Czytaj książkę: «Perfectly Saucy»

1

ALEX MORENO was the first person Jessica Summers had ever heard say the F-word out loud. By the time she’d heard him say it in the eighth grade, she was fairly certain he’d already done…it several times.

Even at fourteen he’d had his pick of girls and the girls he’d picked were almost always older, more experienced and willing to do all the things Jessica only whispered about at sleep-overs. In high school he’d been the kind of boy girls fawned over, boys picked fights with and teachers disciplined just to prove they were in control.

Apparently things hadn’t changed much. Two weeks ago Jessica had seen him for the first time in more than ten years. He’d been walking down the street with a kind of lazy confidence that declared he was back in Palo Verde to stay and there was nothing anyone could do about it, short of arresting him and physically hauling his ass out of town. Again.

Even after all this time, they were still polar opposites. He was the son of migrant farm workers. She was the daughter of the town’s most prominent family. He was wild, reckless and brash. The ultimate bad boy.

She, on the other hand, seemed doomed to a tragically boring, spinsterlike existence. Unless she did something drastic.

Jessica glanced down at the delicate silver watch on her wrist. Four forty-five. Alex would be here soon and the next hour was going to go either very well or very badly.

Turning, she paced the length of her kitchen, the three-inch heels of her shoes rat-tating across the tile floor, echoing the pounding of her heart. She reached the arched doorway to her living room and kept going, the plush cream carpet muffling the clatter of her heels as she strode toward the sliding-glass door that looked out onto her back patio and pool. She stood for a moment, watching the surface of the water ripple in a breeze and wishing she wasn’t perpetually early. Today, fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity.

Her telephone rang, its shrill clatter piercing the silence. She spun around, lunging for the cordless phone she kept on the coffee table, sure it was Alex calling to cancel their appointment.

Her heel caught on the carpet and she kicked off her shoes, nudging them under the table as she grabbed the handset. For a second she clutched the phone, exhaling sharply so she wouldn’t sound like such a nervous wreck. Would she be disappointed or relieved if he couldn’t make it?

Mustering her courage, she punched the talk button and tried to sound casual. “Hello? Sumners residence.”

God, why did she always sound as though she was answering her parents’ phone?

“What are you wearing?” demanded a feminine voice.

“Patricia?”

“No, it’s your great-uncle Vernon. Of course it’s Patricia.” Her voice practically rang with exasperation. “He’s going to be there soon, right?”

“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”

“So don’t waste my time with pleasantries. If you’d responded to my e-mails at work today, we wouldn’t have to do this at the last minute. Now, what are you wearing?”

Jessica had made the mistake of telling Patricia over lunch about her plan to meet Alex this evening. The other woman had ignored work all afternoon, peppering Jessica with frantic e-mail questions. Most of which Jessica had ignored. “Why does it matter what I’m wearing?”

“You’re going to see Alex for the first time in how many years?”

“Ten.”

“And you don’t think it matters what you’re wearing?” She didn’t give Jessica a chance to answer but plowed right ahead with the conversation. “Just tell me it’s not one of your god-awful, prissy little sweater sets.”

“No,” she said through gritted teeth as she made her way to the entry hall. “It’s not one of my practical and comfortable sweater sets. I’m wearing a simple black silk sheath dress.”

“Is it tight?”

Jessica paused in front of the hall mirror just long enough to shoot herself a piercing look. “No.”

“Is it low-cut?”

“No.” She felt a sinking sensation deep in her belly. Had she worn the completely wrong thing?

“It’s at least short?”

Jessica extended her leg to get a better look at the length. “Four, maybe five inches above the knee.”

“Good. That’s good. Your legs are your best feature.”

Please, Dear God, let Alex be a leg man.

“Okay,” Patricia barked, clearly moving beyond the clothing issue. “So what’s your game plan?”

“Game plan?”

“What’re you going to do? Just invite him in and proposition him?”

“No, of course not!” When she’d spoken to Alex on the phone earlier this afternoon she’d said something inane about wanting to hire his construction company to do work on her house. But she’d had no idea how she would segue from “Want to remodel my kitchen” to “Want to go out sometime?” Or, after a date or two, to transition to “Want to tear off each other’s clothes and have mad, passionate sex? Often?”

To Patricia she said, “I just…”

“Just what?”

“I don’t know.” She spun on her heel and stomped back to the kitchen, suddenly irritated with herself. “I don’t really have a plan.”

