T. Larry breathed down her neck.
Why was he standing so close all of a sudden, all day and yesterday, as well, in fact? T. Larry didn’t like his space invaded. He didn’t like invading others’ space, either. Unless he felt the need to intimidate. Which sometimes, as the boss, he did.
“Who are they from?”
She grabbed the card and turned so he couldn’t read over her shoulder, her arm brushing the cloth of his shirt.
“Dick?”
“Richard.” He’d signed with a red heart, nothing more, but she knew it was him. Oh, how romantic and sweet.
“Too cheap to buy you roses?” T. Larry’s brows knit over the rim of his glasses.
She hugged the card to her breast and stared at the beautiful, if faded, spray. “I don’t need roses.”
“You deserve roses.”
She cocked her head. “Do serial killers send flowers?”
She thought she saw one corner of his mouth lift in a hint of a smile that vanished before she could be sure.
“Yes. They send something exactly like that.” He pointed at the vase. “Decayed around the edges. Serial killers are masters of symbolism. Should I throw them out for you?” He looked over the banister to the Dumpster at the end of the alley.
“Don’t you touch them.” She bent to gather the bouquet in her arms, a draft sneaking up her skirt.
“Are you wearing underwear?”
She slapped a hand beneath her bottom, almost dropping the vase. This time, she found him smiling.
“Were you looking?”
“Is that a no?”
T. Larry flustered her. The queen of shock, she hadn’t been flustered since she’d recovered from her stroke at fifteen. But T. Larry had discovered the knack somewhere.
She fumbled her keys near the lock. He took them out of her hand, crowded her against the wood and unlocked the door for her.
He was trying to intimidate her. But why?
Both her hands shook now. If she had espresso at this time of night, she’d turn into a jumping bean. “How about some Baileys Irish Cream instead?”
“Whatever you want, Madison.”
He watched her with smoky gray eyes. Her throat went dry. Whatever was wrong with her? She thought about those eyes. She thought about drinking Baileys from small snifters, about the taste on her tongue, about the feel of it in her blood. “No, I think we’ll stick with the espresso.”
“As I said, it’s all up to you, Madison.”
Oh goodness.
Flipping on a light, she eyed the room, the sofa no bigger than a love seat, filled with a jumble of stuffed animals her mother knit to sell at the church bazaar—a pink pig, the Cowardly Lion, a white rabbit. And the mess of magazines, newspapers and yesterday’s blouse covering the top of her coffee table.
She’d forgotten the state the apartment was in. Panty hose peeked from beneath the chair she’d sat in last night to peel them off. Her high heels tipped over by the leg of that same chair. At least he hadn’t seen her kitchen yet. She really had meant to wash those dishes.
She heard his voice and smelled his frosting first, and when she looked up, he was a hairbreadth from her face. She looked at him cross-eyed.
“Do you want me to help clean up?” Miraculously, the panty hose dangled from his fingers.
She grabbed and stuffed them beneath a cushion, then fanned herself with her hand. “Gosh, the place hasn’t cooled down.”
With a dash, she opened the front window, then pulled the filmy curtain closed. A soft breeze blew the lace in and out. Once again, T. Larry was right there when she turned around.
She backed away, her buns pressed to the windowsill. She wasn’t nervous. She didn’t know what she was. Besides overheated. Or embarrassed.
Embarrassed? Nothing she’d ever said or done around T. Larry embarrassed her before. So what was this feeling?
She had a plan for T. Larry. All she had to do was stick to it and the strange tingling would go away. What was the plan? Come on, Madison. Oh yeah, a wife. What about BeeBee Barton, her best friend in the whole world? Of course, BeeBee. She was wonderful. Madison bit her lip. Not BeeBee. She didn’t analyze that uncomfortable prickle that couldn’t possibly be jealousy.
Who then? “I know the perfect woman for you. I’ve been thinking about it all the way home.”
“And?” His voice was suspiciously low, deceptively calm.
“Barbie Doll.”
Deadpan, he answered, “She’s made of plastic.”
“Not that Barbie Doll. This one is a friend of mine. Who was unfortunate enough to be born to parents with the last name of Doll. And they thought it would be such fun to name her Barbie. But she’s completely done with therapy now, and she doesn’t hold an ounce of anger toward them, and she’d be perfect for you.”
He was a step closer, though she hadn’t seen him move. “You’re babbling.”
“No, I’m not. I’m explaining quickly so you don’t have time to shoot down my idea.”
“It was shot down before it even went up. I’m not dating someone named Barbie Doll.”
“You can’t hold her name against her. It wasn’t her choice.”
“Does she look like a Barbie Doll?”
“Which one? The new version or the sixties version?”
He closed in, giving her heart palpitations. “Aren’t they all impossibly large breasted, thin waisted, and perfect hipped?” he said, his gaze traveling to each of the mentioned parts of her body.
Her voice squeaked on the first syllable. “Yes.”
“Not interested.”
“You answered too fast.”
He put a hand to his chin, pursed his lips and tilted his head this way, then that. “After careful consideration, I’ve decided I’m not interested.”
“But T. Larry—”
“Shh.”
