Tuck and his pheromones had also insisted on helping.
Cassie was getting twitchy. She had a paper to get back to. She
didn’t have time for a big, blond ex-quarterback who’d obviously fallen out of
the stupid tree. And hit every branch on the way down.
No
matter
how
nice
he
smelled.
But somehow he was accompanying them back inside the grand
entrance to the Bellington Estate, and then he was walking up the ornate stone
staircase next to her, his arm occasionally brushing hers. When Marnie and Gina
turned left at the top Cassie hoped that Tuck would do so too.
No
such
luck.
He smiled at her as he turned right. ‘After you,’ he said.
Cassie looked over her shoulder at Gina and Marnie, who had
stopped and were looking at her with bemused expressions.
Gina waved her fingers and said, ‘Need someone to
tuck
you in?’
Marnie seemed to have trouble keeping a straight face and
Cassie frowned at her.
‘I think she’s got that covered,’ Marnie said. ‘Night, Cassie.
Night, Tuck. Sweet dreams.’
Cassie glanced at Tuck, who was also smiling.
‘Good night, ladies. See you in the morning.’
Before Cassie could make further comment her ‘friends’ had
turned away and she was watching their backs retreat. She hoped that Marnie and
Gina would use the time to talk, because it had been awkward between them at the
table tonight. Although if the distance between them as they walked was anything
to go by it didn’t look like they were ready to bury the hatchet just yet.
She looked at Tuck, and even though he was a good two metres
away his aroma wafted her way and she instantly forgot about the animosity
between her friends. Her belly tightened and then looped the loop.
‘What’s your room number? I’ll see you to your door.’
The last thing Cassie wanted was to have Tuck anywhere near her
room. In fact she’d be perfectly happy never to be anywhere near him again. She
was unsettled. Confused.
She was never unsettled. Never confused. And she didn’t like
it. Not one bit.
‘I don’t need you to accompany me to my room,’ she said, taking
care as she passed him to keep her distance.
Tuck watched the swing of her ass again for a moment or two,
then called after her, ‘My momma would tan my hide if I didn’t see my date to
her door.’
Cassie stopped mid-stride and turned to face him. ‘I am
not
your date.’
‘You sure danced like I was your date.’
Heat flooded her cheeks as she remembered how she’d clung and
buried her nose in his clothes, as if he was her own personal scratch-and-sniff
jock. Cassiopeia Barclay did
not
blush—ever! Curious
at the strange phenomenon, she brought her palms up to cradle her face.
She cleared her throat. ‘It was…crowded,’ she said defensively,
dropping her hands and folding her arms primly.
Tuck’s gaze dropped. Her folded arms had pushed her breasts up
and together, exposing a nice curve of bare flesh at the criss-cross front of
her dress for his viewing pleasure. Tuck had seen a lot bigger. He’d also seen
smaller. Cassie’s looked just about right to him. A perky B cup, he’d hazard a
guess.
Tuck grinned. ‘Come on, darlin’, it’s late. Let’s get you to
bed.’
Cassie shoved her hands on her hips, determined not to let an
image of him sprawled in her big hotel bed derail her thoughts. ‘Don’t call me
darlin’.
’ She mimicked his slow, easy Southern
drawl to perfection. ‘And I’m perfectly capable of finding my way to my room.
I
can count.’
Tuck’s grin broadened. ‘Well, maybe you can help me find my
room?’ He scratched his head in the most perplexed manner he could muster.
‘There’s a lot of wings in this place and it does get kind of confusin’ after a
hundred, don’t it?’
Cassie rolled her eyes. The man was living proof that evolution
could go in reverse. ‘How on earth do you count all those millions that kicking
a stupid ball around earned you?’
Tuck shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Got me some
bean-counters for that.’
Cassie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He was going to
be one of those has-been sports stars whose money was all gone in a matter of
years because he had a little too much yardage between the goalposts to keep
track of it himself. And he trusted too easily.
‘Follow me,’ she said huffily as she headed down the long grand
hallway.
Tuck’s gaze ran over the contours of her back and settled on
how her dress swung and fluttered with each movement. ‘Your wish is my command,’
he murmured under his breath.
