Her Insatiable Scot (18 page)

Could that be all he wanted? Was she his whisper?

He hadn’t lied to her. He may have been scared to reveal his heart, but he hadn’t lied. And they were primitive little beasts. He wouldn’t be here unless he wanted her. He wanted her to be his tribe. What hoops would she force him to jump through to prove it to her? When would she accept that not every man was paying her lip service?

He cupped her cheeks with both his hands. “Forgive me if you can. I won’t push. I’ll go.”

Logic. She closed her eyes and used it. From the moment they met she’d pretended to be a different woman. Provocative, sexy and everything she usually wasn’t. And what had he done? He’d made sure she could be. He’d soothed her, gave her exactly what she asked for; he protected her, treated her in a way that left no doubt her needs were the most important. He’d known what she needed. Everything in her wanted to do the same for him.

Maybe it took a con man to see her, really see her. How could she hold it against him now? She’d tried normal men. Maybe she could trust the one man who could see through her pretense, who could tell her inane and odd facts about sex when her brain refused to shut down, who’d touch her and make her heart race. She didn’t need normal—she needed a former con man who could know her deepest desires and not let her feel an ounce of shame for them.

“I forgive you.” She pressed her lips to his. “Now what?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, his gaze shone bright. “You’re wearing
my
answer.”

It wasn’t until he said those words that she felt the weight of the ring on her finger. “Oh.” He was capable of taking her breath away. “Oh,” she said again, unable to think of anything else to say.

He grinned. “Sounds like we won’t make it to the housewarming.”

“I didn’t really want to go anyway. I’m not a people person.”

He feathered a kiss over her cheekbone. “I am a people person, but I didn’t want to go either. I showed up because you were going to be there.”

“Yeah?”

“Aye.”

She kissed him again, longer, deeper, until all she could think of was him. This man was hers and she wanted nothing more than to be his. Her heart and head agreed, finally.

BIO

Melissa Blue’s writing career started on a typewriter one month after her son was born. This would have been an idyllic situation for a writer if it had been 1985, not 2004. Eventually she upgraded to a computer. She’s still typing away on the same computer, making imaginary people fall in love.

Where to find me online:

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Other Titles by Melissa Blue

Under His Kilt, Under The Kilt

Jocelyn Pearson is determined to spend her last month as a twenty-something doing everything she’s too busy or scared to try. Her imagination runs wild and then fixates on Ian Baird. He’ll be working at the Langston Museum for a short stint as a consulting curator. He’s Scottish. He believes sex is fun to be had. He’s the perfect choice for a fling. She only has to get him break his rule about sleeping with co-workers. Seducing a man was on her bucket list…

Ian is no one’s fool and knows exactly what Jocelyn wants—him. If she didn’t work for the Langston Museum, he’d be more than happy to oblige any and every fantasy she desired, but she’s the curator. She’s sweet, inexperienced and well liked by everyone including the museum owner and director. Ian can’t risk losing such an important contact for his consulting business. Not even when everything within in him craves a taste of her.

When Jocelyn sets her sights on him, there’s no way Ian can deny her. They agree their affair will end in thirty days. No emotions, no entanglements, just sex. The closer the end date looms, they start to question if it’s possible to walk away. They’ll either have to come to terms of what they’ve become or stick to their original agreement.

Everything He Dreamed, Palmer Island Series

Phoenix Taylor takes one look at Tony Creed and knows she’s in trouble. Everything inside her screams run. If she didn’t need the finishing bonus from Everything You Need, she’d listen to her gut. The company has hired her as project manager to build cabins on Palmer Island and work with Creed Construction. Tony’s the general contractor and there’s no way to avoid him. Just when she has a plan to move on and close the door on a very dark chapter in her life…there he is. Falling for the contractor with the wicked smile and infectious charm doesn’t fit into her plan. She’s not ready for that captivating emerald gaze or the trouble Tony can surely cause her heart.

