“Now, sweetie, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Kyra murmured with a soothing smile, completely ruined by the wild jump of excitement in her almond-shaped, sage-colored eyes. “This is the chance you’ve been waiting for to make some serious headway with that hunk of stud meat. And he’s such a doll. Nothing like that pain-in-the-ass brother of his, even if they’re both drop-dead gorgeous.”
“Kyra, he is
not
a doll…and he is
not
a hunk of stud meat,” Mel gritted through her teeth, her cheeks burning and heart rate tripling the way it did every time she came face-to-face with Mark Logan. “He’s the man I’ve been fantasizing about for the past six months…the one who makes me tongue-tied every time he so much as smiles at me! Any of that ring a bell?”
She tracked his progress as he headed around the parked cars lining the sides of the street in slanted, parallel lanes, breathing a short sigh of relief when Roy Baker, the corner coffee shop owner, stopped him for a chat. The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, illuminating Mark’s mouthwatering physique, the long shafts of smoldering gold painting his tall, hard, muscle-ridged body with iridescent beams of heat, showing off the blatantly male strength beneath his faded jeans and soft charcoal gray T-shirt to perfection. He could have been dressed to the nines in tux and tails, and he couldn’t have looked anymore delicious than he did at that moment.
Thick, raven black hair tossed in the whipping breeze against the sharp, wholly male angles of his face. His soft green eyes, just a shade darker than Kyra’s, shadowed beneath the raven wings of his brows and thick black lashes, narrowed against the sunlight. His cheekbones were cut high, his nose a long, aristocratic affair roughened by a slight bump at its crest, attesting to an earlier break. Every time she ran into him, whether it was at Roy’s shop or the local grocery store, she wanted to press her lips against that slight bump, then trail them down the stubble-rough bronze of his cheek, not stopping until she found the corner of that wide, wicked mouth and learned, firsthand, if those rough-silk lips tasted as sinfully delicious as they looked.
A small, dreamy sigh escaped her, and Mel shook her head hard to regain her focus—but it wasn’t easy when something that gorgeous stood no more than twenty feet from where she sat. A chill raced down her spine, making her shiver as the heat beneath her tingling skin flared hotter, and Melanie swore she could almost
feel
the physical waves of sharp, raw-edged power pulsing off that magnificent bod and breathtaking face that invaded her dreams each night, like a thief stealing into her psyche.
Mark Logan was six-foot-three of rock-hard male animal, dangerously seductive, and she had a case of the hots so bad she was surprised steam didn’t rise from her body when his smoldering green gaze cut from Roy’s animated face straight to her again, zeroing in on her through the window of Elite Travel like a hawk spotting its prey. She gulped and tried not to melt into a puddle of lust, while Kyra whistled softly beneath her breath.
“Oh honey,” the outrageous redhead sighed, “if that ain’t a hunk of stud meat, then I’m a nun.”
“You’re certifiable, is what you are,” she groaned, trying not to panic as he sent her a crooked grin, then turned an impatient look back on Roy. “Honestly, you’re supposed to be helping me, not drooling over him.”
“It’s a conditioned reflex, hon. I see stud, I drool. Something like the moon and the tides. It’s an unstoppable force of nature.”
“More like a freak of nature.”
Kyra sent her a sympathetic smile. “Oh man, he’s ditching Roy. Now act cool.”
“Cool. Uh…what universe are you from, woman? I’m the dopey geek type, remember? I wouldn’t know cool if it slapped me upside the head and called me Mama.”
“Mel,” Kyra laughed, winking at her as she grabbed up her purse and Diet Pepsi, “he probably just wants you to smack his ass and call
him
Mama.”
“You know,” she murmured, shaking her head, “you have dated some seriously sick whackos. We’re talking freaky deeky.”
Kyra snickered under her breath, lifting her sloping red brows. “No sweetie, I just read a lot and have a really kick-ass imagination.”
Mel shot her a wry smile. “I pity the fool who finally tames you.”
“Yeah, well, he’d have to kill me first. And anyway, I’m swearing off men, so it’s now your duty to womankind to go and overload on orgasms for those of us who’re deprived.”
