LITMIR.BIZ

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no. I think they see me as some kind of misfit, if you wanna know the truth. Heck—” She tossed the towel over her shoulder and tramped over to the refrigerator. “One of the advantages of livin’ way out here—” she yanked open the refrigerator “—is that I can play my classical music loud as I want, nobody’s gonna say boo. Oh, shoot—I forgot to make tea before I left.”

      She grabbed a tray of ice from the freezer, then a pair of purple plastic tumblers from a cupboard. Clunking several pieces of ice into the tumblers, she nodded toward an unopened bottle of Coke sitting on the counter. “This okay?”

      Alek nodded, feeling slightly as though he were caught in a whirlwind, then asked, “So what do you like to read most?”

      “Oh, heavens—if it’s got words, I’ll read it. Started when I was four, haven’t been able to get my fill yet.” She plucked the large bottle off the counter, bracing it against her midsection. “I’ve been to all sorts of places, just from reading, that most folk don’t even know about. Like Carpathia—”

      She gave the bottle top a sharp twist…then let out a yelp as the warm soda geysered four feet into the air, instantly drenching everything.

      While Luanne shrieked with laughter, they both fumbled for several seconds to get the top back on the still-spewing bottle. At last, the eruption contained, they stood in shock, staring at the streaks of soda meandering down walls and refrigerator, dripping off counters, collecting in puddles on the floor, which the dog was valiantly cleaning up. Then they looked at each other. Luanne collapsed against the counter, howling, as Alek snatched a paper towel off the holder over the counter, swiping a stream of cola off his cheek.

      “Is this how you treat all the guys?”

      “Only the ones I really, really like,” she got out, and something warm and giddy and as bubbly as the soda erupted inside him, and somehow or other, she was in his arms and her mouth was under his….

      For a second or two, at least.

      With a wistful little sigh, she backed away. “I cannot tell you how this pains me—” she squatted to get a small plastic bucket and a sponge from underneath the sink “—but if we leave this, the ants’ll have a field day.”

      And the fizzies inside Alek’s brain deflated enough for him to realize what he’d done. But until he figured out how to gracefully extricate himself from his own idiocy, he took the now-filled bucket from Luanne and started cleaning the refrigerator.

      “Now, that is amazing,” she said behind him.

      “What is?”

      “I do not believe I have ever seen a man clean anything that didn’t have an engine and wheels.”

      Their eyes met for an instant before she grabbed another sponge from below the sink and started in on the lower cabinets, which the dog was precleaning for her. For several seconds Alek just watched her, listening to her chatter to the dog, whose tail was going as fast as his tongue. Perhaps sensing she was being observed, she twisted to look up at him, her smile fading when she caught his expression. On a heavy sigh, she sat back on her heels, staring at the cabinet in front of her. “Don’t say it.”

      He dropped the sponge into the pail and squatted beside her, brushing an errant curl off her face, wondering if she had any idea how potent her innocence was. “You can’t really think our sleeping together is a good idea?”

      Her mouth quirked into a shaky grin. “Was it something I sprayed?”

      He laughed in spite of the heaviness gnawing at him. “Hardly. But you’re just not the type of woman I usually—”

      Her head jerked around, hurt flaring in her eyes. Alek swiped his damp hand on his jeans, then cupped her face in his hands, linking their gazes. The scent of her, the feel of her, winnowed past barriers he’d long thought impenetrable, soothing and exhilarating and terrifying him all at once. “That’s not what I meant,” he said in a fierce whisper. “You’re worth a dozen of those other women, do you know that?”

      Amusement flickered across her face. “A dozen? My, my…you do get around, don’t you?”

      “I wasn’t bragging.”

      She jerked out of his grasp, blinking rapidly as she looked away. “But you don’t want me, either.”

      Again his hand sought out her face, his eyes, hers. “If anything, I’m saying no because I do want you. But you deserve something better. Something real.”

      Her expression at once guileless and provocative, she stared at him for several moments, then got up to wring out her sponge. Alek rose, as well, feeling more than a little lost.

      After tossing the sponge onto the back of the sink, Luanne braced her hands against it. “Did you not hear a thing I said outside, Alek? I am not looking for permanent. In fact, I don’t want it, not now, and especially not with anyone from around here. But it’s not like I can just…” Color flooded her cheeks. “Shoot, between my background, living out here all by myself and working at Ed’s…well, thank you for your compliment, but to most folks, I’m just plain old trailer trash, the daughter of a wife-beating drunk and a uneducated waitress. So I’ve sort of made it a mission of mine not to live up to their expectations, you know? But Lord Almighty,” she said quietly, “it’s been a long time since anyone’s held me.”

      Alek stilled, as an unnamed monster suddenly loomed up out of that void inside him, one he’d desperately tried to stay one step ahead of his entire life. In the distance, thunder rumbled. Luanne looked toward the window. “Another storm’s coming…” The words seemed to catch in her throat; he could see unshed tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. And he wondered just what it had cost that staunch little pride of hers to ask of him what she just had?

      And with that thought, he was lost.

      “Are you really sure you want your first time to be with a stranger?”

      Her gaze whipped to his. “Don’t tease me,” she whispered.

      He took a step toward her, close enough to skim a knuckle down her cheek, keeping her gaze hooked in his as the caress continued southward. Her breathing quickened as his fingers danced over her throat, her collarbone, the sweet swell of one breast. “I’m not,” he whispered back, willing the beast back into its hiding place. Willing himself not to look at it.

      “Well, then.” Pupils already dilated, her eyes bored into his. “You have shown more concern for my feelings in the past few hours than all the men I have ever known put together. So I’m willing to take a chance that your considerateness and attention to detail extends past the bedroom door.”

      On a sigh that was equal parts longing and frustration, he gathered her into his arms, burying his face in her still-damp hair as a thousand thoughts darted this way and that inside his head like a school of fish, pros and cons and maybes and a good many are-you-out-of-your-minds all but pulverizing what little remained of his resolve. He lifted a hand to her face, stroking one finger down her sticky, child-soft cheek, wondering even then if she was a blessing or a curse. Or whether he really cared which.

      Rain began thrumming against the trailer’s roof as he lowered his mouth to hers, his conscience all but drowning in a wave of need….

      Chase’s yelling something at the pup shook him out of his reverie. And not a moment too soon, Alek decided on a strained sigh, creaking open the door. Luanne turned, her expression unreadable as she watched him walk out onto the back porch. The sun bit into his bare shoulders; his gaze drifted first to his shirt, quivering on a clothesline in the airless breeze, only to dart to Luanne’s swollen middle—a brittle reminder that the child she now carried was Jeff’s, not his. Which alone should have been sufficient to halt the memories.

      But like lovemaking carried to the point of no return, images of that one night slipped past the brink of his tenuous control and now pulsated through him—images of soft sighs and uninhibited laughter, of a pair of blue eyes wide with startled delight, of soul-searing cries of fulfillment.

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