Jessica twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “Alex, honey, of course I want you—”

Alex inhaled sharply, his eyes darkening.

“To do the shot, I mean.” Jessica grabbed a slice of lime from the bowl atop the bar and placed it on her collarbone. Unsure of what to do with the salt and shot glass, she held the shaker in one hand and the tequila in the other. Then she waited, squirming atop the wooden surface, trembling with a combination of anticipation and fear. She’d just manipulated Alex into doing a body shot off her in the middle of a crowded bar. If this didn’t make her a wild, saucy woman, she didn’t know what would.

Jessica almost felt proud of herself for making it this far, until Alex stepped closer and licked the side of her neck, his tongue—moist and hot—lingering lazily on her skin.

The room began to spin around her, and she shivered, arching toward him.

“You’re sure this is what you want?” Alex’s voice was low, rough, his breath hot.

Jessica swallowed hard, suddenly caught in a wave of panic. What was she doing? But then Alex’s tongue pressed against her pulse point, and all reason and logic were swept away.

“Yes, Alex,” Jessica said with a gasp. “I’m definitely sure.”

Perfectly Saucy

Emily McKay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Dear Reader,

This is probably my last Dear Reader letter for Harlequin Temptation. I can’t even begin to tell you what an honor it has been for me to write for this line or how sad I am for it to come to an end. Some of my all-time-favorite books are Harlequin Temptation novels. Books that are grown-up versions of my favorite fairy tales, like Janice Kaiser’s beauty and the beast story, Wilde at Heart (#429), and Kate Hoffmann’s ugly duckling story, Love Potion #9 (#487). Books that made me laugh out loud, like Stephanie Bond’s About Last Night…(#751). Books that I love because I felt a deep connection to the heroine, like Barbara Delinsky’s The Outsider (#385) and Selina Sinclair’s A Diamond in the Rough (#688). And finally, there are the books that I just plain love because they’re so darn good, like Lyn Ellis’s Dear John… (#488) and Donna Sterling’s His Double, Her Trouble (#655).

These are the books that I’ve loved as a reader. For the writer in me, each of these books has raised the bar. Every time I sit down at the computer, this is what I aim for. I hope I reached it with Perfectly Saucy.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can e-mail me at Emily@EmilyMcKay.com or write to me at P.O. Box 163104, Austin, TX 78716-3104.

Enjoy,

Emily McKay

Books by Emily McKay

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

912—BABY, BE MINE

976—PERFECTLY SEXY

For my wonderful family. For my father, who taught me to do the right thing, my mother, who taught me how to have fun, and my sister, who is always there for me.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Prologue

10 THINGS EVERY WOMAN SHOULD DO

—Excerpted from Saucy magazine

1 Find Your Fling—After all, when was the last time you had an affair to remember?

2 Don’t Be a Homebody—Fly away from your nest to live abroad.

3 Go Tribal—Get a tattoo or piercing to channel the wild thing inside.

4 Release Your Inner Dominatrix—Buy a leather skirt and wear it proudly. Whip, optional.

5 Be a Diva in Bed—Don’t just ask for what you want, demand it.

6 Drop the Drawers—He’ll go crazy when he finds out you’re going commando.

7 Live in the Fast Lane—Relive the thrill of the forbidden by having sex in the back seat of the car.

8 Just Admit It—Own up to a big mistake. After all, confession is good for your soul and guilt is bad for your skin.

9 Shake Up Your Space—Because life should be shaken, not stirred.

10 Conquer It—Overcome your greatest fear and you’ll know you can do anything.

1

ALEX MORENO was the first person Jessica Summers had ever heard say the F-word out loud. By the time she’d heard him say it in the eighth grade, she was fairly certain he’d already done…it several times.

Even at fourteen he’d had his pick of girls and the girls he’d picked were almost always older, more experienced and willing to do all the things Jessica only whispered about at sleep-overs. In high school he’d been the kind of boy girls fawned over, boys picked fights with and teachers disciplined just to prove they were in control.

Apparently things hadn’t changed much. Two weeks ago Jessica had seen him for the first time in more than ten years. He’d been walking down the street with a kind of lazy confidence that declared he was back in Palo Verde to stay and there was nothing anyone could do about it, short of arresting him and physically hauling his ass out of town. Again.

Even after all this time, they were still polar opposites. He was the son of migrant farm workers. She was the daughter of the town’s most prominent family. He was wild, reckless and brash. The ultimate bad boy.

She, on the other hand, seemed doomed to a tragically boring, spinsterlike existence. Unless she did something drastic.

