by Lucy Monroe
She did look at him then, her gaze solemn. She sighed and rubbed her fingers across her forehead. “Mr. Merrick—”
“Ryder. Please.” He stretched his arm along the back of the sofa and leaned in toward her, just slightly, to gauge her reaction. She stayed put, though her pupils dilated and her lips parted.
After a moment, she broke his gaze and looked down at the book, one hand coming up to push a thick strand of hair behind her ear. “Ryder.” Her voice was huskier than it had been.
His name on her lips sizzled like lightning through him. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and protect her from the big bad wolf she was so afraid of.
But then who would protect her from him?
Meeting his gaze once more, she said, “I understand, really I do. We’ve descended upon you without notice and, from what I understand, against your wishes. And then we tell you this incredible story….” She sighed and played with her hair, twirling a strand around and around her index finger.
“Still, it’s no excuse for my poor behavior.” He took her hand in his, and they both went still. He heard her breath catch and felt the thrumming of her pulse under his fingers. Rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand, he tried to remember what he’d been about to say.
She leaned forward, her gaze fastened on his mouth, and all thought fled his mind like water sliding down a drain. He couldn’t ignore his need any longer. He had to get a taste of her. Setting his lips on hers, gently, Ryder sipped at her sweetness, taking her sigh into his mouth and returning his own.
When she moaned, he pulled her fully into his arms and leaned back, drawing her over top of him. Dimly he heard the thud of the book as it fell to the floor and the flutter of paper as the tablet followed it, but his entire focus remained on the woman in his embrace.
Ryder slid his tongue over her bottom lip, then sucked on it, eliciting another moan from her. He nipped her lightly and then slanted his mouth over hers once more.
Her softness settled over his erection and, when she shimmied against him, he groaned and moved his hands to her hips to hold her in place. God, she felt so good, so right. Forcing himself to slow down, he moved his lips to her jaw, then down her throat to the curve where her neck met her shoulder. Sliding his mouth over her skin, he rested his lips against the pulse pounding there.
Well, he thought with self-deprecating humor, this sort of behavior is certainly what one should expect from a host. But then the heat and smell of her drew his mind back to more carnal thoughts.
Life thrummed beneath his tongue. Lust roared through him, tightening his body all over, drawing his beast closer to the surface. With a low growl, he twisted, sliding her under him, rocking his erection against the cleft of her body.
“Ryder.” Her voice was a rasp in his ear, her hands gripping his shoulders with fierceness.
He took her mouth again, nipping and licking and sucking until she cried out and clasped his head, holding his face to hers. Her tongue twisted around his, surging into his mouth when he retreated. He sucked on it, drawing her deeper, making them both groan.
Her nipples pressed like diamonds against his chest, branding him through their layers of clothing. His entire body was taut, something dark and primal inside him urging him to strip her naked and mount her then and there. Make her his. Savage possessiveness surged through his blood. His hands tightened, holding her still, and he crushed his mouth to hers, needing—demanding—a response.
Taite was springtime in his hands—fresh and light, bringing him such a sense of renewal he felt it deep in his bones. She was everything he wasn’t—soft, giving. Not wanting to scare her with his passion, to lose her before they’d even begun, he tempered his response, gentled his touch.
Drawing slowly back, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve wanted to do that from the moment you walked through my front door. What you do to me…”
“Is no more than what you do to me.” She rolled her forehead back and forth on his, then turned her face to one side. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” When she pushed at his shoulders, trying to lever him off her, he settled his weight more completely on top of her. “Can’t do what?” he asked again.
She made a vague gesture with her hand, indicating him, then her. “This.” She pushed at him again, frowning when he wouldn’t budge. “I’ve got enough trouble without adding to it.”
Somehow, hearing her put his own feelings into words irritated him. “So, you think I’m trouble?”
Giving him a look that suggested he was not only trouble but also a bit on the slow side, she shoved against his chest. This time he moved, sitting in the place where she’d been.
She bent over and retrieved the book and tablet. He heard her deep breath as she sat up, saw the trembling in her hands. Her arousal was a sweet musk in his nostrils, and he started to reach for her.
One slender hand came up, palm outward, warding him off. “Don’t.” She fisted her hand and let it fall to her thigh. “Just…don’t. Not now.”
Ryder sat back and ran his hand through his hair. She was right. Of course she was right. He had to share what knowledge he could and then send them on their way. No matter how much he wanted to lose himself in her sweet warmth, it wasn’t meant to be.