“Exactly. You don’t have a plan. That’s what worries me. You always have a plan.”

“That’s not—”

“Did you or did you not just send everyone in our team a detailed plan of what to do in case of a tornado?”

“I’m the floor safety manager now. It’s my job to—”

“We live in California. There are no tornadoes in California.”

“But—”

“Ever.”

She started to explain that she was just trying to do her job well. That she took her new responsibilities at work seriously. But wasn’t that the problem? She always took everything so dang seriously.

Before she could put any of that into words, Patricia babbled on. “So, yes, it scares me that you have no plan. This is just so unlike you. Inviting Alex Moreno over so you can seduce him or whatever is just so…so…”

“Like something you would do?”

“Exactly. This is what concerns me. You are acting like me.”

“Well, you can stop worrying. I’m not going to seduce or proposition him. I promise. I just want to see him again.”

To see if any spark of attraction still lingered between them.

And if it did?

Well, she’d worry about that when the time came.

“See him again?” Patricia asked shrewdly. “There wasn’t something going on between you two back in school, was there?”

“No,” she said dismissively. And it wasn’t entirely a lie.

“I didn’t think so. I mean, I’d heard the rumors, but I never thought they were true.”

“Rumors?” She’d certainly never heard any rumors connecting the two of them.

“That you were secretly in love. That you were going to run away together. I figured it was nonsense. I mean, you and Alex Moreno? It was more absurd than that rumor about the giant snake living in the second-floor bathroom.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, more than a little offended about the snake comparison.

“Just that you weren’t each other’s type. You were such a Goody Two-shoes in high school. And he was always in and out of trouble. And on top of all that, your father was the judge. How ironic would that have been? The daughter of a judge dating a guy who’d been arrested at least a dozen times.”

“Hmm. Very,” Jessica said noncommittally. Of course, the real irony was that, although the rumors had been false, at the time, she would have given anything for them to be true.

“But I guess you must have had a crush on him then,” Patricia continued blithely. “Or else you wouldn’t be thinking of having your passionate fling with him now. Not that I blame you. He was scrumptious even at eighteen. And just so bad.”

Patricia’s inflection on the word “bad” made it clear she thought “bad” was a very good thing.

And Jessica supposed she knew what Patricia meant. Even a Goody Two-shoes like her could appreciate the thrilling appeal of being naughty. But that was never what had drawn her to Alex.

It wasn’t his bad-boy charm, his many arrests or the titillation of shocking her parents and her peers. No, what appealed to her most about Alex Moreno—even now—was all the things about him no one else saw. His strength. His kindness. His integrity.

Well, all that and his sizzling raw sex appeal.

For now she needed to get Patricia off the phone before her friend’s circuitous logic drove her absolutely batty.

But before she hung up, she couldn’t help but ask, “What I don’t get is this. If you’re so worried about what I’m doing, why did you want to make sure my clothes met with your approval?”

“Well, sure, I’m worried. That’s all the more reason for you to look drool-worthy. If you’re going to make a fool out of yourself, I at least want you to look good while you do it.”

Buoyed by Patricia’s “encouragement,” Jessica poured herself a splash of wine and gulped it down. “Thanks, that’s very helpful.”

“I’m sorry I’m not more optimistic.” But Patricia didn’t sound the least bit contrite. “Look, I can understand you wanting to get some—I mean, lately you’ve been living like a nun—but, come on, Alex Moreno? Going from celibacy straight to him is like deciding you need to work out more often and starting by climbing Mount Everest.”

“Pffft,” Jessica muttered dismissively. But was Patricia right? Was Alex the Mount Everest of men? Was she insane for thinking he might be interested in her? Was she crazy for thinking he’d even remember her?

“Jess, you can ‘pffft’ all you want, but he’s the baddest bad boy this town has ever known. You could get into serious trouble with a guy like him. And if you’re doing this just because of that silly list…”

On her way back from a nine-week-long business trip to Sweden—a trip during which she’d worked her butt off and still hadn’t gotten the promotion she’d been promised—she’d picked up a copy of Saucy magazine in Gatwick Airport. The cover article was “10 Things Every Woman Should Do.” Have an Affair to Remember was at the top of that list. And Alex Moreno was at the top of her list of men she’d want to have a passionate affair with.

“Patricia, you only think The List is silly because you’ve done all of the things on The List.”

“Well—” She chuckled, sounding just a tad smug. “I guess I have.”

“Exactly,” Jessica growled.

