His mouth met hers, felt it open.
Hot.
He’d meant to be gentle, to sneak up on her with a soothing touch. But this turned passionate the instant she breathed into his mouth. His tongue plunged into the wet, smooth confines of her mouth, his fingers twisted in the tendrils of her curly hair, his other palm found the small of her back and urged her body against his.
His cock went rock hard, and fire shot through his veins as her belly brushed against the throbbing weight of him. With his forearms at her hips, he lifted her to him, groaning against her mouth as she writhed against his erection. Without letting up on a succession of hot and needy kisses, his fingers loosened from her hair and he drew them along her jaw, down her throat, and then under her blouse. Another button popped as his hand found its way to her breast.
A, B, C, what the hell did the alphabet matter? All he knew was that she moaned as his palm brushed her nipple. It tightened against his caress.
He hardened more—impossibly, painfully—at the sensation. And in sweet retaliation, he tweaked the little nub between his thumb and forefinger.
Zin shuddered, then jerked back.
Breathing hard, they stared at each other. The tablecloth was tangled at their feet, her shirttail was half out of her pants, and even in the darkness he could see her mouth was swollen. Reaching out, he ran his thumb over her lower lip.
Her tongue darted out for a quick taste, and it was his turn to shudder. “Zin . . .”
She took another step back.
He let her have her small escape. It was only temporary, he told himself. There was no way this wasn’t going forward. “What are you doing now? Next?”
“I . . . I have to finish cleaning up and then clock out.” She pressed her palm to her forehead as if trying to think. “And then . . . I’ve been up since four A.M. I’ve got to get home and wash my uniforms and manage some sleep.”
He nodded, knowing he could push, aware the Type A in him was clamoring for action, pressure, persistence. But he also knew what it was like to work too much and the consequences of running on empty. He wanted her rested.
“Zin,” he said, keeping his voice soft, “come play with me tomorrow.”
“I . . .” She put her hand to her forehead again. “I have work. I’m at the bakery until after lunch, then if there’s a booking, I’m on tap to drive the limo all late afternoon and into the evening.”
He nodded again, deciding to let that go as well.
She has work and I have mine cut out for me.
But, he thought, this was exactly the kind of labor that the doctor would approve of. His BlackBerry chose that moment to ring, but without even glancing at the number on the screen, he powered it off.
That kiss had turned the tide. John Henry Hudson had found himself a new priority.
Three
Double-T eamed
With her toe, Zin tapped the work boots sticking out from under a late-model Mercedes. “Afternoon, Gil,” she said to the owner of Edenville Motor Repair.
His reply was lost in the blast of an air compressor, but she didn’t hesitate as she made her way around the building to the back parking lot that was home to four shiny stretch vehicles and led to the headquarters of Napa Princess Limousine Service. Like her, Gil worked hard, and she doubted he’d let any romantic dreams get in the way of his professional life. She wasn’t going to let that happen either.
She pushed the half-opened door to Stephania Baci’s duplex—aka Napa Princess Limousine Service HQ—and hung her uniform on a coatrack before moving into the kitchen. There, tall, gorgeous, and golden-skinned, her boss and best friend, dressed in a pair of cutoff jeans and a T-shirt that read
Kiss Me Cuz That’s My Name
, sat at the table.
Looking up from her coffee, Stevie caught the direction of Zin’s gaze. “Last year’s Christmas present from my little sister,” she said, plucking at the pink cotton. “I’ve hit the bottom of the drawer, which means it’s past time to do laundry.”
“Baci does mean ‘kiss’ in Italian,” Zin pointed out.
“As if I didn’t know and suffer for it already,” Stevie said, rolling her eyes. “But at least it’s not Zinnia.”
“Ouch,” Zin said, pausing in the act of pouring herself a cup of coffee from the carafe. “Is that what friends are for?”
“If you dislike it so much, you should change it,” Stevie suggested.
Zin shook her head. Changing her name would be trying to take the easy way out. Altering people’s perceptions of her could be done only through actions. Through work, which was why she was after a good job to offset all the flaky freakiness of her parents.
“I’m serious,” Stevie continued. “Your parents picked Zinnia—”
“And Friday,” Zin reminded her friend. “For the day they met, since my dad’s real last name, Smith, made them feel too closely aligned with the military-industrial complex.”
Stevie blinked. “I don’t think I’ve heard that bit before.”
“Try to follow me, then,” Zin said, pulling out a chair and sitting across the table. “Smith and Wesson makes firearms.”
“Any relation—”
“None. But they said if they used Smith, they automatically thought of Wesson, which reminded them of war. Not to mention the fuzz.”
Stevie nearly snorted up her coffee. Zin reached over to thump her on the back. “Are you okay?”
The other woman nodded, even as she wheezed a few more times. “The fuzz?” she finally questioned.
“You see, the fuzz—the police—use Smith and Wesson firearms.”
“Do your folks really use that term?”
“Is my name Zinnia? Is my sister Marigold? Yes, Mom and Dad still refer to the police as ‘the fuzz.’ I think they’ve watched too many
Mod Squad
reruns.”
“I don’t think I spent enough time at your house,” Stevie said, shaking her head.
Zin had never
let
Stevie spend a lot of time at her house, which was actually a rusting double-wide on a plot of mostly uncultivated land. Their childhood hangout had been the Bacis’ unpretentious farmhouse on the Tanti Baci winery property. While the Bacis were a wine-making family,they weren’t a wealthy one,although their standard of living had been staircases above what the Fridays managed.
But Zin didn’t want to think about the past. Not her childhood as one of the Flaky Fridays and not last night either. Last night . . . She dropped her head to her hand to rub away the memory of that kiss. Trying to forget it—and trying to forget
him
—had been the occupation of yet more sleepless hours. More dreams.
