Jennifer Greene - Irresistible Stranger

“You are, Lily. But I hate the idea of you doing this alone. And what about this man you mentioned?”

Lily heard her brother-in-law’s voice in the background, and figured she’d interrupted enough. “Cate, I’ll talk to you in another couple days, promise. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. Give Harm a big hug from me. Love you.”

She switched off her cell, thinking she’d prowl around Griff’s place one last time, make sure all the doors were locked, make sure he was sleeping, make one more run to the bathroom.

That was the plan. But the last thing she remembered was snuggling just a moment longer in the blanket. It wasn’t as good as Griff’s arms around her, but thinking about Griff set off a chain reaction of dreams.

Griff awoke with his heart pounding, the threatening smell and heat of fire invading nightmare after nightmare. Immediately, of course, he was fine. His bedroom was familiar, dark and cool and safe. And his bed damned lonely.

He vaguely remembered Lily bossing him around, bullying him into the shower, absconding with his clothes, ordering him into bed. He couldn’t recall ever being so offended…male-ego offended. The bossiness had charmed him. But then, she didn’t even seem to notice when he was naked in the shower, and later tucked the covers around his neck as if he were a boy instead of the sexiest man she'd ever seen in her life.

It was enough-almost-to destroy a guy’s confidence.

The bedside digital claimed it was 3:00 a.m. He’d only slept two hours, was still groggy with exhaustion. Still, he pushed off the covers, swung his feet to the floor. First thing in the morning, he needed to devote 100% effort to the fire and all the fire’s complications. But right now there wasn’t a prayer he could get any further rest without knowing where Lily was.

She could have gone home of course, just taken his car. That would have been a no-sweat. And when he checked the spare bedroom, the couches, and didn’t find her, he thought she’d had the brains to do that-but no. The bunched-up blanket in his favorite recliner had a body swallowed in it. He had no idea how she’d managed to curl herself into that small a ball-much less how she’d escaped being smothered.

When he peeled back the edge of the blanket, he found the gleam of her dark hair in the moonlight. But she didn’t awaken. He scooped her up, blanket and all. That didn’t awaken her either. Her cheek nuzzled against his shoulder, as if she’d been sleeping against him her whole life.

Halfway through the hall, he almost tripped because part of the blanket slipped, tangled with his bare foot. But he managed to compensate, pushed against a wall-none of that commotion woke her either-and finally made it to the bed.

He dropped her on his side, his pillow, and when the last of the blanket slipped away, realized she was still wearing clothes. He hesitated. This wasn’t about seduction, it was about…something else. Showing her that he didn’t need taking care of. Showing her that he could take care of her. Or something like that. Still, sleeping in clothes seemed bulky and uncomfortable. So he pulled off her knee-length shorts-or pants-or whatever they were. Then he re-covered her, and finally sank onto the other side of the bed, and discovered the strangest thing.

His body went bone hard the minute his skin touched hers-that was neither a surprise nor remotely strange. But somehow, just the act of wrapping his arms around her, her just being there with him, felt crazily, insanely right. In spite of the fire and all the troubling questions threatened by that attack of arson, he was able to forget it, really close his eyes this time, and zone out completely.

Lily woke to the soak of sunlight on her closed eyelids, her body all cuddled in a nest-warm cocoon-and the erotic, rhythmic stroke of a thumb on her shoulder.

A man’s thumb.

Her eyes popped open. In her immediate vision was a bunched-up blanket, a shoe twice her size, a shirt she could have used for a tent and a wide window overlooking a steep, green hillside. Only strips of sunlight made it through the tangled thatch of trees, but the verdant spice of pine scented everything. A bird suddenly landed on the windowsill-gorgeous, bright blue in color, an indigo bunting, she was pretty sure. It cocked its head, looked at her as if to say, “what on earth are you doing in his bed, you crazy woman?”

And still, that thumb kept stroking.

She knew perfectly well where she was. Griff’s. But she could have sworn she’d fallen asleep in his living room chair. A thousand unexpected sensations all seemed to require her immediate analysis. His bristly chest hair against her back. The weight of his hand. The width of his hips, spooning against her bottom. The hardness of his erection. The size of his erection. The throbbing warmth of his erection.

She strongly suspected that she wasn’t the only one awake. Not that she was willing to turn around and face him yet.

