by Debra Webb
Meredith frowned again. She said the name aloud once or twice.
“You see, it’s similar enough to your real name that it won’t be jarring to you, yet it’s different enough that no one could possibly make the connection.” Shelley patted Meredith’s arm. “You’re not in Manhattan now; you’re on my turf. Nobody in Atlanta knows you except me anyway.” She assessed her friend’s reflection once more. “Besides, no one—not even your own mother—will ever recognize you tonight. Especially if they’re going by that less than flattering publicity photo in your book.”
Meredith—no, she corrected herself, Merri—prayed that Shelley was right.
Her friend grinned impishly. “And I know just the place to start your research.”
~*~
Jake Brandon plopped down on a bar stool and took a long pull from his bottle of beer. He swallowed, then shook his head slowly, disgusted with himself. “Never again,” he said aloud, the words lost in the music thumping from the crowded club’s sound system.
Jake’s best buddy, Dan, who was slumped on the bar stool next to him, leaned in his direction. “What’d you say, pal?”
“Nothing, man,” Jake muttered.
Dan straightened and flashed him a knowing smile. “Getting dumped isn’t the end of the world, buddy.”
Jake rubbed a hand over his face and then through his hair. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Dan nodded, another knowing gesture. “Ah, you don’t want to talk about it. Excellent strategy.” He took a swig of his own beer, then stabbed his finger at Jake. “And I’ll bet you’re never going to allow another woman to break your heart. Am I right?”
“Shut up,” Jake growled. “I said I wasn’t going to talk about it.”
“But, I’m your best friend,” Dan offered. “If I can’t be there for you, who can?”
Jake shot him a go-to-hell look. “You’re also my site foreman. Keep it up and I’ll fire you.” Owning and operating his construction company did have a few perks.
Dan clutched his chest. “Aw, man, that was brutal.”
Jake ignored his comedic friend who had unknowingly hit the nail on the head. No way would Jake Brandon walk down that path again. All they ever wanted was his money—he blew out a disgusted breath—and his body. Sex and money, that was the name of the game. Well, he was tired of being everybody’s fool. Whatever happened to falling in love, settling down and having a couple of kids? Had commitment become extinct?
Jake swore. Had he just thought that? He glanced cautiously at Dan. Damned good thing he didn’t say it out loud. Dan would think he’d lost his mind. From the age of eighteen Jake had sworn that he wouldn’t take that fateful walk down the aisle of wedded bliss until he was at least thirty-five.
Yet, here he was bemoaning his single status and heartless women. Yeah, maybe he had lost his mind. And he was only thirty-two. Could a man have some version of a woman’s biological clock? Jake took another draw from his beer. Damn. Men weren’t supposed to think that way. He darted another look at his happily married friend. Dan had put on at least twenty pounds since taking his vows ten years ago. Jake blinked away the image his mind immediately conjured up of himself twenty pounds heavier. And Dan had lost the better portion of his hair. Jake raised a speculative brow. Of course, that couldn’t be blamed on his lovely wife or the holy state of matrimony. Dan’s brown mop had been thinning since before college.
What the hell was wrong with him? Dammit, he was just having a bad night. Cynthia had royally pissed him off by breaking up on a Friday afternoon. What was he supposed to do for the rest of the weekend? He closed his eyes and shook his head. What was he supposed to do with the rest of his life? There was that disturbing sense of doom again. He shook himself. When had weekends or the rest of his life, for that matter, become wholly dependent upon being a part of a couple?
Women like Cynthia were the problem, he thought bitterly. They stuck to a guy like glue... until something better came along. Then they blew him off like yesterday’s weather forecast. She was probably out with someone new tonight... right now.
Hell, it wasn’t women in general. He knew that, even if he didn’t want to admit it at the moment. Apparently he had a knack for making bad choices. There had to be something more to a relationship.
Jake swore again, this time at his sullen mood. Who was to say there was anything else? No relationship he had ever been involved in lasted more than a couple or three months. He pondered that reality for a moment. Maybe it was him...