And don’t miss Karen Kelley’s MY FAVORITE PHANTOM, out this month from Brava….
Hell, he knew the real reason he didn’t want her in the house: he had a weakness for women. Always had. His siblings had teased him unmercifully, calling him Don Juan—more so now that he was teaching that other class.
Kaci hadn’t looked as if she would be that hard to resist, though. Not when she wore baggy clothes and that cap. He snorted. It hadn’t been that long since he’d gone on a date. Okay, he was safe. No worries.
“I just wanted to let you know I’ll be coming in and out of the house as I bring my equipment in,” a voice spoke behind him, softer than before but still with a slight edge.
“Good. The sooner you can rid me of my problem, the better.” He set his soda can on the table and stood, turning around to face her.
His mouth dropped open. No, no, no! What happened to the baggy clothes and the baseball cap pulled down low, and she hadn’t looked like this and…Damn it!
He waved his arm in front of him. “You changed.” Where were her other clothes? The ones that made her safe. Hell, the ones that made him safe.
She wore short shorts that showed off long, wrap-around-his-waist-and-pull-him-in-closer legs, and a little blue tank top that stretched across her full breasts. And no more baseball cap. Now her long, beautiful blond hair tumbled over her shoulders.
She glanced down, then shrugged. “I’m cold-natured in the mornings. By afternoon, I get hot. I’ll start getting my equipment.” She turned and left the patio.
His glanced dropped to her sweet little ass. His mouth started to water.
By afternoon she got hot? Was that what she’d said? That was the understatement of the year. He wasn’t sure what was going to be worse, the ghost or keeping his hands off the sexy exterminator.
Damn, he hadn’t bargained for this. It seemed the hole he was getting precariously closer to falling inside just kept getting deeper and deeper.
Damn, she’d had a really nice twist in her walk, though.
No, he would not seduce Kaci. She was off limits—at least until she got rid of the ghost. But his mouth was already starting to water.
When his cell phone rang, he pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open. He glanced at the number. His older brother. Great. He frowned. Things just got better and better.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Peyton. How’s it going? Has your ghost exterminator arrived?”
Peyton heard the unmistakable laughter in his brother’s voice. Why had he even told Joe about his ghost? “Yeah, she’s here.”
“She?” The humor immediately vanished.
“Yeah.”
“Get rid of her. You
know how you are with women. It’ll be the same as the last town.”
He shook his head. “The last town, as you like to refer to it, was nothing more than a young woman who was infatuated with her professor. Nothing happened. I only left because I wanted to teach this other class as well as my history class and the dean offered me that opportunity. Have a little faith. Besides, I do have a ghost, and she can get rid of it.”
“She stalked you.” His sigh came over the phone lines. “A woman to you is like someone on a diet crashing into a candy store. You know you can’t change. At least tell me she’s ugly.”
Okay, he could do that. “She’s ugly.” He wasn’t lying or anything. Just telling Joe what he’d asked to be told. “I can’t get rid of her until the ghost is gone.”
“Please, just be careful.”
“I’m always careful.” Joe was acting as though he had a disease or something. Hell, maybe he did, but he really enjoyed a woman’s company.
“If you need anything, I’m only a phone call away.”
“Yeah, thanks, bro.” He closed the phone, then slipped it into his pocket as he walked toward the front door.
Man, he should’ve told Joe not to tell his other brother or his sister. If they got wind there was a woman living with him, even if it was business, he’d never hear the last of it.
Could he help it if he loved women? It wouldn’t matter if Kaci had been old or young. There was just something about women that he loved. All women.
The baggy sweats and cap had made her safer, though. Sort of.
But he would stay on guard around her. Just as soon as he helped her carry in the rest of her things. A slow grin curved his lips. She was damned sexy.
For just a moment, he closed his eyes and lost himself in the fantasy of her body pressed against his. Her naked body. His hands caressing her.
He quickly shook off the image.
Damn it, he was not going to sleep with her.
He wasn’t.
Be sure to catch INSTANT ATTRACTION, the first in a new series from Jill Shalvis, coming next month from Brava…
She’d been working for Wilder Adventures for a week now, the best week in recent memory. Up until right this second when a shadowy outline of a man appeared in her room. Like the newly brave woman she was, she threw the covers over her head and hoped he hadn’t seen her.
