Summer Heat

by Carly Phillips

  Washing glasses at the sink, Tamara overheard Lance say, “Too bad you’re too young for me. You really make me laugh.”

  Marissa smiled saucily. “Maybe you aren’t my type, sweetheart.”

  “I’m crushed.” Lance flirted back.

  When Marissa’s friends gathered her up, it was almost closing time. Marissa hurriedly scribbled her name and number on a napkin. “Tamara,” she called. “I really meant it about accounting. If you have trouble, call me.”

  “Oh, you’ll give her your number, but not me, huh?” Lance said, plucking up the napkin. “You don’t mind if I copy it down first, do you, Tamara?”

  Judging by the tight knot in her chest, Tamara did mind. “Why would I care? It’s Marissa you should be asking.”

  Ignoring her, Lance took out his phone and tapped the numbers in. “I’m serious about the melodrama,” he said to Marissa. “Call me when it comes up.”

  “I will.” She patted his shoulder and waved gaily at Tamara.

  Lance handed the napkin to Tamara. “If you flunked that test, you really might give her a call.”

  Tamara nodded and tucked the note in her pocket. The bar was clearing now. “It’s fifteen minutes to last call,” she said in a businesslike voice. “Do you want another beer?”

  He pursed his lips and tilted the bottle. The expression made his mouth look infinitely devourable, and a bolt of something hot and needy pulsed through her unexpectedly. “I’m gonna have to walk home either way, so yeah,” he said, “give me one more.”

  He stood up to pull money from the front pocket of his jeans, and Tamara found her gaze caressing his strong thighs and the weighty place between—

  She jerked her gaze away, heat sizzling up to the tips of her ears. Ducking, she fished out another bottle of beer and put it on the counter and took the bills he’d put down without looking at him. She made change and put it on the bar.

  “Do you have a favorite song?” he asked, taking quarters from the change.

  “Pardon me?”

  “A favorite song. Do you have something you like on the jukebox? I thought I’d play some mellow stuff to get everybody tired so you can go home.” His dimpled grin flashed.

  In every millimeter of her body, Tamara flushed in response. Damn him. It was not fair he should be so irresistible, that he should appear when she was feeling so vulnerable. With a frown, she shook her head. “I’ve heard them all so many times, it doesn’t matter.”

  “C’mon,” he coaxed. “There must be one you like.”

  Her tangled, roused emotions suddenly swelled. “Will you stop being so charming? I don’t need your pity. Neither does Marissa, for that matter.”

  “Pity?” He repeated the word quietly.

  “Yeah. Is this your charity week?” she said, heedless now. She saw the slight narrowing of his eyes and it goaded her further. “You think I don’t know you would never date a woman like that? Do you think she doesn’t know it? I think it’s cruel to lead someone on.”

  “Is that what you think?” He was very still.

  “Yes.”

  Very slowly, he stood up and gathered his change, down to the last dime. His face had none of the boyish charm to it now, only a grim tightness around the beautiful mouth. “You don’t get it, Tamara.” He shook his head. “Not everybody has an ulterior motive all the time. Sometimes it’s good to just enjoy the moment. Besides,” he said, disdainfully tossing a dollar bill for a tip down on the bar, “who is doing the judging here, anyway? Are you the one who picks out the girls who get to have boyfriends and which ones sit on the sidelines?”

  Instantly, Tamara was ashamed. What she’d been feeling was pure, uncut jealousy, and it had made her catty.

  But before she could form an apology, Lance was gone, his beer left untouched on the bar. He yanked the door open with enough force that she knew she’d made him angry, and for some reason, it made her heart ache.

  Resolutely, she started breaking down the bar. It was better this way. Maybe he’d leave her alone now and she could get on with her life without wondering every minute if Lance Forrest was going to grace her with a smile.

  * * *

  Lance strode through the chilly night for two blocks before reason penetrated the faintly inebriated haze that colored his feelings. Damn the woman, anyway. Who did she think she was, making judgments like that?

