, everyone,” Anna interjected, cutting through the sudden tension that had erupted between them, “time for our party favors!”
“You shouldn’t have,” said the bride, Lyssa, a tall, attractive woman who looked like an Amazon. She had a good three inches of height on her groom, who’d been introduced as Duke.
“It’s just for fun,” Anna said as she reached under the table and retrieved a large, white-lace-covered box. “Everyone gets one. Before you put your hand inside, I want you to think about what you’d most like to know about your life.”
She passed the box around. The guests reached in one by one and pulled out plastic-wrapped fortune cookies, reading out the fortunes as they were drawn. One was apparently going to come into some money, another was about to experience high highs and low lows and a third was destined to change the world.
Of course, they all played the standard, sexy fortune-cookie game—adding the words between the sheets after the fortune. There was a lot of commentary about the high highs to be had between the sheets, and he found himself laughing along with the group, most of whom were friendly, young professionals. He might be the only blue-collar guy here, and a stranger to them all, but he didn’t feel at all an outsider. Southerners just had a gift for making people feel welcome.
When Mimi drew out her fortune—after one more admonishment from Anna to be sure to think about what she wanted—Xander really started getting interested. What, he wondered, did she most want to know about in her life?
Anna was the first to notice there was more than one tiny slip of paper within Mimi’s cookie. “Ooh, a double fortune, that’s lucky!”
Mimi merely smiled and plucked the paper free, scraping away the crumbs. Drawing them closer, she said, “There are actually three.”
The three tiny slips were stuck together, some kind of factory mistake, but Anna oohed and aahed some more. Her husband, Obi-Wan, who’d been pretty quiet tonight and hadn’t had much to say to anyone, piped in. “Must have been some hard concentrating you were doing there, Mimi. The universe is definitely trying to answer your question.”
“Read them out loud,” someone called.
Mimi smiled and opened her mouth to read the first one. But she just as quickly closed it. Her fist closed around the papers and she reached for her glass of wine.
“What’s wrong?” asked Dimitri.
“Nothing. It’s just silly. Let someone else have a turn.”
“Not until you read,” Xander insisted, something making him want to know what it was she didn’t want to share.
She frowned at him, then quickly looked away. But, as if realizing nobody was going to let her get away with ignoring her fortunes, she finally unclenched her fingers and lifted the slips again. Her voice low, she read the first one.
“‘The man of your dreams is always there to catch you when you fall.’”
“Between the sheets,” called one tipsy female.
Everyone laughed. Everyone except Mimi. And Xander. And Dimitri. Because the guy might be okay-looking, and he might be rich. But Xander wasn’t sure he met the dashing-hero definition. At least, that’s what Xander was telling himself.
“Read the next one,” said the bride-to-be.
Mimi sighed, took a deep breath, then read. “‘The man of your dreams knows what you really want and how you really want it.’”
That one earned some wolf whistles, catcalls and, of course, the obligatory bed reference. Mimi shot a heated glance at her landlady, obviously wondering—as was Xander—if she’d been set up. But he didn’t see how she could have been, considering she’d dug the cookie out of a huge box and all the other fortunes read so far had been normal.
The laughter and whispers died pretty quickly this time. Everyone was curious. Because, not only was Mimi’s cookie filled with more than one fortune, but they also seemed to be related. And to have a very pointed, deliberate theme.
Dimitri’s hand tightened on Mimi’s shoulder, and she turned her head to look up at him. They shared a smile that, to everyone at the party, looked tender and romantic. The sort of smile lovers share.
They weren’t lovers. Not yet. But hell, every one of these fortunes she was reading seemed to hint they were about to take that step. That shared smile seemed to confirm it.
Some emotion hit him hard in the chest. Xander recognized it immediately: regret. This was the wrong time and place. She’d already made her choice. A day ago, before she’d made up her mind to lure the other guy into bed, maybe Xander would have had a chance with her. Now? It was too damn late.
His mouth tight and his jaw tighter, he began to back away, wanting to exit the party unnoticed. He’d taken his shot—as much of one as he could take, anyway—and recognized the truth. Whatever might have happened between him and Mimi Burdette just wasn’t meant to be.
Which meant it was time to go. He would melt out of her night as quietly and stealthily as he’d entered it.
But before he walked through the back door into the house, he heard her announce she was going to read the third fortune. Something made him wait and listen, nearly hidden in the shadows of the house.
Mimi studied the slip in silence. Lifting her eyes, she looked around as if searching for someone. He watched her, unnoticed, unseen, soon to be forgotten. Then, clearing her throat, she read her third and final fortune.