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What a day. Disaster meeting at Borg Engineering, a cancellation at ETJ Hutchins, which they hadn’t bothered to mention until he’d shown up, and now he found the idea of this guy sending Laine flowers damned irritating. A lot of money to be spending on a woman who wasn’t interested if what Roger said was true. Grayson wasn’t so sure. A guy would have to be nuts to invest that kind of money and energy into anything but a sure lay.
No point wasting time sniveling about it. Grayson was going to be spending time with her—intimate, everyday-living time. If this guy wanted her, he was going to have to do a lot better than dialing his florist.
Eight-A, 8-B and bingo, 8-C. He grinned at the number and jabbed the buzzer—four short, one long, two short, one long—Morse code for S-E-X, a silly game they’d started in college. It was going to be so good to see her. He wouldn’t be surprised if the sight of her induced the rush it always had, even when he saw her every day.
The door swung open and she stood there smiling. Yeah, the same rush hit him, maybe twice as hard for all the years he’d been without her.
“Laine.” He bent to ditch his laptop, overnight bag and briefcase, and gathered her in for a one-armed hug, inhaling her scent, wishing he could drop the damn vase to hold her the way he wanted. She always managed to smell as if she’d just come home from a day in a field of wildflowers. Total aphrodisiac.
He released her only far enough to bring her face into focus. Five years older, but only more beautiful. Blue eyes shining under straight, dark hair, perfect skin—to hell with getting reacquainted; he wanted to drag her off to his cave right this second. “It’s much too good to see you.”
She pulled away, laughing and flushed, and took the flowers he handed her. Immediately he missed her warmth and energy and wanted them back.
“Wow, are these from you, Grayson?” She lifted the vase, teasing already. She knew the odds of him thinking to buy her flowers were about one in several hundred million.
“Aren’t they always?”
“Um, no?”
“Some guy named Ben apparently makes this a habit.” He watched her closely. “Friend of yours?”
“Not really.” She darted a glance down and back. “A friend of my cousin’s. He’s just—”
“Trying to get in your pants? Or thanking you for having been there.” He registered the sharp edge in his voice at the same time she did and wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. Down, boy. Stay cool.
“Oh, for—” She threw up her free hand in a typical Laine gesture of exasperation. “Still thinking with your other head, I see.”
“It’s my favorite.” He shrugged, all innocence.
She grinned unwillingly. “Ben’s harmless. Zero interest on my part, I even told him so. Right now he’s just my self-appointed protector and florist.”
“You told him you weren’t interested, and he’s still sending you flowers?”
She nodded and inhaled rapturously over the blooms. “He’s a very sweet man.”
“No one’s that sweet.”
“Hmm.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Not that I would expect you to know anything about the concept, but apparently some men are.”
“Ha!” He grinned and put his hands on his hips, studying her, the tension of the day falling away, the energy she’d always been able to light in him strong as ever. “It’s damn good to see you, Laine.”
“You, too, Grayson.” Her gaze lingered and softened. “You look great.”
“Not as great as you.” He meant it. She was still his every fantasy of woman—city sexiness and sophistication layered over this elusive country-fresh thing she had going. His very first glance at her clingy midthigh skirt and knit sleeveless top told him her body was still strong and lean. And he knew what she could do with every square inch of it.
But he supposed suggesting they retire immediately to her bedroom for some naked gymnastics would be pushing it.
“How are your folks?” He reached to her forehead to brush aside hair that wasn’t out of place.
“Fine. Terrific. Whatever.” She lifted her arm, let it drop down against her thigh. “I’ve lived here for eight years—Mom still tells me I better come home where I belong and did I know Geoffrey Wrango was divorced and he’s always asking after me, and my sister is expecting her gazillionth child next month and aren’t I worried about getting too old? Because I can have a career anytime, but the longer I wait the greater my chances of having a kid with Down’s or not conceiving at all, plus at my age the good men are going fast, and by the way my father isn’t going to last forever and how hard could it be to jump on a plane back to Ohio and blahblahblahblahblah.”
She took a huge breath to replenish. “In other words, nothing new. Yours?”