  All evening, he’d done his best to show her he wasn’t the cad she thought he was. Halfway through his conversation with Alonzo, he’d remembered how easy it had been to be with her at her house, when he was too tired to turn on the charm and try to impress her. And it had annoyed him. Instead of mooning over her, he’d decided to follow Jake’s example and try to have a good time. Marissa had proved to be a terrific companion, easy going and happy to playfully flirt. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d sat at the bar….

  That was a lie. He’d wanted to be close to Tamara. But all it had done was make her mad.

  Or jealous.

  He slowed. Stopped. Turned around to glance back at the neon sign that blinked against the backdrop of black mountain. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said aloud.

  Had that been jealousy on her face when she snatched the phone number from his hand? He turned his mind back over the signals she’d put out while he sat and talked with Marissa. Slamming glasses. Rattling ice. Restlessly moving back and forth between one end of the bar and the other.

  He grinned, and started walking back to the bar. Jealous he knew how to handle.

  The parking lot was fairly well cleared out by the time he got back there. A waitress waved at him wearily and he lifted his chin, taking up his spot to wait for Tamara—leaning against the hood of her Buick.

  He didn’t have long to wait. She came out minutes later, pulling the pins out of her hair, probably in protection against the cold. It tumbled in a glossy swath to her shoulders. She gave a little shake of her head and rolled her neck.

  And then she saw him, leaning against her car under the streetlight, his arms crossed. She stopped dead, and Lance knew that if there had been any other option besides coming toward him, she’d have taken it.

  Her pointed little chin jutted up, and she hauled her bag close to her side, as if she were preparing for battle. As she came closer, he let himself simply look at her, as he’d been longing to do all night. He watched her dark hair swing, catching the light from the red neon behind her. He admired the long legs and the easy way she moved.

  “Do you need a ride?” she asked, fitting her key into the door lock.

  He had to hand it to her, she was cool as the night. He shook his head.

  She opened the door, hesitated. “I’m sorry about what I said in the bar,” she said.

  Lance nodded, and didn’t move.

  “You’re on my car. I can’t go until you move.”

  “I know.” He lazily stood up and moved toward her. In her eyes he saw a faint flare of alarm and desire. He didn’t smile this time. “I don’t really want you to go just yet.”

  As Lance came toward her, Tamara shrank into the space between the open door and the car, her fingers clutched tight around the top of the window. Only when he moved in close did she realize she’d been neatly trapped. She ducked her head, as if he might go away if she didn’t look at him.

  “Come here, sweetheart,” he said, and reached out to put a hand on her waist, sliding it under her jacket where it was warm. With a quick gesture, he found the belt loop on the side of her jeans and laced two fingers through it. With a steady pull, he pulled her close, but not quite in contact with him.

  “Lance!” she protested, putting her hands up to push him away. “You’re just mad at me—”

  “Not at all.” He found himself tasting his lips, remembering the flavor of her there, on his mouth. “I just want to kiss you.”

  “I wish you’d stop teasing me,” she said, squirming a little. She still didn’t look at him.

  “Teasing? Is that what I’m doing?” Something thic
k settled over him, her nearness, something heavy and narcotic that blunted any sense or reason he might have had at the beginning. There was only Tamara, smelling faintly of shampoo and hard work and something sweet he couldn’t quite place. “No,” he said quietly, “I don’t think I’m teasing.”

  He slid his other hand around her, and spread both hands open on her back. She came up against him, breasts to chest, thighs to thighs, and he heard a quick intake of breath catch in her throat, but she didn’t push away. Not this time.

  “You feel nice,” he said, moving his hands lightly. “That’s is what I’ve been thinking of all night, Tamara, you know that? Thinking about how I could get your body next to mine, so I could feel you.” Her back was long and curved and the flesh quivered ever so slightly as he caressed it, but there was resistance all through her.

  She tilted her face up. In her eyes shone fear and alertness and hunger, all tangled. Her hands had stopped pushing his chest, and he felt her breath come quicker, lifting her breasts into his rib cage at heady little intervals.

