“If I get a hole in one, we tie and resort to the coin toss,” T. Larry said. She didn’t trust that smile. He’d tricked her somehow. She just knew it.
“You said you were champion of your senior class.”
He shrugged. “That was twenty years ago.”
“Have you been giving me shots to lull me?”
“I wouldn’t dare. I have to see you in the morning.”
She crossed her arms, realized it pulled the hem of her dress almost to her crotch and let her hands fall to her sides.
“Go for it,” she finally said.
He did. Bend. Place. Count. Putt. And the little ball was sucked away along with hers.
Darn. “That was too easy. I’m sure you cheated.”
With a lazy T. Larry shit-eating grin, he said, “I didn’t.”
“All right. Let’s flip.” She could still win. She dug in her purse for a quarter and couldn’t find even a penny.
“Let’s do it at the car. These people want to start the last hole.”
She looked for his trick in that, but could find none.
Leaving behind their putters, they stepped into the intimate gloom of the parking lot. Several overhead lamps had burned out, and T. Larry had managed to park right beneath one, beneath a whole slew of them, in fact. His car sat in a pool of darkness.
He held a coin in his hand. “Heads I win, tails you lose.”
She grabbed the coin, turned it over in her fingers to make sure it was a real coin, squinting to see clearly in the lack of good lighting. Heads one side, tails the other. Fifty-fifty chance. “All right.”
Silver spun in the air. T. Larry caught it with practiced ease, then pulled a palm aside. Madison leaned closer to see.
“Tails you lose,” he murmured close to her ear.
That mutant tingle clamored inside her.
“Let me see that.” She pulled him into a touch of moonlight. Tails. Darn. There was only one thing to do.
She closed her eyes, puckered her lips, put her hands behind her back and leaned forward.
“I don’t think so.” He pushed her up against the car door.
Her breath got sucked out of her, and her eyes went wide. That car of his certainly didn’t retain the heat because she was cold on the backside and hot-hot-hot on the front. Then T. Larry swooped down on her. No prelim, just his tongue along the seam of her lips. His fingers tunneled through her hair, holding her in place, and then that horrible, excruciating, wonderful tingle swamped her.
It rippled in her body like sweet wine. She couldn’t help but open her mouth, first to sigh, then to let him in. And her arms—of their own volition they wound round his neck, pulled him closer, forcing him to drop his hands from the back of her head.
His fingertips skimmed her shoulders, trailed the outside of her breasts, his thumbs caressing within a centimeter of her nipples. Oh my. He squeezed her ribs, moved to her waist, then her hips, his body dipping as he diddled with the hem of her too-short dress.
All the while he mesmerized her with his lips, his tongue. Boy, T. Larry could kiss. T. Larry could make her forget who she was, who he was. She moaned into his mouth and pulled him deeper.
He plucked at the stretchy material covering her bottom, tugging it up past her butt cheeks. She pried his fingers off, yanked her dress down, her mouth still fastened to his, his still fascinated with hers. He moved to the front, tarrying between her hem and the bare skin of her thigh.
She simply couldn’t catch her breath. Then he nipped her lip and backed off an inch or two, resting his forehead against hers while his breath sawed from his chest at an irregular rate.
“Better than Richard?” he murmured against her tingling lips.
“Richard who?” She honestly didn’t know.
Until he laughed softly with a hint of smugness.
It didn’t matter, not right now. All she wanted was for T. Larry to hypnotize her with his lips again. His fingers traced her collarbone, then the scalloped neck of her dress, finally dipping low against her bosom. She drew in a breath. Her chest swelled against his touch.
A child laughed, footsteps stomped, then a car alarm beeped.
Goodness, she’d forgotten they were in a parking lot. Granted, the dark hid them, but T. Larry had made her lose sight of exactly where they were. And she’d let him hike her dress so that her buns showed. Oh my God.
She pushed, managing to secure several inches of breathing space she sorely needed to yank her dress back down. Afterward, he caught her wrists and placed her hands against his palms.
Then she recalled what he’d whispered against her lips. “Is that what kissing me is all about? Besting Richard? And my lipstick is all over your mouth.”
His gray eyes glittered behind his glasses as if light somehow penetrated their dark corner of the lot. “It’s all over you, too. Wipe it off for me.”
The touch of her fingertips against his lips was too terribly intimate. The brush of his against hers short-circuited several brain cells.
“There, all cleaned up,” he whispered. “It’s about choices, Madison.”
“What?” She’d lost the bent of the original conversation.
“Richard. He isn’t the only one you can choose.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What are you saying?” She was afraid she already knew.
“If you want to fall in love, you don’t need Richard.”
Her head started to spin, and every inch of her flesh prickled where she touched him. “You can’t be serious. You’re not suggesting…you don’t mean…”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” With a half step back, hands still imprisoning hers, he bowed at the waist. “I’m at your service for whatever you need.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. Not at him, or about him, but at the absurdity of the situation. “You’re my boss.”
His eyes turned a flat, stormy gray. “The rules you typed up didn’t state you couldn’t fall in love with your boss.”
