by Leanne Banks
He cocked his head to one side and gave an almost-grin. "Bingo," he said in a low, velvety voice that held a tinge of surprise. "What tripped your trigger?"
He took a step closer, and Olivia found her voice. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I'm not turned on."
His grin grew. "In my profession," Nick gently told her, "I've learned that people often overemphasize when they're not being truthful."
Olivia took a deep breath and caught another whiff of his subtle sexy scent. She could dislike him for putting her on the spot. She jumped at that. Dislike was much safer than arousal. "It was temporary insanity," she said. "A quick flash of weirdness, and now it's gone. All gone," she added emphatically.
"Is that so?"
"Yes, it is," she said cheerfully, and prayed it was true.
His gaze grew curious. "What did it?"
"What did what?"
"Tripped your trigger?"
Olivia felt her cheeks heat and glanced away. "Oh, I'm not really sure I can put my finger on it."
"Was it something I said?"
"No, I just—"
"Something I did," he concluded.
Olivia groaned and closed her eyes. He wasn't going to stop. He was going to cross-examine her until she answered him. She opened her eyes and met his gaze. "Okay, okay," she said. "If I tell you, will you stop?"
"Stop what?"
"Badgering me!"
"Yes."
Spit it out, she told herself. "It was the way you ate the pie."
He gave a slow blink. "The way I ate the pie," he repeated as if she were speaking Portuguese. "But you fed me."
"Yes, but you really enjoyed it. There was something … sensual about the way you ate. You devoured it—" she paused "—with a passion."
"The way I ate the pie," Nick said yet again. Olivia had been a weird little girl. She was now a kooky woman. Alluring, but weird. "And that's it."
He watched her sigh in exasperation and sorely wished for the use of his hands. He had a strong urge to pull her into his arms and taste her the way he'd tasted her cherry pie. He struggled with the urge, impatient with how much she appealed to him, impatient with himself.
"Well, maybe the way you smell," she said grudgingly, then backed into the counter. "But it was temporary."
"A one-time anomaly," he said calmly, yet growing more impatient.
"Yes." She nodded.
To hell with denial, he thought. It was just a kiss, a way to stop wondering about her. Nick had learned the reality of a woman was rarely as intriguing as the fantasy. He put his arms on either side of the counter, lightly trapping her. "If it's a one-time thing, we shouldn't waste it."
Her eyes widened. "Waste?" she squeaked.
He lowered his head.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Curing some mutual temporary insanity," he muttered, then took her mouth with his. She stiffened, stunned, but after a second, she softened. He found her lips lush. She opened slightly, and he plunged his tongue into her mouth. Her taste was a heady combination of cherry pie and something more provocative. He wanted a little more of that taste.
Her soft little moan vibrated down his gut to his thighs. He rubbed his lips back and forth against hers, and she echoed his movement, gently pulling his bottom lip into her mouth.
He leaned his chest against hers and felt the hardened tips of her nipples through her shirt. What he wouldn't give to touch her breasts with his hands, but he was bandaged. Inhaling a quick breath through his nostrils, he continued to kiss her, eating at her mouth, letting her eat his.
On and on, he kept kissing her, wanting a little more. Just a little more, he thought, until she lifted her hands to the back of his head and began to wriggle slightly against him.
Nick grew hard. He rubbed between her thighs. She would be wet, he thought, and wanted again to touch her with his fingers. With his mouth. With his body.
Inch by mesmerizing inch, she trailed her fingers down to his hips and cradled his swollen masculinity against her.
"Oh, my word," she whispered, dragging her mouth from his, her eyes wide with distress. "I have to stop." She sounded as if she were speaking as much to herself as to him. "You have to stop."
Stop. His mind comprehended it, but his body was ready for action.
She squished her eyes closed for a second, then opened them. "I can't do this," she told him. "When I decided to go back to school, I turned my hormone switch to the off position, and it must stay that way! I can't fail!"