“You should give her—”
He put a finger to her lips “—I said—” and raised a brow “—shh.”
No finger was going to stop her saying something this important. “But—”
He clamped his hand over her mouth, pinned her there with his other hand on the nape of her neck. “Don’t you ever be quiet?”
Not if she could help it. And then she became aware of the fact that somehow, in the process of shutting her up, he’d managed to plaster his body the length of hers, front to front, chest to breasts, thighs to thighs, and everything in between. Everything.
Oh my God.
She opened her mouth and licked his palm. Salty. Sort of delicious actually.
He jumped back, let go of her imprisoned lips and cradled his hand as if she’d thrown acid on it.
“What did you do that for?”
“So you’d let me finish what I was saying.”
“Not on your life.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “Did you smudge my lipstick?”
“You lost it with the potato salad.”
He’d been watching? “Why didn’t you tell me? How awful to be walking around without lipstick. It’s unwomanly. It’s—”
This time he used his mouth on her. Madison shut up. He tasted of the chocolate cream mousse her mother made for dessert and smelled of Thomas’s cupcake. Sugar and spice and everything nice. That was little girls. T. Larry was all man. His hands dropped from the back of her head to her waist, pulling her against him.
Oh my God. T. Larry wanted her. Impossible. Incredible. Irresistible.
She went up on her tiptoes and wound her arms around his neck. Her nose bumped his glasses. He didn’t stop kissing her, touched his tongue to hers and then he was inside. Oh my. His shoulders were muscled from that daily workout—thank God for T. Larry’s routines—his chest hard against her breasts. He was hard everywhere. Really hard. Goodness. She eased back a fraction, rubbed lightly against him. T. Larry groaned and deepened the kiss, an arm across her back, fingers in her hair.
The phone rang.
She pushed at his shoulders.
“Don’t answer it.” He didn’t allow an inch between them.
“It’ll be my brother checking to see I got home.”
He brushed his lips across hers. “James wouldn’t be calling at a time like this.”
“Oh.” Yes, they’d already covered the condom issue. “One of the others then.” It rang a third time. “They’ll wonder what I’m doing.”
“Christ.” He stepped back, running a hand over his head. “I’m wondering the same thing. Answer it.”
She caught it just before the machine picked up. “Hello.”
Nothing. She hadn’t gotten it in time. No. There was the slight sound of breathing. “Hello?”
Someone was breathing in her ear. And something else. A faint buzz, then what sounded like a dog barking. Definitely, a dog. Someone on a cell phone. “Hello?”
“Who is it?”
She gave T. Larry a that-is-the-dumbest-question look.
“Hang up if you don’t know who it is.”
She tried one more time. “Hello?”
T. Larry held out his hand. She gave the receiver over without a protest. “Who’s there?”
He hung up, having no better luck than she had. “You did that on purpose,” he accused.
“Did what?”
“Had someone call right in the middle of my kiss.”
“Your kiss? It was mine, too.”
“I forced you. So technically it was mine.”
“You didn’t force me. I wanted to kiss you.”
A smile grew on his face. Her knees almost melted. What had she just said? “Glad to hear that, Madison.” He backed away from her, smiling like a cat that lapped up a whole saucer of cream and wasn’t lactose intolerant. “I’ll see you Monday morning.”
He was out the door when she remembered. She ran to the top of her stairs. “What about the espresso?”
He stopped at the bottom, one hand on the banister, light shining on his glasses. A cat screeched, a trash can fell over. And T. Larry still smiled. “Oh, I think you’ve had enough stimulation for one night, don’t you?”
HER NIPPLES SHOWED in her nightie. Cheeks flushed, lips full, Madison looked as though she’d been kissed. Long and hard. She put her fingers to her lips and stared into the vanity mirror.
Who would have guessed? She’d known T. Larry had a tongue—he yelled at her enough—but that he knew how to use it like that?
She put her hand automatically to the dresser top, searching for her hairbrush. Her fingers didn’t find it. When she looked, it wasn’t there.
She rose, the nightie swishing down her thighs to the tops of her knees. She must have left the brush in the bathroom.
What had possessed him? That comment about his lack of hair. Or the way she’d offered him Barbie. Madison understood now. She’d put a challenge out there. He’d taken her up on it.
Poor T. Larry. He didn’t get it. She wasn’t right for him. She was flighty, which had never been a bad thing in her book. She said whatever came into her head, and she’d never do a single thing he told her to. T. Larry craved complacency. She’d die if she was nothing more than content. He’d try to mold her into something she could never be. She’d stifle with his routines.
She’d have to slash her wrists. Of course, that wouldn’t be necessary when she had a stroke after her twenty-eighth birthday.
Goodness, it was just a kiss, not a marriage proposal.
She found herself in the small bathroom, in front of the mirror, touching her lips. She didn’t look merely kissed, but divinely kissed. There was only one way to view the situation.
If T. Larry’s kiss took her breath away, Richard’s had to ring bells.
Where was that brush? She opened the drawers and lifted the towels on the shelf above the toilet. In the front room, she looked in the side table drawer, then on the countertop that separated the kitchen. She searched everywhere, keeping her back to the window over the street, where she’d stood as T. Larry kissed her.