He didn’t answer right away, actually he couldn’t. Or didn’t want to. He stood there, grinning at her, letting delight wash over him. And even though delight was a total girly emotion, damned if she didn’t delight him. He hadn’t felt this buzzed since…the last time he’d seen her. Only clinching a big deal came close to a Laine high.
“Hello?” She quirked an eyebrow and leaned forward as if to inspect his skull for some sign of occupation. “Your mom and stepdad? How are they?”
He bent to match her movement, so their faces were only inches apart. She blinked in surprise, then her sexy mouth curved up and she lifted her other brow expectantly.
“Let’s see.” He dropped his gaze to her grin, then back up to her eyes. Blue and enticing, black-lashed and mischievous. He’d spent so much time inside them that staring at her up close this way felt like coming back to a place he’d always loved. “Paris this month, Costa Rica in the fall, concerts, parties, gardening, dinners at the club, sorry, can’t talk long, the Harrises are due any minute, you remember Bob, don’t you, head of his class at Harvard, he’s now CEO of his own Fortune 500 company. In other words…”
“Nothing new.” She laughed, then lingered long enough to dart a glance at his mouth and straightened. “Come on in and see the palace.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He followed with his bags, staring unapologetically at the sway of her firm rear, imagining himself into the beginnings of an erection. God, what pigs men were. He should be asking her how she was doing, where her life had been, where it was going, not salivating over her ass. But damn it, the woman had one fine ass.
They passed the tiny kitchen area to the left and entered the living room straight ahead, where Laine put the vase on a glass-topped coffee table, picked up what must be last week’s fading bouquet and disappeared into the kitchen to dump it. Regardless of what Laine said, this Ben guy must have reason to think he’d caught the scent to heaven. No guy was that much of a sap otherwise.
Grayson parked his stuff against a beige couch and looked around. Hardwood floors with the Oriental rug she bought in Murray Hill a few years after college, TV in a wooden cabinet whose open doors revealed a disarray of workout tapes and chick movies and a white ceramic lamp that had belonged to her mother. Against one wall stood the dining table; above it hung the detailed print of the Sacre Coeur she’d bought on a high school trip to Paris. He glanced at the overstuffed armchair he and Laine had found on a curb, hauled up to her old apartment together and had re-upholstered. He ran his hand over the armrest. The chair probably wasn’t worth a cent, but to them it had been the fantasy of stumbling over a discarded priceless antique.
Other unfamiliar things must be new acquisitions or belong to her roommate. He walked to the huge windows and pushed aside the sheer white curtains. Pretty decent cityscape thanks to the low buildings around them. Though he bet she used to be able to see the Twin Towers out this window.
He grimaced, then dropped the curtain and turned when he heard her come back into the room. She stood near the couch, clear eyes on him, shooting off her patented Laine energy even standing still. If he didn’t know how amazing it was to be a whole lot closer, he’d swear he could be happy standing here watching her for the rest of the day. God he’d missed her. Didn’t realize how much until he saw her again. No wonder he still dreamed about her. He was ready to dive back in without even knowing where they’d land.
“Want to see the rest of the place?”
“Sure.” He picked up his bags and followed her down the hallway, not understanding the mischievous smile she shot back until she gestured him into a small, unbearably feminine bedroom with flowered curtains and matching yellow bedspread and rug.
“Wow.” He put his bags down and surveyed the room, wondering if he’d emerge from this summer with the urge to wear panty hose. “This is so extra special.”
“I knew you’d like it.” Laine laughed behind him. “You’re so fetching in pastels.”
He sent her a grin over his shoulder. “It’s fine. It’s just what I need, Laine. And thanks for agreeing to let me use it.”
“Well, it helps me out, too.”
He turned, deciding he really liked being in a bedroom with her again. “You scratch mine, I’ll scratch yours?”
“Something like that.” She cocked her head and gave him a strange Mona Lisa smile. “Come see the rest? Or do you want to unpack?”
“Nothing to unpack really, since I’m only staying tonight this time.” He pulled off his tie and threw it on the yellow bedspread, slipped slowly out of his jacket, watching for her reaction. “I am dying to get out of this suit, though.”
“Okay.” She took a step back and paused in the doorway. “I have a couple of e-mails to send, then we can have dinner.”
