Kitabı oku: «Sexy, Single And Searching: Sexy, Single And Searching / Eager, Eligible And Alaskan», sayfa 3

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MACK STOOD BY the punch bowl glowering at Jake, who’d scooped Camryn out from under him. He glared while his best friend waltzed his dream woman around the dance floor.

No fair! He had seen her first. Had almost ran her down in fact, because he’d been studying her so hard.

He admired Camryn’s graceful movements. Enjoyed the way her dress swirled and flared around her legs. A bullet of jealousy shot through him when she cocked her head upward and smiled at something Jake said. He shouldn’t be jealous. He wasn’t much of a dancer himself. Let her have fun with someone who didn’t possess two left feet.

So why the burning sensation in his gut? Camryn’s hair fanned out, swirled behind her as she danced. Mack found himself enchanted by that twirling mane and he wasn’t the only one. He spied many covetous glances angling her way from the numerous single men lined against the wall.

She might be pretty but it really wasn’t enough. Not anymore. Secretly, he was terrified of making a grave mistake, of picking a woman too beautiful and delicate to survive in his homeland. That’s why he had the “wife” list.

Mack patted his breast pocket, then remembered he was wearing a tuxedo and had left his list at home. No matter. He knew the requirements by heart. His ideal woman would be brave, feisty, loyal, trustworthy, adventuresome, honest and intelligent. Just like his grandmother.

When Jake had seen his list, he’d retorted that what Mack wanted was a Boy Scout, not a wife. Mack had pondered on Jake’s comment for a few days, then added: a sense of humor, likes to snuggle and doesn’t mind being spoiled. He hadn’t shown that part of the list to Jake. A man could only take so much razzing from his friends.

He didn’t know if Camryn possessed all the qualities he needed or not. They’d shared a connection, a moment. Only getting to know her better would tell if their initial attraction was anything more than superficial sexual awareness. He didn’t have time to waste on meaningless affairs. Been there, done that.

He’d just turned thirty-one and while he’d never heard of men having biological clocks, damned if he didn’t hear this strange ticking in the back of his head.

He didn’t want to be an older single parent like his father. Pop had been forty-two when Mack was born and in a wheelchair with rheumatoid arthritis by the time Mack was thirteen. He wanted to have his kids while he was still young enough to pitch a baseball and hike a mountain and shoot a hockey puck. Mack had learned that experiencing life to the fullest was the only way to live. Because you just never knew what the future held.

Well, buddy, you won’t find out anything about Camryn standing here on the sidelines. Get out and get into the game.

The band switched tunes, going from a jazzy rock beat to a slow, dreamy waltz at the same moment Mack tapped his buddy on the shoulder.

“Do you mind?” he said to Jake, then to Camryn, “May I have this dance?”

Jake shrugged, nodded. Camryn smiled and held out her arms to him.

That’s what he liked most about her, the way she met his gaze head-on. Clear and straight, with nothing to hide. She didn’t act coy, nor did she present an overly aggressive demeanor like that grabby UNLV sorority sister. She was honest, open, flexible.

On the surface she seemed to be everything he’d been dreaming of when he placed that advertisement with his friends.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello.” Simple, direct, no game-playing.

Camryn pushed a tendril of hair from her face and tried her best not to drop her gaze. Mack looked unbelievably handsome in a tux.

Don’t be scared, she coached herself. You’ve got the treasured wish totem around your neck and you’re having the adventure of a lifetime.

She was no longer meek little Cammie Jo, but fearless Camryn Josephine, up for whatever life might throw her way. And she was loving her new self.

Mack took her in his arms. Oh yes! He was all brawn and muscle and sinewy male.

Being held like this was an eye-popping experience for her, startling and novel. His body heat, so incredibly thermal, slipped into her skin roasting her from the inside out. His smell clobbered her senses, left her addled with yearning. Oh, she was falling too fast, stumbling too quickly out of her element and her normal comfort zone.

Dazed, Cammie Jo just stared at him. Her brain had turned to banana pudding.

