Authors: Chantilly White
Waiting. Weakening. Wild with wanting.
Cravings shimmered in her blood, and the suspense built,
until finally, finally, he pressed his mouth to hers. She moaned against him,
the desire that had been teasing her body with delicious little licks all
through their date shooting suddenly to full boil.
Oh, God, yes.
Certainty flared, beyond all reason.
Mine-mine-mine
hummed inside her head. Taken over by the kiss, by
sensation, she forgot to weigh and measure, to compare to other first kisses
she'd received. There was no comparison, no scale. With the first brush of his
mouth, the memories of every other kiss in her life vanished in puffs of smoke.
There was only this moment. This kiss.
This man.
Strong, lean fingers flexed against her shoulder, raising
goose bumps up and down her body. But before she could throw her arms around
him and haul herself against his hard, muscular frame, fitting herself against
him the way she desperately needed, Ben's wide palms skated down her arms. He
drew her hands together between their bodies, holding her still. The brush of
his knuckles against her belly speared electric shocks through the soft weave
of her sweater and sent melting heat sliding over her limbs, weakening her
knees.
He kissed lightly at the corner of her mouth, the firm, hot
pressure of his lips making her shiver, then retreated. It took her a moment to
force her eyes open to stare into the smoldering green of his hooded gaze.
"I'll call you," he whispered. Dropping another
quick kiss upon her open mouth, he gave her hands a gentle squeeze, then turned
and walked away.
Knees shaking, Allison leaned against her car, thankful for
its support at her back. Dazed, she watched him stride down the row of
multi-colored vehicles glinting dully beneath the overcast sky.
Pressing the back of her hand against her shaking mouth, the
flavor of him still teasing her tongue, she battled back the flooding lust.
She'd barely gotten started before he broke it off, leaving her in a needy,
tingly mess of arousal.
Damn it.
Trying to shake off the sensual spell, Allison pinched her
left thigh. Hard.
At least he'd answered one question. The man could kiss.
Innumerable images, men from her past, swam through her consciousness, but not
one had wrecked her as thoroughly as Ben's gentle assault on her
still-vibrating mouth.
And here she stood, her eyes tracking his progress to his
car when she made it a habit to be the one stared after hungrily at the end of
a date. How had he flipped that around on her? The man had some skills.
Waving a hand in front of her face to fan the steam rising
from her sensitized skin, she blew out a frustrated breath. If she were a
less-confident woman, she might wonder what she'd done wrong. The last time
she'd kissed a man like that and he'd walked away without following through was
exactly. . . yeah, never.
Well.
No sense standing here like a hopeless female. She forced
her knees to steady in preparation for turning to climb into her car, but then
her passion-hazed brain finally caught up to her vision.
Wait.
She knew that van. What the hell was Ben doing, backing out
of a parking space in her neighbor, Sally's, ancient VW bus? Why. . .?
Recognition hit like a salvo fired from a ship's cannon, and
she nearly staggered. How could she have been so stupid? His size should have
clued her in immediately. She was used to big men, but there weren't that many
around who matched Ben's height and musculature, not even Jeff. Yet she'd
supposedly seen two in just over a few weeks.
No, not two. One.
Ben—clean-cut, charmingly dangerous, well-dressed Ben
of the magnetic eyes and skin-sizzling kiss—was somehow also Grizzly
Adams, Sally's homeless hobo from New Year's Eve.
What a difference a shave and a haircut could make. Jesus.
Remembering the way he'd caught her ogling him,
embarrassment wrapped its fingers around her throat. Who knew how long he'd
been watching her that night.
And now he'd shared lunch with Allison as a supposed Cupid's
Cavalry compatibility match—a site where Sally was also a
member—and never once intimated he'd seen her before. It might have been
a quick glance, but vanity aside, Allison knew her effect on the male of the
species well enough to be certain he'd recognized her right off.
Her
appearance hadn't undergone a radical change in the
last two weeks.
Allison's mind whirled with half-hatched possibilities. What
kind of man drove one date's car to lunch with another? Yet there he was,
driving off in her neighbor's distinctive daisy-covered, neon-orange hippie
bus.
