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  In half an hour, with luck, she would find out if sex with a wildly attractive bad boy would change her attitude. She didn’t care about competing with other more attractive, more confident women, and she didn’t hope for love. One single bout of satisfying sex would do her. Then, she would know she was not as frigid, repressed, and sexless as she had been told.

  Staring at the door, she waited for the big, inscrutable hunk.

  * * * *

  Jay shut the bathroom door behind him. Last year, he had built the set for South Pacific. Although he hadn’t attended any rehearsals of the show, while he had been bumping-in the set, he had heard an actor going over a schmaltzy song about spotting a woman across a crowded room and falling instantly in love.

  Jay hadn’t fallen instantly in love with Vix Tremain, but lust had featured strongly. Spotting the blonde, he had pushed through the usual crowd to introduce himself to a sleek beauty who seemed genuinely glad to talk him. Normally a woman with skin as smooth as rich cream and a long-legged, toned body would act like a show pony, but she had a rare natural charm. She also showed a clear interest in him, demonstrated by the odd self-conscious gesture, like touching her hair and moistening her lips. Every move of hers reflected his purely animal attraction. He’d thought the last theater set he ever meant to construct would easily be his most interesting.

  Set painters could be anyone—male or female, old or young, ultra-serious, control freaks, or dreadlocked posers. Not often did he get assigned to a beautiful woman who looked as interested in messing around as he was. He didn’t have the time for a relationship, but he could fit in a casual affair that lasted the length of the production, and he could certainly handle one with a golden man-toy. He’d been blatant about his attraction to her, and he’d intimated that a sweaty night would be had by all if she accompanied him home.

  The dazzling smile she gave him in response hit him like a punch to the head. He’d seen that smile before. Only last year, when skimming the newspaper, he’d noted a photograph of the Nolans, plain, plump Victoria with her incredible smile and her older husband, Timothy, architect and millionaire entrepreneur.

  Jay ran his fingers over the scar on his cheek, a memento from her husband.

  For at least a year, he’d thought about revenge on Timmy-boy. Although Jay was visibly scarred, he’d never been handsome. Nor did he make his living out of his looks. Bygones had been bygones, but knowing she was Tim’s ex added to her appeal. In fact, he’d seen screwing her as some sort of compensation for having his future screwed by Tim. His dick had largely guided these self-serving thoughts.

  Now, although still influenced by a keen body part, he found he couldn’t use Vix in an act of silent revenge. Perhaps if she had been the woman he’d always assumed she was, a rich bitch with haughty opinions, he wouldn’t have changed sides, but a sophisticated man-toy she was not. Instead, she was bright and wryly funny, both of which he found more sexually stimulating than a bored divorcée looking for a night on the wild side.

  Crap! He couldn’t knock back a woman with so little confidence in herself. If he had her, he would be all kinds of a heel. If he didn’t, he would be all kinds of a fool.

  He massaged the back of his neck, undecided.

  Finally, he eked out a breath, opened the cabinet door, and glumly reached for a condom. This had to be his unluckiest night in his whole misbegotten life.

  Chapter 2

  Vix tried to ease her shoulders. Not knowing which was JD’s preferred side of the bed, she had taken the middle, lying on her back, hands at her side, looking available—or looking like a tomb effigy. Sighing, she sat up, chin on her knees, fingers thrumming on her shins. Perhaps posing on her side, one hand under her head and facing the door would look more appealing, more casual. She quickly rolled, wishing she had something to do while she waited, but a woman couldn’t do a lot in a strange bedroom other than wait and try not to feel apprehensive.

  Finally, the bathroom door opened and he appeared in the bedroom doorway, still dressed. He tilted his eyebrows at her, stalked toward her, and dropped a single packaged condom onto the bedside table nearest the door. Taking the hint, she scooted to the other side, staring at him. He stared back, his eyes refocusing on her lacy, flesh-colored underwear. With a sexy hitch of his mouth, he pulled his shirt over his head, baring a lightly fuzzed upper body packed with muscles. Her breath shortened.