“I’m not a very good dancer,” he apologized. Oh baby, I don’t care.

Lucky for them both Aunt Kiki had once been a professional dance instructor, otherwise Cammie Jo wouldn’t have known a fox trot from a fox hole.

Then she realized Mack thought she was staring at him because he’d just crunched her toe, but honestly, she’d barely noticed. She was concentrating on those sultry eyes that smoldered with a banked sexuality.

“I might not be much of a hoofer,” Mack continued, and here his gaze roved downward to peruse her lower extremities with obvious appreciation. “But you’ve got legs just built for dancing.”

In the past, she would have blushed at his compliment but tonight she accepted his appraisal as a matter of course. By gum, she did have rather nice legs. It was about time someone noticed.

Don’t hide your light under a bushel. One of her mother’s favorite sayings sprang to mind. Even when she was little she recalled her mother worrying that she was too shy, too modest, too introverted by half, and she’d struggled hard to draw Cammie Jo from her shell.

“So,” he said. “What do you do for a living, Camryn?”

Should she tell him the truth? Would he be impressed or turned off by an academic? But she couldn’t lie even if she wanted to. She couldn’t think fast on her feet.

“I’m working on my Ph.D. in information science. And I teach undergraduate classes at the University of Texas.”

“Really? That surprises me.”

“Why? Do I look dumb?”

“No, no. Of course not. It’s just that information science seems like a profession that would attract an introvert, not a gregarious lady like yourself.”

“You think I’m gregarious?”

Oh lovely, Cammie Jo. Tip your hand on the first day.

“Sure. You’re so at ease in a crowd.”

She almost laughed out loud. No one had ever paid her that particular compliment.

Mack was studying her, his eyes hot. So hot her clothes stuck to her body. Everywhere his gaze landed she seemed to burst into flames as if he possessed a kind of libidinous pyrokinesis.

His gaze slid from her eyes to the bridge of her nose.

Ka-pow!

Her nose burned.

Hungrily, he examined her lips.

Ka-bang!

Her mouth became an inferno. Visually he caressed her jaw.

Ka-blewy!

Her chin was toast.

Wait a minute, where was he going with that naughty stare?

Ka-bam!

Her breasts erupted in sparks.

No, no, don’t go any lower. Please.

Ka-sizzle!

Her abdomen caught ablaze.

He raised his eyes to hers briefly, then with a devilish grin he dropped his gaze to the lowest point yet.

Her pelvis. Oh her pelvis!

Whoosh!

Backdraft.

The Yellowstone forest fires had nothing on what was raging down there. Help! Call 9-1-1. Get the fire department over here pronto. Camryn Josephine was in nuclear meltdown.

They were moving around the dance floor, albeit not in time to the music. They could have been handcuffed together in solitary confinement, so oblivious was Cammie Jo to any stimuli other than Mack’s dangerous eyes. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration should look into labeling those incandescent orbs with a high octane warning.

“Thirsty?” he asked when the band took a break.

She nodded, her insides nothing but vapor. No, not thirsty. Parched, scorched, desiccated.

“Let’s grab some punch, get some fresh air.”

“Sounds good,” she murmured and was shocked to hear her own voice come out as seductive and husky as a whiskey-voiced blues singer.

He wrangled them a couple of glasses of punch and a few cookies and steered Cammie Jo to the back door of the community center. When the heavy metal fire door clanged closed behind them, she took a deep breath and looked up at the sky, surprised to find it was still bright daylight despite being past nine o’clock at night.

Summer in Alaska.

Cammie Jo gazed at the mountains in the distance and nibbled on an almond cookie to collect herself. The breeze blew cool against her skin and that helped soothe her feverish thoughts, until Mack came to stand directly behind her.

She could feel his manly presence.

Felt his gaze drop onto her body, her hair, every darned where.

Talk about sensory overload. If she didn’t have the totem, Cammie Jo would have run for the safety of the B&B long ago. Heck, let’s be honest. She would never have left her room in the first place. She would be curled up on the bed sipping hot cocoa and watching old movies.