“Don’t worry, pal, you’ll find your personal goddess someday,” Dan said, pulling Jake from his troubling thoughts. “Just like I did.” Dan grinned like a jackass. “Suzy is the best thing that ever happened to me.” He slapped Jake on the back. “And when that baby of ours is born, I plan to make you a big part of her life.”
Jake groaned. At least he was good for something. He could see it now. He would babysit Dan and Suzy’s rug rats while they went off on their second honeymoon. Jake chugged down half the remaining beer in the bottle. He was a lost cause. He might as well give it up.
“Yes, sir,” Dan stated with an affirming nod. “You just haven’t met the right woman yet, that’s all.”
Jake scowled. Why go through that dog-and-pony show again? “I absolutely, positively will never allow another woman get to me,” he vowed, glaring at Dan for emphasis. “And that, compadre, is all I have to say on the subject.”
A long, low whistle hissed past Dan’s lips. “Too bad,” he said, an appreciative expression on his face. “Because here comes one woman I would let get to me any way she wanted to. That is,” he added, his gaze riveted on someone Jake couldn’t see, “if I weren’t married.”
Annoyed beyond reason, Jake followed Dan’s gaze to what or who had captured his attention. His jaw fell slack at the same instant his beer bottle slipped from his fingers and plunked onto the counter. He shook his head, then blinked to clear his vision.
The most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his pathetic life paused just on the other side of the dance floor. The music had stopped and the couples were moving back to their tables, leaving an unobstructed view across the room. Obviously just arrived, the woman stood there, surveying the room, unknowingly giving Jake the chance to thoroughly survey her.
An angel straight from heaven was his first thought. Except for that devil-red dress. His mouth watered as her extraordinary beauty saturated his senses. Long blond hair cascaded over her bare shoulders and framed a face that made his heart do a backflip. The red dress molded to her high breasts, narrowed to a tiny waist, then flared over hips just the right size for...
Jake shook his head again. What was wrong with him? Not two minutes ago he had sworn off women, especially beautiful women. And there was no denying this lady’s amazing loveliness. How could he possibly ignore her?
Suddenly, she moved. Those long, graceful legs glided along the dance floor, making her perfect hips sway in a mesmerizing rhythm that literally took his breath.
And she was headed in his direction. His heart slammed into his ribcage one last time before it all but stopped as his gaze tangled with hers. Drowning in a sea of enchanting blue, he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
If Jake had ever seen lips that full and sensually shaped, he couldn’t remember them and he felt certain he would never, ever forget lips like that. She was speaking to him, he realized, when her lips moved again.
“Are you all right?” she asked in the sweetest, silkiest voice. An angel, a voice repeated inside his head.
He frowned when he couldn’t rally a sensible response. “I’m... What did you say?”
“Is this seat taken?” she repeated as one slender hand indicated the stool next to him.
Jake dragged his gaze from her beautiful face and stared, bewildered, at the vacant bar stool next to him. When had Dan disappeared? And where the hell had he gone? Jake tried to make sense of what had just taken place. This wasn’t norm
al. He didn’t have reactions like this to women. His eyes met her soft blue ones once more. Maybe he was sick. He resisted the urge to feel his forehead to see if he had a fever. His gut did feel a little odd.
She smiled shyly, and Jake’s heart thumped back into rhythm. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You’re waiting for someone, aren’t you?”
He remembered to breathe. “Yes,” he blurted, shaking his head like the idiot he had suddenly become. “I mean, no.”
“We...” she moistened those incredible lips “we could have a drink,” she suggested. Her smile wavered.
She was as nervous as he was, Jake realized.
Uncertainty flickered in her eyes at his continued hesitation. “I’m sorry,” she began, then shook her head. “I’m new at—”
The rest of her words were lost to the music that drifted anew from the sound system, slow and languid. A sultry song intended to draw couples to the dance floor throbbed through his body.
Just when Jake thought he had found his voice again, she leaned in close. Her scent, delicate and refreshing, did him in all over again.
