A keen rush of sexual awareness surged through her. Startled, Carrie placed her hands on his chest, intending to push him away.
Instead, Tyler covered her hands with his, and rested his forehead against hers. "Scared?"
"No, it's worse than that," she whispered. His thumbs had slipped under her hands and were caressing her palms; his warm breath mingled with hers. Carrie fought the urge to close her eyes and give in to the sensuality of the moment. "I wish I were scared."
"Now, why would you wish that?" He was enjoying this game, the teasing, the push-pull sexual play that would inevitably lead right where he intended it to. He slid his hands over her, delighting in the feel of her, small and feminine yet strong and supple.
Carrie stared at his temptingly sexy mouth, and a sensual shiver rippled up her spine. Somehow, as if of their own volition, her arms raised and her hands locked at the nape of his neck. She stood on tiptoe, pressed tightly against him, inhaling his heady male scent and relishing the hard, unyielding masculine planes of his body. It had been so long since she'd been held, so long since she'd felt the ardent pulsing of a man's body, wanting her.
"You're making me feel things I thought I'd never feel again, and that's far more dangerous than being afraid of you," she said softly.
He slipped one powerful thigh between hers, interlocking her even more closely to him. "So you're not so immune to me, after all?" he teased, nibbling on the delicate softness of her earlobe.
"I guess not." She gazed up at him, her blue eyes round with surprise. She'd thought these feelings rioting through her had been buried with Ian. But to have them resurrected by a man like Tyler Tremaine, a man whose financial and social status—not to mention his level of experience—were aeons removed from her own, was disturbing indeed.
She frowned. "Now your already overinflated ego will swell even more."
Tyler laughed huskily. "It's not my ego that's swelling, honey." Easing her back against the wall, he gripped her firmly, and slowly, deliberately raised his knee until she was practically astride his muscled thigh.
Carrie clutched at him, shocked by the intimate contact, dazed by the fiery intensity burning within her. A dangerous excitement pounded through her and she wanted to flee from it as much as she wanted to stay and experience it.
And then his mouth was on hers and she couldn't think at all; she couldn't worry or reason or analyze because her thought processes seemed to have shut down, overpowered by the purely physical need rushing through her.
She parted her lips for the surge of his tongue, whimpering slightly at the excruciatingly sensual penetration. Aroused and emotional, Carrie kissed him back, holding nothing in reserve. Her hands smoothed over him as pleasure exploded her senses. Intoxicated by his taste and touch, she wanted more and more of him.
He hadn't expected her response to be so passionate, both hungry and giving. Tyler's mind reeled in a daze of erotic sensations. Once again, he had underestimated her. He'd never dreamed that he could be so roused, so rocked by one kiss. God, could she kiss! Who'd have dreamed that sweet,
spunky little Carrie—the wholesome mother of three-could incite his passion so quickly, so hotly?
A sharp, urgent need shook Tyler to his very core. The sensations surging through him were raw and wild, stronger than anything he had ever known. He'd certainly experienced the heights of desire but what he was feeling now was a higher high, drawing him in, rendering him powerless to its force.
"Carrie..." He groaned her name as his mouth sought the slender curve of her neck. He was so hard he had to grit his teeth against the pleasurable pain. Groaning, he clutched her tighter as his mouth sought hers again.
And then it was all over, and he was standing alone. Carrie had wrenched herself out of his arms and stood facing him across the vestibule, the length of the supine Ted Qual-ter between them. It was only a small distance, but she was safely out of his reach. Tyler felt frustration tear through him. It required an alarming amount of willpower not to step over Qualter and pull Carrie back into his arms.
"That wasn't such a good idea," she said, staring at the floor.
"What?" Dazed and bemused, Tyler gazed at her, as if transfixed. His emotions were dangerously and uncharacteristically close to the surface, and the urge to give in to them, to act upon them, was tempting indeed.
"That kiss," Carrie said baldly, meeting his eyes. "It was a mistake, for both of us."