“Uh…overload? More like lucky to get one,” she snorted softly, several brief flashbacks from her two failed semi-serious relationships sticking in her mind like broken records, before she gritted her teeth and forced them down like a bad-tasting medicine.
Her best friend sent her a sharp look that said, “Get your head out of the sand and wake up”. “Mel, that man knows his way around a woman. I bet he could make you squeal just by talking to you.”
Now there was a visual image sure to fry her brain. “Mmm…can a man really—”
“Hello? Earth to Melanie,” Kyra laughed, snapping her fingers. “Did I lose you there in la-la land, hon? Here he comes…and here I go. Good luck. Knock him on his ass, babe, and twist him around your finger. I know you can do it!”
Mel leapt to her feet, ready to grab hold of the smiling redhead and tie her to her blasted chair. “What? You’re leaving me?”
“Three’s a crowd,” Kyra snorted, “unless you’re like that jerk Brett that I dated there for a while, before I realized what he was into and tossed his ass out. But we won’t get into that right now. Trust me, you don’t want me cramping your style when Mr. Dreamy Eyes comes in and asks you out for that date.”
“Kyra, for the love of god, he probably just wants to buy a cruise.”
“Melanie Green…that is not an ‘I wanna take a quick jaunt to Acapulco’ look he’s sporting. That’s an ‘I want to spread you naked and taste you from head to toe, lingering on all the good parts in between’
look.
Hasta
, sweetie. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
“What I need is to beat you silly for abandoning me,” she muttered, pushing forward in her chair. When she was once again seated behind her desk, she ran her hands over her curl-crazy hair, trying to tame the wild mass without looking like she was primping. He had just about reached the door when her damn phone went off like a wailing banshee, startling the hell out of her, and she jumped to answer it. In her excitement, she miscalculated and her elbow crashed into the corner of her latest scrapbooking project for her recent travel conferences. The scrapbooks and loose photos scattered over her desk in a mess that screamed
I’m clumsy and a nervous wreck.
Damn. So much for coming off as cool and sophisticated. No…she might as well sit back and get ready to assume what was her customary role with men—that of “please pour out your woman troubles to me as if I give a damn or could actually help”, sisterly, asexual female friend. Lord knew she could play it to perfection. Even her last boyfriend, Craig, had wanted her for little more than his gal pal.
Hell, the man had come to cry on her shoulder when the twenty-year-old he’d been seeing on the side, much to Mel’s surprise, had dumped him for a younger guy. And the really sick part was that she’d done it. She’d patted his back, told him everything would be okay, and then taken him out for pizza. They still talked every few weeks, and for the life of her, Melanie couldn’t understand why they’d ever thought they should date. Passion with Craig had consisted of a stiff, three-minute session in the sheets to blow off steam, and then a nice long talk about anything from politics to what they should go see at the movies.
But that wasn’t what she wanted from Mark Logan. No, with this man, Melanie wanted a little less conversation…and a hell of a lot more body language. Because no one had ever made her heart thrum and her body do the funny little shimmy from her privates to her eyebrows that this guy did. Heck, he even made her toes tingle, and she knew she had it bad.
It’d been that way from the first time they’d been introduced. And the thought of taking on her usual role of confidant, of actually becoming this guy’s buddy, rather than his red-hot sex siren, made her want to bawl like a baby.
Melanie hardened her jaw and plastered on a smile, determined not to make such an ass of herself. With her heart in her throat, she watched as he reached the door and grasped the handle. Chimes sounded as he pulled it open, and Mel sent up a fervent prayer for help to any benevolent love goddesses who might be listening.
Chapter Two
Why he hadn’t just done this months ago, Mark couldn’t say, except that the thought of screwing up and blowing it with this woman put a cold chill in the pit of his stomach. Damn, it scared the holy living hell out of him.
He took a deep breath and walked through the front door of Elite Travel, and found himself alone with a smiling, bright-eyed, phone-holding Melanie Green who looked so jumpy he was surprised she didn’t bolt from her chair and make a run for it. But even as he walked forward, careful to keep his movements slow and easy, she took a deep breath and held her ground, making him admire her backbone. It was painfully obvious that he made her skittish, but she was too proud to run and hide, and he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her silly for not bailing on him.