Tuck deliberately took his time, stopping to examine old
paintings hanging on the stonework, suits of armour and the antique vases that
dotted the magnificent corridor. He kept up a running commentary for Cassie’s
sake, purely because it seemed to annoy her.
‘
Will
you hurry up?’ she said
impatiently, looking over her shoulder for the tenth time as he stopped to read
the name of the artist of a particularly austere portrait. ‘I have a paper to
get to.’
Tuck looked up. ‘You brought work?’ He shook his head at her
and tsked as he meandered closer. ‘All work and no play makes Cassiopeia a dull
girl.’
Cassie glared at him as they got underway again. ‘Not that I
expect you to understand this, but there is nothing dull about auroras on
Jupiter.’
‘Auroras?’
‘Yes—you know, like the Aurora Borealis?’ His blank look didn’t
seem promising. ‘The Northern Lights?’ she clarified.
Tuck had witnessed the Aurora Borealis in Scandinavia on two
separate occasions, but he wasn’t about to disappoint Cassie’s assumptions.
‘Isn’t she some mermaid?’
Cassie sighed. There really
was
no
grain in his silo. He was an empty vessel. ‘No. It’s a
real
thing. It’s why I’m here. I’m completing my PhD studies at
Cornell so next year I can go on a research trip to Antarctica. And Aurora was
Sleeping Beauty.
Ariel
was the Little Mermaid.’
Tuck shrugged. ‘Well, it sounds like a mermaid if you ask me.’
And then he shot her his best goofy grin for good measure.
Thankfully her room approached, and Cassie all but leapt at the
ornate doorknob. ‘This is me,’ she said. ‘What did you say your room number was
again?’
She’d barely been able to concentrate on anything he’d said.
When he wasn’t wandering off like a distracted child or lagging behind to look
at things he was right there beside her, weaving his heady scent all around
her.
Like he was now.
Tuck smiled. ‘Three hundred and twenty three,’ he said, and
watched the fact that he would be sleeping directly opposite her dawn slowly on
her face. ‘Howdy, neighbour.’
‘Oh.’ Cassie looked at the door opposite. Too close for
comfort. Her highly developed sense of fight or flight kicked in as another dose
of his masculinity wafted over her.
‘Right, then,’ she said, fishing in Gina’s glittery clutch
purse for her room key and locating it with shaking hands.
The adrenaline. It had to be the adrenaline.
‘Goodnight,’ she said, barely looking at him as she turned away
and reached for the door handle, hastily swiping the plastic card through the
electronic strip.
The light turned red and she swiped it again, her hands even
shakier. Another red light elicited a frustrated little growl from the back of
her throat. She needed to get inside her room. Inside was work and logic and
focus and sanity.
Out here with Tuck’s quiet presence behind her was insanity.
And
damnation.
She could feel it pulling at her body with sticky tentacles,
drugging her with its perfume, wrapping her up in its heady thrall.
She swiped one more time.
Red
light.
‘Allow me.’
Cassie’s fingers stilled as Tuck’s hand slid over them. His
body moved in behind hers and she was instantly cocooned in his intoxicating
aroma. She shut her eyes as her nipples responded to the blatant cue. She could
feel his breath in her hair, the warm press of his chest against her back, the
power of his thighs behind hers.
She leant her forehead against the door, desperately reaching
for logic. ‘I spend all day probing the outer depths of our solar system through
a massive telescope,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty sure I can open a damn door.’
‘Shh,’ Tuck said, easing the key out of her unresisting
fingers. ‘Some things don’t need big brains,’ he murmured. He took the plastic.
‘Some things need a slow hand…an easy touch.’
He slid the card through the strip with deliberate slowness.
The lock whirred, the light turned green and he smiled as he turned the handle
and pushed the door open a fraction.
‘Easy.’
Cassie practically whimpered at the low, deep sound of his
Southern accent. It weaved around her like the melodic notes of a snake charmer,
trapping her. The door was right there. It was open. All she needed to do was
move. But she couldn’t.
‘Cassie?’