"You liked it," Tyler countered, stung. "In fact, you loved it. You were with me all the way, baby, and don't try to say that you weren't."
"I won't. But you and I have no business kissing each other. We're both adults, Tyler, and we both know where that kiss was headed.''
Her frankness caught him off guard. "To the bedroom," he said bluntly, realizing that he'd failed to supply the smooth, unctuous reply that could have allowed him to
take control of the conversation. And of the situation. He felt confused and off balance.
Carrie appeared just the opposite. "Yes," she said. "And that must not be allowed to happen, Tyler. We can't be lovers—we can't even be friends. You know it as well as I do." She sounded calm and decisive, in full control of the conversation, of the situation. And of him.
"No, I don't know that." Tyler didn't like it, not at all. He was the leader, the one who guided conversations and situations in the direction of his choice. Unfortunately, he had no idea where he wanted to go with this. "But I'm sure you're going to explain it all to me, aren't you?"
"If you'd like," Carrie said patiently.
Tyler felt patronized; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been condescended to—perhaps never. And she didn't even seem aware that she'd insulted him. She was certainly a domineering type, he decided, glaring at her. Used to giving orders and directions to those overwrought women about to deliver in the birthing suite where she worked, used to exercising complete control over her children. She obviously extended her controlling ways to anyone who happened to cross her path—or who kissed her.
"I'm a widow with three children and you're probably one of the most eligible bachelors in the city.. .who knows, maybe in the whole country. We're from two different worlds, that's for sure, and it's simply a geographical quirk of fate that we ever happened to meet at all."
Tyler sighed impatiently. "This is getting tedious. Kindly make your point."
"My point is this—I don't have the time or energy or interest to get sexually involved with anyone." Carrie shrugged. "And from what I've gleaned about your lifestyle, you certainly don't have the time or energy or interest to be nonsexually involved, especially with someone like me."
"Is that so?"
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She nodded, her expression serious, her blue eyes intense. She sincerely believed everything she was saying. Tyler was hit once again with a barrage of conflicting urges. He wanted to laugh at her earnestness, he wanted to argue those stupid, dogmatic points of hers, and most of all, he wanted to drag her back into his arms and kiss her senseless.
While he was mulling his options, Carrie spoke up. "There's one more thing."
He grimaced wryly. "I can't wait to hear it.'
She took a deep breath and forged ahead. "Maybe, hopefully, I'm wrong, but if you're planning to romance me into selling this house to you, please don't waste your time."
''I hadn't planned on doing anything of the kind!'' Tyler snapped. "What kind of a man do you think I am?"
"A very rich one who is used to getting his own way and having what he wants."
"That was a rhetorical question. You didn't have to answer it," he grumbled.
Carrie ignored the interruption. "You will have this property, Tyler," she continued earnestly. "I promise to sell to you eventually, but I don't want to move the children again just yet. We've moved four times since they were born, and I'd like them to have a sense of familiarity with one place for a while before we move again. I'd also like to avoid moving again with three bab
ies." She smiled wearily. "You can't imagine how difficult that is. When they're about three, I'll brave it again. That isn't too long for you to wait, is it? Only about eighteen months and then we can negotiate a sale and—"
"I do not care to discuss a real estate transaction at this point in time," Tyler exclaimed, exasperated. He wanted her so badly he was aching from his head to his heels with the force of it, and she was utterly dispassionate, controlled and impervious to him. While he was hungering for the taste of her luscious pink mouth, she seemed bent on discussing the sale of her property to him at some future date.
He remembered very well that his goal had been to purchase the property, using whatever means necessary to get her to agree to sell. Why and how had that goal suddenly been rendered...irrelevant? Tyler was thunderstruck by the insight. Whatever was occurring now, the property was definitely not a factor. What was going on here, anyway?
"I think I hear the taxi," Carrie said, hurrying to the door.
