At Her Beck and Call

“Leave them there. You’re fine. I’m fine. It’s okay.” But she was aware that her heart was still pounding from the kiss. “We should head back. I need sleep to impress my new boss tomorrow.”

“Ouch.” He grimaced.

She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t do that. I wanted you to kiss me.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” But he was right to stop. She had an internship to focus on. She needed her feet planted firmly on the shore, not flailing around in the deep end of an unpredictable sea.

They were quiet for the short drive. Through the sunroof Autumn watched the moon follow them home. Now and then she turned to smile reassuringly at Mike. No harm done.

Back in town, Mike parked beside her car in the high school parking lot and helped her out, hanging on to her hand for a few extra seconds. “I’ll see you in the morning?” His eyes held regret. He’d wanted more. Good. It was no fun wishing for more all alone.

“Bright and early. You bet.”

“Not early. You’ll upset Evelyn. She’ll think you’re trying to show her up.”

“Okay. On time then.” She looked around the quiet streets. There were no cars moving and barely any lights—just a few security bulbs inside business and the tall lights in the school lot where they stood. “I guess it’s good no one’s around,” she said. “Being out alone so late together…talk about starting gossip.”

“Yeah.” He smiled ruefully, then looked past her and his smile fell away. “Speaking of which…that’s my brother’s car.”

She turned and saw something move across the rear window of the Acura sedan—an arm, then a head. A familiar head. Jasmine and Mark were making out in the backseat. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow,” he said grimly.

They’d been so crazed they couldn’t make it to a house. What would that be like? Thrilling and scary, like the deep end of the pool she’d nearly slipped into with Mike.

I want that. She felt it so fiercely she had to brace herself against her bumper.

“So do we leave them here?” Mike asked.

“If someone else sees, they’d be mortified.”

“Yeah.” Mike sighed. “I’ll send them home. Unless you think you can sleep through that?” He nodded at the rocking car.

“If I have to, I could.”

“I know what you mean.” His eyes held heat. He didn’t want to have to listen to Mark and Jasmine doing what they wanted to be doing any more than she did.

“Got a coin?” she asked him.

“Huh?” He fished out a quarter.

“You flip and I’ll call.”

He smiled, braced it on his thumb and tossed it upward.

“Heads,” she said, and they held each other’s gaze while the quarter flew and spun up, then down.

Mike caught it without looking and slapped it onto the back of his hand. Tails shone up at them. “Looks like I’m the lucky one.”

“Sorry.”

“Get some sleep.” He touched her cheek, looking bewildered. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Oh, I do.” It was lust, pure and simple, stoked by the hours together, how comfortable they’d been, everything they’d shared. They’d slipped easily into a teasing flirtation and just gone too far. “Blame it on the desert, the night, the stars. Hell, blame it on golf.”

“If you say so.” He backed away, still watching her, then raised a hand in farewell before turning to lope to the car to tell the couple where they would be banging the headboard.

She stood for a second, trying to shake off the spell. Out there at the resort, she’d forgotten who she was, what she wanted, everything but the warm man whose lips were on hers.

She realized she wasn’t scared to go to work now.

Which caused a cold thought to trickle through her brain. What if the flirtation had been about the job? What if she’d worked the physical attraction because the mental challenge scared her? After all, if her boss was attracted to her, he’d have to keep her on. Had that been her unconscious trick? It was second nature to use sex appeal to get what she wanted.

But that was unacceptable. The new Autumn was better than that. Smarter, too. And tomorrow she’d prove it.

5

AFTER A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, Mike’s brain was full of white noise and his eyelids felt coated with sandpaper. At first Mark and Jasmine kept him awake, going at it as though they’d invented the act. A down pillow over his head hadn’t blocked the moans and shrieks and thuds.

But after that it was all about Autumn. He’d enjoyed her company so much. The hours had flown by, which was odd, since he usually tracked every tick of time.

Then he’d lost all sense and kissed her.

He was her employer, for God’s sake. Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d hired her out of guilt over ogling her? He had no idea whether she could even do the job. References notwithstanding, she was a student and Lydia’s system was not simple.

He’d hired her anyway. And then he’d kissed her.

Talking with her, laughing, teasing her, he’d realized how lonely he’d been, as empty and lost as that deserted resort. Standing there under a starry sky, he’d wanted to taste her, hold her, sink deep into her lush body.

What was his problem? He’d had plenty of feminine company over the past six months. He’d dated four women and slept with two. Attractive, intelligent, professional women.

He’d enjoyed them.

But he didn’t long for them.

Autumn Beshkin was the kind of woman a man craved. He’d always wanted that.

Something about her…an air of mystery and secret depths, a knowing cynicism with an edge of hope. She reminded him of the season she’d been named for, with its changing light, golden moon, crisp air and nature splashing the trees gold, rust and red. Autumn.

Hell, she’d turned him into a poet.

He couldn’t believe he’d told her he wanted to be a pilot. She’d been so eager about her new life that he’d flashed on the road not taken, the things he’d pushed down, shrugged off, ignored. Her excitement made him grin, made him kiss her.

It was crazy. Chemistry. As fleeting as sparks from a campfire. What he wanted was a relationship, making a life with someone, working through problems, setting goals and achieving them. At thirty-five, he was too old to think with his parts.

Still, there was something about Autumn. She was smart and funny and original, of course, but something else got to him—the way she came on strong, chin up. One tough cookie who expected to elbow her way to what she’d earned, by God, as if she didn’t dare hope for things to work out. Which hit him in the heart, made him want to bulldoze a clear path for her. Made him want to make her happy.