Jessica glanced down at the delicate silver watch on her wrist. Four forty-five. Alex would be here soon and the next hour was going to go either very well or very badly.

Turning, she paced the length of her kitchen, the three-inch heels of her shoes rat-tating across the tile floor, echoing the pounding of her heart. She reached the arched doorway to her living room and kept going, the plush cream carpet muffling the clatter of her heels as she strode toward the sliding-glass door that looked out onto her back patio and pool. She stood for a moment, watching the surface of the water ripple in a breeze and wishing she wasn’t perpetually early. Today, fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity.

Her telephone rang, its shrill clatter piercing the silence. She spun around, lunging for the cordless phone she kept on the coffee table, sure it was Alex calling to cancel their appointment.

Her heel caught on the carpet and she kicked off her shoes, nudging them under the table as she grabbed the handset. For a second she clutched the phone, exhaling sharply so she wouldn’t sound like such a nervous wreck. Would she be disappointed or relieved if he couldn’t make it?

Mustering her courage, she punched the talk button and tried to sound casual. “Hello? Sumners residence.”

God, why did she always sound as though she was answering her parents’ phone?

“What are you wearing?” demanded a feminine voice.

“Patricia?”

“No, it’s your great-uncle Vernon. Of course it’s Patricia.” Her voice practically rang with exasperation. “He’s going to be there soon, right?”

“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”

“So don’t waste my time with pleasantries. If you’d responded to my e-mails at work today, we wouldn’t have to do this at the last minute. Now, what are you wearing?”

Jessica had made the mistake of telling Patricia over lunch about her plan to meet Alex this evening. The other woman had ignored work all afternoon, peppering Jessica with frantic e-mail questions. Most of which Jessica had ignored. “Why does it matter what I’m wearing?”

“You’re going to see Alex for the first time in how many years?”

“Ten.”

“And you don’t think it matters what you’re wearing?” She didn’t give Jessica a chance to answer but plowed right ahead with the conversation. “Just tell me it’s not one of your god-awful, prissy little sweater sets.”

“No,” she said through gritted teeth as she made her way to the entry hall. “It’s not one of my practical and comfortable sweater sets. I’m wearing a simple black silk sheath dress.”

“Is it tight?”

Jessica paused in front of the hall mirror just long enough to shoot herself a piercing look. “No.”

“Is it low-cut?”

“No.” She felt a sinking sensation deep in her belly. Had she worn the completely wrong thing?

“It’s at least short?”

Jessica extended her leg to get a better look at the length. “Four, maybe five inches above the knee.”

“Good. That’s good. Your legs are your best feature.”

Please, Dear God, let Alex be a leg man.

“Okay,” Patricia barked, clearly moving beyond the clothing issue. “So what’s your game plan?”

“Game plan?”

“What’re you going to do? Just invite him in and proposition him?”

“No, of course not!” When she’d spoken to Alex on the phone earlier this afternoon she’d said something inane about wanting to hire his construction company to do work on her house. But she’d had no idea how she would segue from “Want to remodel my kitchen” to “Want to go out sometime?” Or, after a date or two, to transition to “Want to tear off each other’s clothes and have mad, passionate sex? Often?”

To Patricia she said, “I just…”

“Just what?”

“I don’t know.” She spun on her heel and stomped back to the kitchen, suddenly irritated with herself. “I don’t really have a plan.”

“Exactly. You don’t have a plan. That’s what worries me. You always have a plan.”

“That’s not—”

“Did you or did you not just send everyone in our team a detailed plan of what to do in case of a tornado?”

“I’m the floor safety manager now. It’s my job to—”

“We live in California. There are no tornadoes in California.”

“But—”

“Ever.”

She started to explain that she was just trying to do her job well. That she took her new responsibilities at work seriously. But wasn’t that the problem? She always took everything so dang seriously.

Before she could put any of that into words, Patricia babbled on. “So, yes, it scares me that you have no plan. This is just so unlike you. Inviting Alex Moreno over so you can seduce him or whatever is just so…so…”

“Like something you would do?”

“Exactly. This is what concerns me. You are acting like me.”

“Well, you can stop worrying. I’m not going to seduce or proposition him. I promise. I just want to see him again.”

To see if any spark of attraction still lingered between them.

And if it did?

Well, she’d worry about that when the time came.

“See him again?” Patricia asked shrewdly. “There wasn’t something going on between you two back in school, was there?”

“No,” she said dismissively. And it wasn’t entirely a lie.

“I didn’t think so. I mean, I’d heard the rumors, but I never thought they were true.”

“Rumors?” She’d certainly never heard any rumors connecting the two of them.

