The Attraction of Adeline

by Lisa Wells

  “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” he asked.

  “They didn’t fit.”

  She carried books in her arms and lens-less reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose. “Today class,” she said, using a stern voice, “you’re going to recite for me French love phrases.” She did a sexy walk to the pole, bent over, and placed her books on the ground, giving him an almost-peek at her ass cheeks, and then she stood up and gave him an over-the-top wink. “You will be amply rewarded for what you learn.” She took one of the pencils out of her hair and pointed it at him. “You, there in the front seat.”

  “Bonsoir, professeur Rigby,” he said.

  She licked her upper lip slowly. “Bonsoir. Did you study your French love phrases this week?”

  “Oui.”

  She pursed her lips. Shook her head. “I doubt what you say is true. But…we shall see. Tell me…how do you say love in French?” She raised one arm above her head and grasped the pole, leaning her back against it.

  He sat up straight. “L’amour.” Hell, she was really getting into the roleplaying.

  She slid down the pole. “Such a beautiful word.” She unbuttoned the top button of her suit jacket and stared earnestly into his eyes. “How do you say I adore you?” she asked him.

  “Je t’adore.”

  She slid halfway back up the pole, unbuttoning the bottom button as she moved. “And, you are the woman of my dreams?” she asked.

  He lifted a brow. “Tu es la femme de mes reves.”

  She stood up straight. “Because you are doing so well, you may skip tonight’s French-kissing homework.”

  Jack stood. “But I like that homework. Especially when you practice it with me.” He walked over to her, leaned down, licked the skin beneath her ear, and then sucked. He didn’t let go until she pushed him away.

  “Go. Sit down. That was very naughty of you. That is not how we French kiss. There will be severe punishment if you left a mark on my neck.”

  He walked back to the bed and sat down, adjusting himself as he did.

  She strutted around the pole. “How do you say ‘my lover’ in French?”

  “Mon amant.”

  “Mon amant,” she said, rolling the words off her tongue. “Tell me student, would you like to be mon amant?”

  The question caused him serious pain as he bit down on his tongue to distract himself from what he really wanted to do. “Ce serait sympas.”

  She did a few dance moves. Sexy with a tinge of awkwardness that made his heart thump louder than summer thunder. “And what does that phrase mean?” she asked, pushing loose hairs out of her face.

  “That would be nice,” he translated, his voice as thick as his dick.

  She pouted. “Nice is not very expressive for a woman who just asked you if you’d like to be her lover.”

  If she knew what he really wanted to say, she wouldn’t be pouting, she’d be blushing. “Tu me rends fou,” he responded. “Is that better?”

  She wrinkled her brows. “Explain.”

  He picked up a pillow and sat it over his lap. “I said you drive me crazy.”

  She smiled knowingly at the pillow. “Much better,” she said, while shimmying for him. “I reward my students well when they learn.” She slid her hand over her body. “Come, you may have one of my pencils.”

  Did she offer him a pencil so he would have to stand and couldn’t hide his erection behind the pillow? Probably. He walked over to her, his erection leading the way. But instead of taking a pencil, he leaned down and placed a warm kiss against her lips. One that took all of his willpower to stop.

  “Mmmm. I did not expect you to kiss me.” She pushed him away with her hand and walked quickly around the pole, gathering speed, and then wrapped her legs around it. She hung upside down and glanced at him.

  He sat down on the bed. “Tu es la femme de mes reves,” he said thickly.

  “Translate.”

  She made a really bossy teacher. “You are the woman of my dreams.”

  “Oh.” She dropped back down. “That is a lovely phrase to have learned.” She reached up and took out a pencil. “Tu es l’homme de mes reves,” she replied, tossing the pencil at him. “You are the man of my dreams.”

  He dropped the pencil on the bed. Maybe he should just admit that he had no self-control and throw himself and his desires at her mercy. “Do you mean that?” He waited for her response. Sure, sex would complicate things but…

  “Mostly, I have nightmares.” She danced around the pole in a suggestive manner.