Bor-ing.

“Your punch,” he said and held out a cup.

She took it from him and their fingers brushed. She concentrated on sipping to keep from meeting his gaze once more. Her core body temperature had to be a hundred and ten. She didn’t think she could stand any more heat.

I’m brave. I’m strong. I’m courageous. Nothing but nothing scares me. Not even a man with Fourth of July rockets for eyes.

“You’re very beautiful,” Mack said, taking a step closer.

“Thank you.”

I simply will not blush and I won’t back up. I won’t! Camryn would be accustomed to receiving and deflecting advances from amorous admirers, but Cammie Jo was not.

“I suppose you hear that all the time.” She affected a ho-hum expression. “Not as much as you’d think.”

He took another step forward.

Her heart clattered like an aging engine on low-octane fuel.

“I’d like to get to know you better.”

Cammie Jo couldn’t help noticing the dimple carved in his cheek and the provocative twinkle in his eyes. Was he asking her out?

“Really,” she murmured.

“Yeah. I’ll admit it. Out of all the women who’ve shown up in Bear Creek over the last couple of weeks, you’re the only one who’s really raised my interest.”

“And why is that?”

He cocked his head and a sheaf of dark-brown hair shifted over his side part. “You’re something of a mystery, and I love solving puzzles.”

“Oh you do?” She couldn’t believe how easily she was flirting, how she was matching his stare without blinking or turning red as a boiled lobster. She took a bite of cookie, ran her tongue along her lips for effect.

“I do.” His eyes tracked the movement of her tongue.

“Well good for you.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not.”

“Where did you come from, Camryn Josephine?”

He raised a hand and for one jumpy moment she thought he might touch her, but instead he reached out to brace his palm against the side of the building and lean in toward her. His scent was pure heaven. He was close enough so that she could see just how long and lush his lashes were. They looked supple as sable and softened his direct, inquisitive eyes.

“Out of the blue.”

“I believe you,” he murmured. “You’re that unique.”

She’d never been in such an intimate position and she found she loved being close to this glorious representative of the male species.

“How are you when it comes to adventure?”

“How do you mean?”

“Do you like the outdoors? Are you game for mountain biking and kayaking and salmon fishing?” He waited, and it seemed, held his breath.

Goodness, what was the correct answer?

She thought of the ad, visualized the caption underneath the picture.

Wild Women Wanted.

Could she be wild enough for this man? She moistened her lips with her tongue, tasted the too-sweet flavor of strawberry-banana punch mingling with the almond of the cookie she’d just finished.

“I’ll take any adventure you can throw my way and eat it up with both hands.”

He hissed in his breath as if his mind had conjured some very wicked adventures indeed. “Anything?”

“Anything,” she declared, happy she had wondrous magic to help her keep that vow.

“Wait a minute.” Mack was suddenly looking at her real funny, staring at her mouth.

Uh-oh. Had he finally figured out she wasn’t really brazen Camryn, but shy Cammie Jo? A moment of fear licked through her before she remembered her wish.

Reaching out, he smoothed his thumb over the corner of her mouth.

Cammie Jo shivered. What was he doing?

“Cookie crumb,” he said.

“Oh.”

But the crumb was gone and he was still here, his face so very close to hers.

“Not so fast.” His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her flush against the length of his body.

Good thing there wasn’t a maximum speed limit for pulses. She’d be liable for the highest fine imaginable.

Then he lowered his head and took her mouth with his own.

She was in heaven. But when he pressed his tongue to her closed teeth, she jumped back startled.

Mack blinked. His initial thought was one of complete surprise. Camryn Josephine knew next to nothing about kissing. But how could that be? Surely this hot, sassy babe had kissed dozens of men, if not hundreds.

Maybe she’d given him the weird, platonic-but-not-quite kiss because she was uncertain of her feelings. Mack scratched his head and looked down at her.

She was such a cute little thing. All curves and dips, so different from his own hard, angular body.