  The thick sense of narcotic pleasure grew, and he let his gaze drop down to her mouth, the mouth he’d been imagining all night long, the mouth that had tasted so sweet the other night. Letting his anticipation build, he looked at the small bow on the upper lip, and the plump lower lip that jutted out ever so slightly, and let desire fill his every cell, relishing the building anticipation until it made him dizzy.

  When he could no longer bear the sight of those slightly parted lips only inches from his own, when the wish for her mouth against his was larger than the sky overhead, only then did he bend his head. Tilt his mouth. Pause, millimeters away, to let the prickles of need cover his skin while cool air mingled with the heat of their intertwined breath.

  His heart thudded in his chest in that split second. Thick washes of blood moved in his veins. He felt her thighs against his own, and the uplifted softness of her breasts and the fine quiver of muscles in her back. It was heady, rich, unbearable.

  With an outcast breath, he closed the space between them, settled his lips upon hers. Once again, it was a vivid shock, too big for a kiss.

  This time, she made a faint sound and lifted her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. Lance reacted violently, mindlessly. He yanked her hard against him, hips to hips, backed her against the car and kissed her. This time it wasn’t soft or restrained. This time, she opened her mouth, inviting him into the dark cavern, and Lance plunged in, knowing he was lost as soon as he did it. She clutched his head, pulling him closer, and he pressed his whole self into her.

  The narcotic pleasure swirled and pulsed and intensified until Lance thought of nothing, past or present, but the taste of her mouth fitting so perfectly with his own. Under his hands, her body softened, and she wriggled closer, making him ache. He explored the parts of her mouth he’d been thinking of and the parts he had not thought to consider. He let his tongue dance with hers, and flitter and plunge, and she met him with exquisite timing, as if she knew what he would do, what he thought, before he did.

  He slipped his hands under her shirt in the back and touched the heat of her bare skin. She shuddered, pausing a moment as if the sensation were too rich to encompass without perfect attention.

  And then he realized he was extremely aroused. Furiously so. He nipped at her lip a little and she only tightened her fingers against his scalp. He pressed his arousal into the softness of her belly and she only moved restlessly against him.

  He broke away from her lips and buried his face in her neck. Such soft, soft skin. Softer than clouds, softer than air or silk or anything else he’d ever touched. He opened his palms and drew them around her ribs, down her side, feeling, feeling, then slid lower to cup her ass, firm and full. He sucked lightly at her neck, loving the sound of surprised, sharp pleasure she made, and the way she shivered against him. He kissed her throat.

  “Oh, lord,” he breathed. “I can’t remember when I wanted a woman this bad.” He heard the need rasping his voice, and didn’t care. “Let me take you home.”

  * * *

  Let me take you home.

  The words penetrated the haze over Tamara with a cruel, piercing shock. She froze against him, fighting the glorious sensation of his lips moving over her throat, over her chin. “No,” she whispered. “Lance, no, I—”

  His mouth claimed hers once more. Rich lips, full and firm and exquisitely mobile, and so very, very hungry. It was that yearning tenderness that undid her. Expertise or passion would not have surprised her, or unnerved her.

  This sweetness did. The way he pulled her close against him suggestively, but cradled her body as if it were fragile and precious. The way he trembled faintly. The way he kissed her.

  And he felt so good. His broad hands. His mouth. The solid mass of his shoulders and his taut back and hard thighs. That solidness felt shielding and safe and she wanted never to let him go. Under her hands, his neck was hot and his hair was cool, and he made a deep, throaty noise of longing that went straight to the core of her abdomen.

  It had been so long. So long. Kissing Lance after a long day, she wanted only to be naked with him, to take the pleasure he offered so freely, and to give him rest and peace in return. Maybe if he were safely buried between her thighs, he could forget what haunted him, what made him seem so lost, what made him—

  She pushed against him. “Lance, no! This is crazy,” she whispered. She shifted away, pushing a little at his shoulders. He moved his hands back to her waist and lifted his head.