  “But I like to think if the day comes that I have nice dreams, I’d have the good sense to have them about a man like you.”

  The music ended, leaving the room in silence.

  “Should I start another song?” he asked. “I could watch you dance all night.”

  “That won’t be necessary. You’ve proven your point. You’re a saint.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  True to his word, Jack didn’t try to seduce her as a result of the dance. Instead, he clapped politely and told her to change while he grabbed another six pack. That had been three nights ago. He’d been doubting his sanity ever since. What man walks away from a woman like Adie without at least attempting to change the rules of their arrangement? So what if she later told him she was impressed with his restraint. That he’d proven himself a man of his word. Someone she could trust. The woman had fucking placed him in the friend zone.

  Sighing, Jack opened the door to his condo. Midnight. He glanced down. Dexter had a habit of waiting for him in front of the door. And if Jack forgot, he would end up stepping on Dexter or tripping over him.

  Dexter wasn’t there. Again. Three nights in a row. Bring a girl into the house, and man’s best friend forgets all about loyalty.

  Jack shut and locked the door, careful not to make any noise. Adeline, true to her word during their first car ride, was up at the crack of dawn and in bed with the chickens. Having her under the same roof and not getting to spend much time with her was driving him crazier than a balance sheet off by one penny.

  He wanted to get to know her in person. Their twice a day phone conversations were fun, but he couldn’t read her body language over the phone. Two more days until April 15th. Then he could drop down from sixteen-hour days to eight-hour days and finally budget time to get to know his fiancée face-to-face.

  He glanced around. A light was on in the kitchen. His tiredness slipped away. Strange. Did she forget and leave it on? Or was she awake?

  He strolled into the room and chuckled silently. Adeline was in his kitchen.

  Lord help him, but he liked coming home to a woman in his kitchen. Liked coming home to Adeline in a ragged, white fuzzy robe, monstrous fluffy slippers, and thick pink headphones.

  He couldn’t fool himself into thinking a woman wearing that get-up stayed up to seduce him; a fantasy he’d been having more and more often since she danced for him the first night. The fact she had danced still puzzled him.

  His gut told him it was out of character for her to have done something so frivolous as to get caught up in a silly bet with him. Did she do it as a way of reassuring herself she could trust him? That if she danced for him and he didn’t press her to have sex, then she could live with him without fear that he had ulterior motives?

  If that was the case, and he couldn’t think of any other reason why she would have committed to doing the dance, he couldn’t come clean and say he hated their no-sex rule.

  She’d agreed to the pretend fiancée arrangement with that rule in place.

  No way could he change the rules in the middle of a game. It would be like the government changing the tax rules halfway through tax season. Some rules you simply had to live by until the time was appropriate to change them. He and Adeline could change theirs once their charade was over.

  She had her back to him so he felt safe standing there appraising the scenery.

  Dexter was standing by her side watching her every move. Dexter had eve
n started splitting his nights between their bedrooms. Something Jack couldn’t account for.

  The dog took two months to warm up to Jack after his owner left him. And it took the condo’s dog walker three months to gain Dexter’s trust. But with Adeline? He’d jumped on her when she first came through the door and tagged along beside her ever since.

  Jack watched Adeline measure out flour and dump it into the pink stand mixer she brought with her to his place. She’d stuck his brand new, never been used, mixer in storage and insisted on using her own. Why in the world was she baking at this late hour?

  “Merci…oui…bien…non,” she said, using an exaggerated French accent. That explained the headphones. Why was she practicing French instead of sleeping?

  He should probably make his presence known. But what was the hurry?

  “Do you like Jack Foster?” she said, glancing down at Dexter, whose chin was propped on the counter.

  Dexter barked and shook his head up and down.

  Jack stiffened. What the hell? Did the dog understand her?

  Adeline pulled a dog treat out of her robe pocket and gave the bone to Dexter. “Do you think Jack Foster is cute?” Adeline asked Dexter.

