After walking through the entire house and making notes of all the repairs that needed to be done, Tess and Morgan finally ended up in her bedroom, and with Morgan standing close beside her she was swamped with instantaneous awareness and provocative memories of the times the two of them had made love on her bed. Her mind conjured up the way they’d looked together, with her legs wrapped tight around his hips, her fingers digging into the muscled flesh along his back, and her body eager and straining beneath the heat and hardness of his.
She cleared her throat before one of those tell-tale groans could escape and give Morgan too much insight to her lustful thoughts, and walked to the bedroom window. She unlatched it and gave it a tug, but it wouldn’t budge.
She released a frustrated sigh. “This window is stuck and won’t open, no matter how hard I try. It would be nice to get it to work again so I can have some fresh air at night.”
He tossed his clipboard on the bed before coming up next to her and giving it a hard, upward jerk. With a crackling, peeling sound the wooden casing came loose and separated from the frame, allowing the window to open about a foot and a half before it came to a stop again.
She rolled her eyes. It figured he’d be able to open it so effortlessly after she’d been struggling for days to do it on her own. “I guess those muscles of yours come in handy after all, don’t they?”
He just laughed as he examined the tracking along the sides of the window. “It looks like the wood around the frame swelled from dampness and rain and not being used often enough. A bit of shaving and resealing along the edges ought to make it as good as new.”
He leaned out the window to check the condition of the outer frame, and when he came back inside he was chuckling.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, unable to figure out what he’d found so entertaining.
He shook his head, though there was a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Nothing.”
She didn’t believe him. “It was obviously something.”
He propped his hands on his waist and hesitated a moment before sharing whatever had amused him. “Remember the time we ditched school and spent the day up here in your room?”
A quiver surged through her. Oh, yeah, she remembered vividly. With her Grandmother spending the day shopping in Atlanta with a friend, it had been an afternoon indulging in sexual decadence and forbidden pleasures for her and Morgan.
Still, she didn’t get the joke. “And you find that memory funny?”
“No, I find it damn arousing,” he said, his drawl deep and rich and seductive. “But what we did up here together wasn’t what I was laughing at. I was thinking about how your grandmother came home earlier than you’d expected and when we heard her calling your name from downstairs you completely panicked.”
Her eyes widened as the recollection poured through her mind, thrusting her back into the past. Fearful of what would happen if her Grandmother found her and Morgan together, she’d pushed him out of her bed, whispering frantically for him to put his clothes on and go while she’d tossed on her own blouse and shorts. But the only way out of the room without getting caught was the window, and they both knew that was the exit he’d have to take.
When her grandmother’s voice echoed up the stairway, Tess had pushed a half-dressed Morgan toward the window and shoved him out, hoping to God that he’d be able to use the trellis along the side of the house to help him get down to the ground safely.
But that hadn’t happened at all.
A giggle bubbled up into her throat, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to keep it contained.
“Go ahead and laugh.” His eyes danced with the same humor tickling through her. “You didn’t even give me the chance to get my pants up around my hips before you were jamming me through the window as fast as you could. So, with my bare ass half hanging out of my jeans, I lost my grip and fell into the flower bed and nearly broke my neck.”
She was laughing now, a deep throated chuckle that matched his. The whole scenario was hysterically funny now, but at the time she remembered the horror of watching him fall two stories down. He’d landed on his side, crawled out of the flower bed, and with a grimace of pain he’d waved at her that he was okay before fleeing the back way toward his parent’s house.
As for her, she’d had just enough time to grab a school math book, plop herself back onto her bed, and pretend that she’d fallen asleep while doing homework before her grandmother had opened the door to her room to check on her.
Once her mirth subsided, she wiped the moisture from her eyes. “Oh, God, Morgan, what were we thinking to take that chance fooling around up here that day?”
“I don’t think either of us were thinking.” Lifting his hand, he gently brushed the tips of his fingers along her smooth cheek, then cradled the side of her face in his large palm. “We were feeling, all kinds of good stuff, and we lost track of time.”
All traces of laughter and amusement between them faded at that moment. Her face warmed beneath his touch, and she felt herself falling, spiraling straight into the kind of desire and need she hadn’t felt in so, so long.
His gaze locked on hers, and she watched, fascinated, as his eyes darkened and turned to slate. She knew that hot, sexy look of his that reminded her of a male alpha wolf on the prowl. Remembered it well. And it obviously still had the power to delight and excite her.
“Morgan, what are you doing?” Her voice was a croak of sound.
“I believe I’m about to mix business with a little pleasure.” His thumb skimmed across her bottom lip, tugging it open ever-so-slightly. “The moment I saw you in my workshop yesterday I wanted to kiss you, and since we’ll be working so closely together and I’m constantly distracted by thoughts of kissing you, I figure we might as well get it out of the way now.” He stepped closer, bringing with him an earthly, elemental scent that made her dizzy with wanting him. “Do you have a problem with that, sweetheart?”
Her mind told her to tell him yes, she had a huge problem with him putting his lips on hers, because she knew how lost she’d be once he did so. Their business deal didn’t include the kind of pleasure his eyes were promising, but she had intimate knowledge of just how well this man could kiss.
Slow and thorough, and just wet enough to electrify every one of her feminine senses.
Soft, deeply erotic kisses that gradually escalated into a fierce and urgent hunger.
His irresistible kisses had been the ones she’d judged all others by -- and found each one lacking in comparison.
Her heart beat erratically in her chest. Her breathing deepened, and she had to swallow hard to speak. “No, I don’t have a problem with that. Not at all.”
“Good,” he said, and finally lowered his mouth to hers.
