That tempting curve of mouth compressed in a tight line and remained silent. Satisfaction unfurled deep in Quade's gut – twice on the trot he'd managed to get the last word in. As he turned the knob and opened the door he decided to make sure.
"And ring your sister. Let her know you're all right."
* * *
Chapter 7
«^»
Ring her sister? For quite some time after Quade backed his way out her front door, Chantal felt like wringing her sister's neck!
Instead she wrung the juice out of too many lemons, all the while muttering to herself about pushy sisters and pushier neighbors. He had some hide coming into her house and throwing his weight around, no matter how splendidly proportioned his weight looked in tight jeans. Blinking that visual distraction aside, she sloshed her juice into a mug. Too much? Probably. She doubled up on honey to compensate.
Did he really think she needed reminding of her obligation to Julia and the wedding? Of course she would take time off work if she felt sick. She wasn't a fool or a martyr or a child … even if her taste in music and nightwear might point toward the latter.
Quade didn't seem to mind your choice of nightwear.
Frowning, she topped her mug up with boiling water. Or perhaps she had misinterpreted. Perhaps he'd wanted her out of her pajamas because they looked so hideous, which is precisely why she wanted to wring Julia's neck. For sending Quade over without any warning. For not having any chance to dress, to brush her hair, to glamify.
Leaning back against the bench she took her first tentative sip of his mother's magic remedy … and almost spat it back. Shuddering with distaste, she scraped her tingling tongue through her teeth. Aaack. Still, she mused, it was awfully sweet of him to bring the ingredients over even if he didn't stick around long enough to help her put them together.
Because he didn't trust himself not to touch her.
She shuddered again, this time with a hot/cold stream of sensual memory. No, she hadn't misinterpreted. Cameron Quade, acclaimed hunk, had confirmed that he wanted her, Chantal Goodwin, acclaimed man-deterrent!
The notion was dizzying, confidence boosting, and, quite possibly, the world's best cold remedy. Either that or the half mug of thick lemon glug she eventually forced down did the trick, because she woke the next morning feeling considerably more healthy. Her throat didn't hurt, her head didn't throb, but then she opened her curtains to gloomy gray dampness and decided to play safe. She could work from home; she had enough on hand to keep her busy.
Or so she thought before she spent the next forty-eight hours doing as much thumb-twiddling and phone-watching as concentrating on the contracts she was allegedly working on. When her phone only rang six times – work twice, Julia four times – disappointment hung over her with the same brooding presence as the rain clouds outside.
She had been so certain Quade would check up on her, if only to ensure she'd followed orders and stayed home. Perhaps he didn't care one way or the other. Perhaps he had only been responding to Julia's prompting, or acting on some sense of neighborly duty. Perhaps he had caught her cold, but worse, and he was really sick. And perhaps all the cold medication had scrambled her brain.
* * *
Wednesday she woke to a gorgeous spring morning, the kind where doubts dry as quickly as last night's dew in the sun's gathering warmth. Chantal caught herself humming as she dressed for work and laughed at herself. If getting out of the house felt this good, imagine how wonderful it would feel to do something really radical … such as ringing Quade to check if he was all right.
Hardly radical. He was her neighbor, after all. With no one looking out for him except an aunt and uncle whose existence centered around a whirlwind of business and social engagements.
Something radical such as … acting like a grown-up instead of a schoolgirl with a crush. She liked the man more than a little, she enjoyed his company, she definitely wanted to finish the kissing, so why wasn't she doing something about it? Why was she waiting around for him to make a move?
Because you don't know any moves.
In a moment of uncharacteristic ruthlessness, she stamped all over that voice of insecurity. Today she felt up for a challenge. Today she was going to do something scary, she decided, recklessly discarding her somber gray sweater and selecting a bright red shirt. With a dash of bravado she added matching lipstick and felt her pulse do a little red-lipstick salsa.
After work she would call on him, show him she was all recovered, let him know she wanted that "us." And if that didn't qualify as scarily radical, she didn't know what did.