  She didn’t want to stare, but he had a physique nothing short of magnificent. Turning his back on her, he sat on the bed and removed his shoes. He stood to unbutton his waistband, but before unzipping, he picked up his socks, shoes, and shirt. In a bundle, he tossed everything into his wardrobe and, as she watched, his jeans followed.

  He looked stunning from the back view. Surely, a rough-around-the-edges man like him would get her through this. Unfortunately, she could barely breathe after he turned. The well-marked length of his enormous erection showed clearly beneath his cotton jocks. She moistened her dry mouth, holding the bed cover so tightly that her fingers locked. As he swung onto the bed beside her, she swooped the covering to her chin in an automatic reaction.

  “Shouldn’t you be naked?” He sounded relaxed.

  She cleared her throat, willing herself not to blush. “Shouldn’t you?”

  “Not yet.” Facing her, the expression on his face looked wary. He ran a thumb slowly across her collarbone.

  She shivered, a reaction she couldn’t control. “Could you turn out the light?”

  “I could. Do I have to?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed.

  He swiveled around and switched off the bedside lamp. The heat of his body hovered, and she could smell toothpaste, which she now wished she had used. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could see his looming shape as he gathered her up against him. His overlong silky hair touched her cheek, tickling, and his bristles scraped her chin. Then, his palm slipped beneath the strap of her bra. She put up a hand to stop him, but he snapped the elastic onto her upper arm.

  Reacting like a petulant schoolgirl, she pushed against his hard shoulders. “No, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” His mouth slid from her chin to the top of her breast.

  “Don’t touch me. Just do what you have to.”

  “Okay,” he said, his tone careful. Within a second, he was sitting on her thighs.

  She wouldn’t have minded lying that way forever, or at least until she could regulate her breathing, but she assumed she would eventually have to move her legs. Fortunately, he couldn’t see her or the expression on her face, which would be somewhere between nervous and puzzled. She tried to sound interested in proceeding. “Are you going to keep sitting on me?” she said in what she hoped sounded like a sophisticated voice. Her heart thudded like a drum.

  “If I did, that would make doing what I have to do fairly difficult.” He pushed her hair back with a single, casual finger, a gentle touch like a caress, but he didn’t need to placate her. He simply needed to get the whole thing over and done with. “What’s your next order?”

  “I don’t have one.” She wet her lips.

  “Well, do you mind if I follow my own plan?”

  “As long as... No, please go ahead,” she said, at a loss and wishing she didn’t want to tear the sheet off his bed and run. She hadn’t thought the whole encounter through. A man like him, well, he would be ultra-experienced. Women would flock around him. He would need to bat them off. She had chosen wisely, but she didn’t have the nous to follow through. Breathing through her nose, she tried to relax.

  He took each of her hands in his and, calloused palm against stiff palm, he raised them to the pillow beside her head. His mouth touched on hers, and stayed, lightly teasing. Her breathing sped up, her skin heated, and she tingled where she should. Now would be a good time to get the act over and done with. She arched her back, prepared to change to a more promising position while he buried his face into her neck, his breath shorter than she might
have expected. Then, his knees edged hers apart. She tensed as his shape pressed between her legs. He exhaled and his grip froze.

  Momentarily, she coped with the heightening sensation but he made a noise like a growl and slid down farther down her body, taking both her bra straps to her elbows. She flipped her chest sideways. “No. Please.”

  He rolled off her, sat up, and turned on the light, blinking at her. With a wary expression on his face, he said, “How about a glass of milk?”

  “A glass of milk? You don’t want to…you can’t…I didn’t mean…I just don’t like being naked.”

  “So you implied.” He eased off the bed and disappeared.