If it weren't for her extreme distress, Nick would have roared with laughter at the notion of turning Olivia's hormone switch off. Her anguish, however, tugged at his heart. That surprised the hell out of him because Nick had long kept his heart guarded better than Fort Knox.
"Whoa," he said. "What's this about failing? A kiss won't make you fail."
He watched her gaze flash with a dozen changing emotions, then she looked away. If he didn't know better, he would say she was close to tears.
"Olivia, what's this malarkey about you failing?"
He saw her brown eyes grow shiny with unshed tears she blinked furiously to hide. "Some people don't think it's malarkey," she finally retorted in a tight voice. "Some people think I will fail."
Nick felt a wave of protective fury. "Some people don't know much. In fact, many people don't know much."
"My family hasn't been very encouraging," she said.
"You're not surprised," he said, and heard the cynicism in his own voice. "Families can be a person's biggest support or biggest detractor. You're the one who is going to go to class and study. You're the one who is going to make this happen. No one else. One of the greatest pleasures in life is doing what someone else says can't be done."
He stopped abruptly, feeling a fleeting combination of self-consciousness mix with his conviction. He sounded like a motivational infomercial, he thought wryly. But the light dawned on Olivia's face as if he'd struck a match and lit a candle. Damn if he didn't see hope and conviction stamped across her feminine features. "Okay," she said, then added in a voice that was sexy without her trying, "Mighty Warrior Commando."
As she walked to her room, he remembered her earlier comment about keeping her hormone switch on the off position and shook his head. She would need a cloak and a veil, and perhaps, a keeper.
* * *
Nick swore as he hung up the phone.
Olivia glanced at him warily. He'd walked around in a quiet, dark mood most of the afternoon. She didn't want to get too close to him, primarily because she was still appalled at how easily he had flipped her switch the other day. She was determined it wouldn't happen again. She would help him until his bandages were removed, then find another place to live. That was the least she could do.
"Problem?" she asked.
"Yes. Bob Dell, a partner from my law firm, has ordered me to make an appearance at a client's cocktail party. He says I'm 'hot' right now and wants to milk my popularity—fleeting though it may be," he added sardonically, "to get a big account."
"Maybe it won't be that bad. A few drinks and finger foods. With your bandages, you can probably even get out of shaking hands."
Nick stared at his bandaged hands and scowled.
Oops, she thought. Wrong choice. He reminded her of a tiger with a sore paw.
"If I'd wanted to play the political game, I would be working for the commonwealth attorney."
"No," Olivia murmured more to herself than to him. "You would be the commonwealth attorney."
He stared at her for a moment, then chuckled. "You're right." He sighed and shook his head as if he were resigning himself to an odious task. "I need to bring a date."
"Oh, well, that's no problem. We've got a mile-long list of women who are dying to—"
"Not in a million years," he said, waving his paw through the air. "I don't need that kind of complication. I need someone who understands this party is just a job," he said, giving her a brooding glance that made her uncomfortable.
>
The silence grew between them. Her stomach twisted at the way he was looking at her; assessing, considering. She picked up the list of female callers he'd received during the past week. "Are you sure one of these won't—"
"You," he finally said.
Olivia's heart bolted and she shook her head.
"You know I don't want any emotional involvement right now."
"I know you don't. It's Saturday night," he said as if the matter was decided.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why?" he asked in a reasonable tone.
Because you're too sexy, too appealing, too strong. She bit her lip at all her unreasonable responses. "I just don't…" she said vaguely, then grasped at the first repeatable thought that entered her head. "I don't have anything to wear," she said, so relieved she smiled.
"No problem," he said without hesitation. "I'll give you my credit card and you can pick something up."
"Oh, no," she said, shaking her head. "I couldn't let you buy—"
"I insist," he said. "You wouldn't be going to the party if I weren't going. And I wouldn't be going if I hadn't rescued you."