Hell, he wanted to pull her into his arms and act out every carnal fantasy he’d ever entertained since the age of puberty, and considering he’d been a horny little shit, that was saying quite a lot. She whispered a hasty goodbye into the phone, hung up the receiver, and smiled up at him as he reached her desk.
“Hi,” she all but sighed, and he couldn’t miss the breathless edge of her voice in the simple word.
“Hey Mel. I was just wondering if you’ve got time to talk?” he asked, nodding toward her desk. “I don’t want to keep you from work or anything.”
“No,” she replied in that same husky tone of hers that never failed to make him think of sex-tangled sheets and sweat-slick bodies, “it’s okay.” She licked her lower lip, and he nearly groaned at the sight of her pink little tongue stroking against the deep rose of her mouth. Using a slender hand adorned with silver rings, she pushed her chin-length, silky-looking honey brown curls behind the dainty shells of her ears and said, “We’re getting ready to close up soon, since it’s, um, been pretty bagel today.”
A wide grin broke across his mouth, and she turned crimson, the dark flush in her cheeks making her look like she’d been burnt to a crisp in the beach-bright sun, obviously realizing what she’d just said.
“Bagel, huh?” he smiled, choking back a rumbling bark of laughter, since the woman looked like she wanted to sink down in her chair and hide under her desk.
“I meant to say slow,” she mumbled, though the sexy as hell, lush line of her mouth was curling into a wry, self-deprecating grin. “It’s been fairly
slow
today.”
“Uh-huh,” he murmured, trying not to make it too obvious that he was still trying not to lose it.
“Oh go ahead and laugh,” she groaned, shaking her head. “I would too if someone started speaking Martian to me.”
Not trusting himself not to just reach out and pull her into his arms, Mark shoved his hands deep into his jeans’ pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Let me guess. Some kind of code, right?”
“Uh, yeah.” She busied herself with organizing her desk, suddenly refusing to meet his eyes. “Whenever Kyra or I make a comment about the day being nice and slow, we jinx ourselves and all holy hell breaks loose in this place.”
“So you say ‘bagel’ to stop the jinx,” he said softly, wishing she’d meet his eyes again and stop hiding from him.
“Yep.” She went to work scooping up an overturned paper clip holder while the corner of her mouth twitched with a smile, making him fight his own grin as her eyes lifted to his mouth. “And we’ve been extra careful this week, since Lara and Tom are out for a conference.”
He bent his knees and lowered his head to the side, trying to catch her gaze. “So what other code words do you two have? If a hot guy walks in here, what do you call him? Cream cheese?” he teased, trying to put her at ease.
But it didn’t work, and he realized too late that he shouldn’t have tried teasing her when she was already so embarrassed. For the brief flash of a moment, he witnessed her turning bright red, and then she suddenly lowered her head to the jumbled surface of her desk and began banging her forehead against what looked like some sort of photo album. Mark smiled down at the crown of her head, enjoying the sight of her honey brown curls spilling over the cluttered surface, and watched as she reached out with her left hand, searching until she found a large, heavy three-ring hole punch. Without lifting her head, she picked up the punch and held it out to him.
“Please do me a favor and just put me out of my misery now,” she said in a muffled voice. “A nice, swift bonk on my noggin with this should do the trick quite nicely, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Mark let go the suffocated laughter he’d been holding in, unable to resist lowering one hand to stroke through those silky, tumbled curls. She stiffened at the touch of his hand on her scalp, then at the side of her face as he gently pushed her hair back, trying to read her expression. “Am I making you nervous, honey?”
He could see her eyes squeeze tightly shut, lips rolling inward before she whispered “Yes”, sounding utterly miserable.
“Thank god, because you pretty much terrify the hell out of me,” he admitted with all honestly, even though he’d never confessed such a thing to a woman before. But then, he thought with an odd feeling of realization, he’d never actually felt nervous around a woman the way he did around Melanie Green. But it wasn’t a bad feeling. No, in fact, he kinda liked it. Liked the way it made him feel alive—jacked up on energy and excitement—like when he was thirteen and Cain had dared him to jump off the end of the pier when a wicked storm was raging all around them.