“That you were secretly in love. That you were going to run away together. I figured it was nonsense. I mean, you and Alex Moreno? It was more absurd than that rumor about the giant snake living in the second-floor bathroom.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, more than a little offended about the snake comparison.

“Just that you weren’t each other’s type. You were such a Goody Two-shoes in high school. And he was always in and out of trouble. And on top of all that, your father was the judge. How ironic would that have been? The daughter of a judge dating a guy who’d been arrested at least a dozen times.”

“Hmm. Very,” Jessica said noncommittally. Of course, the real irony was that, although the rumors had been false, at the time, she would have given anything for them to be true.

“But I guess you must have had a crush on him then,” Patricia continued blithely. “Or else you wouldn’t be thinking of having your passionate fling with him now. Not that I blame you. He was scrumptious even at eighteen. And just so bad.”

Patricia’s inflection on the word “bad” made it clear she thought “bad” was a very good thing.

And Jessica supposed she knew what Patricia meant. Even a Goody Two-shoes like her could appreciate the thrilling appeal of being naughty. But that was never what had drawn her to Alex.

It wasn’t his bad-boy charm, his many arrests or the titillation of shocking her parents and her peers. No, what appealed to her most about Alex Moreno—even now—was all the things about him no one else saw. His strength. His kindness. His integrity.

Well, all that and his sizzling raw sex appeal.

For now she needed to get Patricia off the phone before her friend’s circuitous logic drove her absolutely batty.

But before she hung up, she couldn’t help but ask, “What I don’t get is this. If you’re so worried about what I’m doing, why did you want to make sure my clothes met with your approval?”

“Well, sure, I’m worried. That’s all the more reason for you to look drool-worthy. If you’re going to make a fool out of yourself, I at least want you to look good while you do it.”

Buoyed by Patricia’s “encouragement,” Jessica poured herself a splash of wine and gulped it down. “Thanks, that’s very helpful.”

“I’m sorry I’m not more optimistic.” But Patricia didn’t sound the least bit contrite. “Look, I can understand you wanting to get some—I mean, lately you’ve been living like a nun—but, come on, Alex Moreno? Going from celibacy straight to him is like deciding you need to work out more often and starting by climbing Mount Everest.”

“Pffft,” Jessica muttered dismissively. But was Patricia right? Was Alex the Mount Everest of men? Was she insane for thinking he might be interested in her? Was she crazy for thinking he’d even remember her?

“Jess, you can ‘pffft’ all you want, but he’s the baddest bad boy this town has ever known. You could get into serious trouble with a guy like him. And if you’re doing this just because of that silly list…”

On her way back from a nine-week-long business trip to Sweden—a trip during which she’d worked her butt off and still hadn’t gotten the promotion she’d been promised—she’d picked up a copy of Saucy magazine in Gatwick Airport. The cover article was “10 Things Every Woman Should Do.” Have an Affair to Remember was at the top of that list. And Alex Moreno was at the top of her list of men she’d want to have a passionate affair with.

“Patricia, you only think The List is silly because you’ve done all of the things on The List.”

“Well—” She chuckled, sounding just a tad smug. “I guess I have.”

“Exactly,” Jessica growled.

“Hey.” Patricia sounded falsely cheerful. “It’s not like you haven’t done any of the things on the list.”

“One. I’ve done one. Live Abroad. That’s the one and only thing on The List that I’ve done. And that hardly counts since I did that for work.”

“All I’m saying is,” Patricia countered, “you want to do some of the things on The List? Fine. But start with something smaller. Something a little less traumatic. Less likely to come back and bite you on the ass. Why not buy a leather miniskirt? That was on the list, too, right? Or get a tattoo.”

“Get a tattoo? You think permanently scarring my body would be less traumatic than sleeping with Alex?”

“Okay, traumatic maybe wasn’t the best word. Drastic is more what I meant. I just don’t think you need to do anything quite so drastic.”

And that was exactly what Patricia—who’d done all the things on the list numerous times—didn’t get. Drastic was just what Jessica needed.

“I’ve worked for Handheld Technologies for six years now,” she pointed out. “For the past two years, I’ve been working my butt off for a promotion to team leader. Instead of promoting me, they made me floor safety manager—the schmuck in charge of keeping the first-aid kit stocked and evacuating the floor in case of a natural disaster.”

“It’s almost like a promotion,” Patricia murmured in placating tones. “It’s a sign they trust you.”

“No, it’s a sign they think I’ll look okay in a bright orange vest. I’m tired of settling for floor safety manager. I’m tired of settling, period. I’m ready to start living my life.”