He tossed his jacket on the bed and started to unbutton his shirt, giving her what they used to call the Green Light Grin. “What, you don’t want to stay and watch me change?”
“Ha!” She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, then directed them down to his chest as if she couldn’t help wanting to see it again. “You’ll never change.”
“Ah, Laine, but would you want me to?” He tossed the shirt over the jacket and slowly started to unbuckle his belt, watching her, waiting for when she’d start darting those hungry glances down.
Instead she paused and looked thoughtful, apparently taking the question more seriously than expected. He stopped in the middle of unzipping his fly. He did not want to hear this answer standing in his underwear.
“I guess not.”
“Okay.” He hadn’t a clue how to respond. She guessed not? How was he supposed to take that? “I’ll just be a sec.”
She nodded and left, turning to the right, away from the living room toward what must be her bedroom.
Well, okay. He hadn’t seen her for five years, maybe it was unreasonable to expect that the sight of him in an undershirt would send her into paroxysms of lust. But he knew Laine. She could jump-start into sexual arousal like nothing he’d ever seen. Sometimes all it took was the Green Light Grin to get her going. He’d loved touching her, exploring her body, but unlike other women, it wasn’t so much foreplay as teasing.
Grayson shrugged, took off his pants and undershirt, and hung the suit in the closet next to a brilliant array of female suits and cocktail dresses. Just because he could shake off the years apart at first sight didn’t mean the same was true for her.
He pulled on jeans and a collarless teal polo shirt, a near duplicate of one Laine had bought him shortly before he’d moved away, saying she was sick of him wearing neutral colors. Finally, unpacked and feeling cooler, he scooped up his bathroom supplies and made his way in the direction Laine had gone, found the bathroom and grinned at the nearly bare counter and cabinet.
His ex-girlfriend in Chicago, Meg, had an entire drugstore in her bathroom. Cosmetics and lotions and cleaners—no, excuse him, cleansers—and polishes and waxes and miracle creams and toners, whatever the hell those were, plus puffs and poufs and wipes and assorted metal instruments of torture. No amount of persuasion convinced her she looked fine as is, maybe even better without all that crap slathered on. The fountain of youth was alive and well in the human brain, not in a million dollars’ worth of merchandise. Someone like Laine would still be a young woman at age eighty-five.
He emerged from the bathroom and headed for the only doorway left unexplored in the place. Laine’s bedroom. Where he hoped to be spending a lot of time this summer.
The room was evocatively familiar. She still had the queen mattress they’d bought together—in the same walnut frame—the same rose-colored bedspread, right now strewn with pamphlets and magazines, still had her grandmother’s dark wood dresser and the matching antique vanity. New to her setup, though—a computer workstation and a more up-to-date PC than the one she’d used when they were together.
At this PC, staring intently at the screen, sat Laine, sucking on a lollipop—ever the snack addict. Even though the door was open, he knocked.
“Come in.” She swiveled her chair toward him and smiled. “Got everything you need?”
He bit back the obvious answer and gestured around the room. “This looks awfully familiar.”
“Same old stuff. I’ll just be a second here, then we can have a beer.”
“Beer sounds fine.” He moved toward the bed and picked up a handful of printed material. “What’s all this?”
“I’m planning all kinds of fun this summer. Stuff I’ve always wanted to do but never had time.”
“You’re doing all this?” He shuffled through the magazines. “Yoga? Pottery? Cooking school? Dance classes? Skydiving?”
“Yup.” She hit a key, closed out the window on her screen and jumped up, coming to stand next to him. “Cool, huh? That skydiving place looks amazing. They’re booked up for a few weeks, but I think I’ll sign up. You only need a half hour of instruction, then you can do a tandem jump with one of the instructors.”
“Wow.” He was already envious of the instructors. Her scent was getting to him; she was slightly nearsighted and stood close to see the magazines. If he moved his left arm, he’d probably brush against her breast.
“And this.” She took the lollipop out of her mouth, reached to point, and her breast brushed against his tricep all by itself. “Is the yoga class I signed up for. Judy takes it, too. She says it’s changed her life.”
“Really.” He was barely listening, just taking her in, the sweet smell of cherry lollipop, the warmth of her nearness, the softness of her breast on his arm.