“Hey,” he said, blowing that hope all to hell.
His voice was low and husky, sounding just as surprised as she, and with a deep breath, she lurched upright to a seated position on the bed and reached out for her handy-dandy baseball bat before remembering she hadn’t brought it with her. Instead, her hands connected with her glasses and they went flying.
Which might just have been a blessing in disguise, because now she wouldn’t be able to witness her own death.
But then the tall shadow bent and scooped up her glasses and…
Handed them to her.
A considerate bad guy?
She jammed the frames on her face and focused in the dim light coming from the living room lamp. He stood at the foot of the bed frowning right back at her, hands on his hips.
Huh.
He didn’t look like an ax murderer, which was good, very good, but at over six feet of impressive, rangy, solid-looking muscle, he didn’t exactly look like a harmless Tooth Fairy either.
“Why are you in my bed?” he asked warily, as if maybe he’d put her there but couldn’t quite remember.
He had a black duffel bag slung over a shoulder. Light brown hair stuck out from the edges of his knit ski cap to curl around his neck. Sharp green eyes were leveled on hers, steady and calm but irritated as he opened his denim jacket.
If he was an ax murderer, he was quite possibly the most attractive one she’d ever seen, which didn’t do a thing for her frustration level. She’d been finally sleeping.
Sleeping!
He could have no idea what a welcome miracle that had been, dammit.
“Earth to Goldilocks.” He waved a gloved hand until she dragged her gaze back up to his face. “Yeah, hi, My bed. Want to tell me why you’re in it?”
“Your bed? But I’ve been sleeping here for a week.” Granted, she’d had a hard time of it lately but she definitely would have noticed him in bed with her. Just thinking about it now had her glasses fogging up.
“Who told you to sleep here?”
“My boss, Stone Wilder. Well, technically, Annie. She’s the chef here and—” She broke off when he reached toward her, clutching the comforter to her chin as if the down feathers could protect her, really wishing for that handy-dandy bat.
But instead of killing her, he hit the switch to the lamp on the nightstand and more fully illuminated the room as he dropped his duffel bag.
While Katie tried to slow her heart rate, he pulled off his jacket and gloves and tossed them territorially to the chest at the foot of the bed.
His clothes seemed normal enough. Beneath the jacket he wore a fleece-lined sweater opened over a long-sleeved brown Henley, half untucked over faded Levi’s. So even good-looking possible ax murderers knew how to layer in the Sierras. His jeans were loose and low on his hips, baggy over unlaced Sorels, the entire ensemble revealing that he was in prime condition.
“My name is Katie Kramer,” she told him, hoping he’d return the favor. “Wilder Adventure’s new office temp.” She paused, but he didn’t even attempt to fill the awkward silence. “So that leaves you…”
“What happened to Riley?”
“Who?”
“The current office manager.”
“I think she’s on maternity leave.”
“That must be news to his wife.”
She met his cool gaze. “Okay, obviously, I’m new. I don’t know all the details since I’ve only been here a week.”
“Here, being my cabin, of course.”
“Stone told me that the person who used to live here had left.”
“Ah.” His eyes were the deepest, most solid green she’d ever seen as they regarded her. “I did leave. I also just came back.”
She winced, clutching the covers a little tighter to her chest. “So this cabin…does it belong to an ax murderer?”
That tugged a rusty-sounding laugh from him. “Haven’t sunk that low. Yet.” Pulling off his cap, he shoved his fingers through his hair. With those sleepy-lidded eyes, disheveled hair, and at least two days’ growth on his jaw, he looked big and bad and edgy—and quite disturbingly sexy with it. “I need sleep,” he said, and dropped his long, tough self to the chair by the bed, as if so weary he could no longer stand. He set first one and then the other booted foot on the mattress, grimacing as if he was hurting, though she didn’t see any reason for that on his body as he settled back, lightly linking his hands together low on his flat abs. Then he let out a long, shuddering sigh.
She stared at more than six feet of raw power and testosterone in disbelief. “You still haven’t said who you are.”
“Too Exhausted To Go Away.”
She did some more staring at him. Staring and glaring, but he didn’t appear to care. “Hello?” she said after a full moment of stunned silence. “You can’t just—”
“Can. And am.” And with that, he closed his eyes. “Night, Goldilocks.”
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Copyright © 2009 Lucy Monroe
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ISBN: 0-7582-3943-2