“Uh-oh, one of your stress headaches?” Stevie asked. “You need to cut out a job or two.”
“I hope to,” Zin answered, looking up. “I’ve got a job interview—for a real job using my brand-new MBA—set up for the end of the week.”
“Congratulations,” Stevie said, presenting her curled fingers to Zin so they could exchange a triumphant fist bump.
“I don’t have the position yet.” But she wanted it so damn bad. It would be as good as—better than—a name change. Finally the people in her hometown would take her seriously and would see her as something other than one of those flaky, freaky Fridays. She swallowed the rest of her coffee, then slapped the tabletop. “So tell me who I’m driving around this afternoon.”
“I’d rather hear about what happened last night.”
John Henry’s image popped immediately into Zin’s head. She tried shoving it away, but it was there, replaying in high def: his mouth approaching hers, his dark eyes intent, that masculine dimple flirting with the taut skin of his cheek.
Closing her eyes, she cleared her throat. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Looks like you have a headache. I could spend three weeks in Tuscany with the bags under your eyes. Something’s up.”
“I kissed him.” The words popped out a second before her palm clamped over her mouth. “Forget I said that,” came out sounding like “Vogut ee ed dat.”
Hooting, Stevie peeled Zin’s hand away from her face. “What’s wrong with kissing someone? As long as you’re not related or it’s not that ugly Alan ‘All Hands’ Prescott.”
“Ew.” Zin frowned. A kiss from John Henry wasn’t remotely like what she expected a kiss from nasty Alan would be. “He’s disgusting.”
“You’re telling me,” Stevie agreed. “When I was sixteen, he caught me at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Do the words ‘lizard tongue’ call up a pleasant image for you?”
“Really ew.” Zin drew back. “You never told me that.”
“We all have our secrets. I know you do.”
Zin squirmed on her seat. “I would tell you if I kissed Alan.”
“So who
did
you kiss?”
Maybe she could banish him from her brain if she talked about him. “A gorgeous guy. He’s staying at the Valley Ridge Resort and . . . I don’t know. There’s just something about him.” What was she thinking? She couldn’t explain what happened with John Henry to herself, let alone to Stevie. She didn’t date men she didn’t know, and she certainly didn’t kiss one like
that.
Her nipple had burned at his touch, and she’d been ready to spread the tablecloth somewhere in the surrounding vineyards or even on the lucky seventh green, and go at it right there and then.
“He’s a sweeper,” Stevie declared.
“What?” Zin frowned. “I think he’s some sort of business guy. His BlackBerry goes off all the time.”
“No, remember? We used to dream about the sweepers. The ones who would sweep us off our feet.”
“We were twelve. We weren’t reading
Seventeen
magazine yet, so we didn’t know that being swept off our feet could lead to STDs and unwanted pregnancy. Not to mention irreparable damage to our prom dresses.”
Stevie was staring at her. “Has the hot weather dried the romance right out of you? Don’t you remember our campouts in Alonzo and Anne’s cottage?”
Zin squirmed in her chair again. Of course she remembered their campouts in the cottage. Alonzo Baci, an Italian immigrant, had built the cottage on the winery property something like a hundred years ago for the high-society bride it was said he’d stolen from his partner, Liam Bennett.
The place held a kind of cult status for lovers in the area, due to the legendary long and blissful marriage of Alonzo and Anne, two people from such different worlds. Stevie and Zin had more than once spent the night there, staying awake until dawn talking about the men they would someday meet and marry. Silly little girls, who didn’t know there was so much more to life than love.
“I think you should take him by the cottage,” Stevie suggested. “Remember how we were sure we’d see the ghosts of Alonzo and Anne if the man we brought there was ‘The One’?”
“Who, as I recall, we thought was Joey Lawrence.”
Stevie smiled. “And I’ll have my prince all to myself if you’ve found your one and only in this guy from the limousine.”
“Wait.” Zin frowned. “Did I say anything about finding the guy in the limousine?”
Stevie jumped to her feet. “No, I did. And you’ll be late for the booking unless we get moving. You need lipstick.”
“And my uniform,” Zin said, standing.
“No. He said, um, the client asked that you not be in uniform. What you have on is fine.”
Zin glanced down at her faded jeans and spaghetti-strapped tank top. On her feet was her oldest pair of running shoes. “Really, Stevie, I don’t think this looks professional.”
The sound of footsteps came from the direction of the front door. The door she’d found half open and left that way too. And then John Henry was there, looking as good as he had last night, and the morning before and the day before that. His smile dug that dimple into his cheek, and her heart fluttered. Her heart never fluttered. She was too busy for fluttering.
“Sweet Zin,” he said. “This afternoon and evening aren’t about work.”
John
Henry might have claimed they weren’t together for “work,” but Stevie had guilted her into going along with him by reminding Zin she was on the Napa Princess Limousine Service clock and that she had a job to do. John Henry had booked her services for a few hours. She’d shot her friend a dark look at the s-word but Stevie had played the wide-eyed innocent.
And then whispered in her ear as she walked out the door. “It’s not a ‘service’ if it’s your own idea to take off your clothes.”
As if she was going to get naked with John Henry. So not going to happen.
Except they couldn’t help but get close, because John Henry was going to be doing the driving himself . . . He’d rented a Harley motorcycle for the occasion. It was one of the standard wine-country offerings along with wine tasting and hot-air ballooning. Almost every town in Napa County had a place where a guy—or girl—could get five hundred pounds of muscled machine between their thighs.
Before climbing onto the seat behind the client, Zin turned and raised her eyebrows at her best friend.
I’m in trouble. Help!