His Comfort and Joy

As he stared back, his face was fierce. God, with his dark hair and those narrow, pale eyes, he looked kind of scary.

“I’ll give you a ride home.”

“No, thanks.” She got off the chair, went over to the dishwasher and yanked out the tray of pots even though the cycle wasn’t all the way finished. She began to unload them onto the counter even though they burned her hands.

When a response didn’t come back at her, she glanced over her shoulder. He was gone.

She let out her breath.

Thank God he’d given up.

She quickly put the dirty glasses in the washer’s tray, slid the load in and hit the switch. It took her two minutes in the bathroom to change into her own clothes and leave the waitress uniform on the counter. On her way out, she looked around for the light switch that controlled the big fixtures hanging from the ceiling. She didn’t want to waste a lot of time, though, so she turned off the ones she could before putting the back door to good use.

Gray was leaning against the side of the house, arms crossed over his thick chest. Right next to her bike.

“Let’s go,” he said, picking the thing up as if it weighed no more than a plate.

“Put that down!”

“Make me.”

Yeah, like that was going to happen. He was only a foot taller than she and he had the bike up on his shoulder. Short of kicking him a good one in the knee, a line she wasn’t prepared to cross, that man could do anything he wanted with her property.

“I don’t like bullies,” she said through gritted teeth.

“And I don’t care if you like me or not.”

Ouch. For some reason, that hurt.

She stared at him as he started walking off and then she realized he was headed for the lake, not the garage behind his house.

He wasn’t going to throw the bike in the water, was he?

Joy ran after him. “That’s my property! You can’t just toss it—”

Gray glanced over his shoulder. “It’ll be easier to put this thing in my boat than jam it into the back of my car.”

As he strode along, she nearly had to jog to keep up with him.

If she wasn’t mistaken, he seemed almost as eager as she was to part company.

Gray could feel Joy’s eyes shooting into his back. She was right royally pissed and he was a little surprised. He never expected she’d put up a fight about anything. Not Joy. Not sweet, strawberry-blond Joy.

Damn, but her unexpected strength was attractive. It wasn’t going to change his mind, but he admired anyone who tried to stand up to him.

And he didn’t care if he had to throw her over his other shoulder, she was not going home alone in the dark on that bike. The godforsaken thing didn’t even have a headlight and the fact that there wasn’t a lot of traffic in the area off season didn’t matter to him. Cars weren’t the only hazard on the lake road. Black bears came down to the shore looking for food in the fall. Mountain lions, too.

So no, he wasn’t about to let her be meals-on-wheels for some rabid, claw-wielding animal.

He opened the door to the boathouse and flipped on the light. The Hacker gleamed in its slip, all that glossy mahogany and shiny chrome reflecting the illumination like a prism. He put the bike in one of the seating compartments and then stepped on the gunnels, offering Joy a hand. When she refused to take it, he let her get settled on her own.

Getting in beside her, he started the engine. A great thunder filled the boathouse before the RPMs settled down to a rhythmic, almost sexual pump.

God, he really was hard up for her, wasn’t he? He’d driven the Hacker for years and never found anything erotic in it.

As soon as they were free of the boathouse, he pulled a blanket from under the dash and gave it to her. She looked at the thing as if it were a net and she was a fish.

“It’s cold,” he said dryly.

She took the heavy wool from him and spread the tartan plaid over her body. “What about you?”

He shrugged, enjoying the chill because it kept him sharp. He’d only had those two bourbons all night long, but it wasn’t the alcohol that was likely to get him doing something stupid. “I’ll live.”

A moment later she shifted in the seat. “You could speed us up and get this over with, you know. We’re barely going faster than an idle.”

“Less wind this way.” Which was a crock. He liked having her in his boat.

She cursed softly. And then slid over next to him, awkwardly pulling the blanket over his lap. Her hand brushed against his stomach.

Gray closed his eyes, body humming like he had jet fuel in his veins.

When they’d been collecting glasses in the library, and she’d stopped short, he hadn’t been prepared for the abrupt halt. One minute they were making good progress around the room. And the next, his erection was pressed up against her.

Remembering the feel of her made a groan rise in his throat and he was grateful for the sound of the engine.

He’d been watching her as she’d moved, the swaying of her hips, the shifting of her shoulders. Her legs were long and slender, and every time she bent this way or that, the skirt had ridden up a little higher on her thighs.

At the moment they’d come into contact, he’d been picturing himself putting the tray aside, sitting her down on one of the leather couches and parting her legs with his hands. He’d wanted to fall to his knees and kiss his way up the inside of her thighs. Feel her hands burrowing deep into his hair as she urged him closer to her heat. The image had been hot, wild, totally insane.

Yeah, and then he’d bumped into her.

She must have felt what she did to him. How could she have missed it?

And if it hadn’t been clear then, it must have been obvious when she’d wheeled around. He’d known his lust was showing on his face, but everything had happened so fast, the meeting of their bodies followed by her quick spin, that he hadn’t been able to strong-arm his expression into any semblance of neutrality.

No wonder she didn’t want to be alone with him.

Maybe that was why he was so hell-bent on taking her home. He wanted to prove to them both that he could take care of her. Because back in that library, he sure hadn’t been thinking like Gallahad and she’d caught him red-handed.

Or red-blooded, as the case had been.

Gray felt something tickle his face. A strand of her hair had escaped the loose knot at her neck and was dancing in the wind. He reached for the silken length, but she caught it first and tucked it behind her ear.

“Sorry,” she said.

He wasn’t. He wanted her hair down and all over his body.

Gray reached up and massaged the bridge of his nose.