Authors: Rita Herron
Man, oh, man, was he glad he hadn't gone and done something stupid like fall for her....
* * *
For the longest time, Lucy sat in her car, staring at the rain and the river beyond the antebellum mansion, seeing Rhett Butler walking out on Scarlett, hearing him grind out those famous words that he didn't give a damn.
Well, she didn't give a damn about Reid Summers either. Let him walk away from her with his pompous, self-righteous attitude, acting as if he were all wounded, and leave her aching with unfulfilled desires when she'd only been trying to protect her sister.
So she believed in a little hocus-pocus. And she liked to dabble with charms and spells. That didn't mean she was stupid. Only he had looked at her as if she'd grown three heads and one of them belonged to a jackass.
Damn him.
She had her Sleepover, Inc., box at home with all those products—she didn't need a man.
Reid's words caterwauled through her mind.
The real thing is better.
Would it have been?
A tear seeped from her eye and dribbled down her face, followed by another and another. Rain trickled down the windshield, a coat of fog enveloping her, shielding her from the world. She'd always liked rain when she was a child, she'd enjoyed the sound of thunder, the excitement, the drama of a storm. Unlike Sophie, who wanted everything in order, everything calm.
Yes, she had always played with danger, just like Deseree, while Sophie had lived on the cautious side. Always wondering what people thought. Trying to make a good impression. Putting on a show of her own to convince others she was worthy.
Well, Lucy liked to perform, too, but she didn't need to put on a show to know she was worth something. If it was up to her, she'd come right out and tell Reid and Lance Summers about their Diva act.
If the macho Southern boys didn't like it, they could lump it.
Irritated with Reid and with herself for being irritated with him, she snatched the charm book and skimmed through it. In true Ya-Ya fashion, she jumped out and danced around, chanting a hex to the thunderclouds. When thunder boomed in reply as if to say the spirits had heard her, she squealed with glee. She'd fix Lance and Reid for causing her and Sophie all this trouble. Lance would start having aches in his muscles, sharp shooting pains that would drive him crazy.
And his brother... Well, Maddie had proclaimed it a battle of the sexes, and if nothing else, Lucy Lane always came out on top. If Reid had given her another few minutes, he'd have learned that himself. In a most delicious way, too.
Maybe she'd write a spell, put that image in his mind, and make him suffer....
* * *
"Lance, the evening was wonderful." Sophie leaned against the doorjamb on her front porch and gazed up at Lance. His face contorted with pain.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it."
"What's wrong?"
He rubbed at the back of his head. "I don't know; I suddenly had a shooting pain in my neck." He shook it off. "It's nothing, gone now."
Sophie smiled. "You didn't mind the tour?"
"Are you kidding?" He rubbed a hand along the door molding beside her. "It gave me some ideas for your house."
Sophie blushed. "Me, too. I'm not sure I can afford them all, though."
Lance brushed a knuckle across her cheek. "We'll work something out. If I know Maddie, she'll find a way to help you out."
"I'm so lucky to have Maddie as a friend."
Lance nodded. Dusted in shadows from the porch, his dark features appeared even more masculine.
"Do you want to come in for coffee?"
"Sure." His hand dropped to his lower back. "Damn."
"Poor baby." Sophie turned and let them in, leaving only a single light burning in the fringed lamp in the den. Lance followed, kneading his lower back as she brewed the coffee and gabbed herself a soda. "Let's sit in the den."
He nodded and followed her to the comfortable sofa, his hand rubbing at his chest now.
"You're not feeling well?" Sophie asked.
"I don't know what's up; I'm suddenly having these weird pains."
"All that physical labor," Sophie said softly.
"That's my job."
"Still, it has to wear on you. Turn around."
Lance obeyed, stretching out his broad shoulders and dropping his head forward, his posture rigid. Sophie pressed her fingers into the area around his neck, then slowly began to knead the tension from his muscles.
"Your muscles are tight," she said softly. His musky scent sent a burning sensation through her belly. She pressed her knuckles into the ridges between his shoulder blades, rotating them in a circular motion. Deseree had taught her the art of massage therapy, a trick her mother had used on many clients to relax them into paying her well. Sophie had almost forgotten she knew any of the techniques, but reveled in being able to relieve the knots she felt in Lance's muscles.
