The Tender Trap

“You’re right, I did agree for us to have the party here. I wanted today to be perfect. Joy is my best friend. Melissa is my goddaughter.” Blythe clenched her teeth, narrowed her eyes and glared at Adam. “And you knew exactly how much having everything go exactly as we had planned meant to me.”

“I figured you’d chew me out the minute we were alone,” he said. “Just because I made a few minor changes to expedite matters, to simplify them a bit—”

“A few minor changes, my foot!” Blythe slammed her index finger down against her open palm. “First of all, you didn’t use the caterer we had agreed to use.” Down came her finger again. “Second, you changed the color scheme I chose.” Smack. Her finger hitting her palm emphasized her aggravation. “Third—”

Adam threw up his hands in surrender. “Enough, woman! Enough.”

“More than enough!” Blythe closed her mouth tightly, hoping to prevent herself from saying something she’d really regret.

“Look, I run a multimillion-dollar construction firm and have a large staff at my disposal. You don’t. With your free time limited, I thought it more expedient to let my secretary handle the details of the christening party.”

Blythe threw the handful of used napkins she’d gathered straight at him, but they missed the target and fell silently to the floor. “There, that should give your housekeeper something to complain about. The caterers I wanted to use would have cleaned up everything!”

“Pearl never complains.” Adam grinned. “Unlike someone else I know who makes a habit of complaining.”

Damn, he thought, how that little ball of fire irritated him and yet amused him at the same time. Blythe reminded him of a scratching, spitting kitten who was always on the defensive, always protecting herself, always afraid of being hurt.

“Do you want an apology?” Adam asked, figuring she was the type who’d enjoy seeing a man grovel.

“What good would an apology do? Make you feel better? Well, it won’t change a thing. You bulldozed right over me, disregarding my wishes when you knew how important this day was to me.”

“I thought everything went beautifully,” he said.

“I suppose so. Everything went your way.” Huffing loudly, she crossed her arms over her chest.

He’d had no choice but to host this party with Blythe, since Joy was her best friend, but dammit, his gut instincts had told him the two of them could never work together. He had known some stubborn, hardheaded, independent women in his time—and avoided them like the plague—but Blythe Elliott took the cake. She was the most argumentative female he’d ever run across, and he’d spent two years keeping his distance. But heaven help him, it hadn’t been easy. Not when, despite everything, he wanted her—wanted her in his bed, crying out his name, begging him to pleasure her.

Crossing his arms behind his head, Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Every time he spent more than two minutes with Blythe, he found himself wanting to either strangle her or kiss her. He wasn’t sure which he wanted most. She had a chip on her shoulder when it came to him that he found hard to understand. He knew for a fact that she liked men, dated men and had men friends. But he was one man she didn’t like, and that bothered him greatly. As a matter of fact, it bothered him a lot more than it should.

Blythe seemed to disapprove of him with a passion, and he simply couldn’t figure out why. He’d never done anything to the woman. Hell, he’d given her a wide berth, staying out of her line of fire as much as possible, despite the fact that their best friends had married each other.

Opening his eyes, Adam sneaked a peek at Blythe and found her staring at him. “Look, I’m sorry if I upset you by slightly altering our plans. I honestly don’t think you should object to an improvement over—”

“Let’s just agree to disagree on this one.” Glowering at him, Blythe sucked in her cheeks and blew out an exasperated breath. “And we’d better change the subject before I really lose my temper.”

“Good idea.” Shaking his head, Adam closed his eyes again and tried to relax. He didn’t want to argue with Blythe, especially not today.

Blythe bent over, picked up the napkins she’d tossed at Adam and placed them on the end table. She decided she would be civil to him and end the day on as pleasant a note as possible.

“I thought it was wonderful that Joy and Craig christened my goddaughter, Melissa Blythe, after Joy’s grandmother and me.” Blythe hadn’t been able to keep herself from crying during the christening ceremony. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d been so touched.

“Well, you could hardly expect them to name her Adam Tobias Maximillian Wyatt.”

Blythe stared at Adam, trying hard to keep from smiling. The effort failed. “Good grief, is that really your name? Adam Tobias Maximillian Wyatt?”

Blythe burst into laughter. Groaning, Adam opened his eyes and stared at her. He shot out of his chair and playfully grabbed her by the shoulders. Smiling, he shook her gently. “I can’t believe I told you. Forget you ever heard that. Okay?”

She trembled with laughter, her body quivering beneath his fingertips. Damn, but she was tiny, her bones so very fragile. He doubted she weighed much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. She had to be a foot shorter than he was; the top of her head struck him midchest. If he kissed her, he’d have to pick her up to reach her mouth.

