Until We Touch (Fool's Gold #15)(52)
The combination was unbelievable sexy. Wanting hit him like a linebacker and nearly knocked him senseless. Or maybe it was the lack of air that killed the last few surviving brain cells. He wasn’t sure.
He drew in a breath and carefully lowered Dyna to the floor. When he straightened, Larissa was still standing there in that damn robe.
“Am I, ah, early?” he asked, knowing it was just a matter of seconds before the blood pulsing through his body settled uncomfortably in his groin and his desire would be there for the world to see.
Dammit all to hell, why did she have to be so beautiful? And sexy?
Larissa stared at him coolly. “You’re not early.”
She tossed her hair over her shoulders. The movement caused the robe to shimmer around her and her br**sts to move in such a way that he was reasonably confident she wasn’t wearing a bra.
He swore silently and looked around desperately for a distraction. All he saw was the cat.
“I’ll brush Dyna while you finish getting dressed,” he mumbled, grabbing the unsuspecting feline and pulling her back into his arms. “I saw her brush in the kitchen.”
With that, he stumbled away.
He hid in the tiny space, hoping Larissa would assume his moronic behavior was about low blood sugar or because of too many hits to the head. Anything but the truth, he thought desperately. He had to get a grip.
He held on to Dyna, petting her while she purred and thinking about baseball and the changes they were making in the Mercedes CLS and how global warming meant there would be vineyards in Alaska in the next ten years. Anything to distract him from his need to follow Larissa into her bedroom, peel that robe from her body and make love with her for the next five or six hours.
He wanted to touch her all over—first with his hands and then with his mouth. He wanted to explore every inch of her, he wanted to know what she sounded like when she got close and how her breathing changed when she came. He wanted—
Stop it! He sucked in a breath and reminded himself that he worked with Larissa. She was his friend. He wasn’t going to screw that up by having sex with her. Talk about stupid. He wasn’t some love-struck kid. He could control himself.
Slowly his heart rate returned to normal. He was breathing easier and the pounding need faded enough to be manageable. After a couple more minutes, he risked going back into the living room. Larissa was gone. He set down the cat before returning to the kitchen. He’d planned to have a beer with his dinner, but after what he’d just been through, he was going to need something a whole lot stronger.
* * *
LARISSA PUSHED THE beans and rice around on her plate. She’d managed to eat enough of her burrito to keep Jack from asking questions. It wasn’t that she wasn’t hungry, it was that swallowing past the lump of stupid in her throat made it difficult to get anything down.
Her attempt at seduction had been a total disaster. Instead of being overwhelmed by desire, Jack had simply assumed she wasn’t dressed yet. Oh, right. Because she had a whole wardrobe of silk robes to pull on at a moment’s notice. Jeez. Until today she hadn’t owned even one.
She only half listened to Jack going on and on about how the guys were planning to get Percy ready for his GED. Not that she wasn’t interested in all that. She was. But hadn’t he noticed she was trying to get him into bed?
There was an obvious answer. No. He hadn’t noticed. He didn’t know she’d just spent ninety-eight dollars on a stupid robe she would never wear again. Nor had he noticed she’d curled her hair. That wasn’t something she did very often. Jack was supposed to be so smooth with the ladies. Where was that smoothness now?
“You okay?” he asked.
She forced herself to smile. “Of course. So is there a lot of science on the test?”
Jack said something about downloading a sample test and getting information on what students were required to know. But what she was actually thinking was she probably shouldn’t be blaming Jack for not getting what she was trying to do. The more likely culprit was herself.
What did she know about seducing men? In a word—nothing. Sure, she’d dated some, but she’d mostly avoided relationships. They were never what she wanted them to be. Never as fulfilling, never as exciting. She knew there were a lot of reasons. By holding herself back emotionally, she never had a real connection with the guy in question. Without the connection, she couldn’t care enough to make the relationship worthwhile. Rooted in the middle of that mess was her guilt about being the reason her parents had had to get married. She probably needed intensive therapy, but she knew that was never going to happen.
“You’re not seeing anyone,” she said, interrupting Jack.
He put down his fork. “You mean like dating?”
“Uh-huh. You haven’t had a woman in a while.”
His shoulders tensed slightly as his gaze avoided hers. “We moved to a small town. Finding women to date is going to be challenging here.”
“You’ll have to import them.”
“I guess I will. I have names.”
Great. She’d been joking and he was serious. How was she supposed to get him into bed when he wouldn’t even notice her as a woman? She’d been practically naked and he’d been more interested in brushing the cat than having his way with her. Maybe she needed to take some kind of remedial class.
She picked up her bottle of beer and took a sip. All right—she would accept that her plan had a big flaw and deal with it tomorrow. She’d already wasted enough of a perfectly good evening and meal. Time to return to normal.