Tony Creed has forced his father to draw up a contract that explicitly states this will be his very last job before going on a much needed vacation from the family business. The pressure’s getting to him, and he feels himself turning into his father, a hard and heartless man. He just needs a break, period. He doesn’t have the time or energy to give this simmering attraction between him and the new project manager. All he wants to do is focus on building the cabins for the next six months and be a free man. After all, he’s not looking for anything, but her vivacious personality has his mind wandering back to her much more than he wants to admit.

They just have to keep things light, which is hard at first, and then just impossible when something just a little supernatural intervenes on their well-laid plans.

Weekend Lover, Down With Cupid Shorts series

The weekend that started it all…

Sebastian Clark’s intentions are simply to buy Nicole, a beautiful stranger, a drink, make her laugh and disappear before dawn. As a publicist for Snapshot, his days are long and his moral code is to always keep things light. Until he touches her and lust fades any lasting hold on common sense. His questionable motives pave a road to unbelievable pleasure.

Nicole Harrison is on the fast track for a promotion at Limelight, a PR boutique. She’s given up dating, especially handsome men. They tend to suck up time and sometimes common sense. Sebastian has the ability to do both. One single night won’t break her own rules and Nicole gives in to temptation.

The boundaries are clear—no last names, no shared details. She has only to walk away to end the affair. One night turns into three, and her naughty little weekend becomes more than just sex.

One night of consenting pleasure sets Sebastian Clark and Nicole Harrison on a course that could ultimately destroy them both, or bring them a love for all time…

Down With Cupid, Down With Cupid Shorts series

Two months after a weekend of forbidden pleasure should have been more than enough time for Nicole Harrison to forget Sebastian’s charming smiles and wicked kisses. During those nights together, Nicole temporarily left behind her driven lifestyle as a publicist and took what she wanted, experiencing freedom and the wild abandon of their reckless agreement. And that’s the hardest part to erase from her memory.

Unfortunately, one detail was tantamount—Sebastian Clark is a publicist and now he’s gunning for her job.

Sebastian never allows himself to get tangled in knots by a woman, and, yet, he can’t stop dreaming about Nicole’s silky thighs and ripe lips, how she’d shuddered under his touch. He doesn’t need a woman who is more of a shark than he when it comes to PR, except he’s seen every, single soft inch of her. Now they’ll have to work side by side and somehow ignore what feels like unfinished business.

Will the weekend they spent together turn out to be more than they could have ever imagined, or will past hurts and career ambitions stand in their way? Only Cupid knows…

Excerpt from Under His Kilt

CHAPTER ONE

“Not one kilt anywhere?” Flabbergasted by this notion, Jocelyn Pearson stared at Ian Baird. Her
sort of
boss stood across the museum’s expansive storage basement. She tried to wrap her mind around the busted myth and couldn’t.

“When I think of Scotland,” she continued, “I imagine men wear kilts like men in America wear jeans. Casual. No muss. No fuss.”

Her ramble teased a smile out of Ian and put another crack in his impenetrable façade. She held her breath for a three count and let it out slowly to contain the primitive surge of attraction. A month and still that simple facial tick made her want to launch herself at him.

Big wooden crates filled the dark room below the small museum. The crates separated them, but didn’t seem like much of an obstacle when all she wanted was to close the distance.

“I’m not saying you can’t find one.” The sensuous curve of his lips could have tempted a saint. “It’s just not everyday wear. Before you ask, we also wear boxers when we do.”

His words implied he’d worn a kilt.

Oh, God.

Ian in a kilt…drool. Her skin tightened and flushed beneath her soft cotton dress shirt. She’d never seen him out of his uniform of a slate gray slacks, dark suit jacket, white dress shirt and black tie. The expensive silk clung to thick, sculpted muscles, but she couldn’t help but picture him in a Cameron Clan plaid. Absolutely commando—no matter what he said—just waiting for the right breeze to lift up the material and expose just a bit more of him.

She balled her hands. Her fingertips itched to trace the seam of his mouth. “Next you’re going to tell me there’s no Santa or Easter Bunny.”

His blue-gray irises darkened and his nostrils flared. “Aye. Your parents lied. Those fuckers don’t exist.” He spoke low, husky with just a hint of a Scottish burr.