Lance rolled his head sideways on a groan. "You have magic fingers."
"Hmm, you've been working too hard on the house."
"I like doing it," Lance admitted in a husky voice. "You made a good investment here, Sophie."
"I didn't buy it to resell," Sophie said, hesitating. "I want to make my home here."
"What about your big opportunity in Hollywood?" Lance asked. "With your show being syndicated, you'll probably start raking in all kinds of offers."
Sophie squeezed his lower back so hard he flinched. "Sorry. I... uh, I'm really not interested in Hollywood."
"But if the money's right?"
Lance's body felt so wonderful beneath her fingers, Sophie was tempted to lay her head on his shoulder. If she'd wanted the big time, she would have stayed in Vegas. "I like Savannah. I have friends here. A good job. Life isn't all about money."
He caught her hands in his and turned around to face her. "You surprise me sometimes, Sophie."
Silence stretched between them. His breath whispered out to her, his masculine scent trapping her in his essence.
"Is that a good thing?"
"Oh, yeah." His voice sounded rough with desire. "That's a damn good thing."
He lifted her hands to his shoulders, then lowered his head, pausing an inch from her mouth. "In fact, I want to know more." His lips brushed her neck. "I want to know everything there is to know about Sophie Lane."
Lance had intended to start the conversational ball rolling and get Sophie to open up about herself, but the minute their lips touched his body erupted into flames. One kiss led to another, and conversation was forgotten as tongues mated and danced. His hands created a frenzy of their own, tunneling through her hair and then journeying along her cheeks to her neck and shoulder blades, where he dipped under the straps of her sundress.
Sophie curled into his arms in perfect abandonment, her subtle moans of encouragement feeding the fire between them as he slid the straps down her arms. Her bare neck was too enticing to skip, so he trailed kisses along her porcelain skin, tasting sweetness and sin. He unfastened the front bra clasp, and plump breasts encased in a strapless lacy red bra spilled into his hands. For a moment he simply gazed at her offering, amazed at her beauty and the shadow of vulnerability he detected in her eyes.
"You're beautiful," he whispered.
A slow smile curved her mouth, and he lowered his head and flicked a tongue across her nipple, his sex hardening at the sight of the rosebud tightening beneath his tongue. Temptation tore away his restraint then, and he closed his mouth around the turgid tip and suckled her, the sultry rise of her hips triggering aches that only she could relieve. Abandoning her left breast with his tongue to torture the other, he cupped and kneaded her flesh, then pinched her nipple between his fingers and tugged it. Sophie writhed below him, pushing at his shirt. Anxious to feel his bare chest against hers, he yanked off his shirt.
Pleasure rode on pleasure as he stretched above her and took her in his arms. She wrapped a leg around his thigh and rubbed her bare foot up and down his leg in a teasing game that evoked all kinds of wicked fantasies in his mind. Then her hands lowered to his waist and tugged at his jeans, and his breath caught, his sex throbbing for freedom and sweet release.
But not yet.
This time he wanted to pleasure her first, to make certain he dispelled any lingering images of himself as the unromantic barbarian she'd thought him after that fiasco of a dating game. So he stilled her hands and shook his head, smiling with triumph at the look of utter awe on her face when he trailed kisses down to her breasts, then licked a fiery path to her navel. Emitting a low groan from deep within his throat, he slid her dress to the floor. Red lace thong panties greeted him, the slip of see-through fabric guarding secrets he intended to uncover.
But first he teased her with his tongue, biting and licking her inner thighs, tiptoeing his fingers gently inside the edges of the fabric to touch the soft folds within, and finally dragging the garment low enough to taste her sweetness.
One taste and she flew into heaven, clutching his arms and trying to drag him upward, but Lance had never tasted anything in his life so addicting. He spread her legs farther apart and plunged his tongue inside her, welcoming the flow of honey into his mouth as she cried out his name.
* * *
Sophie was just about to scream again with pleasure, flip Lance over, and offer him the same glorious treatment he had her when the front door opened, and Lucy tottered inside, muttering, "Damn men, dogs, freaking dogs, that's what they are." Her high heels clicked on the hardwood foyer as she came nearer.