* * *
She followed the thumping of rock music to the shed behind his house and found him working on the MG … under it, actually. From where she stood she could see a pair of heavy work boots and a pair of denim-clad legs that extended far beyond the car's perimeter. They didn't need labeling for quick identification.
Probably that should have bothered her. Instead she found herself moving closer, skin tingling with the thrill of the illicit and unexpected. He hadn't heard her. She could look her fill. The impulse proved irresistible and she tracked those long muscular columns of denim slowly and thoroughly. For an indecent amount of time. All the way up to the top of his thighs.
A metallic clunk resounded from the car's underbelly, followed closely by a singular curse. Chantal started backward guiltily. He rolled a further foot clear of the car exposing his hips and several inches of scruffy black T-shirt. She was about to clear her throat, to say something to reveal her presence, when he must have reached up over his head.
That was the logical explanation for the shirt pulling clear of his low, hip-hugging waistband and exposing several inches of flat hard belly and a feathering of dark hair.
Oh my Lord.
Heat pooled deep in her stomach. Her breath came fast and shallow. Her skin grew hot just thinking about the possibilities of touching him on that bare slice of skin. With her lips.
Another clunk, several more pungent curses, and suddenly he slid all the way out. Hands still raised above his head, eyes fixed on her legs, he paused – but only for the scant second it took her to back up out of his space – then in one smooth fluid motion he was on his feet. Eyes cool, expression unperturbed, he reached for a rag and wiped his hands then turned off the blaring radio.
"Enjoying yourself?"
Chantal licked her dry lips, felt the caught-out heat in her face, but managed to match his conversational tone. "I had a nice view."
"Yeah?" His gaze rolled from the rag in his hands to her legs. "As nice as the one I copped from down there?"
Instinctively her hands flattened against the sides of her skirt – her remarkably proper straight gray skirt. "You couldn't see a thing."
"Hardly fair, is it?"
"I don't know about that. You are wearing jeans," she pointed out. "So, in all fairness, I didn't see a thing." She smiled. He didn't. He stared at her in a way that made her hold her breath, wondering what would come next, then he threw down the rag and studied his hands. "Been to work, I take it?"
Despite the casual tone of his question, she stiffened defensively. "Yes. I'm on my way home."
"This early?"
"The wedding rehearsal's tonight. In an hour, actually." And this was her chance to explain her presence, the reason for her visit. "When I hadn't seen you or heard from you, I thought I should check that you were all right. That you hadn't caught my cold or anything."
"I'm fine. And you're looking much better."
"Than the last time you saw me?" She thought about her nightwear and red eyes and laughed self-consciously. "That wouldn't be difficult."
This time he looked at her with lazy deliberation, a thorough once-over that made her think he saw beyond the practical skirt and bright but plain shirt to what lay beneath. Her skin warmed instantly, her senses sharpened.
"Nice shirt," he said softly. "And that skirt is a particular favorite of mine."
Because she'd bee
n wearing it that first day? The day he'd looked at her and decided he was interested?
"But I do like you in pink flannel … and nothing else."
Of course. She'd been nattering about lemons and cold medication and her messy living room and he'd been checking out her lack of underwear. She tried – Lord, help her, she tried – but she couldn't rustle up anything but token umbrage. And heat. Lots of swirling, pleasurable, sultry heat. Especially when he started to close the gap between them with steady deliberation.
"Is concern for my health the only reason you came visiting?" he asked, stopping right in front of her. Chantal didn't even know she'd been backing away until she felt something solid at her backside. The car, she noted dimly. His hot, sexy sports car. "Or do you have anther agenda?"
Did he expect an answer? With all of her erotic fantasies within touching and kissing and undressing distance? Then he planted his hands on the car hood, either side of her hips, and she felt a thready whimper building in her throat and a low thrum building in her blood.
"You're vibrating," he said.
And you're incredibly intuitive, knowing that.