Olivia gulped at his reminder. "Oh," she said weakly. "I guess it's the least I can do."
* * *
Nick's assistant, Helen Barnett, was a meticulously groomed, blond woman with more class in her French-manicured pinky fingernail than most women could ever hope to possess. Olivia put her age at forty-something and might have felt intimidated if she hadn't seen the warmth in the woman's eyes as they'd walked into a fashionable boutique on Libbie Avenue.
Olivia took a quick peek at some of the price tags and shook her head. "Oh, no. I'm definitely in the wrong place," she murmured.
Helen smiled. "Oh, but you're not. We should be able to find the perfect dress here."
Dismayed, Olivia looked at the rack doubtfully. "But they're all so…"
"So what?"
Olivia cleared her throat. "Expensive," she whispered.
Helen smiled again. "Nick said money is no object and sent along his credit card. You needn't worry about his credit limit."
Olivia's stomach began to churn. "I had planned to repay him."
Helen waved her hand dismissingly. "Consider it an act of charity," she said. "Nick makes a very healthy salary and doesn't take time to spend it. Not only that, you're the first normal woman to come into his life in a long time."
Olivia wasn't sure Nick would call her normal. "I still think there must be someone else more appropriate to attend the party with Nick."
"No. Nick hasn't come close to finding the right girl. I'm no matchmaker, but I've always thought the right woman for him will need to possess an unusual combination of qualities because he is definitely cut from a different cloth."
Curious about Helen's perspective, Olivia turned away from the clothes rack. "Cut from different cloth in what way?"
Helen cocked her head to one side thoughtfully. "He's almost too intelligent for his own good, and everyone knows he has the predatory instincts of a lion. In fact, one of the partners once talked about the different ways that lions and tigers kill. The lion crushes the back of his victim."
Olivia shuddered. "It's so hard for me to reconcile that image with the kid I knew when we lived on Cherry Lane."
Helen paused and her lips twitched. "You knew Nick when he was a child? He didn't tell me. I must ask, what kind of child was he? A bully?"
Olivia shook her head, thinking of her brother. "Not at all. Nick stood up to the bully. He even took up for me a few times."
Helen gave Olivia another assessing glance. "Then you know his secret."
Olivia felt a dance of butterflies in her stomach. "What do you mean?"
"Nick not only has the predatory instincts of a lion, he has the heart of a lion. But he keeps his heart out of reach and often neglects his leisure time. A shame, isn't it?"
Olivia thought about the past week she'd spent in Nick's house, and Helen's image of Nick clicked into place. "Yes, it is," she said, but quickly reminded herself she couldn't—and shouldn't—do anything about it. The idea that Nick was missing out on the joy of life, however, bothered her.
"Oh, my goodness!" Helen exclaimed, interrupting Olivia's internal debate. "I have forty-five minutes to help you find something to wear before I need to get back to the office." Helen pulled out a black dress. "Time to get moving. How do you like this?"
Although she agreed to try it on, Olivia searched in vain for the long, loose-fitting dresses she favored when she wasn't wearing jeans. In her previous life as a hair stylist, she'd worked in an exclusive but funky shop in Georgetown where the stylists had followed the owner's lead with casual dress.
Within thirty minutes, instead of a swirling campy gown, Olivia was outfitted with a winter-white designer knit dress that skimmed her body in a way that made her grateful for the fact that the parking space she usually found forced her to hike to her classes. The coordinating shoes, bag and wrap completed the ensemble that cost about the same as two of Olivia's previous car payments.
"You still look uncertain," Helen said. "The color looks gorgeous with your complexion and dark hair."
"If I don't spill something on it," Olivia muttered, still ambivalent about the whole thing. She shouldn't be going to this dinner party.
Helen laughed. "You'll do fine. In that dress, you might even make Nick change his mind about not getting involved."
Olivia's heart jumped. "No! I don't want to change his mind. I don't want to get involved. I have a no-romance rule now that I'm going to college."