“And this.” Another point to another publication, another brush. “Is a place where you can sign up for cooking lessons. The woman running the place teaches French, Thai, a whole bunch of cuisines. Each session gives instructions for a complete meal. And this…”
Enough torture. He dumped the magazines back on the bed, lifted her under the arms and swung her against the wall.
“Grayson!” His name came out slightly garbled from the lollipop shoved against her cheek. “What are you doing?”
“I was wondering—” he grinned at her breathless tone, the darkening of her eyes, and looked down at her mouth, the white paper stick pressed firmly between her sexy lips “—when you were going to offer me a suck.”
She snorted with surprised laughter, nearly losing the lollipop. He commandeered it and pushed it slowly into his own mouth. “Mmm, cherry. My favorite.”
“You are awful. Give me that.”
“Okay.” He took it out of his mouth, held it out of reach when she tried to grab it back. “Open your mouth.”
“Grayson…”
“Open.”
She stared at him for a second with an expression he couldn’t read, then opened her mouth. He licked the candy one more time, then painted it, sticky and wet, across her lips.
She sucked her breath in sharply and froze. Grayson suppressed a smile of triumph. He had her right where he wanted her. Remembering a certain other lollipop—grape, as he recalled—that he’d drawn over her lips just like this, then back into his mouth to moisten like a water-colorist dipping his brush into water. Then he’d painted the candy again over her nipples, around her navel, between her legs, leisurely sucking off the sticky sweetness after each application.
This time she licked her own lips clean and grabbed for the sucker, which he held out of her reach again.
“Say please,” he said in the low whisper he used when they were playing sex games, when he’d make her beg.
“No. Grayson…” She pressed back against the wall, eyes wide, face flushed, but not with pleasure. She looked confused, troubled.
Immediately he let her go, put the lollipop back in her mouth and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Just playing.”
“I know. It’s just…” She laughed uneasily, grabbed the stick and crunched the lollipop into bits. “Well, how about that beer now?”
“Beer sounds fine.” He followed her to the tiny kitchen, uneasy, deflated, and perched on a stool across the tile counter. What was that about? She still wanted him, she’d responded, but something was keeping her back. “Are you seeing someone?”
She put two bottles on the counter and turned to fish through a drawer. He picked one, gave the top a mighty twist and let go in a hurry, shaking his hand to ease the sting.
“Opener?” She pushed one across the counter and leaned forward on folded arms. “No, I’m not seeing anyone…yet.”
Yet? “Ben.”
“No, not Ben. I told you not Ben.”
He shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel, pulled open the top to her beer, then his and took a long swallow, watching the top of her bent head. “Then who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He paused with the bottle against his lip. “You don’t know.”
“Well some friends and I…some online friends from this reading group, Eve’s Apple…” She gestured aimlessly, then clutched the beer bottle in both hands. “We split off from the main group and we’re…looking for Men To Do.”
“Men to do?”
“Men To Do Before Saying I Do.”
He lowered the bottle to the counter, his taste for beer gone. “Work with me here, Laine. What the hell are you talking about?”
“We want to find men who are totally inappropriate for marriage—or even relationships—and…” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Do them.”
“Yup.” She straightened suddenly and opened a cabinet behind her. “You hungry?”
“No.” He folded his arms across his chest. Call him a caveman, call him irrationally possessive, call him whatever you wanted, he did not like the sound of this. “So you haven’t found a man yet?”
“Not yet.” She brought down a bag of sourdough pretzels, her mood entirely too cheerful for his taste. “I’ve found some possibles, though.”
“Where? Wait, don’t tell me. Men To Do magazine? MenToDo.com? The Men To Do Show?”
She tore open the bag and rolled her eyes, then walked around the counter and sat on the stool next to him. “NYdates.com.”
“Okay.” He pictured her e-mailing furiously in her bedroom just now and felt vaguely sick. “So what happens next?”
She crunched on a pretzel. “I find someone I like, we write back and forth, and if he sounds good, then I go meet him for a drink or dinner or something.”
“And do him.”
She chased the pretzel with a swallow of beer. “Yeah, if it works out.”
“And will you tell this guy that you’re just ‘doing’ him and not interested in anything more than that?”