  His eyes, sober and dark and hazed with desire, made her hips soften all over again. “It’s supposed to be crazy,” he said and touched her lower lip with just the tip of his tongue.

  Tamara shuddered. She ducked her head suddenly. “I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m not like you.”

  Somewhere behind him, a door slammed, and he shifted quickly, smoothing her clothes. He captured one of her hands and planted a kiss to her palm. “No, you aren’t. Like me.”

  For some reason, that tenderness made her want to weep. Made her want to give him anything he wanted, anything he asked, just so she could make his way easier for an hour or a day, or whatever he’d let her offer.

  “Look at me, Tamara,” he said.

  Struggling with the unexpectedly fierce longing, Tamara didn’t move.

  “It’s only a good-night kiss,” he said, putting his hand under her chin to raise her face. She allowed it, but did not raise her eyes.

  He put his mouth on hers. Gently. So gently. “Good night,” he said, and let her go. Without looking back, he loped off into the darkness.

  Tamara watched him go with a sinking heart. He moved like a stag, wild and free, his hair shining faintly in the lights of buildings along the way. A wild creature.

  And she was not wild or free. She was captured. Trapped. And the one time she’d dared to ask anything for herself, for something bigger than what life had seen fit to provide, she’d been tied and gagged so tightly, she still had trouble breathing.

  Not because of Cody—she could never regret that he was part of her life. But she would so love to travel with him, to give him a better life, to give him chances it would be very difficult to provide for him now.

  Lance could provide them.

  The thought stole in traitorously. Lance could give Cody things—education and opportunities and experiences Tamara never could. He was low-key about it, but she knew he was very wealthy, and not only by virtue of inheriting controlling interest in Forrest Construction, which had made a fortune on the upscale houses in the area, but on his own. Word was he’d sold his half of the business in Houston for a very pretty penny.

  Wearily, she got in her car and started it up. It rumbled to life instantly, and she pulled out, her thoughts troubled.

  Thinking of Lance as a money cow was wrong. If she wanted to let him know he had a son, and let him do what he thought was right, she had to do it for the right reasons.

  There was only one right reason, o
nly one good reason: because he had a right to know he had a child in the world. Because Cody had a right to know his father.

  But would Lance be any kind of father? Could a creature that wild and free give anything to a woman or a child except momentary pleasure, fleeting joy?

  Half an hour later, after picking Cody up from his baby-sitter’s house, Tamara still didn’t have the answer to that question. As she carried the sleeping boy to his bed, the only thing she understood clearly was that Lance Forrest, kissing her with such hungry vulnerability, was not the same man she had believed he was all these years.

  And she had to find out who he was before anything else could be solved. Before she could trust him with the knowledge of his child.

  But that meant allowing herself to be in his company, and even more, forcing herself to try to be objective. It would mean that at some moment, he would kiss her again like he had tonight. And meant she might not resist his invitation to his bed the next time.

  Could she bear it? How could she stand wanting anything, ever again?

  In his bed, Cody sleepily turned over, and she tucked his covers over his slim shoulder. Light fell from the hallway over his small, still face, and Tamara saw his father in the clean carved lines, saw where the baby plumpness would one day whittle down and where a beard would grow. In the silky tresses, she felt the thickness that it would take on. Like his father’s.

  Tenderly she kissed him. For Cody she could do anything.

  Anything.

  Chapter Eight

  Lance rose early Saturday. He felt muddled and off center, not quite like himself. It didn’t feel like too much drink, but he couldn’t quite place the feeling, either. As he shaved, he wondered wryly if it were Tamara, if she were a drug he ought to stay away from.

  Viewed in the bright light of morning, his reaction to kissing her seemed absurd. He rinsed his razor and frowned, remembering that weird, lost, unthinking haze that had come over him. He liked kissing, and he liked Tamara, but last night had just been—

  Well…weird. That was the only word he could think of.