A nice kiss. But just a kiss. Really nothing divine about it, even if she looked that way in the mirror.
Back in the bedroom, she looked under the bed, finding nothing but a discarded bra—she’d been looking for that—and a few dust bunnies clinging to the carpet.
Darn. Her hairbrush was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER SIX
WHAT HAD Laurence been thinking kissing Madison like that? He’d lost his mind. Some sort of mental fugue had overtaken him. He’d had an out-of-body experience.
The truth was much less palatable. Laurence had simply given in to the intoxicating scent of her and his irritation over her desire to see him date a Barbie Doll.
Still, his actions were unacceptable. He was supposed to protect her, not seduce her. However, if he didn’t seduce her, how would she come to believe he was The One? That was mere rationalization for bad behavior. He’d wanted her. He’d acted on it. Kissing her had nothing to do with helping her get over her unnatural notion that she was going to die.
That kiss had disturbed Laurence’s sleep and troubled his mind from the moment he’d succumbed to it. It fogged his brain when he’d sat in front of his home computer on Sunday. It made him fifteen minutes late leaving Monday morning, which caused him an extra half hour in traffic. He’d forgotten his appointment with Amy Kermeth, hadn’t gotten his workout and had discovered the coffee machine was broken when he finally reached the office. The rest of the morning was no better. He couldn’t forget Madison’s filmy blouse draped across the coffee table or her panty hose and high heels on the carpet.
The three times he’d called her into his office, his mind’s eye had stripped her naked, imagined the scent at the base of her throat, the color of her nipples…
He hadn’t a clue what she was actually wearing.
The worst part was that he hadn’t needed anything when he buzzed her, at least not anything work related. He’d gone insane. He’d lost control of his libido. He’d forgotten the Family Plan.
This was bad, very bad. A boss should never, under any circumstances, notice such intimate details about his employee. Madison deserved far more respect.
He’d unequivocally and irrevocably fallen in lust with Madison O’Donnell.
So, what could a fourth visitation really hurt? He was already doomed as it was.
He pushed his intercom button. “Madison, a minute, please.”
He’d need her for a lot longer than that, considering everything he wanted to do to her. But this time, he’d note her attire, and he wouldn’t even think about the silky texture of her panty hose against his fingers.
“Draft a letter to…” He couldn’t remember the name of the client, any client.
Her gauzy skirt, wrinkled by design, wrapped around her calves. Black nylon hugged her ankles. Suede pumps caressed her feet. His heart stopped when his gaze rose to her face. Actually it never made it to her face. It didn’t get past her shoulders, her throat bared by the cut of her lacy black vest, not to mention the swell of breast above the plunging neckline. Or that tight choker around her neck.
He was unreasonably incensed despite himself. “You dressed for him, didn’t you?”
Her pen and pad bobbed in one hand while the other fiddled with the rainbow-colored necklace at her throat. “Him who?”
She’d left the door open behind her. Laurence tried not to yell. “Dic—”
She glowered, a look less than intimidating when you took in the whole petite package.
Laurence gave in anyway. “Richard.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll freeze in that skimpy vest.” Or she was going to incite Dick the Prick to lust.
“It’s summer.”
Beneath the desk, Laurence clenched his fists on his thighs. “You drove your car again?”
“Squeaky’s watching it for me to make sure nothing happens.”
“Squeaky?”
“Our attendant.”
Laurence couldn’t even remember the man’s face, yet Madison had
learned his name. Then he noticed the almost nervous way she fingered her rainbow necklace. What was the thing made of anyway? “What?”
Her eyes shifted to the left. “What do you mean, what?”
“You’re twitching. You only do that when you want something.” Maybe he should tell her what she wanted. Then he could give it to her. Gladly.
“It’s about my picnic.”
Thank you, God, she wanted to cancel it. “I can tell you to work late if you need an excuse.”
“No.” The purse of her lips didn’t last long. “I just want to ask you not to follow me to Golden Gate Park tonight.”
“I wasn’t going to follow, but there’s nothing wrong with a man taking a stroll through the park.”
“You don’t stroll.” She fluttered her eyelashes and puckered her lips. “Please, T. Larry.”
He would look a little ridiculous watching them from a park bench. Not to mention obsessive and compulsive. “All right, but you have to sit out in the open where everyone can see you. No dreamy little clearings amidst a lot of trees.”
“Okay.”
“And you have to promise to park in plain sight and leave before it gets dark.” He’d called the police several times since the tire incident. They’d tried reassuring him by saying that there’d been similar occurrences in three other garages that same day. So reassuring. Not. Changing garages wouldn’t help, either. Damn.
“Promise?” he repeated when she pressed her lips together, fingering that damn necklace again.
“All right, all right.”
“And—”
“Isn’t that enough?”
He tapped his finger against his lips. She shut up easily this time as if afraid he’d use his mouth on her again, a method he would have preferred. He made up his mind before he could consider the wisdom of his decision. “You have to give me Tuesday night.”
“Tuesday night?”
He raised a brow. “Do I hear an echo in here?”
“But what do you mean you want Tuesday night?”
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