What the hell was going on?
Before her active imagination could take hold, spinning
visions of poor Sally murdered in the back of her own vehicle while Ben trolled
for his next victim, Allison strode forward, directly into the VW's oncoming
path. She stood, one hand on her jutting left hip, the other held out before
her, commanding him to stop.
Ben was smiling when he pulled to a halt beside her and
cranked the ancient driver's side window down by hand.
"Allison—" he began, drawing her name out in
a pleasurable purr with his rough, sexy voice, but she cut him off.
"Who are you? Really."
Ben frowned. "What—"
"Where's Sally? Why do you have her car?"
"I don't—"
"And why didn't you tell me we'd met before?"
"Ah. Okay."
Putting the bus in park in the middle of the row, he shut
off the engine, hunching his shoulders against its rattling cough and kick of
black-plumed exhaust. He swung out of the seat to stand towering over her.
Allison took an automatic step back, wanting distance between them. Just in
case.
Tapping a finger to his own chest, he said, "I'm Ben
Turner."
When she stared at him blankly, he shook his head and waved
a hand between himself and the van.
"Turner," he repeated, and the name clicked.
Ben Turner.
Sally Turner.
Okay.
But. . . long-lost brother? He was too young to be an uncle.
Secret third husband?
"Then who—" she began.
"Sally's my cousin, I'm staying with her until I get my
own place. She loaned me her car for today."
Sally's cousin.
Oh, God.
Realization crashed over her like an avalanche. She knew
about that cousin—about Ben. What he'd suffered, how he'd left everything
behind. Pity and compassion warred with the remains of her confusion.
This man—in the space of a few short weeks—had
gone from a derelict, homeless-looking mountain of questionable fashion sense
to the leading-man contender standing before her, starring in her increasingly
crazy fantasies and making her vibrate with sexual tension despite her doubts.
How? Why?
"I didn't tell you we'd met because we hadn't," he
continued. "I was conscious for about eight minutes at that party, after
traveling nonstop for four days to get to Sally's place, and the day I
arrived—New Year's Eve—she insisted on dragging me along."
Ben swiped a hand over his smoothly shaved cheeks, and she
realized suddenly why they looked sunburned, yet paler than the rest of his
face. No more beard.
"Did I recognize you?" he asked. "Yeah. I
didn't figure you'd recognize me, nor that it was relevant."
Allison stood silent, her heart still beating uncomfortably
fast, trying to reconcile his words with what she knew about Sally's cousin.
Trying to merge her image of that long-absent cousin with the Hagrid-wannabe
Ben had been mere days ago, and to add the sum of those disparate parts and
somehow get to this handsome, dynamic man her body was
still
reacting to against her better judgment.
"Okay," she said, huffing out a breath, her mind
churning. "Okay, I get that. I think. But then why all this?" Waving
a hand, she encompassed his change in appearance. Her pulse gave a lovely spin
through her veins. God, he was hot. But. . .
Focus, Allison!
"Why Cupid's Cavalry and this elaborate scheme?
If you wanted to ask me out, why didn't you just walk down the street and ask?"
Now it was Ben's turn to take a step back. Leaning against
the van with his head tilted against its side, he closed his eyes, as though
searching for the right words to say. She tried to ignore the way the meager
sun picked out all the highlights in his silky hair. It made her want to fist
her hands in it and hold on while she kissed him brainless.
Relevant or not, maybe it all came down to shyness. He'd
suffered before, had been out of the loop for a long time. Maybe he'd needed
the front of a dating service to get up his nerve. And that could be sort of
cute. Even flattering, instead of weird and stalkerish. She could work with
cute.
And oh, he was cute. If she had her camera with her, she'd
photograph him this way, all frustrated, masculine energy and movie-star
handsomeness. He flexed the muscles in his arms. She licked her lips.
"Ben?" she asked, her voice huskier than she'd
intended.