And—silly or not—she’d begin with that list of ten things every woman should do. As soon as she’d seen it, she’d pulled out her Day-Timer and copied each item onto her Priority Action sheet. She’d start at the top and work her way down. And at the top of her list was Alex Moreno.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” Jessica said.

“Just remember to sway your hips when you walk. And lick your lips a lot. And—”

“Patricia—”

“And…and, good luck!”

Jessica punched the off button and returned the phone to its cradle. Luck? She didn’t need luck. She was a Saucy woman now. Or she would be soon. Once she checked all the items off The List.

STANDING ON THE doorstep of Jessica Sumners’s quaint, ranch-style house, Alex Moreno felt as nervous as he had standing in her father’s courtroom a decade ago.

Not for the first time since he’d moved back to Palo Verde, did he doubt his sanity. He’d moved home to prove to this town that he’d changed. That he wasn’t the wild, reckless kid he’d been back in high school. He was now a successful businessman and upstanding member of the community. A damn paragon of responsibility.

All of which would have been a hell of a lot easier to prove if someone would actually hire him. He needed this job.

Despite that, he hated that his first job would be from her.

In the past decade he’d imagined seeing her again more often than he cared to admit. He’d pictured them meeting as equals, he casually mentioning the jobs he’d worked on in L.A. and the Bay Area, her suitably impressed by his success. Never once had he pictured standing on her doorstep, praying she’d hire him and thus resuscitate his dwindling bank balance.

As he rang the doorbell he caught a flash of movement through the leaded glass of her front door. His stomach turned over in anticipation.

Through the window, he saw her walk toward the door and swing it open. Her eyes flicked up the length of his body then came to rest on his face. Her smile faltered and he watched her struggle to keep it in place.

She looked nervous, but even nervous, she still took his breath away. She wore a simple black dress, with her hair pulled back. A pearl hung from a silver chain around her neck. Her strained expression undermined the elegance of her appearance. Maybe she was dressed for a funeral. Either way, he saw a flicker of anxiety in her eyes. As if he was the cause of her heightened emotions.

“Alex.” She murmured his name, almost caressing it with her mouth.

The sound of his name on her lips sent a wholly inappropriate shiver of pure lust through his gut.

Then she cleared her throat, swung the door open wide enough to let him in and held out her hand for his. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“No problem.” Her hand felt small and warm, her handshake surprisingly firm. He pulled his hand from hers then held out the portfolio describing his experience and listing his references.

Jessica blinked in surprise at the folder, then finally took it. She barely glanced at it before laying it on the marble-topped table beside the door. Her gaze traveled down his length to settle somewhere near his feet.

“You wanted me to look at your kitchen,” he reminded her. He’d come straight from work. His shoes, his clothes—hell, everything about him—carried the dust of a hundred construction sites. He worked for a living—hard, manual labor. That never bothered him…until this instant, standing on Jessica’s doorstep.

“Oh, yes.” She blushed, stepping aside so he could enter. “It’s this way.”

She gestured for him to follow her, then turned and walked through the wide doorway to the living room. Her hips swayed gently as she moved. The movement dragged his gaze down the long length of her legs to her bare feet. Her little black dress did nothing for him…but, man, oh man, the sight of her bare feet twisted him into a few knots.

Her feet were narrow and delicate, but not tiny. The feet of a tall woman, with long, graceful toes and high arches. Pale…and perfect. Perfectly manicured. Perfectly buffed. The pampered feet of a rich woman.

He glanced down at his own dirt-crusted work boots.

She swiveled back toward him, one foot planted firmly on the ground, the other leg bent slightly at the knee, exposing the arch of her foot and accentuating the curve of her calf.

Between them stretched a good ten feet of pristine cream carpet. Carpet he would track dirt all over the second he crossed her threshold.

“It’s through here.” She pointed through the living room toward the west end of her house.

“Right.” He wiped his feet on her doormat, but it didn’t do much good. Giving up, he stepped through her doorway, excruciatingly aware of the dried mud that flaked off his boots onto her floor. Yep, some things never changed.

He’d aged ten years since he’d last seen Jessica Sumners. He’d traveled halfway across the country and back. He’d opened and run his own business. Built houses for people who could buy and sell the Sumners. But the second he’d stepped foot back in this town, he’d felt like a dirty mojadito. Completely unworthy to even stand on her doorstep, let alone do or say any of the things he yearned to.

Jessica Sumners was the closest thing their little California town had to royalty. She came from a world of wealth and privilege, he, from one of dirt and sweat.