Hell, he couldn’t let himself think about kissing her. She was the last woman on earth he should want. But he did want—had wanted her from the first moment he’d seen her in a body-hugging purple dress that accentuated every curve of her petite body. He’d spent the whole night of Craig and Joy’s engagement party struggling to control his arousal.

The moment Adam touched her, Blythe gazed up into his dark eyes. He looked at her intensely. What was he thinking? If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he wanted to kiss her.

Dropping his hands from Blythe’s shoulders, Adam took a step backward. Blythe sucked in a deep breath. A loud rumble of thunder shattered the uneasy silence. A zigzag of ragged lightning ripped through the cloudy, gray evening sky.

“I guess I’d better get going since you don’t need me to hang around and help you clean up.” Blythe backed away from Adam, bumping into the edge of an end table.

Heavy drops of rain hit the patio. The wind blew the dampness inside through the open doors. Turning quickly, Adam rushed to shut out the rain.

“You might want to wait around until this summer storm passes,” he said. “It probably won’t last long. They never do.”

She didn’t want to stay. Not one minute longer. Not alone with Adam Wyatt. She knew his reputation with women. Every time she saw him, he had a different voluptuous beauty on his arm.

So what are you worried about, Blythe? she asked herself. Adam Wyatt wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. You’re hardly his type any more than he’s yours. He likes tall, big-boobed, helpless, brainless lovelies who simper and gush and cling to him like ivy to a brick wall.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Blythe said. “No use getting soaked.” She sat down on the leather sofa, perching her petite body tensely on the edge.

“Want something to drink?” he asked, eyeing the bar. “I could use something stronger than champagne myself.”

“Nothing for me. Thanks.” Blythe glanced outside. The rain poured from the sky. Suddenly the world shook with thunder. She gasped, her body trembling involuntarily.

“Are you afraid of storms?” Adam chuckled as he rounded the bar and lifted a bottle of bourbon from a low shelf.

“No. Not really. I just don’t like than.”

She hated storms, but that fact was none of Adam’s business. Being afraid of thunder and lightning could be seen as a weakness, a female weakness. Her stepfather had made fun of her mother’s fear of storms, telling her what a silly woman she was and what a good thing it was that he was around to take care of her since she couldn’t take care of herself.

Raymond Harold had been a big, handsome man, totally masculine in every way. He had taught Blythe never to trust men, especially big, macho men who liked to take care of women. She’d watched her lovely, kind, intelligent mother dominated and manipulated. No man would ever subjugate her. No man would ever turn her into “the little woman” and convince her she wasn’t capable of making her own decisions.

Adam carried his glass of bourbon with him, sat down on the sofa beside Blythe and took a sip of the mellow liquor. She scooted as far away from him as she could without getting up.

“What do you think I’m going to do, jump on you?” He sloshed the bourbon around inside the glass, then took a hefty swallow, shaking his head and blowing when the liquid blazed a trail down his throat and into his stomach.

“I understand you have that sort of reputation.” Blythe glared at him, issuing him a challenge without realizing what she was doing.

Adam set his drink down on the glass-and-brass coffee table, then turned to face Blythe, laying his hand across the back of the sofa and lifting his right knee onto the cushion. “Ms. Elliott, you don’t have a thing to worry about. When I take a woman, I want her to be just that—a woman. And I want her willing. No, I want her more than willing. I want her begging for it.”

Blythe cursed the blush she felt spreading up her neck and onto her face. She was supposed to be a woman of the world, dammit. She had dated practically every unattached man in north Alabama, and found them all lacking in one way or another. None of the guys she dated wanted to admit that he’d been the first one she had refused to sleep with, so no one, except Joy, knew that Blythe Alana Elliott was a twenty-eight-year-old virgin.

Clutching the thickly padded sofa arm with her hand, Blythe looked at Adam. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Joy chose you to be Melissa’s godfather. If anything were to happen to Joy and Craig, you’d make the worst possible father substitute in the world.”

“And you’d make a great mother, I suppose?”

“I’d certainly try to be a good mother.” Blythe’s sculptured lavender nails bit into the leather as she squeezed the sofa arm tightly. “Since I’m not married, I can’t say that motherhood is something I’ve thought about very much... until Joy got pregnant. I adore Missy. She’d never want for love and attention from me.”

“Well, believe me, I haven’t given fatherhood a thought since my divorce, but if that little girl ever needed me, I’d be there for her.”

“No little girl should be raised by a man like you!” Blythe jumped up off the couch, intending to go into the bedroom, where she’d deposited her purse when she’d arrived before the party started.