“I’ve known you forever. You’re like one of my brothers.”
“If you’d said your father, I’d have to beat you.”
“I just don’t feel that way about you, T. Larry.”
His eyes narrowed. “You sure as hell kissed me like you were feeling ‘that way.’”
She had. Twice. And twice she’d forgotten her name the moment he’d touched her. “It would just get too complicated.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Well, you know, when it was over…I’d still be working for you, and things would be all difficult and changed. I don’t think I’d like them that way.”
He cocked his head, tugged on her hands and turned his to lace his fingers through hers. “So maybe you think you’re not going to die after all. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know. I never really did know. But I won’t have children or get married just in case I do die. And by the same token, I can’t get involved with my boss just in case I don’t.”
“You have a very strange sense of logic.”
She grinned, feeling the win despite her captured fingers. “Why, thank you.”
He advanced. She had nowhere to go except up against the car, which had proved to be a very bad idea the first time.
He let go of one hand, took off his glasses and laid them on the roof of the car. “It’s not complicated unless you make it that way.”
My, he had extraordinary eyes. She couldn’t think of a thing to say in return.
“You fall in love. You get what you want.”
Her throat was awfully dry. “What do you get?”
His hands slid up her arms, bracketing her collarbones. “What do you think?”
Goodness, sex. “You don’t really want me like that, do you?”
His eyes were dark and intense without the benefit of glasses. “Exactly like that.”
He stole her breath. Those mutant tingles made her knees weak. She would have fallen if he hadn’t wedged her between his body and the car.
“All right. Tomorrow.”
She’d feel sane tomorrow. “T. Larry, I have a question.”
“What?”
“If heads you win, and tails I lose, how was I ever supposed to win the toss?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t think about it now, Madison. Just think about this.”
Then he kissed her again, and she had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling that he’d won the toss because she’d wanted him to.
“I’M NOT INVITING YOU IN.”
“I can wait until you’re ready.” Laurence realized Madison was now running scared. He’d wanted to buy her a nice meal in a swanky restaurant, but she’d insisted on fast food, which she generally avoided. In fact, she was avoiding him, cutting their date short and turning their kiss into a distant memory instead of little over an hour ago.
“I don’t think you should get your hopes up.”
Laurence pulled in beneath a streetlamp outside her apartment. “Something’s definitely up, and it’s not just my hopes.”
She blushed. Madison had the prettiest blush. Then she turned in her seat. “T. Larry, what’s gotten into you? I’ve never heard you make a sexual innuendo. In fact, I’ve always thought you were asexual.”
Christ. If she wasn’t careful, he’d show her just how asexual he was right on the front seat of his car. Or maybe he’d just beat his head against the steering wheel. He had to say something to keep from strangling her.
“When are you seeing him again?”
“Tomorrow night.”
He’d been hoping she’d say never. Laurence restrained himself, but his fists ached with clenching the wheel. “So you’re driving yourself in to work.”
She nodded.
“Carry your car keys between your fingers so you can poke out the eyes of anyone coming close to you.”
“T. Larry.”
“And have Squeaky walk you to the elevators.”
“T. Larry.” More strongly.
“Promise.”
She gave him a you-pitiful-man look and huffed. “Promise.”
He’d still worry, but didn’t know what else to do, besides tying her to his bed. Hmm, not a bad idea. “I’ll walk you up.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I always walk a lady to the door and see her safely in.”
“You aren’t going to kiss me, are you? It confuses me.”
“I won’t kiss you.” He smiled to himself because her admission seemed a point in his favor. “Unless you beg me to.”
She snorted, then climbed out, her fanny outlined in the delicious dress. Just that sight, her smile and those kisses were worth everything. At the foot of the stairs, she waited.
“Ladies first,” he murmured with his hand extended.
She narrowed her eyes. “I know what you’re doing.” But she preceded him, tugging at the bottom of her dress.
At the top of the stairs, she squatted to retrieve a key from beneath the mat, eyes on him over her shoulder. He took it from her hand when she rose.
“What the hell are you doing leaving a key under your mat?”
“My brother was going to fix my sink.”
“Anyone could have found it, not just your brother.”
She frowned. “Why would anyone care?”
Because she was young, beautiful and very kissable. “I’ll check inside before you go in there.”
She pursed those kissable lips. “I’m not inviting you in.”
“I told you I wouldn’t kiss you if you didn’t want me to.” He wondered how long it would take to make her beg. “This is about your safety. Is sex all you have on the brain?”
She snorted again, an oddly petite and dainty sound.
“Stay in the doorway while I check that everything’s okay.”
She rolled her eyes, said nothing, but waited for him on the doorstep.
The shade by the window where he’d kissed her was down. He crossed the room, snapping it up, letting street light swamp the room. Pink-and-green neon stripes flashed across the ceiling. She’d cleaned, her clothing was put away and the magazines straightened. A single rose unfurled in a bud vase in the center of the coffee table.