Not that Jess had ever treated him like a wetback. No, she’d treated him with the same cool but equable friendliness she’d treated everyone at their high school.

Except for a few short weeks in his senior year when their relationship had evolved into something more. Something he still couldn’t define or explain. Something that still sometimes kept him up at night.

But based on her cool reception, he wasn’t even sure she remembered those weeks. Either way, he’d be damned if he tracked dirt across the floor of the one person in this town who’d never treated him like filth. He reached down and tugged loose his laces, then toed off his boots. Grime ringed his white socks where his boots met his ankles, but there was nothing he could do about that.

He followed her into the kitchen, trying not to notice the seductive rhythm of her hips as she moved. Her long legs accentuated the length of her stride. No pretension or seduction there. Which made the pull even stronger.

“Well, this is it.” She gestured broadly to the kitchen like a game-show hostess revealing the prize behind door number two.

Taking in the room, he frowned. White-painted cabinets, white appliances and dark green laminate counter-tops in a simple galley-style kitchen. Dated, but functional.

Scratching his chin, he asked, “What exactly were you looking to have done?”

She crept closer. Standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder, she studied the kitchen, head tilted slightly toward him. “I don’t know.” She shifted, her bare shoulder brushing his sleeve as she faced him. “I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

“On the phone you said you wanted to meet as soon as possible. You implied it was an emergency.”

Her gaze shifted nervously away from his. She appraised the kitchen, her forehead furrowing in a frown, before saying, “Haven’t you ever made a decision and wanted to act on it as soon as possible? Just wanted to get it over with?”

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

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

Dang, but he was susceptible to her.

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

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

She frowned. “In what way?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you think?”

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

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

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

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

“So you think I should…”

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

“Really? You can do that?”

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

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

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

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

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

Just his luck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The pisser was…he was tempted.

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No!” Her spine stiffened.

“Then what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That was rude,” she finally said.

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

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

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

“You don’t think I work?”

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

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

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

Except she was.

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

She felt hot and tingly. Exposed.

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

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

How in the world had that gone so wrong?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Find Your Fling.

2 Don’t Be a Homebody.

3 Go Tribal.

4 Release Your Inner Dominatrix.

5 Be a Diva in Bed.

6 Drop the Drawers.

7 Live in the Fast Lane.

8 Just Admit It.

9 Shake Up Your Space.

10 Conquer It.

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

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

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

2

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

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

She blew out a long, slow breath.

Yep. Just nerves. That was it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’ll be less dusty outside.”

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

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

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

He stared at her in blank disbelief.

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

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

Wow. Could this go any worse?

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

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

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

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

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

“So you don’t want to sleep with me?”

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

“You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“Tell me anyway,” he coaxed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The List’?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In that instant she knew—she hadn’t come here to apologize. She didn’t want him to forgive her. She’d come here hoping…Hoping what?

That he wanted her as much as she wanted him?

That the kiss they’d shared yesterday had been more than just a kiss?

That it had kept him up all night—hot and wanting—as it had her?

Yes, yes and yes. What she’d really wanted was for him to touch her again. After a lifetime of being coddled and cosseted by men with soft hands, she wanted this rough man—these hands—to touch her. Just once she wanted to know how that felt.

Too bad he didn’t seem to want the same thing.

Okay, maybe he was a little interested. After all, that kiss in the kitchen had been pretty hot. But she wanted more. She wanted the kind of passion he couldn’t walk away from.

She never again wanted to settle for less than that.

ALEX WATCHED HER as she scooted off the bench and stood. She made it about three steps down the driveway toward her car before he stopped her. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want her to leave like this.

“Wait, Jessica.”

She swung back to face him, her spine unnaturally stiff, her chin a notch higher. Outwardly she seemed so together. Cool and in control. But there was vulnerability there, too. That was what he couldn’t walk away from.

“Why me? When you decided you wanted to have a passionate fling, why’d you pick me?”

He was an idiot for asking. But he wanted to spend more time with her almost as much as he wanted to take her to bed and do all kinds of sinful things to her body.

Jessica didn’t answer right away. For a long moment she just studied him, her head tilted at an angle that let a lock of her hair fall across her cheek. Her expression was cautious, as if she were trying to decide whether or not to tell him the truth.

Finally she said, “I had a crush on you in high school. I was a junior, and you were a senior. It all started one day when—” Her gaze darted away from his and the barest hint of a blush crept into her cheeks. “You probably don’t even remember it.”

“Try me.”

But he did remember. He knew exactly which day she meant.

