As You Like it

They’d shared an instant connection. An ephemeral, nonspecific sort of “hey there” feeling one didn’t run across every day. She’d certainly never felt anything quite like it, and their unexpected bond still held the power to affect her, even several hours later.

She chained a third paper clip to the first two, then another and another.

Not to mention he was handsome as sin and possessed a muscular body that bespoke hours in the gym. She ran her tongue over her lips just thinking about his full biceps. She admired a man who was dedicated to health and fitness. Then again, what else did the guy have to do but stay in shape?

It wasn’t just his body that attracted her. The soulful expression in his eyes called to her, as well. The aura of loneliness clinging to him made her want to cuddle him.

Yes, there had been a spark.

But then she’d gone and spoiled it all by moving too soon and speaking too fast. Now the damage had been done and repairing her mistake was going to be a lot harder than making a good first impression would have been. Why hadn’t she been more attuned to the nuances rippling between them?

Why? Because the man rattled her.

To the bone.

And she didn’t like being rattled.

Something about the manner in which he’d studied her, as if he knew exactly what she looked like naked, panicked her in a way she couldn’t explain.

Even now, recalling how his silver-gray eyes had leisurely tacked their way up and down her body caused Marissa to shiver involuntarily.

Why was she even thinking like this? Steve had just broken up with her. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with a potential coworker, especially since it would greatly complicate things.

Maybe her botched relationship with Steve was the reason why. Steve wasn’t the first lover to walk on her because she was too single-minded. Marissa hated to fail at anything and in most areas of her life, she was very successful, but when it came to romance, she didn’t seem to have what it took to make relationships last beyond a few months.

All the more reason to stop fantasizing about Thibbedeaux.

But what a smile he had! Slow and seductive and charming.

Snap out of it, Marissa Jane. Keep your head in the game.

Their personal styles were diametrically opposed. Where she was proactive, he was reactive. She was industrious and precise and energetic. Beau was laid-back and easygoing and languid.

Or at least he had been until she’d pressured him. Clearly, coercion did not work with this dude.

So what did?

She reviewed their conversation again, searching for places when things had gone well.

During their first exchange of smiles and handshakes, she had definitely gotten receptive vibes from him. But once they started talking, everything had gone downhill from there.

Except, Marissa recalled, he’d enjoyed teasing her about sex. Not that she’d been thrilled with his innuendo. She’d felt as if he’d been making fun of her.

Then again, maybe she was too sensitive. After Steve ditching her and Francine’s lecture on the importance of whimsy, maybe Beau’s insinuation that she didn’t know how to have fun had simply struck a raw nerve.

Was there some way she could turn his fondness for fun to her advantage?

Marissa looked down and realized she’d unknowingly created a paper clip necklace, and in that silly bit of office-supply jewelry, she came full circle.

She smacked herself on the forehead with the palm of her hand.

Duh! Of course! That’s what she needed.

A link, a chain, a connection.

Why hadn’t she recognized it before? He was a Southern man and Southern men generally cared deeply about home and family. They liked to be charmed and cajoled and coaxed. If there was one sure way to win him over to her way of thinking, adopting his idealized view on life stood the best chance of winning out.

It might not be perfectly honest and aboveboard to tap into his basic human needs in order to snare him, but capitalizing on physical attraction certainly wasn’t immoral or illegal or even unethical. It was simply a man/woman thing.

Use what you’ve got. Show a little cleavage, act contrite about what happened at the bar, smile a lot, slant him coy glances from the corner of your eye. Take things slow.

It wasn’t the way she normally did business, but mirroring his needs by indulging in flirtation was harmless enough.

Yep. Take advantage of the sexual chemistry. That was the ticket.

Bet you a thousand dollars you can’t win the guy over without sleeping with him. Dash’s taunt rang in her head.

Well, Dash was wrong. She could and she would persuade Thibbedeaux without stepping over the line. Yes, she might use her womanly wiles to convince him, but she wouldn’t go any further than flirtation.

Act available, be unattainable.

Marissa smiled and began to hum a song about industrious ants knocking over rubber-tree plants. She knew exactly what she was going to do next.

BEAU SAT in a rocking chair on the back porch of Greenbrier Plantation and gazed out at the riverboat cruising down the Mississippi. Anna, the family’s seven-year-old golden retriever, lay at his side. After he had made his first million designing video games, he’d bought back the Thibbedeaux ancestral home that his father had been forced to sell in order to pay for his numerous custody battles with Francesca.

Reestablishing old connections. Restoring his links to the past. Making up for what he had missed out on all those years.

He’d refurbished the small but stately manor into a B and B and then turned it over to his half sister, Jenny, to run. She’d done a damn fine job of it and now the place was usually booked solid year round. Except for the attic room Jenny always kept available for Beau’s unexpected appearances.

The early-January wind was brisk but not uncomfortable and it tousled a lock of hair over his forehead. He’d left New Orleans yesterday evening after his odd encounter with Marissa Sturgess and made the twenty-mile journey northwest of the city in an attempt to get the vexing woman off his mind.

The powerful sexual attraction he felt for her spooked him. Beau wasn’t accustomed to such rampant physical desires, especially toward a woman who provoked all his worst qualities.

He was damn glad she’d given up and gone on back to New York after the beer-bottle incident. If she had kept pestering him, he didn’t know if he would have had the courage to resist her. He was that damn attracted. And the last thing he needed was to get involved with a woman who charged through life stuck in high gear.

Been there, tried that.

Marissa never took the time to smell the daisies or stroll through the grass barefoot and feel the dew between her toes. She never just sat on the porch and watched the river roll by. Even if she went to a trendy spa and paid people to rub the physical kinks from her body, she never mentally let go for a moment.

He knew this about her because he used to run the same fast-track lifestyle she was racing and it had almost killed him. Beau knew what she needed, even if Marissa did not. She needed to find the joy in just being alive. She needed to lie on her back on a blanket and look up at the stars. She needed to roller-skate and roast marshmallows around a campfire and catch lightning bugs in a jar.

She needed to let go of her high ideals and lofty expectations. She needed to value herself first and foremost as a human being and not solely for what she could produce. She needed for someone to strap her to a rocking chair and make her sit there until she really saw what was going on around her.

Or maybe she needed someone to tie her to the bed and give her the most mind-altering orgasms of her life.

Beau grinned at the provocative image.

Thank heavens she’d left Louisiana or he just might have volunteered. This sex-simply-for-the-sake-of-good-sex idea would not be such a hard concept to master if it involved someone as enticing but inaccessible as Marissa.