“Like a guy would care?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Okay, you got me on that one.”
She laughed and punched him playfully; he caught her hand and pulled her off the stool, opened his legs and brought her in just between his knees. “You sure this is a good idea?”
“It’s perfect. Just right for my summer of fun.” She tried to pull away, but he kept her there, hands at her slim waist, dying to pull her forward flush against him but not wanting to upset her again.
“What if you meet a psycho?”
“Honey, I already dated you, what’s a psycho going to do?”
“Ha.” He tightened his hold, pulled her toward him another inch, and splayed his fingers along the sides of her body. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She gave a forced laugh. “Too bad you didn’t feel that way when we were together.”
He started, shocked at the bitterness in her tone even though her expression stayed teasing. Okay. Maybe the past hadn’t been laid to rest on a lot of levels, but he wasn’t digging all that crap up now. “We’re talking about you and the Neanderthals of New York.”
“Getting hurt is not an option. These will be deliberately inappropriate men. The only thing involved will be my body.”
He suppressed a primal growl and moved his thumbs up and down her firm stomach, noting her sudden stillness with satisfaction. “So when you bring these guys home to do, can I watch?”
“Ha.” She gave a distracted grin as if she was responding on autopilot. “I don’t think so.”
He moved his thumbs up her rib cage, tugged her in even closer. “Maybe press a glass to the wall and listen?”
“Pervert.” She mumbled the word somewhat dreamily.
“Because I wouldn’t really need to see, if I could hear.” He spoke softly, moved his hands slowly up until his thumbs would be able to brush across her breasts if he extended them. “I already know the noises you make. I’d know when you were getting close, when you make that whimpering sound like nothing else in the world matters to you right then but coming.”
“Stop.” She was whispering, too, still motionless, caught.
“Stop what?” He was getting hard touching her, talking about her, picturing how she looked right before she came. “What am I doing?”
She pushed away and went back around to her side of the counter, grabbed her beer and shoved her hand into the bag of pretzels. “Trying to get into my pants.”
“So what’s your point?” He meant the comment playfully, but his dick was hard, he wanted her, it looked as if that wasn’t going to happen right now, he didn’t understand why not, and it pissed him off.
“My point is that my pants are off limits.”
“From what I just heard, it sounds like freaking open season.”
“Not for you, Grayson. Been there, done you, not going there again.”
She said the words calmly, looking right into his eyes. He tightened his mouth, felt a reflexive jerk in his gut. That time she was serious. Her body might still want him, but her brain was firmly opposed.
“Okay. Message received and understood.”
“Good.” She let out a breath and grinned a sweet grin he was in no mood to return. “Now that’s out of the way, are you hungry?”
She turned and reached up into another cabinet; the gesture parted her shirt and skirt, exposing smooth skin and accentuating the curve of her gorgeous ass.
“Yeah, I’m hungry.”
She had no idea how hungry. But damn it, getting the meal he wanted was going to be much more of a challenge than he thought.
4
From: Angie Keller
Sent: Tuesday
To: Laine Blackwell; Kathy Baker
Subject: Re: Men To Do and (ack!) Old Boyfriend Returns
Hey, girl. I’d say you have yourself a winner with this Antonio guy. Mmm-mmm, them’s good eatin’. If things don’t work out, you can send him on down here to North Carolina, and I’ll show the boy how to boogie.
But what I really want is to see pictures of this ex of yours, butt-naked if possible. And come on, give Angie a break. You’re planning to live with this guy all summer who was heaven-on-earth to screw and nothing’s gonna happen? Yeow! I’m betting the air was pretty darn thick when he walked in. Or maybe you two have already revisited paradise? That kind of chemistry doesn’t just get up and walk away.
Heck, girl, live a little! Two at once. Vain Foreigner and the Gray Stud.
Just make sure to send details. And pictures. And detailed pictures.
Me, I’m still prowling the bars of Asheville, N.C. No luck last night unless you count the drooling icky married guy, but come the weekend, I’m there again.
God bless,
Angie
From: Kathy Baker
Sent: Tuesday
To: Laine Blackwell; Angie Keller
Subject: The Vain Foreigner and Old Boyfriend