Tyler watched her go, wondering how anyone could hear anything with the racket going full blast next door. He could hardly hear himself think; perhaps that was the reason his thoughts, usually keen, precise and penetrating, right now were anything but. It was as if he were drunk, but he'd had nothing stronger than the bottled water he kept in the refrigerator in his office, where he'd spent the past seven hours working.
He was disconcerted, disturbed. Nothing was as it should be. Women did not muddle his thoughts; they stayed in the recreation-and-diversion compartment of his mind until he felt like thinking about them. Carrie had not only broken out of the compartment, she had invaded and disrupted his thought processes much as a technological virus infects the workings of a computer. He needed an antidote and fast!
Carrie reentered the house with the taxi driver in tow. The man was short and wiry and did not look pleased at the prospect of hauling off the snoring, immobile Ted Qualter. "Lady, this is going to cost you plenty," he muttered.
Tyler was relieved to stop thinking. It was time to take action. "Don't worry, it'll be worth your while," he promised the driver.
The two men hoisted Qualter to his feet and half carried, half dragged him out of the house. Carrie watched from the doorway as they dumped the limp body into the back seat of the cab. She saw Tyler withdraw a money clip from his pocket and offer some bills to the cabbie who departed the scene with a wide grin.
Tyler walked back to her. "You made the driver a happy man," she said.
"Yes. He's been very well paid for his efforts.'' Tyler shrugged. "As you so astutely pointed out earlier, I am a rich man who is used to getting his own way and having what he wants. I wanted Quaker gone from the premises."
"Thank you," Carrie said gravely. "I would've hated to have him lying here on the floor when the kids woke up." She glanced at her watch. "Which they'll be doing in about four hours. I have to try to get some sleep."
"So do I, but it'll be impossible with those morons carrying on at my house. Mind if I stay here?''
"You're kidding, right?"
"Wrong. If you don't have an extra bedroom, I'll just use the sofa in the living room."
"Tyler-"
"I promise not to try to ravage you. I won't even touch you. You see, I agree that we can't be lovers, but I do think we can be friends."
He was confident and in control again; he felt exultant. The solution had come to him as he'd loaded Qualter into the cab. Friendship! Tame, boring and uneventful friendship. That was the antidote to this unexpected, unnerving spell she seemed to have cast over him, the cure to this absurd interest he'd developed in her. Frequent doses of her company would naturally dilute her appeal; it was inevitable. Especially without sex as an incentive. Tyler smiled, well pleased with his strategy.
Carrie folded her arms and stared directly into his glittering green eyes. "Why would you want to be friends with me?"
"Why wouldn't I want to?" he countered smoothly. "After all, we are neighbors. It's perfectly natural and reasonable for neighbors to be friendly."
Carrie sighed. "Then I'm asking, friend to friend, will you please leave? You can't stay, and I'm too tired to stand here arguing with you about it."
"You really want me to leave? You'd send me over to that den of iniquity, filled with wanton women only too eager to have their wicked way with me? What kind of a friend are you, Carrie?"
His tone was light and Carrie knew he was joking, although she had no doubts about the veracity of his claim. All those women... She felt an odd little pang deep within her, and entirely unbidden came the torrid memory of that hot, hot kiss they had shared.
Carrie stole a quick, furtive glance at him and found him watching her, his green eyes intent. She wondered if he knew what she was thinking and decided that he probably did, that he'd said what he'd said to evoke that very memory. He was experienced, sophisticated and calculating, and it was time to send him on his way. Immediately.
"I have a can of Mace I'll be glad to lend you, if you really want to fend off all those amorous attacks," she said lightly.
"Carrie—"
"Goodbye and good night, Mr. Tremaine."
"What, no more Tyler? After all we've shared?" He laughed. "Lighten up, Carrie. Loosen up. We like each other and there's no reason why we can't be friends."
"Why are you suddenly so insistent on being friends with me?" she demanded.