  Dexter barked again and shook his head no.

  Adeline laughed. “Non.” She gave the dog another treat.

  Jack smiled and shook his head. Adeline had taught Dexter some new tricks.

  “Should I have sex with Jack Foster?” Adeline asked Dexter.

  Jack, who’d been leaning against the doorway, lost his balance and nearly fell. Was she having the same second thoughts as him?

  Dexter barked and shook his head in the affirmative.

  Adeline glanced down at Dexter. “I missed that. Did you say oui or non?”

  The dog nodded yes.

  She turned back to her task at hand. Measuring vanilla. “Sorry, dude. The answer is non.” The dog didn’t get a treat.

  Jack must have made a noise, because Dexter glanced at him and barked.

  Jack held his hand up to command Dexter to stay.

  Adeline laughed. She patted Dexter’s head. “That’s right. Non. Non, non, non. Non sex with Jack Foster. Bad idea.” She gave the dog a treat.

  Dexter swallowed the dog biscuit and then glanced at Jack and whined, pawing at Adeline’s hand.

  Damn dog was going to out him. “Which is it? Oui? Or Non?” Jack said loud enough for her to hear through her headphones.

  Adeline yelped and spun around.

  His gaze traveled from her hands, up and ready to hit him, to the creamy expanse of bare skin visible beneath the gaping front of her robe. Nice cleavage. He slowly lifted his gaze past the delicate curve of her neck to her face.

  He blinked hard and his mouth fell open. “Votre visage est Grinch vert!”

  She yanked off her headphones. “What?”

  “Your face is Grinch green,” he translated his French.

  Her hands went to her face, and she grimaced, causing some of the green to crack. “You scared the crap out of me. I thought you were home and in bed.”

  “Non. E viens de rentrer du travail.”

  She bit her lip. “You said that too fast for my tired brain to translate.”

  Had he responded in French? “You’ve rattled my brain. It’s been another long day at the office.”

  Her hair was pulled up in high a ponytail. Several silky strands curling haphazardly around her face—which was covered in some type of green gunk. She looked cute as hell.

  He went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a Scotch and took a seat at the island. “Why are you up at this time of night?” He took his glasses off and laid them on the counter.

  She wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I had a nightmare.”

  “It’s probably because of that green stuff on your face.” He was happy she was awake. He wanted to unwind. To talk and catch up with her. To steal a kiss.

  “Very funny. It’s a facial. When I take it off in the morning, I’m supposed to be tres beautiful.”

  “I see.” He didn’t see at all. She was already beautiful, why spend money on something so hideous when you didn’t need to? “Do you always get up and bake cookies after you’ve had a nightmare?”

  “Oui.”

  She mentioned on their first night together she suffered from nightmares. What were they about? “I’m sorry I startled you.”

  She took a pan of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and set them on a potholder on the counter. “I could have sworn I heard you snoring in your bedroom when I got up.” She turned back to the oven and refilled the baking sheet with the dough she’d been mixing up.

  “It was probably Dexter snoring,” Jack said. He inhaled the aroma of the fresh baked cookies. When was the last time he’d enjoyed that smell? Probably not since he left home. Would Adeline’s cookies be as good as his mom’s?

  Hers were the football team’s favorite. She brought them to all of their games. Left them in the locker room for the guys when the games were over.

  Ian used to say he was going to marry Jack’s mom when he grew up. Instead, he married Jack’s sister. The joke was on Ian, because Jack’s little sister couldn’t cook.

  Adeline took two glasses out of Jack’s cabinet, filled them half full with milk, and plopped one down in front of him. “You can’t dunk cookies in whiskey.”

  He pushed his whiskey away. This used to be his dream life. Working all day. Coming home to a wife. “You look good in my kitchen.” He kind of liked that she was comfortable enough to run around his house with green goop on her face. The green did highlight her dark blue eyes.