“Hey.” Patricia sounded falsely cheerful. “It’s not like you haven’t done any of the things on the list.”

“One. I’ve done one. Live Abroad. That’s the one and only thing on The List that I’ve done. And that hardly counts since I did that for work.”

“All I’m saying is,” Patricia countered, “you want to do some of the things on The List? Fine. But start with something smaller. Something a little less traumatic. Less likely to come back and bite you on the ass. Why not buy a leather miniskirt? That was on the list, too, right? Or get a tattoo.”

“Get a tattoo? You think permanently scarring my body would be less traumatic than sleeping with Alex?”

“Okay, traumatic maybe wasn’t the best word. Drastic is more what I meant. I just don’t think you need to do anything quite so drastic.”

And that was exactly what Patricia—who’d done all the things on the list numerous times—didn’t get. Drastic was just what Jessica needed.

“I’ve worked for Handheld Technologies for six years now,” she pointed out. “For the past two years, I’ve been working my butt off for a promotion to team leader. Instead of promoting me, they made me floor safety manager—the schmuck in charge of keeping the first-aid kit stocked and evacuating the floor in case of a natural disaster.”

“It’s almost like a promotion,” Patricia murmured in placating tones. “It’s a sign they trust you.”

“No, it’s a sign they think I’ll look okay in a bright orange vest. I’m tired of settling for floor safety manager. I’m tired of settling, period. I’m ready to start living my life.”

And—silly or not—she’d begin with that list of ten things every woman should do. As soon as she’d seen it, she’d pulled out her Day-Timer and copied each item onto her Priority Action sheet. She’d start at the top and work her way down. And at the top of her list was Alex Moreno.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” Jessica said.

“Just remember to sway your hips when you walk. And lick your lips a lot. And—”

“Patricia—”

“And…and, good luck!”

Jessica punched the off button and returned the phone to its cradle. Luck? She didn’t need luck. She was a Saucy woman now. Or she would be soon. Once she checked all the items off The List.

STANDING ON THE doorstep of Jessica Sumners’s quaint, ranch-style house, Alex Moreno felt as nervous as he had standing in her father’s courtroom a decade ago.

Not for the first time since he’d moved back to Palo Verde, did he doubt his sanity. He’d moved home to prove to this town that he’d changed. That he wasn’t the wild, reckless kid he’d been back in high school. He was now a successful businessman and upstanding member of the community. A damn paragon of responsibility.

All of which would have been a hell of a lot easier to prove if someone would actually hire him. He needed this job.

Despite that, he hated that his first job would be from her.

In the past decade he’d imagined seeing her again more often than he cared to admit. He’d pictured them meeting as equals, he casually mentioning the jobs he’d worked on in L.A. and the Bay Area, her suitably impressed by his success. Never once had he pictured standing on her doorstep, praying she’d hire him and thus resuscitate his dwindling bank balance.

As he rang the doorbell he caught a flash of movement through the leaded glass of her front door. His stomach turned over in anticipation.

Through the window, he saw her walk toward the door and swing it open. Her eyes flicked up the length of his body then came to rest on his face. Her smile faltered and he watched her struggle to keep it in place.

She looked nervous, but even nervous, she still took his breath away. She wore a simple black dress, with her hair pulled back. A pearl hung from a silver chain around her neck. Her strained expression undermined the elegance of her appearance. Maybe she was dressed for a funeral. Either way, he saw a flicker of anxiety in her eyes. As if he was the cause of her heightened emotions.

“Alex.” She murmured his name, almost caressing it with her mouth.

The sound of his name on her lips sent a wholly inappropriate shiver of pure lust through his gut.

Then she cleared her throat, swung the door open wide enough to let him in and held out her hand for his. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“No problem.” Her hand felt small and warm, her handshake surprisingly firm. He pulled his hand from hers then held out the portfolio describing his experience and listing his references.

Jessica blinked in surprise at the folder, then finally took it. She barely glanced at it before laying it on the marble-topped table beside the door. Her gaze traveled down his length to settle somewhere near his feet.

“You wanted me to look at your kitchen,” he reminded her. He’d come straight from work. His shoes, his clothes—hell, everything about him—carried the dust of a hundred construction sites. He worked for a living—hard, manual labor. That never bothered him…until this instant, standing on Jessica’s doorstep.

“Oh, yes.” She blushed, stepping aside so he could enter. “It’s this way.”