Coming down off the adrenaline spike of her confusion,
Allison drew a deep breath. Knowing who he was created a small sense of
security, despite the needs torching her common sense to ash. As though they
actually knew each other. It increased her trust in him as a person—no
more visions of bodies in the trunk—and yet new questions arose.
Good questions, like whether she should or could—or
even wanted to—take on a potential relationship with a man so damaged by
his past that he'd willingly walked away from his entire life for years. Good,
solid questions, which were ignored entirely by the raving nut job running
through her mental landscape, already planning their fiftieth wedding
anniversary.
Ben stuffed his hands in his front pockets and dropped his
head forward, scuffing the gritty pavement with the toe of his shoe. A nice new
shoe, she noted inconsequentially. No more trashy hiking boots.
They both ignored the irritated horn blast from the driver
squeaking his car past Sally's van on his way to exit the parking lot.
Really, whatever this was, whatever Ben's past, she just
wanted to get through it so they could go back to getting to know each other.
On several levels, most of them sexy.
Finally, he said, "I didn't."
Apology rang in his voice, but with her thoughts far afield,
she'd lost the thread of the conversation. Allison frowned at him. "Didn't
what?"
"Want to ask you out."
Visions of Ben naked and flat on his back ground to a halt,
all her imaginings altered in one breath.
All
men wanted to ask her out. All straight men, anyway. What the hell was
he talking about?
Eyes narrowed, challenge vibrating from every fiber in her
body, she drew herself up to her full height. "I beg your pardon?"
Frustrated, Ben stared into her slitted gaze, wishing he
knew how to say the words without coming off like an idiot, or worse, a total
pussy. He'd already offended her, and kissing her had been a monumental
mistake, because all he wanted to do was kiss her again. Probably the idiot
avenue was safest, gauging by the slow-rising flush of anger in her porcelain
cheeks.
When in doubt, play dumb.
"Look, the Cupid thing was Sally's idea—"
"You mean she forced you? Put a gun to your head to
make you ask me out?"
"—I didn't even know who I was meeting
today."
Allison drew back another step. If he'd thought her big blue
eyes were narrowed before, that was nothing to the tiny, feral slashes of color
they shrank to now. Her long, silky black lashes cast shadows across her
cheekbones, all but concealing the dangerous gleam of her eyes. He'd seen a
jaguar do that in the jungle once. Right before it pounced.
"Are you complaining?" she asked, the steel in her
tone sharp enough to run him through.
Ben slashed a hand in front of himself. "No," he
said, "not at all. At all, Allison," he added when her mouth
flat-lined.
"Oh, good," she answered. "So you're okay with
the woman who was foisted on you against your will."
If he'd been on the battlefield, he might have sounded the
retreat in the face of her expression. Warning lights flashed in his mind.
Proceed with caution.
"Look, I saw you at your party. You weren't too
thrilled with me, and I knew from looking at you that—" He broke off
a moment too late, kicking himself for taking that path.
Allison latched on to his mistake. "That what?
Exactly."
Shit.
"I didn't know you, okay? You struck me as. . ."
He was digging the hole deeper, he knew it, but he couldn't seem to stop the
words. "As a bit. . . high maintenance, which isn't really, you know, my
usual type. Gorgeous, clearly, but—"
"High maintenance."
Ben waved his hand down her length, disregarding the ice
crackling in her voice and the warning lights shooting to DEFCON-one in his
head. "Look at yourself. You're a princess if I ever saw one. Princesses
aren't low maintenance. It's in the rule book."
"And you don't do high maintenance."
"I don't—it was just. . ."
Crap
. "First impression, okay? Stupid. You formed
one of me. How accurate were you?"
Nodding slowly, she scanned him up and down with those
flashing eyes like burning blue flames, ready to incinerate him in a single
burst of heat. "I thought you were a vagrant."
Ouch. Okay. "Exactly. We were both wrong, so we should
just get past it. We wouldn't even be here if Sally hadn't coerced me into
joining Cupid's—"
"I see," she said, cutting him off through lips as
tightly compressed as her eyes. "You're letting a woman you haven't seen
in years run your love life and make all your decisions because you're either
too chicken or too lazy to do it yourself, is that it?"