Unwrapping Mr. Wright

He saw the exact moment that her realization of his identity dawned. Her well-kissed and swollen lips opened in shocked disbelief. Horror claimed those deep brown eyes. He knew exactly what she saw—his near nakedness and his now-softening arousal. Her hand flew to her lips, she gathered her arms around her lace-covered chest, and before Justin could even think of stopping her, she slammed out the front door.

Chapter 3

She’d been kissing Justin! Lauren leaned against her front door for a brief moment to gather her wits. Lock. She needed to lock the door. To her dismay, her hand shook so much that it took her two tries to place the security chain in its holder. The dead bolt, at least, turned easily under her fumbling fingers.

But the fact that her door was now locked didn’t ease her fears. Dear Lord. How had this happened? She’d been kissing the wrong Wright!

Her chest heaved and she could hear the voice of her yoga instructor. Take deep calming breaths. Deep calming breaths. Lauren tried, but those miraculous deep calming breaths her instructor swore by didn’t help. No, right now Lauren still wanted to drop through the floor and bury herself six feet under, forever and ever. She’d been kissing Justin Wright!

She hated Justin. Thought he was the scourge of the planet. He annoyed her. He was rude. A jerk. A womanizer. See? She had proof. He’d ravaged her and… It had been good. Oh, so very good. His kisses had sent shivers to her curling toes.

No! She tried to wipe the kiss away, but her lips still tingled from the touch of his. Think of Jeff. She wanted Jeff, sweet adorable Jeff. Not his wicked playboy twin who was a constant thorn in her side.

Hot tears filled Lauren’s eyes and she mentally berated herself. How could this have happened? What was Justin doing at Jeff’s? And despite the fact that he shouldn’t have been there in the first place, how could she have made such a terrible mistake? Sure, the room had been dark except for the TV. But she should have known. She should have been able to tell the difference between the two brothers. They wore their watches on different wrists. Shouldn’t that have been an early clue that she had the wrong man? But she’d been so swept away!

So, instead of Jeff, she’d kept right on kissing Justin! Now her tears fell freely, ruining the makeup that Meredith had spent two painstaking hours perfecting. Lauren buried her face in her hands for a long anguished moment. Then, in an attempt to cleanse herself of the memory of Justin’s tantalizing touch, Lauren entered the bedroom and stripped off the offending clothes. She tossed the whole lingerie outfit into the deep recesses of her walk-in closet. She preferred never to see it again. The outfit had worked, all right, but not on the right brother.

How did one recover from this gaffe? Did one? Thank God, Justin had said something or she’d have been the making of a Jerry Springer show. Lauren pulled on her warm flannel pajamas, the gown dropping reassuringly to her feet and covering every inch of her body. Jeff had given her the Lang gown last Christmas, and whereas the merry widow had revealed everything, the flannel gown showed absolutely nothing from her neck down.

Lauren didn’t want to face her reflection in the mirror, but she had to. Haunted brown eyes stared back at her. Despite the smearing of her mascara, she still saw traces of Meredith’s miraculous work. All for naught.

Lauren banged her fist on the marble countertop and grabbed a washcloth. Within minutes, she’d washed away the pretty woman men had glanced at more than once. In her place returned ordinary Lauren, who still appeared shell-shocked from discovering she’d been kissing Justin Wright.

Worse, she’d discovered that kissing him had been nothing short of phenomenal. Never before had a kiss sent those sensations to her toes. Never before had fingertips on her breasts sent such heat pooling through her. Wine. She nodded false hope to her reflection. It had been wine and adrenaline. That was all. Nothing else. She’d just gotten caught up in the seductive dance, caught up in the magical moment. For once, she’d been a woman in control, in charge of the seduction she’d initiated. That was what had made even the kisses seem larger than life, better than any other man she’d ever kissed.

It had nothing to do with the fact that the person she’d been kissing had been Justin Wright.

Nothing at all.

Lauren squared her chin and stared at herself in the mirror, but that brought fresh tears to her eyes as her former bravado failed her. She’d kissed Justin.

How did one go from kissing one brother to the other? Should she say to Jeff, “Oops, I made a mistake. Forgive me?” Beg Justin not to say a word? She didn’t want to see Justin at work now, much less talk about what she’d been trying to do.

She wasn’t the type to keep secrets, especially from her best friend, but for this once she’d have to try. She couldn’t tell Jeff. Such a perfect seduction—wasted on the wrong man. So much for good omens. She’d lost before she’d really begun.

The doorbell to her condo began shrilling. “Go away,” Lauren called, but she knew that whoever was at the door couldn’t hear her. She pulled on her cow-print slippers and plodded her way to the front door. As she put her eye to the peephole, her fear was confirmed. Justin stood on the other side.

“Go away,” she yelled again.

“No,” he replied. “Let me in. We need to talk.”

He was the last person she wanted to talk to. Hadn’t she just thought that she’d prefer never to even see him again?