She gestured for him to follow her, then turned and walked through the wide doorway to the living room. Her hips swayed gently as she moved. The movement dragged his gaze down the long length of her legs to her bare feet. Her little black dress did nothing for him…but, man, oh man, the sight of her bare feet twisted him into a few knots.

Her feet were narrow and delicate, but not tiny. The feet of a tall woman, with long, graceful toes and high arches. Pale…and perfect. Perfectly manicured. Perfectly buffed. The pampered feet of a rich woman.

He glanced down at his own dirt-crusted work boots.

She swiveled back toward him, one foot planted firmly on the ground, the other leg bent slightly at the knee, exposing the arch of her foot and accentuating the curve of her calf.

Between them stretched a good ten feet of pristine cream carpet. Carpet he would track dirt all over the second he crossed her threshold.

“It’s through here.” She pointed through the living room toward the west end of her house.

“Right.” He wiped his feet on her doormat, but it didn’t do much good. Giving up, he stepped through her doorway, excruciatingly aware of the dried mud that flaked off his boots onto her floor. Yep, some things never changed.

He’d aged ten years since he’d last seen Jessica Sumners. He’d traveled halfway across the country and back. He’d opened and run his own business. Built houses for people who could buy and sell the Sumners. But the second he’d stepped foot back in this town, he’d felt like a dirty mojadito. Completely unworthy to even stand on her doorstep, let alone do or say any of the things he yearned to.

Jessica Sumners was the closest thing their little California town had to royalty. She came from a world of wealth and privilege, he, from one of dirt and sweat.

Not that Jess had ever treated him like a wetback. No, she’d treated him with the same cool but equable friendliness she’d treated everyone at their high school.

Except for a few short weeks in his senior year when their relationship had evolved into something more. Something he still couldn’t define or explain. Something that still sometimes kept him up at night.

But based on her cool reception, he wasn’t even sure she remembered those weeks. Either way, he’d be damned if he tracked dirt across the floor of the one person in this town who’d never treated him like filth. He reached down and tugged loose his laces, then toed off his boots. Grime ringed his white socks where his boots met his ankles, but there was nothing he could do about that.

He followed her into the kitchen, trying not to notice the seductive rhythm of her hips as she moved. Her long legs accentuated the length of her stride. No pretension or seduction there. Which made the pull even stronger.

“Well, this is it.” She gestured broadly to the kitchen like a game-show hostess revealing the prize behind door number two.

Taking in the room, he frowned. White-painted cabinets, white appliances and dark green laminate counter-tops in a simple galley-style kitchen. Dated, but functional.

Scratching his chin, he asked, “What exactly were you looking to have done?”

She crept closer. Standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder, she studied the kitchen, head tilted slightly toward him. “I don’t know.” She shifted, her bare shoulder brushing his sleeve as she faced him. “I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

“On the phone you said you wanted to meet as soon as possible. You implied it was an emergency.”

Her gaze shifted nervously away from his. She appraised the kitchen, her forehead furrowing in a frown, before saying, “Haven’t you ever made a decision and wanted to act on it as soon as possible? Just wanted to get it over with?”

Those words, coming from any other rich white woman, would have irritated him. But somehow, coming from her, they didn’t sound selfish or childish, but…frustrated. And very human.

They hinted at the girl he’d known all those years ago. Was the sensitive and kind girl still buried inside this gorgeous creature? The way his hope leaped at the idea made him chuckle.

Dang, but he was susceptible to her.

Her gaze snapped back to his. “You think that’s funny?”

“No, I just…” His hasty reassurance caught in his throat. Her eyes—startlingly blue at this close range—were wide and vulnerable. “It was just unexpected.”

She frowned. “In what way?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Back in school you were always the perfect rich girl. The perfect student. I guess I never pictured you as the impatient type.”

A hint of a smile tugged at her lips. “I’m surprised you bothered to picture me at all.”

Oh, man, she had no idea. If she knew how many times and how many ways he’d pictured her back then, she wouldn’t want him putting his hands anywhere near her kitchen. He could guaran-damn-tee it.

Keeping his mouth firmly shut on the subject, he said, “I’ll tell you what—” He pulled his tape measure off his belt and his notepad out his back pocket. “I’ll take some measurements, make some notes. We’ll see what we can come up with.”

Just holding the tape measure made him feel more at ease. Jessica may have money, but he had skills. He’d come a long way from the boy he’d been back in high school.