  She sat hugging herself, hearing him clatter in the kitchen. She should leave. At the very least, she should be fully dressed when he returned, not foolishly expecting him to try again. Her eyes heated, and she blinked hard. Although he’d implied he would be cooperative, apparently if he couldn’t do as he wished, he wouldn’t do anything, and what he wanted to do was paw her all over.

  Her chin at an upward tilt, she moved to the side of the bed. If he preferred being in the kitchen to having sex with a willing woman, he could swill to his heart’s content. Then again, her pride wouldn’t let her escape until she had made a concerted effort. Chewing at her forefinger, she slid her cold feet back under the spread. While she made no decision whatsoever, he reappeared holding two frosted glasses. He placed one on the console beside her.

  “Do you not like being touched by me, or by anyone?”

  She reached for the milk. “I think touching is unnecessary, that’s all. It puts me off when I’m prepared to…when I’m willing to…when I’m thinking about…oh, great heavens, I don’t find these things easy to talk about.” She cleared her throat and took a sip of her drink. “And you’re my first anyone, aside from my husband—my ex.”

  He bent his head and gazed into his glass. “Your first, huh? That’s a flattering disadvantage. I don’t know what I’m competing with here, but I imagine every man has his own way of doing things. I like to take my time and play around for a while before sex.”

  “I like to get the act over with.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance while he slowly rubbed his bristled jaw. Then he shrugged. “I like women. I like to touch. I know what pleasures me. I like to see my woman pleasured, too. If I have to forgo that, I might as well jerk myself off.”

  She straightened, grimacing. “Crudely put, but basically if I don’t let you touch me, I don’t get anything?”

  “Right,” he said in a confident drawl. “You get the full trip or nothing at all.”

  “This isn’t fair.”

  His eyebrows lifted as if he was waiting for her to change her mind.

  For a moment, she wavered. “Then, you’ll get what you want, but I won’t.” Hoping she sounded logical rather than petulant, she leaned back.

  “I’m willing to go without if I can’t have what I want. Are you?” He pulled at his earlobe.

  “There’s a difference,” she said, her voice husky with embarrassment. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what I want.” Resting her cheek on her up-drawn knees, she angled her head away from him.

  The black of night showed through the white roller blind. No window in his house had been curtained. His floors were bare wood and not a single wall held a picture. He owned nothing but the bare essentials and none looked new or trendy. She had assumed he owned this house when she’d entered, but likely he didn’t. This was a rental, and he’d recently moved in.

  “You want me,” he said in a secure voice. “But…I’m more than my dick.”

  She reached over him and carefully placed her empty glass on his bedside table. “And what else do you think made me come here with you?”

  “You drove me here.”

  “For one reason. And you haven’t even opened the condom.” Her bottom lip quivered, and she felt as unattractive as a woman could be.

  “I’m not ready.”

  “You look ready.”

  “Peeking, are you? Well, then, perhaps I ought to open the condom.” With a frown of concentration, he reached for the plastic pack that he didn’t seem able to open. He tried tearing across one corner and then the other. He tried with his teeth. He sighed. “Damn.”

  “Haven’t you done this before?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Pass it to me.” She reached over him.

  He evaded her. The pack ripped in two in his hands. Unfortunately, the condom ripped, too. He sat with a ring in one hand and a bubble in the other. He slowly turned his head, and he stared her straight in the eyes. “Now what?”

  “Don’t you have another?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Surely you buy these things in multiples.” She frowned.

  “Sure, if I am expecting to use them in multiples. I didn’t know you’d insist on me dropping my pants on the first date.”

  “This isn’t a date.”

  He lifted his palms. “So, you’ve answered your own question. I suppose I could go out and buy some, but I don’t have a car. You would have to drive me.”

  “I might as well go home if I have to dress and leave.” She glanced at his semi-naked, beautiful body, and her insides curled with frustration. “Perhaps this was meant to be.”

  He put the remains of the condom on the table. “The hand of man moves in mysterious ways.” He gave a soft laugh. “At least this takes the pressure off. We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do.”