“I was walking home from school alone one day. A couple of boys cornered me by the old Dawson house, where I used to cut across the creek. One of them was that Morse boy. Ronald, I think. His brother had been picked up for drunk driving. This was back when my father was still a judge and he’d just sentenced Ronald’s brother. He was a repeat offender. My father had no choice. But Ronald was looking for someone to blame. I guess I was an easy target.”

The way she said it—so simply, with no resentment or anger in her voice—made him wonder how often that kind of thing had happened. How many of her fellow students had resented her, hated her even, because of the power her father yielded?

“So there I was, all alone with these three guys, when you came along and—”

“Saved you.” He finished the sentence for her because he couldn’t stand to hear the hero worship in her voice.

Her gaze snapped back to his. “You do remember.”

As if it were yesterday. In vivid detail. And he remembered all the things she was leaving out and skimming over. Her “a couple of boys” had been three huge guys. Football players, if he remembered right. Big, dumb and just looking for an excuse to pin Jessica Sumners up against a tree.

Which was exactly where they’d had her when he’d come along. She must have been terrified, but there hadn’t even been a glimmer of emotion in her eyes. She hadn’t begged or cried out or even fought them, as if she’d instinctively known that would only incite their rage. Instead she’d stood there, her gaze as calm and steady as her voice as she’d talked to Ronald.

Her tone so soft, Alex hadn’t caught much of what she’d said. Something about how this would be for the best. How his brother could get the help he needed.

Alex had stood there, half hidden by the fence, his blood pounding, waiting to see what would happen. Unable to leave her to fend for herself, if the guys didn’t walk away, he’d have to do something. But jeez, they were huge. And he’d been in enough fights to know he hadn’t stood a chance, not against all three.

“It all happened so fast,” she mused. “One minute I was all alone, the next I was surrounded.” She looked up now, her eyes finding his. “And then you were there.”

When he’d seen Morse lean in toward her, he’d acted instinctively. He’d called out her name. Not Jessica. Not Sumners, which was what Morse had been calling her. But “Jess.”

“You called out to me,” she said, still studying him with that pensive expression that made him so uncomfortable. “It must have surprised them, because they all three turned around and I was able to get away.”

She’d run straight to his side. Without thinking, he’d put his arm around her shoulder. Together, they’d walked through the Dawson’s yard to the street. At the sidewalk, he’d dropped his arm, but kept walking beside her, not wanting to let her out of his sight. Especially when he’d glanced over his shoulder to see all three guys standing in front of the Dawson house, watching them.

After they’d turned the corner and were out of sight of the football players, she’d slipped her hand into his. He’d felt her palm damp against his and her fingers trembling, and only then had he known how scared she’d been.

When they’d reached her block, he’d stopped and tried to pull his hand away, but she’d held tight. All he could think at the time was that he’d never imagined he’d ever find himself holding Jessica Sumners’s hand. And he sure as hell had never imagined it would feel that good.

Then she’d looked up at him, her eyes bluer than any he’d ever seen, her expression so serious. Not distant and reserved, as it had been the few times their eyes had met while passing in the halls, but warm and filled with emotion. Gratitude, sure, but something else, as well.

An awareness of him. As if she was seeing him for the very first time. Hell, maybe she was. Girls like Jessica—good girls—didn’t notice him. And for all he knew, she’d never really looked at him until that moment.

She’d stood so close to him that when the breeze picked up, a long strand of her hair fluttered close to his face and he’d caught the scent of her. She’d even smelled rich. Clean and fresh. Not like strong perfume, the way his sisters did.

In that instant he’d been distinctly aware of two things. First, he’d wanted to kiss her. Desperately. He’d wanted to press his lips to hers to see if she tasted as rich as she smelled.

Second, he shouldn’t even be touching her.

Jessica Sumners was perfect. She never got into trouble, she never got her hands dirty, and she sure as hell never kissed guys like him. Not in darkened cars late at night when no one could see her and certainly not in the middle of the day forty feet from her front door.

Less than a month before, he had stood in her father’s courtroom and been ordered by Judge Sumners to “keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble.”

He’d suspected making out with the judge’s daughter would get him into a great deal of trouble.

Despite that—or maybe because of it—he’d pulled his hand from hers and shoved it into his pocket. It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

When she’d opened her mouth to say something, he’d interrupted her. “I’ll stay here and watch until you’re inside.” She’d nodded. “Don’t walk home alone again. Wait to walk home in a group. The bigger the better.”

“I’ll have our maid pick me up at school until this blows over.”

Of course. Her maid. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Good idea.”

She’d seemed to want to say something else as she’d watched him with those huge blue eyes. Eyes that seemed full of something perilously close to hero worship. Hell, that had been the last thing he’d needed. Jessica Sumners getting a crush on him.