“No, we don’t need to talk,” Lauren said. “I’ve got nothing to say to you. It was all a big mistake. A misunderstanding. Ha-ha. Okay, we’ve shared a laugh. Now go away!”

“No. Be reasonable and let me in. If you don’t, I’ve got Jeff’s key.”

She pressed her eye to the peephole again and jumped back as she realized he was attempting to stare in. She backed away. Her voice quivered slightly as she said, “The key’s useless. The chain’s on.”

His powerful voice boomed through the closed door. “I’ll break your damn door down if I have to, Lauren. It won’t take me but a good kick, and believe me, I can afford the damage.”

Her heart raced. He wouldn’t really kick her door down, right? Although, with her short tenure at Wright Solutions and her three years as Jeff’s neighbor, she knew that when Justin said something, he meant business. But kicking her door down? Of course not. Still, she said, “I’ll have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

“And I’ll tell Jeff exactly what happened between us, exactly what you were attempting to do.”

A silence fell, and Lauren slumped against the doorway. Damn him, but on that count, he had her. Jeff knowing, and hearing, about her indiscretion from his twin brother was the last thing she wanted or needed.

“It’s cold out here, Lauren. All I’m wearing is a sweatshirt and jeans. Do I need to count? I’ll give you until three. One…two…”

Lauren opened the door.

Justin stepped into the condo, a burst of cold winter air arriving with him. His green-eyed gaze flicked over her as he appraised her quickly. “I liked the other outfit better.”

Heat filled her cheeks and she knew her face reddened. She leaned against the front door for much-needed support. “It wasn’t for you.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Duh. As if I didn’t figure that out. I thought I was dreaming. Hell of a dream, though.”

Justin cocked his head and surveyed her. Lauren’s toes tingled in her slippers and she scrunched them to end the annoying sensation. “Although I admit it’s too bad. Your outfit was a lot better than that granny gown. A hell of a lot better. I liked it a lot. Oh, yeah, a lot.”

Justin attempted a grin, but the moment he did, he acknowledged it was hopeless. He couldn’t melt her icy reserve or bring down the walls she’d built in just a few minutes. Already he could see that she’d stripped off the makeup. She couldn’t change her hair color, though, that soft honey shade that shimmered and called to a man. He liked it. Aw, hell.

Couldn’t she tell that this was an awkward situation for him, too? It wasn’t often that a man thought he was dreaming, woke up to discover that the beautiful woman was real and then learned that the sweet kisses she was bestowing were actually meant for someone else. Lauren had left him in quite a painful state, and as he’d pulled on a pair of Jeff’s jeans and a sweatshirt, Justin had decided that reality, like Mondays, also sucked.

She was his employee, and he’d practically given her a tonsillectomy with his tongue. He’d had his hands on her breasts. Her nipples had pebbled between his fingers. He’d even…

He shoved all those tormenting thoughts aside. All they were doing was getting him aroused again. At the very least he had to work with Lauren. And if she got her way, got what she wanted from the seduction, she might even become his future sister-in-law. That thought wasn’t pleasant, but for her sake and his, he was determined to make the best of the awkward situation.

“I came to apologize,” he said. She gazed at him skeptically. A movement caught his eye and he glanced down. Her foot was wiggling inside the slipper as if she was attempting to tap her foot. Were those actually cow faces on her feet? He yanked his gaze upward, and this time it landed on the small pink bow located at the center of the ruffle. Right where her breasts met.

Despite the concealing flannel fabric, Justin’s mind went into overdrive picturing what lay beneath. He raised his eyes, now getting a good view of her new hairdo. Wow. Even now his fingers itched to again touch the honey-colored strands.

“You were saying?” Lauren prompted.

He tried to focus, but what he really wanted to do was pick her up, carry her to bed and strip off the offending flannel that tormented him. “Justin?”

“Oh, yeah. God, Lauren, this sounds so lame. And I am sorry. I thought I was dreaming. I didn’t realize I wasn’t until, well…” He paused because she appeared stricken again. “I realized I wasn’t dreaming when you called me Jeff. I’m assuming you thought I was him.”

Lauren was suddenly in motion, her slippers shuffling as she strode past him. Worried she was going to flee, Justin put out his hand and grabbed her arm. Despite the gown’s long sleeve, electricity flared through him, sending a spark all the way to his feet.

“Static,” he said. The wide-eyed look on her face told him she’d felt it, too, and that she knew he’d lied about the cause. But she’d stopped her flight, and he dropped his arm to his side. He shoved his hand into his front jeans pocket.

“We need to talk about what happened,” Justin reiterated.

Lauren shook her head so furiously that locks of her hair fell into her face. His fingers desired to push the wayward strands away.

“No,” she said. “We don’t need to talk. We pretend it didn’t happen. We don’t tell Jeff. We ignore each other at work. That’s all we need to do and everything will be fine.”

He wished it were just that simple. “Lauren, I kissed you.”