  She set a plate of cookies in front of him. “You’re one of those guys whose ideal woman is barefoot, pregnant, and cooking!” She sounded disgruntled.

  He swallowed a cookie whole, followed quickly by a gulp of milk. The cookie was damn hot. Swallowing, he said, “That woman would be the ideal mother of my child. But my ideal woman would be naked, gorgeous, and begging me for sex at midnight when I drag my ass home from work. And one hundred percent trustworthy. Which brings me back to my original question—is your answer oui or non?”

  “Definitely non. I’m just training Dexter to answer with the shake of his head up-and-down or side-to-side depending on where I put the inflection on the question.”

  “Describe your ideal man,” he said mid-bite. Man, her cookies were delicious.

  Adeline nibbled a corner of her cookie. “I don’t have an ideal man.”

  He picked up another cookie and blew on it. “Of course you do. If you were going to be the heroine in one of my sister’s books, what type of guy would you want her to create to be your hero?” He dipped his cookie in the milk and then popped it in his mouth, waiting for her response.

  She bit her cookie in half and took her time chewing. “Kinley’s heroes are myths. Guys like them don’t exist in real life.”

  “Humor me. Pretend they do. Consider this one of your assignments in learning how to make small talk with my coworkers.” He ate the last cookie on his plate and eyed the pan that just came out of the oven. Was she going to limit him to just three? Like with the kisses? Did she have a thing for the number three? When he realized she wasn’t going to answer his question, he glanced at her and raised an eyebrow.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “You can’t roll your eyes when someone asks you a dumb question. You have to pretend it’s a brilliant question and give them a response.”

  She raised her chin. “Well, let’s see. My ideal guy would be…gentle. No temper. Patient. Because, you’re going to find this hard to believe, I’m not perfect.”

  He refrained from agreeing with her. He knew a female trap when presented with one.

  “He’d have a sense of humor.”

  “I have a sense of humor,” he pointed out, feeling ridiculously pleased with himself for having at least one of her requirements for a husband.

  She didn’t agree or disagree. “He’d have a macho side. But it wou
ld be mostly hidden beneath layers of cotton.”

  He frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Ask Kinley, it’s how she described her hero, and I liked her hero.”

  “I’ll get right on that,” he replied, giving her a grin.

  “He’d be beautiful to look at. The whole six-pack abs thing and great ass. After all, I’m describing my dream man.”

  “I’d be happy to get naked and let you have a more thorough look at my abs and great ass, which I’ve been told is a solid eight.”

  She smirked. “You think you have what it takes to be a romance-book hero?”

  “Maybe not for every woman, but for the right woman.”

  She pulled her brows in, giving him a quizzical look.

  “What else?” he asked.

  She fiddled with the ties of her robe. “He’d have a record that was the result of helping a damsel in distress.”

  Up until that point, he’d felt pretty confident he could be her dream man. That is, if he wanted to be her dream man. Not that any of that mattered. Her last descriptor knocked him out of the running. “Like an arrest record?”

  She gave him a secretive smile. “Some type of record.”

  What other kind of record was there? “Good luck finding that man outside the pages of a romance.”

  She furrowed her brows. “You asked what my ideal man would be—and I told you. The fact he probably doesn’t exist outside of romance novels is one reason why I never plan on getting married.”

  He scratched his cheek. “If you found the man you described, would you marry him?”

  She shuddered like Dexter after a bath. “Absolutely not.” There wasn’t even a hint of hesitation before her response. “I’d jump on an airplane and get as far away from him as I could.”

  That sounded like something Kinley would say. Something that didn’t make sense. “Why? If you were given exactly what you wanted, why would you run away? Do you not want to be happy?”

  His perfect woman would be a woman he could trust 100 percent. That woman didn’t exist, because he didn’t possess the ability to ever trust 100 percent again. Not where his heart was concerned anyway. The moment his fiancée threw his ring at him and yelled, “I don’t love you. I’ve never loved you,” pretty much cured him of trust.