LITMIR.BIZ

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He cashed in our first class tickets for coach ones and took his best surfing buddy to Central America instead. I haven’t heard from him since.”

      Lauren experienced a little pang thinking of the bleached-blond she would always consider her first love. He’d driven her parents nuts, she recalled with a reminiscent smile. He’d been the perfect anti-Conover.

      “Okay. That’s number one. But why aren’t you now Mrs. Joe…?”

      “Rutkowski. His name is Joe Rutkowski.”

      Matthias bit his lip. “You’re kidding.”

      “No. Joe Rutkowski was—well, is—my father’s mechanic. If you find a good car-man, you don’t break up with him—even if he breaks up with your daughter. That’s what my father says, anyway.”

      “So what gave good ol’ Joe second thoughts?”

      “His pregnant other girlfriend.”

      “Oh.”

      “Little Jolene was born on my birthday, which also happened to be our proposed wedding date.”

      “Tell me you sent a baby gift. Little coveralls? A tiny timing light?”

      Lauren narrowed her eyes at him. He didn’t seem to be getting her point. “My heart was broken. My mother sent a certificate for a month of diaper service and signed my name.” It still annoyed her that she’d lost the opportunity to watch her hoity-toity parents introduce the town’s best Mercedes mechanic as their new son-in-law.

      “But your broken heart recovered enough to find yourself in the arms of—what did you say his name was?—Jacques Cousteau?”

      “Very funny. Jean-Paul Gagnon.” Her father hated Frenchmen. “I met him in Paris. We were going to get married on top of the Eiffel Tower. I had a tailored white linen suit with a long skirt that went to my ankles and was so tight that I couldn’t run after the nasty little urchin who stole my purse on the way to the ceremony.”

      “I hope you’re going to tell me that Jean-Paul took after the urchin himself.”

      “He did. But when he came back with my purse he told me that it had given him time to think about what he was doing. And marrying me was not what he wanted to do, after all.” She gazed off into the distance, remembering her disappointment at not being able to shock her parents with the groom she brought home from Europe. “I really liked Jean-Paul.”

      “In the morning, I’ll find some place that will feed you crepes.”

      In the morning? Lauren jerked her head toward him. “Have you been listening to a thing I said?”

      “Of course I have.” He moved closer and wrapped his hands around her wrists. “I just haven’t figured out what the hell it has to do with you and me.”

      Lauren swallowed. Here was the opening she’d been waiting for. Now was the time to say, “There is no you and me, Matthias. There never really was.”

      Except the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck in her tight throat—and all it could handle was breathing, a task that seemed to be so much more complex when he was touching her.

      “This is a lot harder than I thought,” she whispered.

      A ghost of a smile quirked one corner of his handsome mouth as he slid his fingers between hers. “You’re telling me.”

      Despite her breathlessness, she found she could still laugh. “Are you being bad?”

      “Not yet. But the night’s still young.”

      Night? Good Lord, she’d completely lost track of time. It had been early evening just a minute ago. She checked her watch. “I’ve got to leave.” Scooting back, she tried yanking her hands from his.

      He merely held her tighter. “Not now, honey.”

      “But Matthias was…”

      Something flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t let go. “I may be an SOB, but I’m not completely black-hearted. It’s too late, too dark, too stormy for me to let you leave tonight. It wouldn’t be safe.”

      She looked out the windows and could tell he was right. The rain hadn’t let up in the hours she’d been at the house and it was still coming down in torrents. Oh, great. She was stuck with the man she couldn’t bring herself to break up with and her heart was thrumming so fast and he was so gorgeous she worried that if she didn’t get away from him soon she’d…“I’m not so sure it’s safe here, either.”

      “Will anyone be worrying about you? Do you need to make a call?”

      Registering that he hadn’t addressed the safety issue, she shook her head. “I had planned to stay with a friend in San Francisco for a few days on my way back. She said she’d expect me when she saw me.”

      “So here we are.” He dropped her right hand so he could toy with one of her curls instead. “All alone on a dark and stormy night.”

      “So here we are,” she echoed. “All alone.” Oh, but her mother definitely could have called this one. Coming up here was truly another of Lauren’s Bad Ideas.

      “How do you propose we entertain ourselves?” Matthias asked, twining a lock of her hair around his forefinger.

      Lauren pretended not to notice. “Swap ghost stories? That sounds appropriate.”

      “But then we might be too scared to sleep.”

      Oh God. Her heart jumped and her gaze locked on his face. He was wearing that little smile again, as if he knew that mentioning the words we and sleep in the same sentence had her thinking of the two of them together, in a bed, doing everything but sleeping.

      What the heck was going on? In the last few months, she’d chitchatted with Matthias at parties, danced with him a couple of times at charity events, pretended to be interested during family dinners while he talked shop with her father. Not once had she felt the slightest shiver of sexual attraction and now it was all she could do not to squirm in her seat.

      Or squirm all over him.

      “How come you weren’t like this before?” she demanded.

      His teeth flashed white. “I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”

      “Seriously. Matthias—”

      He put his hand over her mouth. “Shh. Don’t talk.”

      She reached up to pull his fingers away. “If I don’t talk I’m afraid I’ll—”

      And then he stopped that sentence, too, by swooping forward to kiss her for a second time. “Sorry,” he said against her mouth. “I just can’t help myself.”

      But she was helping him already by spearing her fingers through the crisp hair at the back of his head. He angled one way, she angled another and then they were really kissing, lips opening, tongues touching, tasting, their breaths and the sweet tang of merlot mingling.

      Goose bumps rolled in a wave from the top of her scalp to the tickly skin behind her knees. She scooted closer to him, bumping the outside of his legs. Without breaking the connection of their mouths, he gathered her and the voluminous terry cloth onto his lap. In the move, the robe’s hem rode up and she found herself settling onto him with nothing between her bare behind and his hard slacks-covered thighs.

      Yanking her mouth from his, she glanced down, relieved to see that her front was covered decently enough and that the robe was draping her legs modestly, too. Still…“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, taking her hands from his hair.

      “What?” His voice was hoarse.

      Where to start? The engagement? The kiss? The lap? Or the bare skin which only felt barer because it was against the soft fabric that was clothing all those male muscles? “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

      His

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