“Maybe you’d like to dance?” she whispered close to his ear, her breath warm.
Jake was standing before her request penetrated fully into the cotton evidently swaddling his brain. His eyes never leaving hers, he wrapped his fingers around that slender, delicate hand and his gut clenched. A thrill of anticipation shot through him as she led him the few steps onto the dance floor. When her arms wound around his neck, a little hitch disrupted the rise and fall of her full breasts. The high, firm roundness revealed by the low cut of her dress captured his attention. The deep cleavage made his mouth go dry. She moved closer as he watched, those amazing breasts pressed against his chest. His arousal was fierce and instantaneous.
“You’re supposed to put your arms around me, too,” she told him, her timid smile returning.
Jake laughed—a short, strangled sound. “Of course.” Hesitantly at first, he pushed his arms around her slender waist. Her body felt soft and fragile in his arms. She trembled, making his protective instincts surge. He closed his eyes in defeat when she pressed her cheek to his chest. Her hair smelled like roses. Not an overpowering fragrance, but subtle. Soft, yet arousing—he felt himself smile—like the rest of her.
His body moved with hers to the slow rhythm of the music. Jake didn’t recognize the song, or even hear the words. His every sensory perception was keenly focused on the woman in his arms. On the way their bodies fit together. Never in his life had a woman made him feel like this. Utterly, completely at a loss to think of anything but her. Heat and sensation radiated between them and suffused his entire being.
He wanted to wonder how this could be happening, but he couldn’t manage the thought. Everything else faded to nothingness. Jake’s focus narrowed until it encompassed only the two of them and how this woman made him feel. Made him ache for her. Made him weak with mind-bending desire.
She suddenly drew back and looked into his eyes. His whole being stilled in anticipation of her next move or word. She smiled, and at that precise instant Jake would have given everything he owned to kiss her.
“Thank you for the dance,” she said in that soft, sultry voice. The last thin remnants of his resolve not to do something completely stupid disappeared entirely.
He blinked. It was only then that he realized the music had stopped. He held on when she would have pulled out of his arms. “Wait.” To his complete humiliation, the breathless anticipation of that one word gave away everything whirling inside him.
Her smile faltered as she searched his eyes, her own expectant and filled with uncertainty. “Yes?”
“What’s your name?”
She looked stricken. Jake frowned. He’d only asked her name.
“I have to go.”
Before Jake could ask why, she pulled free of his hold and rushed from the dance floor. He was stunned. It took a few seconds for him to comprehend what had happened.
She was gone.
Jake searched the entire club, to no avail. She had disappeared as suddenly and unexpectedly as she had appeared.
And he didn’t even know her name.
Chapter Two
Meredith sat in the darkness of her temporary room in Shelley’s Brentwood apartment. She stared out the window at nothing at all, vaguely aware of the neon lights flashing on the street below, and of the luminous moon hanging in the midnight sky. But those things were far from important at the moment. Shelley would be home anytime now. And she would be supremely annoyed that Meredith had run out on her the way she did. Meredith closed her eyes. But she simply couldn’t stay at that club one more moment. The man she had met tonight was too...
She swallowed in an effort to dislodge the strange lump in her throat. Too what? She forced herself to analyze the feelings the stranger had stirred within her. Savage desire. Fierce need. She took a slow, deep breath to counteract the longing the memory of his touch evoked even now. She switched on the nearby table lamp and picked up her tablet. After another moment’s consideration, she entered her primary conclusion: animal attraction.
She had, of course, studied cases where two people were so biologically suited that the chemistry proved overwhelming. In layman’s terms, love at first sight. Something she expressly did not believe in.
Meredith laughed softly. Well, she amended, she supposed she understood the concept in theory. There were various levels of attraction, and certainly, tonight’s had been off the scale. Couples often mistook intense lust for something deeper. Sometimes it worked out, but most of the time it didn’t. She frowned.
Setting her tablet aside, she stood. She finger combed her hair and paced. What had happened to her tonight? The answer seemed to be maddeningly out of her reach. Logic warred with her baser instincts.