Damn, that’d screw up his life but good.

“Go on.” He’d nodded toward her house. Keeping his tone bored, he’d added, “I got things to do.”

Her gaze had flickered as she’d turned and hurried toward the imposing mansion. She hadn’t looked back. Hadn’t seen that he’d stood on the corner, watching her house for nearly thirty minutes, belying his comment about having things to do.

Now, all these years later, as Jessica stood in his driveway, he thought again about how nothing had changed. She was as out of his reach now as she had been on that long-ago spring afternoon. And she still seemed unaware of how much he wanted her.

“I looked for you the next day at school,” she said. “I guess I wanted—” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She may not have known what she’d wanted all those years ago, but he had. She’d wanted to recapture that connection they’d both felt standing on that street corner, her hand in his and the rush of adrenaline still pounding through their veins.

She looked at him now, her expression unguarded. When she looked at him like that, he felt like a hero. Ironic, given the very unheroic things his libido was urging him to do.

“So that’s why you came to me? Because I saved you from some bullies?”

She frowned, looking very unsure of herself. “Not exactly.”

“Then what?” When she didn’t answer, he leaned forward. “I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.”

Now her eyes met his with a flash of annoyance. As if it irritated her to hear him belittle his actions.

He sighed. “Look, Jess, it sounds to me like all these years you’ve been walking around thinking I’m some kind of a hero. But that’s just not true. I didn’t rescue you. I wasn’t a hero. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even a very nice guy.”

“I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “What you did might not have meant anything to you, but it did to me.”

“A momentary lapse in judgment.”

Shaking her head, she exhaled loudly. “Would it really be so bad?”

“What?”

“Would it really be so bad to let people know that under your rebellious, tough-guy exterior, deep down inside you’re actually a nice, decent human being?”

His heart swelled at her words—but it only reminded him of another body part that tended to swell around her. Not sure how much more hero worship he could take, he purposely lightened the mood.

He reached over and chucked her gently on the chin. “That’s where you’re wrong, Jess. Deep down inside, I’m just like I am on the outside.”

She stiffened. “I don’t believe you. You wanted people to think you’re despicable, but you weren’t.”

“Despicable?” He laughed. “Honey, villains with big mustaches in old silent movies are despicable.”

The irritation flashed in her eyes again but quickly disappeared. However, it wasn’t as easy to hide the blush his teasing had brought to her cheeks. She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Okay. So not despicable.”

Sensing he was close to having her exactly where he wanted her, he pressed his advantage. “No. Not despicable.” And because he just couldn’t resist touching her, he reached for her hand. Instead of taking it in his, he flipped it over, exposing her palm to his touch. “I’m much worse than despicable. You know what I was thinking about the whole way home?” She shook her head. “I was thinking about how I wanted to kiss you.”

“But—”

He didn’t let her finish. “There you were thinking I was some kind of a hero and all I could think about was how to get in your pants.” He didn’t look at her, didn’t take his eyes away from her palm, which he couldn’t seem to stop touching. It was so incredibly soft and warm under his fingertips. “I would have nailed you in a minute if you’d given me the chance.”

She pulled her hand away. “I don’t believe you.”

This time he couldn’t stop himself from meeting her gaze. He studied her face, but for once found it almost impossible to read her expression.

“As you pointed out,” she said. “There I was, thinking you were a hero. If all you’d wanted was to—”

When she hesitated, he supplied the words for her. “Nail you.”

She nodded. “If that was really what you wanted from me, you could have had it then.”

At her near-whispered words, blood surged through his groin, nearly destroying the last of his control. But her calm and steady gaze assured him of her seriousness. He laughed ruefully. “It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that then.”

Now she was the one to laugh, clearly embarrassed. “And here all this time, I assumed you did know and just weren’t interested.” He shot her a questioning look and she shrugged sheepishly. “I looked for you all that next week at school, but every time I saw you, you were with friends. Or that girlfriend of yours. What was her name?”

Alex had to search his memory. Funny, he’d dated “that girlfriend of his” for months, but he could barely remember her name, let alone picture her. Yet he still remembered the expression on Jessica’s face when she’d put her hand into his. And the color of the shirt she’d been wearing. And the way she’d smelled. And—

“Sandra,” he finally supplied.

“Right. Sandra. Every time I saw you that week, you were with her. At first, I thought you were avoiding me on purpose.”

“I was. It wouldn’t have been in either of our best interests if people thought there was something going on between us.”