His hand tugged at her waistband and she reached to help him. If Cameron Quade wanted her out of her skirt, who was she to quibble? He planted a cell phone in her hand, a vibrating cell phone, which she recalled, somewhat belatedly, attaching to her belt loop.
It was Julia – wasn't it always? – but at least her sister's introductory soliloquy gave her time to gather her scattered wits. As did the fact Quade had removed himself from her personal space. Dang. With a sinking sense of what might have been, she watched him redirect his focus to some piece of automotive paraphernalia on a nearby bench. To think he had almost been tinkering with her paraphernalia. She really would have to kill Julia this time.
One word, one name, drew her attention back to the phone.
"Quade isn't answering his phone?" she repeated. His tinkering hands stilled and he turned, met her gaze. Julia, she mouthed. "I suppose I could ask if he wants to speak to you."
She enjoyed the beat of a pause as Julia put the pieces together. "Where are you?" her sister asked suspiciously.
"Right now? In his shed."
"Is he there?"
She waited for some signal, but he was leaning against the bench, expression deadpan.
"Yes. He's here."
She offered him the phone. If he didn't want to speak to her sister, he didn't have to take it. He took it. And when Julia's opening gambit delivered a quick smile to his face and her next line brought easy laughter to his lips, Chantal felt an intense stab of jealousy. Whoa, there.
Jealous of her sister? Her about-to-be-married deliriously-in-love sister?
Shaking her head at such irrationality, she glanced at Quade and saw him straighten out of his relaxed slouch against the car. A muscle flexed in his jaw.
"I don't think so," he said stiffly. "Isn't there someone—"
Julia must have interrupted … at length. He rubbed a hand over his face, issued a long defeated sigh. "All right. I'll do it."
Whatever Julia said drew a response that fell somewhere between a snort and a laugh. Then he looked up and met her watchful gaze, his expression so intense she couldn't breathe for a long eye-locked moment. "Lady, I'm holding you to that."
Holding her to what? Chantal's heart skipped a beat as she ran a quick inventory of the things she would like to be held to. His chest. That flat belly she'd caught a peek of earlier. One place she'd done more than peek at… And then she realized he'd been speaking to Julia. But looking right at her. What was that all about?
He finished the conversation with another short bark of laughter and, "See you later." Chantal had a pretty good idea why and when he'd be seeing Julia later and, recalling his initial reaction, she didn't like it.
"I thought you said you weren't doing anything that aggravated you," she said, taking back the phone.
"It's no big deal." He lifted a shoulder with seeming indifference, but she detected a tension in the gesture and in the set of his jaw. "It's just filling in tonight. Apparently Mitch hasn't arrived, Zane's out on a towing job, and Julia didn't know who else to ask."
Filling in at a wedding rehearsal, listening to vows and promises. Her heart dipped in sympathy. Damn Julia for putting him in this situation. And Mitch. "You don't have to do this. You could have said you were busy."
He was still leaning against the side of the car, legs crossed at the ankle, but he looked at her steadily, eyes glittering with some dark and dangerous purpose. "Who says I don't want to?"
"I thought—"
"I'm getting a free dinner, anything I care to drink. And a ride in a Mercedes coupe."
Is that what Julia proposed? What he was holding Julia to? It didn't matter that the arrangement was convenient and suited her just fine, it was the principle. This time she didn't have to summons indignation, it barreled on up, hot and ready for action. "Don't I have any say in this arrangement?"
"Only if it's quick. You're picking me up in thirty minutes and you might want to take a shower and change. I know I do."
"And what do you propose I change into?"
His eyes narrowed speculatively and the hint of a grin teased his lips. "Anything that's easy to get out of."
* * *
He made a sterling stand-in for Mitch at the rehearsal. Silent, tense, poker-faced. During dinner – a casual affair at the local pub bistro – he was uncharacteristically quiet, but then who could get a word in edgeways between Kree and Julia? Not to mention Bill the best man's interminable tales of his adventures up north.