"Lance!" Sophie tried to sit up, but he crawled on top of her, his denim brushing her damp heat, which was still on fire from his kisses.
"I know." His mouth found hers, and she tasted his hunger and her own flavor and nearly forgot about the fact that her sister was just about to catch them doing the naughty, and that she almost didn't care.
"No, Lance, we have to—"
"For goodness' sake, have you two ever heard of a bedroom?"
Lance froze, covering her with his body as she lifted her head. "Lucy."
She jerked at the afghan on the couch and dragged it over them, miffed at Lucy's tone. "I've been living alone for a while."
"Obviously." Lucy stepped from the shadows to cross to the staircase, and Sophie noticed that her eyes were red and puffy, her skin blotchy. She'd been crying.
"Lucy, what's wrong?"
Lance dropped his head forward onto her breasts as if to shield her, and she wiggled, hating the fact that her nipples were tightening again, and that she was more turned on than ever, and her sister was standing in the same room.
"Nothing. Don't let me interrupt." With a stricken expression she vamoosed up the stairs. Lucy's comment about the sisters not letting a man come between them echoed in Sophie's mind, totally killing the mood.
Well, maybe not totally. It took a second for her body to lose its response and another second for her to realize that Lance had not. He shifted, wrapping the blanket around her before he stood and reached for his shirt.
"Lance." She pulled the afghan around herself then rose and laid a hand on his back. "I'm sorry."
"Shh." He slowly turned to face her. His breath was slightly erratic, his bronzed skin flushed with passion, his eyes hazy with desire. "Don't be sorry, sweetness. I'm not."
A scalding red heat rippled up her neck. "I don't mean I'm sorry for that, just sorry we were interrupted." She traced a finger over the bulge of his jeans. "Sorry that you didn't... have the pleasure."
"Oh, baby, I had pleasure," he said with a growl, his dark gaze skimming over her again. "Don't think for a minute that I didn't."
"But—"
He pressed a gentle finger to her lips. "No buts. We have five more nights. It'll give us both something to think about." He dropped a kiss onto her mouth. "Something to look forward to."
Oh, mercy, he was such a gentleman. Then again, a few minutes earlier, he had not been gentlemanly....
"Your sister sounded upset, and you're probably dying to know what's wrong and to make it all better."
Sophie smiled. "In some ways we're a lot alike, Lance—always looking out for our siblings."
Lance chuckled and headed to the door. "I know. I'll see you in the morning."
"All right."
He paused at the front door. "Oh, and pop another balloon after I leave; then call me and tell me what it says, so I know how to plan tomorrow."
Sophie nodded and watched as he went out the door, the scent of his touch still emblazoned on her skin, the memory of his promise about their having something to look forward to lingering in her mind. She was definitely looking forward to date number two....
* * *
Lucy heard Sophie enter but didn't bother to look up. She had already started packing her Sleepover, Inc., kit and then would start on her clothes. In went the catalogs, the cucumber and banana dildos, the fake boobs....
"I'm sorry I interrupted. I'll be out of your hair tomorrow, and you and Lance can do whatever you want in any room you want, whenever." Dag-nab it, her spells and charms must be backfiring. Sophie and Lance were hot to trot, while Reid hated her.
"I didn't mean to imply that I wanted you to leave, Lucy," Sophie said in a low voice. "I love having you around." Sophie crossed the room, took her sister's arms, and forced Lucy to look up at her. "You know that, don't you?"
Lucy hadn't meant to sound so petulant, but realized she did by the wounded expression on Sophie's face.
She shrugged, hating the well of tears that puddled in her eyes. She was acting like a big fat baby, and she had no idea why. She'd never let a guy upset her before.
Sophie wrapped her arms around her. "Hey, sis, what's wrong?"
A sniffle escaped her and Lucy sighed. "Men suck."
Sophie chuckled. "Anyone in particular?"
"Reid Summers."
Sophie pulled back and studied Lucy's face. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Lucy said. "Not that it matters. I don't give a rat's ass about that construction worker."
Sophie nodded. "I see. You want to tell me about it?"