“Why am I like this?” I asked, pulling back slightly, feeling like my brain was made of mush. Sexy, sexy mush.
“It’s just lust, darlin’. Now, come on.”
I frowned at that, that couldn’t be it. I had plenty of experience with lust before, and it was nothing like this.
“Wow, this place is beautiful!” I said as we pulled off a dirt track and drove down a wildflower covered slope. Down the bottom, I could see there was a large rock outcropping, a waterfall and a pool of crystal-clear water.
“Milady,” Shaun said, opening the SUV door with a flourish and offering me an arm. He held an honest to goodness picnic basket in the other. Buddy bounded out unassisted, immediately taking off to sniff around, and we followed at a more leisurely pace. We stopped just before the bank of the waterfall, Shaun flicking out a checkered blanket for us to sit on.
“You’ve got great attention to detail,” I said.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said, pulling out a bottle of white wine. I admit I was more transfixed by his strong hands popping the cork than anything, but I took the brimming glass he poured me, grateful to have something for my hands to do.
Seriously, this place was turning me into a basket case. I felt like I’d run the whole emotional gamut today, from happy to horny, to freaked out to paranoid. And right now? I watched Shaun recline on the blanket, the buttons of his wash worn shirt straining across his chest, his jeans shifting to show just how well he filled them.
“So, what’s your pleasure?” Shaun asked.
“Sorry?” My eyes jerked up to his face, only to realise he was talking about food. He seemed to note my distracted state, smiling to himself, but pulling out the various delicacies he’d been able to scrounge up and spreading them out on the blanket. “Buddy!” I said when he came over at a run, stopping at the edge, sitting and drooling.
“I come prepared,” Shaun said, and pulled out a big meaty bone covered in cling film. He peeled it off, Buddy watching him with rapt attention, and then tossed it away in the grass.
“You really have thought of everything,” I said. Those cool blue eyes flicked up to meet mine, holding my gaze steady until they dropped down to my mouth and lower.
“Here’s hoping.”
I clenched my teeth, not wanting to dash my drink to the ground and give in to the siren’s call of his husky voice, and I didn’t know why. If he’d walked into the diner, even if he was a jerk, I’d have slept with him if it was on the table. Maybe that was part of the problem, guys who looked like him usually ignored me, and I couldn’t help but feel weird that that wasn’t the case here.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked, probably wondering why I was being such a bloody freak.
I sat up straight and placed the glass on the ground and took a deep breath. “I’m thinking you’re too pretty for me, and that the only reason you’d look at me twice is because you live in a place with no women.” His eyes went wide, seeming to study mine, as if looking for confirmation I was serious. Then when this was confirmed non-verbally, he burst out laughing. I guess I have been punked, I thought. I got to my feet in a rush, wanting to put some distance between us before my face went from red to neon scarlet. I got one step away before he caught me around the knees, yanking me down to fall heavily beside him. I growled in response, clambering to get free, but he covered my body with his much heavier one, pinning me down.
“Get off me!” I snapped.
“So you can take off, thinking that this is some kind of pity fuck in the making? No fucking way. Jules! Jules! I’m fucking serious, calm down!”
I ended up on my back, his hips pressing mine down to the ground, my wrists held fast in his iron grip. I forced my eyes to stay on his chest as I panted, trying to catch my breath. Fuck he was strong! I didn’t want to look at him. If I didn’t meet his gaze, he’d eventually get tired of this, and then I could go home to bed, alone. I just had to wait him out. “Jules,” he said, seeming to cotton on to my evil plan. “Jules?” My name came out now as a low, almost plaintive plea. Not whiny, I don’t know if he could sound it with that raspy voice of his, just heartfelt somehow.
“Fuck it,” he said, jerking back. For a moment, I thought he was letting me go free. Instead, he fell back into a seated position, with me across his knees. I’m not short myself, but for some reason, I felt tiny right now. He let go of my wrists, his hands going to curl around me and tangle in my hair. “You don’t fucking know me, you’ve got nothing at stake here. Just talk to me, talk to me like I was a girlfriend or something.”
“If you were my girlfriend, I’d be gay as fuck,” I said with a grumble.
He laughed a little at that but seemed wary now, like it might set me off again. He rested his chin on the top of my head and curled his arms around me tighter. I should have felt caged in, trapped. Instead, I felt a kind of stillness settle over me. I was overreacting, I realised, and being a complete dick. This place, losing my job, everything had really thrown me for six. This was not how I’d thought my life would turn out, but it had, so what was I going to do about it?
“Jules, we’re guys. If you ever want to find out if a guy’s interested in you sexually, you don’t think there’s one simple way to check?”
“Yeah, but…”
“No buts. Relationships, whether a guy really likes you, that’s probably trickier, but attraction?” He pulled back to look down at me, and this time, I met his gaze for at least a moment. “I don’t know what the guys where you’re from see, but I can’t get past all this wild brown hair, this big beautiful smile and…” His eyes trailed down my body. “I better stop while I’m ahead.” He swallowed. “You fight like the devil.”
“Take off your shirt,” I said, starting to shift from his lap.
“What?”
“Take off your shirt. You guys are incredibly intimidating, maybe if I…”
“What? You want to…confront your fears?”
“Maybe. Take it off, if you want me to touch you, that is.” The buttons were undone at lightning speed, and he started to pull it off, pausing to look me over, as if he wasn’t totally sure this was all right. Finally, he pulled it off, and I took a swig from his wine glass when all was revealed. Well, shit. It was as bad as I thought.