No monsters lurked behind the couch. Laurence moved down the short hallway and stopped at the bathroom door. Gleaming pink-and-gray tile adorned the walls and countertop. Her jewelry sat in a bone china cup resplendent with blossoming blue roses. Scents abounded—strawberry hand lotion, a bottle of honeysuckle shampoo, lilac bubble bath. Eyes closed, he breathed deep of her essence.
“Are you done in there yet?” she called from the front door, exactly where he’d told her to stay. A first. Madison doing what he told her to do without much of a fight.
“I’m just checking to make sure there’s no psycho behind the shower curtain.”
“Get out of my bathroom.”
He rattled the plastic curtain. “Looks like you’re okay in here. I’ll just check the bedroom.”
“Stay out of my bedroom.”
Neon shone through her unshaded window. A thick comforter covered the bed, matching pillows scattered with artful display along the headboard. Another red rose on the dresser, in a blue bud vase, lightly scented the air. She’d stuck photos of nieces, nephews, brothers and so on along the edge of the mirror. A silver-handled comb lay in the center of a square lace doily. Pots of makeup lined the back of the vanity.
He wanted to touch her feminine things, hold the lace of her nightgown, which was laid out on the bed, to his nose, drink her in.
“Are you done?”
In a moment, he’d be the one begging. “I’m just checking the closet.” He slammed the door. “No monsters in there. I guess it’s safe. Wait, I forgot the kitchen.”
“Don’t you dare go in my kitchen.”
When he made it back down the short hall, she was standing in front of louvered swinging doors, hands behind her back protectively.
“Do you mind not putting your back to the door like that? Someone could knife you between the louvers.”
She pursed her lips combatively.
“I have to check it, Madison.” He held out a placating hand.
She dashed through the door before he could stop her, then gasped from somewhere on the other side.
He lost a lifetime in that gasp and the “eek” that followed.
“What’s wrong?” The doors hit him in the back as they swung in after him.
She stood by the sink. Light falling through the window shone across her face. Hand on the tap, she turned the water on, turned it off, back on again, then leaned to the switch and flipped on the garbage disposal.
It coughed, spat, choked and fell silent.
“Not fixed,” she muttered. “He’s going to kill me because he had to do the dishes.”
“Your brother?”
“Uh-huh, Sean. He did the dishes to make me feel guilty for leaving such a mess and didn’t fix the garbage disposal to punish me.”
Nice to have a plumber, contractor, mechanic and dishwasher all in the family. Madison never had to pay for a service.
Now all she needed was an accountant. Christ!
T. LARRY HAD VAMOOSED like a man with a stick of dynamite where the sun don’t shine. Whatever had gotten into him? Her house was clean, her dishes done and her clothes picked up. What more could a man ask for?
She put the key under the mat, closed the door, poured herself a glass of wine, then walked down the hall to her bedroom.
Sean would probably finish the garbage disposal tomorrow, and she’d make sure there wasn’t one single dish in that sink.
Her bedroom smelled of roses. She flipped on the light. The bed was made, her nightgown neatly displayed, and a single rose stood on her vanity.
This really wasn’t like Sean. Odd. Very odd. Unless he wanted to make her feel terribly guilt
y for having left a mess for him to wade through. Now that was like him, going overboard to make a point. Still, cleaning her entire apartment, not to mention picking up her nightgown off the floor and folding it on the bed, was a very strange form of punishment even for Sean. And the rose. With this amount of effort, he must have been livid and probably wouldn’t be back to do the garbage disposal for weeks. She should have felt awfully guilty, but how could she when she now had such a lovely clean apartment?
Switching on the small lamp, she slid onto the stool in front of her vanity mirror and reached automatically for the brush that wasn’t there. She picked up the silver comb instead, sliding it through her hair, pulling on one or two tangles.
She sipped from her glass, licked her lips, and tasted T. Larry. Oh, she really was all mixed up, she thought as she pulled on her nightgown.
By the bedside, her phone rang. After ten, it couldn’t be Sean, nor any of her brothers, not even her mom. Crawling onto the coverlet, cradling her wine to her breasts, she reached for the phone.
“Hello?” She answered with a hint of trepidation. It might be T. Larry to confuse her again.
“Madison?”
“Richard.” She’d relented, giving him her number last night.
“I just called to say good-night.”
“You called to see if I was home from my date with T. Larry.”
The silence, except for cell phone static, was short but telling. “Last night you said it was just an ‘outing.’”
That was before T. Larry talked about sex. “I don’t know quite what it was, Richard.”
A sigh. “Does this mean you don’t want to see me anymore?” A pathetic note crept into his voice.
T. Larry demanded, steamrollered and teased. He did what he wanted and her desires be damned. He was anything but pathetic.
Poor Richard. Despite his beautiful face, he needed her. T. Larry didn’t, unless it was to type his latest office protocol. Ah, the crux of the whole thing. Part of falling in love was feeling needed, and much as she told everyone T. Larry needed her, she knew he’d toddle on through life quite well without her.
“I want to see you again, Richard.”
“Tomorrow is still on?”
“Of course it is.”
His relief and his smile slid across the vast airspace between them. “I have another surprise, better than the picnic.”
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