Bill was sitting to Chantal's left and taking up far too much of the booth's bench seat with his sprawled posture and expansive arm gestures. This meant she'd been hemmed closer to Quade, on her other side, than was comfortable. Between Julia's smug glances and her acute awareness of his big hard body and the effort of participating in meaningful conversation, she felt ready to explode.
If Quade hadn't volunteered to chase up another round of drinks, she might well have done so. Reprieve. She blew out a relieved sigh and glanced toward the bar … and immediately tensed up again. Looking much more at ease than he had all evening, Quade leaned against the bar chatting with the pretty blond barmaid. As she watched, as she worried her lip and wondered if he'd been more uptight about the wedding vows or being jammed thigh to thigh with her, he threw back his head and laughed.
Longing rolled through her, so strong it winded her for a long airless minute. She could only stare, bowled over by the intensity of the need, by the total power this attraction held over her. Then someone moved between them, blocking her view, and she managed to suck in a deep restorative breath. The someone she recognized as Prudence Ford, and she was sliding her considerable curves onto the bar stool right next to Quade.
Across the table Kree noticed, too, elbowing her brother and ordering him to, "Go rescue Quade. There's vultures on the prowl."
Suddenly it struck her that she had forgotten one important piece of information about Cameron Quade. He wasn't merely irresistible to her; he attracted women like steel chips to a magnet.
What could he possibly want with her?
Easy question for a smart girl like you, Chantal.
Hadn't he suggested she wear something easy to take off? She glanced down at her button-fly jeans and the shirt she'd buttoned tightly all the way to her throat. It didn't mean she hadn't considered wearing a pull-on skirt and pull-off top. Or that she hadn't left home with half her wardrobe discarded on her bed.
It simply meant she didn't want to appear too … compliant.
If he wanted easy then he could have Prudence Ford. That woman knew what she wanted from a man and went right after it. Just like you vowed to do this morning, Chantal. Just like you would have done this afternoon, Chantal, in Quade's shed, against Quade's car, on Quade's car…
What had changed between then and now?
Another no-brainer, if she cared to acknowledge th
e real thing that had been bugging her all evening. If she cared to look beyond the hot, elemental desire to the plain, simple truth.
Standing in Julia's rose bower, watching the garden lights paint shadows across Quade's tense features, she had felt something grab hold deep inside. Not a simple pang of empathy for what he might be feeling, but something more personal. A need in herself that transcended desire, a need that spoke to her very core. She heard the breathy catch in Julia's voice as she practiced her vows, and she wanted that moment for herself. She wanted to hear those solemn vows of love and fidelity, of companionship and commitment. She wanted to gaze into lush green eyes and hear the words fall from her own tongue.
She wanted more than sex from Cameron Quade; she wanted it all.
There. She'd admitted it. She sat very still, forcing herself to breathe in, breathe out, relax and calm, freeing herself from the worst of the tension so that the warmth of the truth could settle over her in the way self-honesty usually did. It didn't.
Glancing toward the bar, she saw that Zane had completed his rescue mission and both men were returning to the table. Her confused dark gaze met his unreadable one, met and held, and her heart started hammering against her ribs. Her stomach churned.
She couldn't do this. She had to get out of here. Fast.
Pasting on a fake smile and not meeting anyone's eyes, she blabbered something about work tomorrow and having a lot to catch up on after her days off. Then she grabbed her bag and bolted for the door.
* * *
She had a good thirty seconds head start, more than enough time for a decent virtuous grievance to mix with Quade's simmering frustration. It was a volatile brew. By the time he saw her standing beside her car, her skin tone changing blue-green-white in cue with The Lion's flashing neon sign, a dozen alternate phrases clamored for first bite.
He was ten yards away and still tossing up between you figured I'd walk home? and start unbuttoning that damned shirt, now! when he saw her shoulders sag. His long strides slowed. His angry scowl cooled to a frown.
QUADE: THE IRRESISTIBLE ONE Page 8