Helen did a double take. "'No-romance rule'?"
"Right," Olivia said. "I'm not going to get involved with anyone in a romantic way especially this first year I'm in college. I need to focus on my studies. I'm turning my hormones to the off position."
Helen smiled slowly, but looked doubtful. "Do you really think you can turn off your heart?"
Olivia felt her heart squeeze tight in her chest "I have to."
* * *
Chapter 4
« ^ »
Tiptoeing on her new designer leather heels, Olivia saw him in the foyer. With his back to her, she couldn't help noticing the width of his shoulders beneath the black wool overcoat. His dark hair skimmed over the edge of the collar. Given his profession, his hair was just a little longer than it should be, she thought, and approved. Even from the back, she could see that he wore the fine clothes with ease.
With confidence, she thought again, and envied him yet again.
A split second passed and he turned. He stared at her so long she began to wonder if she'd smeared her lipstick or already run her stockings even though she knew she hadn't.
Unable to bear the silence a nanosecond longer, Olivia cleared her throat. "Helen said you would be surprised."
"Helen was wrong."
Olivia felt a sinking sensation. "You don't like it," she said, caring what he thought and knowing she shouldn't. She cared far more than was comfortable. "I knew it was wrong for me," she said, mentally searching her wardrobe. "I—"
"No," he said, stepping forward and putting his gloved fingers over her mouth. "I didn't say I didn't like it. I'm just not surprised."
She shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand."
He gave a wry grin. "Olivia, you dress your body like it's a secret weapon. Maybe it is," he muttered.
Olivia felt her cheeks heat. "I dress comfortably."
"Baggy jeans, loose blouses, sweatshirts. You dress so you won't attract attention. That might work with other men."
"But not you," she said.
He shook his head. "I'm not surprised you look gorgeous." He lifted a dark eyebrow. "I'll have to beat off my colleagues. Now put on your wrap and cover yourself," he told her.
Olivia started to pull the cape over her shoulders, but Nick finished the task. "Thank you. I think. You look pretty wonderful yourself." She glanced at his gloves again. "How did you talk the doctor into getting
out of your bandages?"
"Negotiation," he said with a shrug.
Olivia paused and looked at him again. "Does he know your bandages are off?"
"Yes. Surprised?"
"Yes, I didn't think he would agree to let you take them off yet."
Nick gave a low chuckle as he opened the door. "I didn't say he agreed."
Now, that didn't surprise her. Within moments they arrived at a posh west-end home where a man helped her out of the car, took Nick's keys and parked his car.
Olivia hung back when Nick started up the steps. He glanced at her and must have seen the uncertainty on her face. He returned to her side. "Look, if it helps any, I don't want to be here, either. We won't stay long."
"Okay," Olivia said. "But we never really settled exactly what you want me to do tonight." When he didn't reply, she sighed. "How you want me to act?" she asked. "As your date?" she elaborated, whispering the last word.
"Act?" he asked. "You just meet a few people, eat all the food you want and agree when I say it's time to go."
Olivia nodded slowly. He still hadn't answered her real question.
"You still don't look sure."
"Well," she said, fighting an attack of nerves. "I wasn't sure if I was supposed to act—" She broke off.
"Act how?" he asked, his patience clearly stretched.
"How affectionate I was supposed to act. I mean, am I supposed to seem as if I'm in—" She broke off again. "As if I really like you?"
He stared at her for a moment, then roared with laughter. "As if you really like me. Does that mean you really can't stand me?"
"I didn't say that," she said quickly, feeling her cheeks heat from embarrassment and indignation.
He lowered his head close to hers with a mock earnest gaze. "Tell me, Olivia, how do you really feel about me?"
To her dismay, her heart hammered so hard at his closeness she could barely think straight. She took a quick breath and caught a draft of his scent. "I feel like kicking you," she told him, then took the steps.
He quickly caught up to her and rang the doorbell. "What perfume do you wear?"