  “Don’t have to?” she echoed hollowly. Her feet found his cold floorboards again, this time more decisively. “I’ll go.” She reached for her skirt, determined not to look at him again.

  “This is great,” he said in a morose voice. “JD. Just Dick.”

  “Look, I came here for sex. I don’t want another glass of milk. We don’t know each other well enough to have a deep and meaningful convers—”

  He tipped her onto the bed. “We can rectify that.”

  She stared into his strong-boned face, and he dropped a wonky kiss on the side of her mouth. One muscled arm lifted her and gathered her against his warm chest.

  “We can do quite a bit of getting to know each other, or if you won’t let me touch you, you can do quite a bit of getting to know me. By touch.”

  “And why would I want to do that?” Her insides began to jitter. From the very first, he had put a smile on her face and a hot tickle in her belly. He made her hope, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had hoped for anything. Mainly, she had endured, and she had expected to endure forever, because she was, after all, a Tremain, a member of a family known for sheer hard work since the days of colonial settlement.

  His warm breath heated her ear. “Because I feel good.”

  And because he did, she slid both palms over his back, noting that he flexed each muscle she touched. His confidence and his encouragement helped. To have half a sensuous experience doubled that she’d had previously.

  “What do you do when you’re not building sets?” she said against his hard, warm chest, palms resting lightly on his smooth skin.

  “Any sort of construction.” He switched off the bedside lamp.

  She lifted herself onto one forearm. “I’m supposed to be touching you.”

  “Yeah, well, too much touching, and we won’t get any sleep.”

  He pulled up the cover, circling an arm around the small of her back. She relaxed into him, resting her head on his shoulder, her hand comfortable on his bicep. He was warm and calm, and he breathed slowly and deeply. When he fell asleep, she could have left. But she felt safe.

  And she, too, slept.

  * * * *

  “Hey, JD!”

  Jay moved his face out of the pillow and opened his eyes.

  “How was last night?” called the same female voice that wasn’t coming from the startled blonde nestled against his chest.

  “You
have a visitor,” Vix said in a whisper, looking panicked.

  Curling his hand over her hip, he kissed the tip of her nose. She looked as lovely in the morning as she had the night before, and he wanted her as much as he had the night before. Maybe he could…

  The fridge door slammed. “Champagne. Can I open it?” he heard from the kitchen.

  He lifted himself on one elbow, focused, frowned, and rolled over to face the door. “No,” he shouted as he sat up and leaped out of the bed in two quick motions. “Shit.”

  “Don’t be pathetic,” Ilona yelled. “You bought it for me. I’ll bring in two glasses.”

  “No!” He pulled on his jeans. “I’ll come out there.” He sped out of the bedroom, in full grump mode, arriving in the kitchen in time to see Ilona slide a bottle of champagne onto the table. “Put that back.”

  She gave him a sideways, flirtatious smile and found two clean champagne glasses. “You dressed just for me?”

  “Give me a break.”

  “Normally you sleep naked.” With an uncaring expression on her face, she finger-combed her long blond hair, arranging the bulk over one shoulder and giving her seductive pout.

  “What do you want?”

  She wore panda eye makeup and her short tight skirt looked like a bandana, missing only the knot. “Something to eat. Were you saving that pizza for anyone?”

  “Couldn’t you simply raid the fridge and leave me to sleep?” He put the champagne back in the fridge but took out last night’s leftover pizza and placed it on the table for her.

  “Don’t be a grouch. Give me a cuddle.” She walked into his arms where she stayed, rubbing her face against his bare chest. “Mm-mm. I love you, Jay. You’ve got the tightest behind in the world.” She groped the aforesaid, which annoyed the hell out of him, but remaining patient, he put her hand behind her. She laughed softly.

  “Take the pizza and go.” He kissed her forehead, messed her hair, and moved out of her reach.

  “Where did you get the car? Did you rob a bank?” She picked up the slice of pizza and took a bite. Her expression looked too casual.