Paradise County (30 page)

It hadn’t been twenty-four hours since he had rocked her world in bed, and already she was anticipating, with great pleasure, getting him there again. Surely he’d put her slip of the tongue behind him by now. He had seemed over it… .

The mere act of opening the front door and stepping inside the vast, empty house made her nervous. To her enormous relief, the chandelier in the front hall was ablaze, indicating the electricity was back on at last. Alex left it on as she closed the door behind her, and turned the lights on in every room she passed as well, despite the fact that it was still broad daylight out. There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself stoutly. Last night had been the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances. Monsoons and power outages and lightning strikes and hard-breathing cats were not likely to occur in conjunction again any time soon.

Speaking of hard-breathing cats, Hannibal, tail twitching, appeared from the direction of the library as she headed toward the kitchen. She was carrying a bag of groceries she had picked up in Shelbyville, and the faint rattle of the brown paper bag might, she thought, have been what had drawn him. She eyed him askance, and gave him a wide berth as she walked through the swinging door. He followed her, his big body amazingly silent as he padded after her on the proverbial little, or in his case big, cat feet.

Could it possibly have been this cat that she had chased into the dark of the upstairs hall two nights ago? Foolish as it made her feel, it seemed the most likely answer.

The preferred answer.

“Go away,” she said to Hannibal when she reached the kitchen and he was still behind her. He ignored her, jumping onto the counter and from there to the top of the refrigerator, where he sat and watched as she kicked off her shoes and, in her stockinged feet, started to put the groceries away. His rapt attention made her uncomfortable; she was reminded of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven,” the part where he wrote that the creature
perched upon my chamber door, perched and sat, and nothing more.
Any second now, she expected to hear the odious cat croak
Nevermore.

For a moment she toyed with the idea of picking him up and bodily removing him from the room, but a long look at the sheer size of him dissuaded her. He was one big feline, and looked as if he could be unpleasant if crossed.

“So, did you get her enrolled?” The voice, seemingly coming out of nowhere, made her jump a foot straight up in the air before she recognized it. She almost dropped the eggs. Recovering, she put the eggs on the appropriate refrigerator shelf and headed toward the small utility room, from whence the voice had seemed to come.

Still in his red flannel shirt and jeans, Joe was in there, hunkered down, doing something that involved plastic-sheathed electrical wiring, a roll of which he seemed to be connecting to the back door.

“What are you doing?” she asked him, crossing her arms over her chest. It was a surprise to find him in the house—apparently he had a key—but a pleasant one. The last bit of her nervousness disappeared.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Installing a security system.” He picked up the drill that lay beside him and applied it to the doorjamb, raising his voice to be heard over it. “Every window and outside door in the house is hooked into it. This is the last one. You won’t have to worry about any real live human being getting in here.”

The relief Alex felt upon hearing that was palpable. She realized in that instant that somewhere in the back of her mind she was convinced
that a real, live human being was what she had grabbed at in the hall. The feel of the surface underlying the cloth had not been hard and slick, like a wall; it had been warm and resilient, like a human body.

Alex felt a cold chill run down her spine at the memory.

“Joe.” He was using the drill again, and she had to raise her voice. He glanced around at her. “Thank you.”

His response was a quick grin, and then he was back to using his drill. Alex returned to the kitchen to finish putting up her groceries, the sound of the power tool a comforting background buzz.

She was just putting the last items—plastic bags of prepared salad and fresh mushrooms from the grocery’s salad bar—into the refrigerator when he emerged from the utility room.

“Been to the grocery already?” he asked as she closed the refrigerator and began to smooth and fold the brown paper bag.

“We have to eat,” she said.

He eyed her. “Can you even cook?” He put his drill and the thick coil of remaining wire down on the counter.

“Of course I can cook.” Honesty compelled her to add with the merest glimmer of a smile, “Well, some. Omelets and hard-boiled eggs and tuna salad, things like that.”

“I just bet you’re great at peanut butter sandwiches, too,” Joe said with a straight face.

“You’re right, I am.”

“You want me to call Inez, and tell her to come in every day while you’re here?”

Alex looked at him thoughtfully. “I’m not helpless, you know. I can run a vacuum cleaner and load the dishwasher and dust the furniture. I can even do my own laundry if it really becomes necessary. You know, put the clothes in the machine, add detergent, close the lid, turn it on?”

Joe laughed. “Was I being insulting again? Sorry. I don’t have a clue how billionaires’ daughters live.”

“In the real world, just like everybody else,” Alex said, her smile a little whimsical. With amusement lighting up his eyes and a grin playing around his mouth, he was so handsome that just looking at him was a
pleasure. He was standing near the barstools, and vivid memories of him sitting on one as they kissed flashed into her head. She had taken off her top for him… .

She had three weeks to while away, before returning to her real life again. Three weeks that she could spend with Joe.

There was no point in wasting a single, precious day.

She put the bag that she had smoothed down on the countertop and moved toward him.

“Joe,” she said, stopping right in front of him and smiling up into his eyes. “I really, really appreciate you putting in that security system for me. It’s going to make all the difference in the world about how safe I feel here.”

“It’s not going to help in the case of cats or ghosts,” he warned, looking down at her with a smile of his own and darkening eyes.

“Cats or ghosts I can handle. Real, live burglars are what give me heart palpitations. Thank you.” Placing a hand flat on his flannel-covered chest, she rose up on tiptoe to press a quick, soft kiss to his mouth. He let her kiss him. His lips hardened and parted beneath hers and his eyes flamed. But when she pulled her mouth from his and sank down flat-footed again he made no move to prolong the kiss or pull her back into his arms.

