In The Enemy's Embrace

He was silent, watching her as though she were a bobcat ready to pounce. She clearly made him nervous, and Jessica found this a delicious turn of events. She was no longer the thirteen-year-old girl with a mad crush, the girl who’d been humiliated when her kiss had been rebuffed. With her now twenty-five, the eight-year age difference put them in a completely different playing field.

And judging by the hungry look in his eyes, she had the home advantage.

“We should probably go in before the mosquitoes start biting,” he said, his hands still in his pockets, his dark gaze trained on her.

“Vitamin B. I take it religiously and they never munch on me.” Because it was past midnight and they were both a little punchy from the drama of the evening, she preceded him into the house and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the darkened windows when he turned off the outside lights.

For pity’s sake. In all the hoopla, she’d completely forgotten that she still wore her Victoria’s Secret pajamas. Oh, they were modest enough, thin sweatpants in a pink-and-red heart pattern and a matching tank top. Looking down, she noticed the insoles of her sandals were imprinted with toe-shaped smudges from the water and soot remnants of the fire.

She yelped and jumped up onto the fireplace hearth.

Nick took an immediate step forward, switching on the overhead lights, his gaze scanning the floor. “What?” He nearly shouted the word.

She knew he was imagining they’d let a critter in through the open doors, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. At this point, a bout of laughter might well turn into that hysteria she’d been worrying about earlier. “My feet are dirty.”

“Your…”

She held up a foot, letting her white sandal dangle from her toes. Even her gold toe ring was tarnished black. “I hope I didn’t track this mess on your beautiful carpet.”

“The rugs can be cleaned, Red. My heart’s not so easily repaired.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to shake you up. And why do you keep scowling at me like that?”

“I’m not scowling.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look in the mirror, why don’t you. And while you’re at it, could you bring me a towel so I can rake some of this gunk off my feet? Honestly, I should have jumped in the pool while I was out there.”

“I can give you a hand if you like.”

She looked at him and laughed. “A push, you mean?”

A dimple creased his cheek. Amazing, since his expression was still nearly as solemn as a judge’s.

He turned to leave the room, presumably to do her bidding. Man, oh, man, Nick Grayson had one fine derriere. Jessica sat down on the brick hearth and rested her chin on her raised knees, sniffed, then lifted her head. No wonder Nick was keeping a respectable distance between them. She reeked of smoke.

Her gaze was still on the seat of his jeans when he suddenly turned and caught her staring. Except now she was staring at the fly of his jeans.

She lifted her eyes to his scowling face. “Well,” she said. “You’re the one who turned around. If you’d just kept going, I could have ogled your backside in peace and you’d have been none the wiser….” Her words dried up as he crossed the room toward her, bent down and scooped her up in his arms. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Taking you to the shower.”

“Fetching a towel was too taxing for you?”

“My towels are white. You’d ruin them.”

“The man owns a swimming pool and a lake and he quibbles over a towel.” She sighed and clutched the blanket that was still around her shoulders.

“Red?”

“Mmm?”

“You smell like charred wood.”

Yes, and if she closed her eyes, her mind replayed the horrible image of flames licking at her neighbor’s window. “You’re such a gentleman for pointing that out, Grayson. No sense complaining, though. I didn’t ask for the impromptu ride.”

“A good host should bear up under any hardship.”

“Now I’m a hardship. You’re not exactly endearing yourself to me.”

“I wasn’t trying to.” He lowered her feet to the tile floor of the bathroom.

Jessica wasn’t sure what imp got into her, but she dropped the blanket from her shoulders and turned to face him.

In a typically male reaction, his gaze dipped to her tank top where thin cotton adorned with little hearts stretched over her breasts. She felt her nipples harden and nearly groaned.

But she’d started this, and she wouldn’t act like a shy maiden now. Never mind that she had little handson experience in the male-female relationship department; she’d learned years ago that men were drawn to the voluptuous curves of her body, and she’d perfected a seductress act that could have a guy panting like a puppy in two seconds flat. And while Nick wasn’t exactly panting, his dark eyes flared nearly black—a perfect match for his clothes.

A muscle worked in his jaw as he backed out of the bathroom. “You didn’t happen to stuff an extra change of clothes in that backpack purse, did you?”

“‘Fraid not.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with.”

He closed the door behind him and Jessica let out a slow breath. Her hands were trembling—heck, her entire insides were quaking.

Darn it, she was not attracted to Nick Grayson. She’d gotten over that years ago. They rubbed each other the wrong way, couldn’t have a decent conversation without tempers igniting. So why the devil were her nipples poking out as if she’d just dipped herself in an icy lake?

Undressing, she turned on the shower, adjusted the water temperature and stuck her head under the steamy spray. From the corner of her eye, she saw the bathroom door open and she froze.

Holding her breath, she watched as a masculine arm reached in and set down a stack of folded clothes, then withdrew, pulling the door closed again. She let out a sigh, her heart pumping. She’d been raised in a house with three male cousins, but none of them had ever breached her privacy this way. Well, it hadn’t actually been breached. He hadn’t come all the way in the room and looked.

Just to ease her mind, she would make a point of standing at the doorway when she was done to see if the mirror afforded a clear view to the shower. No sense letting Nick Grayson get one up on her.

The purpose, she’d decided weeks ago, was to make him drool, regret what he’d so carelessly turned down years ago. Not the other way around.

NICK WENT INTO the kitchen and poured himself a healthy shot of brandy. He’d tried to work on a prospectus report for a software company he was considering investing in, but the sound of water rushing through the pipes was too much of a distraction. Especially knowing Jessica Coleman was the one standing naked in his shower.

Damn it, he should have just left the clothes outside the door. He’d only meant to stick his arm in and put the stuff on the counter. How the hell was he to know the mirror angle gave a perfect reflection of the shower—and its occupant? Now, in addition to a twelve-year-old kiss haunting him, he had the image of her naked curvy body to keep him up nights.

She could have been burned tonight, lost her life. That one vulnerable look she’d given him when he’d first shown up at the fire would forever be etched in his mind. It had said, Hold me, please. And he’d wanted to, wanted to take care of her, but he was scared to touch her.

Jessica Coleman had been off-limits for so long. He was weak when it came to her, didn’t trust himself to let go, and that made him mad.

The very worst thing he could do was get involved with a Coleman. He and Jess had been like water and oil since the moment they’d met—flammable, volatile, passionate oil. Love and hate walked a very thin line. To act on that emotion, see where it would take them, was too dangerous. One or both of them would likely get burned. And what happened between them would naturally affect the business.

Coleman-Grayson Investment Company was too important to him to take a chance on ripping it apart because of personal conflict.

“Didn’t your mama ever tell you what a shame it’d be if your face ended up getting stuck in that position?”