Moving from one end of the kitchen to the next, he measured the length and width, noting the depth and locations of each of the cabinets. He put his pad down on the countertop and began making a quick sketch of the kitchen as it was. She stood beside him, closer than was necessary, throwing off his concentration. And damn, she smelled so good he could barely think.

He shifted away from her, propping his hip against the countertop. “Are you willing to give up storage space? Maybe a wall?”

“What do you think?”

What did he think? He thought she was standing awfully close for someone who just wanted her kitchen remodeled.

Think about the money, he ordered himself. If she wanted to drop forty or fifty grand on a whim, he’d be happy to help her do it.

Think about that. Not about how she smells—fresh and clean, yet spicy. Like Ivory soap mixed with something decadent.

He cleared his throat. “If you’re going to do it, do it right.”

“So you think I should…”

“Knock out that wall.” He pointed to the wall separating the kitchen from the living room. “You open up this space, the kitchen and the living room will feel bigger.”

“Really? You can do that?”

“Sure.” He crossed to the wall and rapped on the dry-wall beneath the upper cabinet. “We tear out this wall, put in a structural beam to support the ceiling and you’ve got a whole new kitchen. What’d you say?”

Come on, baby, take a bite. Just a little nibble.

She glanced at him, then back at the wall. Her eyes glazed over, just a little, as if she were trying to imagine what the room would look like. “It’d look great. I—”

She seemed to catch herself just short of saying yes. Shaking her head as if to clear it, she smiled shyly. “I should probably think about it first.”

He’d almost had her. Then, bam, she was gone. Just like that.

Just his luck.

And if his luck didn’t turn soon, he’d be flipping burgers down at the Dairy Barn. Work was scarce in Palo Verde. Scarce, if your name was Alex Moreno.

When he’d moved back here, he hadn’t anticipated the animosity people in this town still harbored against him. But he was determined to prove he wasn’t still the pain-in-the-ass kid he’d been back then. He’d do just about anything to prove it. He’d damn near beg if he had to.

“I’ll tell you what…While you’re thinking about it, I’ll work up a few drawings. Give you an idea of what I’m picturing.”

She looked unconvinced. And again it struck him as odd that she seemed so interested in him, yet so uninterested in her kitchen, when she’d been so insistent on the phone. If she’d been any other woman—anyone other than perfect Jessica Sumners—he’d have assumed she was hitting on him.

The Jessica he knew from high school was smart and fair and always treated people with dignity. And she absolutely did not invite guys she barely knew over to her house for a quick tussle in the sack.

She stepped even closer and placed her hand on his arm. She moistened her lips in a movement that somehow looked both outrageously sensuous and slightly embarrassed all at the same time. “Or maybe we could talk about it more over a drink.” Her voice trembled and her hand felt surprisingly warm against his bare skin.

His gut clenched at her touch. He sucked in a deep breath and the air around him seemed laden with her scent.

Then her words hit him. A drink? She wanted to go out for a drink? Damn, she was hitting on him.

He jerked his arm away from her touch. “By ‘go out for a drink,’ do you mean, go out on a date?”

She shrugged, her shoulders shifting in a movement of graceful self-doubt. “I just thought…well, yes. I’d love to catch up with you. If you’re interested.”

He shook his head, laughing bitterly. Did he want to go out on a date with Jessica Sumners? Hell, yes.

But there was a gleam in her eyes that told him this wasn’t just for old times’ sake. How in God’s name had he been so wrong about her?

One by one, the implications hit him square in the chest.

She’d asked him here to hit on him. Which meant she wasn’t interested in hiring him. Which meant he wasn’t going to get the job he desperately needed. Finally—and strangely, this was the blow that hurt the worst—she wasn’t the sweet, open girl he remembered. She was, however, the kind of woman who liked to order in a little blue-collar fun for the afternoon.

The pisser was…he was tempted.

Staring down into her eyes, breathing in her scent, and the heat of her touch still burning his arm…Yeah, he was tempted. Jessica—rich, beautiful and damn near saintly in the eyes of this town—was hitting on him. If the look on her face was any indication, she wanted more from him than just a drink.

The temptation to give it to her, to toss his dignity out the window, to pull her into his arms and explore that luscious mouth of hers almost overwhelmed him. Not just because she was beautiful, but also because kissing Jessica…hell, pulling off her expensive dress and nailing her right here in her kitchen…would be the ultimate teenage fantasy brought to life. Making it with the most beautiful, well-respected girl in town. The girl he’d wanted so bad it had made his teeth ache.