“My pleasure,” he said.

Clearly he was still smarting from her having called him by the wrong name. Well, if she could forgive and forget the insulting things he had said to her afterward he could forgive and forget that. In fact, she meant to make sure that he did.

“I also appreciate you bringing that message from Andrea over to the inn this morning. So thank you again.” Her hands moved to his shoulders as she rose up to kiss his mouth.

This time she put a little tongue into it, and this time his hands came up to grip her waist and she had the pleasure of being—almost—kissed back. A tilt of his head, a quick, hard pressure of his lips, a glide of his tongue, and then he was lifting his head, breaking off contact.

She smiled to herself, and sank down again.

“No problem.” His voice sounded just a little thick, and his fingers bit into her waist. She kept her hands where they were, resting on his wide shoulders, smiled into his eyes, and leaned forward, so that her breasts just brushed his chest.

“And you were kind to listen to my problems this morning. I know this whole thing has created problems for you, too. So thank you for that.”

This time, when she rose up on her tiptoes, she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the slow, sweet provocation of which she was capable.

Twenty-six

F
or just a moment he remained basically unresponsive, letting her kiss him, making her do all the work. Then he made a slight, harsh sound, and suddenly he was kissing her back as if he were ravenous for the taste of her mouth, as if he could never get enough of it. His mouth slanted over hers, hot and wet and demanding, and his arms wrapped around to pull her tightly against him. He was already hard, and Alex’s heart began to pound at the realization. She wanted him… .

He turned with her in what was almost a dance step so that the small of her back was pressed against the unyielding edge of the center island counter, and then his hands were on her bottom, cupping it, stroking over it, squeezing it, kneading the round cheeks. She moaned, clinging to him, pressing her swelling breasts against the solid wall of his chest, remembering how he had kissed her bottom before… .

He lifted her, sitting her down again on the countertop as his hands slid down the backs of her thighs and he parted her legs and positioned himself between them. A hot, deep longing sprang up inside her as he pressed the steely bulge in his jeans against the apex of her spread thighs. She was on fire for him already, wet for him already. The question
swirled clear as crystal through her sex-befuddled mind: What was there about this man that made her so needy for him, so greedy for him?

“Joe.” She moaned his name into his mouth—no possible way could she ever mistake him for anyone else again, because nobody else had ever, ever, made her feel like this—and started to wrap her legs around his waist.

She wanted him to take her, right here, right now, with her sitting on the kitchen counter under the bright fluorescent light. She wanted him naked and loving her until she was wild with it, mindless with it, crying out for it… .

Begging for it.

God, she wanted him.

He broke off the kiss without warning, pulling his mouth from hers, his hands moving around behind his back to clamp on her ankles before she could lock them around his waist, opening her legs, stepping back away from her. He caught her wrists, pulling her arms down from around his neck, and held them for a minute while his eyes, which were narrowed and glittering with passion, locked on to hers and his breath came in short, harsh bursts.

“Joe!” she protested. His hands tightened around her wrists, his eyes blazed, and for a moment she thought he was coming back to her. But then he let go of her altogether, stepping back out of her reach, leaning back against the cabinets behind him while his eyes burned over her and his mouth clamped into a hard, straight line.

“Joe,” she said again, holding out her arms to him.

“Alex.” His voice was rough-edged, guttural. He ran his fingers quickly through his short black hair as if in frustration, then closed his hands around the edge of the counter against which he leaned, his fingers tightening until his knuckles showed white. “Alex. Look. You’re a beautiful, sexy woman. I want you so bad right now that I’m hurting with it. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide you with three weeks’ worth of stud service to help you work your ex-boyfriend out of your system.”

Alex’s mouth fell open. She didn’t believe what she was hearing. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s ludicrous.” She was still sitting on the counter; she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and stared at him over them. “This has nothing to do with Paul!”

“Honey, it has everything to do with Paul. You’re on the rebound right now and you’re looking for something to assuage the pain. I know. I’ve been there. Sleeping around after a bad breakup is a natural instinct, I think. But I don’t feel like being the cure for your disease.”

“Joe… .” Alex stopped short as it occurred to her that she was, literally, pleading with this man to make love to her. Where was her pride? With every other man she’d ever known, she had been the object of desire, the one to be chased and cajoled and persuaded, if possible, into a date, a relationship, bed. Even Paul had had to work hard to get her. He’d courted her with flowers and dinner dates and funny messages and phone calls… .

With Joe, much as it embarrassed her to realize it, she’d done all the chasing. Every single bit.

The realization stopped her cold. Her backbone stiffened, her chin came up, and her dignity returned.

“You may be right,” she said coolly. “Of course, you may be wrong, too. We’ll never know, though, because it’ll be a cold day in a hot place before I sleep with you again.”

Mouth compressing, eyes hard, he looked at her silently for a moment. Then he straightened away from the counter and picked up his drill.

“The code number for the security system is the same as the first four digits of the phone number: three-seven-three-oh. The box is in the utility room. Make sure you turn it on before you go to bed. Want me to show you how to operate it?”

Alex shook her head. Pride kept her chin up. Anger made her eyes sparkle.

“I know how to operate a security system.”

“All right then. If you need anything, call me down at the house. I’ll be up here before you’ve hung up the phone.”