Hot & Bothered

It didn’t exactly thrill her that her first reaction was a sheer, fierce pleasure in knowing he’d been as affected as she. But she’d put sex behind her over the years, had assured herself that she was beyond all that—at least for the time being. The few times she’d actually stopped and thought about it long enough to realize she didn’t even particularly miss it, she’d simply assumed it was because she was too busy with motherhood and making a living. Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, she’d always believed she’d one day introduce it back into her life. Only she never had, and it horrified her to realize now that the reason she’d rarely been tempted by the men she’d dated was because none of them had been him.

Considering she had serious doubts he’d been similarly celibate, his admitting she’d left an impression seemed the least he could do.

She pushed his unexpected revelation aside until she could analyze it more closely at a later, less befuddled time. Giving the shirttails knotted at her waist a tug, she cleared her throat. “We seem to have retained the chemistry, all right,” she agreed, pleased to hear her voice emerge with commendable coolness, considering she felt like one huge, hot, frazzled nerve ending. The only sign she could see that he might feel the same was the hot color burning high on his cheekbones. “So where do you propose we go from here?”

“To our respective corners, where we keep it nice and professional.”

Victoria wondered how that would work with Esme part of the equation, but she gave him a curt nod. Because he was right. Sex was the last thing they needed clouding an already volatile and confusing situation. Keep the physicality out of the picture and they could figure out the rest as they went along. “Great,” she said with frigid composure. “Fine. Works for me.”

She caught him eyeing her legs again, but he yanked his gaze up and lanced her with the blank-eyed military stare. “Yeah. Dandy,” he agreed. “That’s what we’ll do then.”

GOOD GOING THERE, Ace. John stalked back toward the house with angry, long-legged strides. What are you, a fucking moron?

Tori had always been different from any other woman he’d ever known. Right from the beginning she’d been different, and he should have known better than to get within kissing range of her again.

Most people had a milestone or two in their lives, he imagined. One of his had been the day he’d discovered his dick was more generously proportioned than the average guy’s. Up until then, he’d merely been that skin-and-bones sorry-ass kid of Frank Miglionni, the U.S. Navy’s biggest screw-up. Life with the old man after his mom died in a boating accident had been a series of fleabag apartments outside one base or another, because decent housing on base simply offered too many opportunities for Frank to start feuds with the neighbors. It had been living alone when Frank was in the brig, and being waled on when the old man was home and there wasn’t anyone else around to afford him a more interesting challenge.

Then one day shortly after puberty’s onset, John had started yet another new school in yet another new town. And when he’d dropped his pants in the locker room after gym class, half the guys there had stopped what they were doing to offer up variations of the universally deferential holy shit, dude. It was his first taste of respect, and had made him hunger for more. In that moment, he’d grabbed hold of the new identity they offered as if it were a lifeline.

Then he’d learned there were females out there just waiting for a guy with the kind of equipment he possessed, and that was all she wrote. No one had to tell him twice that his cock size was his identity. First girls and then women admitted him into a whole new world of sex, one involving so much more than just his own fist and a raft of sweaty fantasies. It was the closest thing he’d ever found to a religious experience, and once discovered, he was its most faithful disciple. His new goal became pleasuring as many women as he could lay his hands on, and regaling his buddies afterward was just part and parcel of the process. One it never occurred to him to question.

Until he met Tori.

He’d known the moment they met that she was totally different from the Marine groupies he usually encountered. But he sure as hell hadn’t anticipated the way she would affect him. He’d just blithely laid down the same rules and set the same parameters he always had, never dreaming she’d effect the biggest change in his life since that first milestone. But something about her made him realize he was more than the missile behind his fly that had garnered him the handle Rocket by his Marine buddies. And the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of anyone discussing her the way he had discussed so many others altered forever his ability to share the details of his sexual encounters with his friends.

“Hello, Mr. M.”

The soft-voiced greeting jerked him out of remembrances of sun-drenched days and hot steamy nights. Brought him back from a time when killer sex shouldn’t have seemed brand-new, yet somehow had—mixed up as it had been with emotions he’d never before experienced. He had to blink before he could focus on the housekeeper and was startled to realize she was only a foot or two shy of crossing his path as she headed for the staircase, carrying a stack of fluffy bath sheets in her arms.