“I have to think up a strategy,” she murmured, and he picked it up as if they were in the middle of a conversation.

“For how you’re going to go back to the B and B?”

“Exactly. If I were back in Virginia, it wouldn’t matter. I’m an adult. Everyone around me is adult. But here…Louella’s going to grill me as if I were ten years old, the instant I walk in the door. Being absent for a night is one thing, but if I also walk in wearing yesterday’s clothes…” She lifted the sheet. “Uh-oh. I seem to be to be missing some of yesterday’s clothes. Something happened to my capris.”

“I was helping you.” Griff’s voice was still husky with sleep.

“Uh-huh. I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Lily.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t say that to all the girls. In fact, there’s a giant list of things that I plan to say and do with you. That I’ve never considered doing with anyone else.”

Talk about a way to melt a girl. Griff’s Secret, she thought, wasn’t just an ice-cream flavor. It was this ingredient in him, a secret, insidious factor, that annihilated defenses and seduced a heart without half-trying. She turned in his arms, well aware they were suddenly breast to chest, tummy to tummy, danger zone teasingly rubbing against danger zone.

“Hey,” she murmured worriedly. “Where’s that kind of talk coming from?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you’re scaring me. I barely know you.”

“That’s supposed to be my line. I’m the girl, remember? I’m the one at risk if I fall in love with a guy who’s reported to have no settle-down or responsible genes in his entire DNA.”

“That’s me,” he admitted. “If I were you, I wouldn’t get involved with me either. I’ve never had a committed relationship in my life. Never bought a ring or shopped for one. Never had the energy or ambition to.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake. He’d been selling that snake oil since she met him. Being only a pinch away made it easy enough to…well, to shut him up. It was as simple as laying her lips against his.

On his.

With his.

Yearning shot through her bloodstream like a silky streak of surprise, crazy strong, achey wild. He tasted so good. He tasted like everything she’d been forbidden, everything she’d secretly dreamed of.

His tongue dove inside her mouth, combined tastes and textures, at the same time his knee eased between her legs. His hands swept her body-up, down, roaming, igniting the slope of her spine, her fanny, back up…

She twisted in his arms, not kissing him back-more-feeling inhaled. Taken in. Taken under. She’d liked kissing him before. She’d liked his touch. She’d liked that electric sensation of risk and desire, the rush of need and want. But this was different.

Recklessness. She’d never tasted it before. Heat. She’d never suffered from it before, not like this. She’d been afraid of fire her entire life-but somehow not with him.

Not this kind of fire.

She opened her eyes, saw his-dark, intent now, not playing. He looked at her as if she was the only woman he’d ever wanted, the only woman he’d ever needed. The hunger in his touch, his eyes, his mouth, was more than sexual. It was about loneliness. Gut loneliness. The kind where you knew there was no one else who could accept you, all of you, who could know you, all the way inside, and still want to be there.

She didn’t do fantasies like that. Ever.

But with him… Her breath caught when his palm found her breast, cupped, then squeezed. Her hand slid down his side, down his bare hip, knuckled inside, to cup where he was hard and hot. She squeezed.

“Okay,” he hissed. “You’re in real trouble now.”

His head disappeared under the covers. She didn’t quite remember when she’d lost her shirt, but her bra was still on, all a tangle, straps around her arms, cups pushed away. He got rid of it altogether, started sampling slopes and valleys of skin, found freckles between her breasts, found each nipple, analyzed each thoroughly with his tongue-until she was gasping for breath, and her legs reflexively clenching. He roamed down her tummy, found her navel and appendix scar…

“Hey,” she whispered. “Maybe…hold on there. Just for a second. Maybe…wait. Maybe I need to think about this.”

“No.”

“No? Huh? You can’t say no. If you vote no, we stop. If I vote no, we stop. Those are the rules.”

“Now, Lily, trust me. I know the rules. Come on, though. Give me a chance to be a hero. I’m in the striving class. Don’t know what I’m doing. You could help me learn. You could give me an achievement badge if I’m good. Or a whack upside the head if I goof this up. See? No risk.”

She almost laughed at his words. Only, Griff wasn’t a fledgling, and he knew-awesomely, brilliantly, inventively-exactly what he was doing. She didn’t. Oxygen locked in her lungs when he dipped lower, scooped her legs in his arms, and sampled tastes and textures with his whiskery cheek and his lips and his tongue.