Tyler stared thoughtfully at the ground. She wanted an answer but the truth wouldn't quite serve. This was where his years of marketing strategies and counterstrategies served him well.
"Maybe it's because you said we can't be friends in that doomsday tone of yours," he said ingenuously. "I don't like to be told what I can and can't do. In fact, I don't like the concept of can't at all. As soon as someone tells me some-
thing can't be done, I set about trying to see that it can. So how about it, Carrie?" He offered her his hand. "Friends?''
"Oh, well, why not?" Carrie put her hand in his, and they shook like two business partners agreeing on a verbal contract. "All things considered, I guess I'd rather have you as a friend than an enemy. And since we're friends, we can be honest and open with each other, right?"
"I doubt if you could be anything but," he murmured. He had the strongest urge to lift her hand to his mouth and press his lips against her small, warm palm. He pictured her gazing at him, dazed and charmed.
"Okay, here goes." Carrie withdrew her hand from his and flashed him a dazzling smile. "Tyler, old pal, it's time for you to get lost. And I mean that in the most friendly, honest, and open way."
Four
Tyler heard baby voices and squeals of laughter and the sound of splashing water as he approached the gap in the hedge separating his property from Carrie's. He hesitated, glancing back at his house, which stood cool and quiet under the hot noon sun. Most of the party guests were gone, though a few still slept on in various rooms, sprawled on furniture or the floor, and about five or six were currently preparing some sort of breakfast for themselves in the enormous, tiled kitchen. Tyler had listened to their post-party ramblings for a few minutes and been seized by an inexplicable urge to escape.
He'd immediately fled the scene and now here he was, wearing cutoff jeans and nothing else, staring at the trail-beaten gap in the unsightly hedge. From the sounds of it, Carrie's children were playing in the backyard. Tyler frowned, realizing at that moment how much he'd been hoping for a replay of last night. That he would find her alone in her yard and they would...
They would what? he asked himself cynically. Pick up where they'd left off last night? And where would that be? The part where he had kissed her and they'd both burned with unslaked desire, or the part where she'd told him to get lost, gave him a friendly shove out the door and locked it behind him?
It felt odd, wondering about a woman. He viewed the opposite sex as an open book, one he had no trouble reading. His preoccupation with Carrie might have alarmed him if he hadn't already developed a workable course of action for dealin
g with it. Tyler congratulated himself on his foresight. It was so simple, so basic. The more he saw of Carrie, the less interest she would hold for him. Any marketing student with an elementary grasp of the dangers of overexposure was familiar with that theory. More is less. And Tyler Tremaine had an advanced degree in marketing.
His plan, however, did not include exposure to Carrie's three little kiddies, especially not on the minimal amount of sleep he'd gotten last night. Tyler turned to head back up to the house.
"Dylan, come back! No, no, Dylan. Don't go over there!"
Carrie's voice stopped Tyler in his tracks. A moment later he heard a shriek of victory as a small blond tyke, clad in a boxy pair of green swim trunks printed with yellow ducks, came barreling through the gap in the hedge.
With a sense of inevitability, Tyler swooped down and caught the fugitive, swinging him up in his arms.
"Go!" Dylan demanded, struggling and wriggling impatiently.
"You mean 'go home,'" Tyler amended as he carried the toddler back through the hedge.
Dylan stopped moving and looked at him curiously. "Go ho?"
"Happy to oblige you. Home you go," Tyler assured him. "And I sincerely hope you'll stay there." He squinted
against the sun to see Carrie running toward them, clutching a child on each hip.
"Looks like both your arms are fully occupied," Tyler noted drolly. "How did you plan to catch this one—with your teeth?" He shook his head. "The logistics of toddler triplets are mind-boggling, especially in your case. It's three against one."
He wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know. Carrie shrugged. "I couldn't leave Emily and Franklin alone in the pool." She was breathless from the heat and exertion. "They could slip under the water within seconds. Better that I try to catch Dylan with my teeth."
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