He’d known even then how impossible a relationship with her would be. Even a friendship would have caused problems. She was the a straight-A student and the daughter of the county judge. He was the son of a migrant farm worker, already a grade behind in school, in and out of more trouble than she could imagine, his police record already burgeoning. None of that had kept him from wanting her, but it had damn well kept him from acting on it.

He’d avoided her so effectively that she’d eventually resorted to slipping a note in his locker. Three simple lines thanking him for coming to her rescue, in neat, cursive writing on pale pink paper.

“I thought that you knew I’d developed a crush on you and were trying to discourage me,” she said now.

“I was.”

Her gaze darted to his, her eyes a vivid blue that he seemed to have no defenses against. “Then why did you write me back?”

Because he’d just plain been unable to resist.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

His response, slipped through the vent of her locker during fifth period, had started a flurry of notes. She wrote him every day, often more than once, about things both wonderful and absurdly out of the realm of his experience—a low score on a chemistry exam, the shoes her mother had had dyed to match for some party dress, the fight she’d had with her parents over whether or not she’d go to tennis camp over the summer.

He’d written her less often, but with almost unbearable attention to detail. He’d penned his notes to her in the library, hunched over the dictionary, carefully checking his spelling, scouring the thesaurus for words he thought would make him look smart. Words like “supposition” and “eradicate.”

Those three weeks that they’d exchanged notes had been some of the happiest of his young life. Then one day he’d received a note from her asking if he wanted to take her to the prom.

He’d known he couldn’t do it, but God how he’d wanted to. And he hadn’t had the heart to say no. So he’d just stopped writing to her.

“I know you thought I was just some annoying kid,” she said now. “But I loved getting those notes from you. I’d pretend, just for a little while, that I was your girlfriend, instead of Sandra.” She paused for a heartbeat, lost in some long-ago memory. “It was like you couldn’t keep your hands off her. Did you know, I even saw you kissing her once?”

He did know. He remembered the moment vividly. He’d been avoiding Jessica all week, but she hadn’t taken the hint when he’d stopped answering her notes. Every time he’d turned around, there she’d be. His patience and his willpower had started to wear thin. She hadn’t ever caught him alone, but he’d been sure she eventually would. He’d been sure she’d look up at him with those impossibly blue eyes and that when she did he wouldn’t be able to resist doing something incredibly stupid, like kiss her.

So he’d done something he was sure would scare her off. He’d kissed Sandra in front of her. Not an innocent little peck on the mouth, either, but a full-bodied, open-mouthed, I-can’t-wait-to-get-your-body-naked kiss.

“I’d never seen anyone kiss like that,” Jessica admitted with a little laugh. “Not in real life anyway. That kiss…it was like something out of movie. And I remember thinking, ‘So that’s passion.’ I’d never been kissed like that.” She laughed nervously, the pink returning to her cheeks. “I still haven’t.”

“Jess—”

Her hands were clasped tightly together and she was staring pointedly down at them. “All my life and I’ve never been kissed like that. Never felt that kind of passion. Or had anyone feel that kind of passion about me.”

The sheer yearning in her voice finally wore him down and he reached out and put his hand over hers. “Jess,” he said again.

This time she looked up at him. Her eyes held none of the emotion he’d expected to see. Just a glimmer of resignation. Nothing more.

But she pulled her hand out from under his. Then she turned, hitching her purse strap up on her shoulder as she made to leave. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t,” he protested. “But if you think no man’s ever felt passion for you, I think you may be seriously underestimating the effect you have on men.”

Her gaze narrowed and she shook her head dismissively “I don’t need your pity. And I certainly don’t need you to massage my ego. I only brought it up because I didn’t want you to think that yesterday was just—what was that phrase you used?—me wanting to screw around with the hired help. I don’t think of you that way. I never have.”

She continued down his driveway toward the street, but only made it a few feet before he stopped her. “Then what was it?”

“I guess I just wanted someone to feel that kind of passion for me.” This time, when she turned to leave, he just let her go.

Because if she stayed any longer, he might break down and tell her the truth. That he did feel that way about her. That he’d wanted her badly even back then. That, apparently, he still wanted her now.

And that she had inspired the kind of passion she’d spoken of.

That day back in high school, when she’d seen him kiss Sandra, it wasn’t Sandra he’d been kissing. Oh, it had been Sandra’s body pressed to his and Sandra’s mouth under his lips. But when he’d closed his eyes, it had been Jessica’s face he’d seen. And Jessica’s scent he’d smelled. It had been Jessica he’d wanted to kiss.

He’d known then he couldn’t have her, but that hadn’t kept him from wanting her. And it didn’t now.

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