She paused and turned to the full-length mirror standing next to the closet door. Shelley had selected this dress in an Atlanta boutique, as she had most of the others. Other than the eye-catching color, what was it about this dress that captured male attention?
Squaring her shoulders and steeling her spine, Meredith studied her reflection with clinical objectivity. The dress was short, very short, revealing a great deal of thigh. The tight, clingy material displayed her hips in a particularly flattering manner. The low, scooped neckline exposed her breasts in a fashion that made her blush even now that she was alone.
Scent played a part as well. Meredith had carefully selected a natural scent, rose bath oil, to compliment her body’s own essence, not to overpower it.
The bottom line was that she had purposely displayed the female features that appealed most to the average male. Once in the club, she had picked out one particular man in the crowd, made eye contact and moved in like a huntress stalking her prey.
And he had taken the bait.
But... there was absolutely nothing average about the man she had met tonight. Meredith fought the desire she felt for him all over again. He had been tall, over six feet. Her head had fit perfectly beneath his chin. The hard planes of muscle beneath the soft cotton shirt had been impossible to ignore. His arms had been strong, yet gentle, around her.
She closed her eyes and allowed his image to fill her mind. Thick, dark hair, a little long. Dark coffee-colored eyes, intelligent and eager. His features were strong, with a square jaw, prominent forehead and nose, but not too much so. His lips...
Her breathing quickened and grew shallow, her pulse too rapid. She attempted to deny the reaction, but it was impossible to do.
His lips were full for a man’s. His smile wide and very pleasant. Meredith licked her own lips. A new surge of desire coursed through her at the thought of touching his full, sensuous mouth.
Tired of fighting a losing battle, she reached behind her and tugged at her zipper. Slowly, she allowed the red silk to slide down her body. Her too-vivid imagination jumped into hyper drive, conjuring up the handsome stranger. She could almost feel his hands on her skin, touching her, le
arning her body. His lips would move along the column of her throat, tasting, teasing.
The dress slipped to the floor. She kicked off her shoes, first one, and then the other. Bare feet flat on the floor, she imagined the stranger kneeling before her, kissing her belly button. Then his tongue would tease the sensitive flesh above the silk band of her red panties. Then he would move lower still...
Meredith shivered. She stared at her nearly naked reflection. Her nipples were tight buds, her skin flushed with longing. Her chest rose and fell with the swift beating of her heart.
She wanted this man—this stranger—with every part of her that made her a woman. Frowning, she looked away. How was it possible to respond so fiercely, so quickly? In the past, she had dated men for weeks, months even, and never experienced a need so intense, so soul-shatteringly primal.
It had to be a fluke. For her. Some humans did not react so strongly to the opposite sex. She was one of them.
Retreating to the bathroom, she refused to define the experience any other way than as an anomaly. She adjusted the faucet to run a bath. This odd, spontaneous reaction probably wouldn’t happen to her again in a million years. She pinned her hair atop her head and slipped into the water’s warm embrace. She relaxed against the slick porcelain surface.
A month from now, if she ran into the same man, he likely would not even recognize her. And vice versa. She moaned as she allowed the water to work its magic on her tense muscles.
He would remain unknown.
The whole episode was nothing more than a freak chemical reaction. A textbook example of lust in its purest form.
And Meredith would probably never see the handsome man with whom she had shared one slow, sensual dance again.
Tomorrow night there would be some other man in some other place, and tonight’s charming stranger would be forgotten, just as if she’d never met him.
Totally forgotten.
~*~
Jake stared out the window of his site office. The men were working hard, in a pleasant cacophony of pounding hammers and buzzing saws. They moved in a well-attuned rhythm that came with years of familiarity and camaraderie. He was lucky to have such a capable and cooperative crew. By summer’s end, this phase of the subdivision would be built. The next house in the new Summerford Subdivision was nearing completion. The foundations were poured and ready on the next three. After that, phase two would begin.