Tuck could feel her trembling and a surge of desire crested in
his belly. His groin tightened. His blood slowed to a thick, primal bound. He
laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and, to his surprise, she turned. Only a
whisper separated them as heat flashed like a solar flare between them.
Her eyes looked all misty and dazed, her pupils large in the
grey-blue depths. They seemed to shimmer up at him and he fell headlong into
them. Her mouth was slightly parted and it drew his gaze. He picked up a long
dark ringlet draped forward over her shoulder and wound it around his finger.
‘Has anyone ever told you you’re quite beautiful?’
Cassie’s throat was dry as a sandpit as she shut her eyes
against the seduction in his. No one had ever told her that. And she’d never
cared. ‘I’ve never aspired to be beautiful,’ she dismissed. She was more
comfortable with brainy.
He waited for her lashes to flutter open again before saying,
‘Well, you’ve failed.’
Tuck only intended to give her the briefest of kisses as he
slid his palm onto her cheek. Just a little taste of her mouth. The mouth that
had dissed him all night. Just to show her how pretty damn clever he could
be.
And to leave her wanting more.
But the second his mouth touched hers and she opened to him as
if he was water and she was dying of thirst it all went flying out of the
window.
Cassie mewed as his lips brushed hers and her senses filled up
with him. There was no thought or logic or analysis in play any longer as she
overdosed on his intoxicating scent, sucking him in, drenching her cells in his
pheromones. Her body had completely taken over and left her brain out of the
equation.
She raised herself up on tiptoes. Her hands slid around his
neck. Her mouth parted of its own accord. She moaned and dragged him closer as
hot, scalding lust lashed her insides and flayed her flesh with the driving need
for more.
It didn’t make any sense. Not when she swiped her tongue across
his lips, or pushed it inside, or stroked it against his. Not when she moaned.
Not when she gasped. Not when she grabbed his lapels to press herself
closer.
She’d never been kissed like this.
She’d never
kissed
like this.
And still she was full of him. Her head buzzed with the essence
of him. Her mouth was on fire. Her belly was tight. The heat between her legs
tingled and burned.
Tuck barely managed to hold onto her as Cassie kissed him as if
she was an evil genius intent on wicked things and he was her latest experiment.
He might not be dumb as a rock but he was certainly as hard as one now as her
deep, sexy kisses, body-squirming and desperate little whimpers stroked all his
hot spots.
She even kissed differently from other women. No mouth
gymnastics, no hands down his pants in seconds, no theatrical panting, no
Oh, baby, baby.
Just a scorching one hundred percent,
full-throttle touchdown of a kiss. Her lips on his lips. Open and going for
it.
He pushed her hard against the door, wanting to get closer, to
kiss her deeper. But he’d forgotten it was already slightly open and she
stumbled backwards. Their mouths tore apart.
He grabbed for her, finding her elbow, dropping it once she’d
stabilised. And then they stood staring at each other, breathing hard, not
moving for a moment, neither sure which way to jump.
Tuck knew enough about women to know that look in Cassie’s
eyes. He knew he could pick her up, stride into her room and lay her on the bed
and she’d follow wherever he took her. And enjoy every single second of it.
But he saw a whole bunch of other stuff in her eyes too. Most
of it he couldn’t decipher. But he could see her confusion quite clearly.
Obviously that kiss just did not compute for Cassie.
She looked as if she needed some time to wrap her head around
it. Hell,
he
sure as hell did!
‘Are you okay?’
Cassie nodded automatically
but
she
doubted she’d ever be okay again.
What the hell had just
happened?
She felt as if she’d just had a lobotomy. Could a kiss
render you stupid?
‘I think I should go now. Unless…’ He dropped his gaze to her
swollen mouth.
Cassie shook her head and took a step back.
No ‘unless’. Go, yes. Just go.
He’d turned her into a
dunce.
Tuck smiled at her dazed look. It was nice to have left an
impression on Little-Miss-Know-It-All, even if he
was
going to go to bed with a hard-on the size of Texas. ‘Goodnight,
Cassiopeia.’
Cassie was incapable of answering him. She feared she’d been
struck mute. As well as dumb. She watched him swagger to his room opposite, slot
his key in, open his door. He turned as he stepped into his room.