Her high heels rasped over the concrete floor as she shifted another step
from
him. “Good, because I planned to be naughty this year.”

Tension rippled through his frame. No doubt with the coil of muscles that made up his sleek physique he could have vaulted over the row of crates if he wanted to. “You? Naughty? Aye, right.”

She liked that they’d built up a rapport, and because they had, Jocelyn grinned at his perplexed expression from her announcement. “Aye. Naughty. Me.”

He grunted out a soft tut. “Not like ’oy.’ You’re not hurting. Just say ’I’ like
I
went to the shop.”

She tried again. Her effort to infuse a false burr coaxed out his low rumble of laughter. “Good, Lass.”

His accent only thickened the few times she’d seen him frustrated. So she smiled at his teasing. His brow lifted but he flipped through the inventory list. That action reminded her why they were there. Her job involved ensuring he was satisfied with every last detail—from receiving the shipment to the display in the small Californian museum.

The responsibilities included having the right security, lighting and placement for the priceless objects when the Langston Museum had its unveiling in four weeks. Ian, the head of the traveling exhibit, had to ensure everything displayed was authentic, in one piece and stayed that way until shipped to the next destination. That made him her boss, of sorts, as liaison to the Langston and his pet project.

He inspired the kind of fantasies that she wished… Fixing her mind back on work, Jocelyn dropped the subject. The shipment had come in late and it would be a long work night, not one filled with what ifs.

“Naughty?” he asked, circling back to a topic she assumed he’d left alone.

Caught off guard, she blurted out, “Um, I’m twenty-nine.”

His gaze lifted from the paperwork, and he waited silently for her to explain the tangent. She added, “I’ll be thirty on the day of the opening.”

She blew out a breath and tried to explain her current insanity. “There’s a lot I haven’t done and I plan to do it this year. Consider it my mid-life crisis. I’m thinking of all the things I should have experienced by now, and looking down the barrel of thirty, I damn well plan to do them.”

He made a soft sound. “Like?”

“Drink the worm in the tequila bottle,” she said.

“Why?” he asked, sounding confused.

She’d spent the previous ten years getting the right degrees, the right internships, jobs and contacts. She didn’t have a moment to take a step back and live. Every single one of those moments had been spent getting her here.

Maybe in a year or two she’d get a chance to travel but she couldn’t wait another moment to…let loose for a little while. She felt brittle and old already. All she needed were pearls, a cardigan sweater and a knitting circle of friends.

But, Ian hadn’t asked for all that. “What did you do on your 21st birthday?”

His head tilted back and a glint shone in his gaze. “Don’t remember most of it.”

“Exactly,” she said with barely contained excitement. “Plan to do the same kind of celebrating for my thirtieth.”

“It’s not so bad,” he muttered.

She frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Turning thirty isn’t so bad.”

He didn’t look that much older than her, but she inspected him for any real tells of age. Laugh lines grooved along the skin around his mouth. Lush black strands curled around the collar of his suit jacket. Not a gray hair to speak of. He couldn’t be that much older, but she couldn’t tell at a glance. He had a poise that made him seem mature, earthy.

She pursed her lips. “Still, I’m planning to ring it in with a bang.”

His gaze met hers for another tense moment. The hairs at the nape of her neck rose and her breathing deepened. His hand tightened on the clipboard, but he made a noncommittal noise and focused on the list again.

Jocelyn blinked. No, she hadn’t imagined that moment, but she ignored the tension pregnant with possibility. Nothing should or would break through the invisible and unspoken boundary they’d drawn up weeks ago. A boundary that wavered with just a heated glance.

Finally, he handed her the clipboard. “All there?” she asked.

“Nothing out of place. Let’s work our way from the back to the front.” Ian picked up the crowbar from a table covered with other tools without losing stride.

He stopped at the first lot taken off the truck, put down the crowbar and began to loosen his tie and jacket. He flipped up the sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up his forearms. Yup, bronzed skin. Miles worth of golden skin tanned, not from any Scottish sun but from his travels around the world. Sinew. Sexy. Yup, she had to grip the clipboard and hope that would be enough to rein in the urge to jump him.