Blazing Midsummer Nights (Harlequin Blaze) (5 page)

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

W
HILE
X
ANDER 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.

“‘The man of your dreams will slip away unless you have the courage to go after him.’”

* * *

THE PARTY WOUND DOWN
at around midnight. As the minutes ticked by, the lawn emptied, and Dimitri came up to thank Anna and say good-night, Mimi realized something—she’d completely forgotten she had intended to seduce this man tonight. She hadn’t just put the thought out of her mind because she couldn’t evaluate how she felt about it, but had actually
forgotten
entirely. Which sure didn’t say much for how excited she was about the prospect of going to bed with him.