The woman might not be clear on her feelings, but he was clear on his. He wanted to taste more of her, go deeper, explore. See if she could indeed be the woman he was searching for.

He hooked his index finger under her chin, lifted her face up to meet his again. He watched the pulse in her neck jump with anticipation. Slowly, he lowered his lips to that throbbing beat and kissed her exposed throat with the lightest touch he could manage, heightening the anticipation.

Her skin was hot and getting hotter by the minute. The more his tongue laved over her rapidly pounding pulse, the faster it beat.

Mack felt her tremble. Her escalating excitement matched his own. Did her quest for adventure include those of the flesh?

He wanted her with a sharp spike of desire that stabbed straight through his groin. But letting lust rule his head was not the way to go.

No. As much as he might want to, he wouldn’t drag her home to his bed. But he would sample another taste of those lips. Just to give himself something to think about.

He took her mouth in a heated rush. She gasped into him. She tasted so exquisite he almost groaned.

The feminine scent of her filled his nostrils. He felt her chest raising raggedly against his own. He threaded his fingers through that mane of golden brown hair, cupped the back of her head in his palm.

Camryn wriggled in his arms, every nerve ending in her body on full alert.

It was too much, too soon. She was in sensory overload and she couldn’t absorb everything that was happening.

Yes you can, silly, you’ve got the totem. She reached up to caress the necklace, to draw strength from its power. But when her fingers crept to her throat she felt nothing but her own skin.

Panic-stricken, she jerked away, leaving him looking dazed.

“What…?” he asked.

Cammie Jo stared down at her chest. The totem was gone!

Without it, she was not brave enough to kiss a virtual stranger. On her own, she was not the type to flirt and bat her eyelashes and volley innuendoes.

She was her old self. Vulnerable, scared and way out of her league.

In desperation, she cast her gaze to the ground, looking among the flowering lupine at their feet for her missing necklace. Her breath came out in frantic wheezes, as if she was an asthmatic in a room full of ragweed pollen.

“Camryn? What’s wrong?” Mack reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.

His touch sent her over the edge. She had to get away. Had to leave before she ruined everything. Had to hide from him so he wouldn’t see her for the timid spinster-in-the-making that she really was.

Later, after the party was over, she would come back and try to find the necklace. But for now every phobia she’d ever experienced was gelling into one major fear. That of being found out a fraud before she’d ever had a chance to really live her great adventure.

Get out. Get away!

“I…I can’t do this.” She spun on her heels and took off at a dead run.

“Camryn,” Mack cried. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

She never hesitated.

“Wait!” His footsteps thundered behind her.

Clippety, clippety, clippety—stumble. Her ankle turned sideways in the impossible heels but she ignored the bite of pain and kept going.

Hurry, hurry. You’ve got to give him the slip. Except she could hardly see where she was going with this darned hair bouncing free and unfettered about her face and she didn’t know the area. She rounded the building at a dead-on sprint, hoping he’d give up the pursuit. For heaven’s sake, if a man was running away from her she’d take the hint and not chase after him.

But Mack stayed right on her tail.

Was the man part bloodhound? Jeez Louise. Talk about relentless.

Where could she go to get away from him? She leaped over some shrubbery at the edge of the side-walk. A well-dressed crowd was just walking into the entrance of the community center. Cammie Jo barreled past them, using human bodies as a shield between Mack and herself.

“Excuse me. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to step on your toe.” She heard Mack apologizing but she never slowed, not for a second.

Lungs bursting. Stitch in her side. Throbbing ankle. She could endure all that but not a totemless face-to-face encounter with Mack.

Rabbit quick, she darted through the front door, spun past a startled Kay and clattered upstairs to the relative safety of the ladies’ room.

Okay, don’t panic, don’t panic.

Lovely advice. About as useful as telling a hostess not to panic when she’s got ninety-nine guests coming for Thanksgiving dinner in fifteen minutes and a hundred pounds of Turkey à la Froufrou just exploded in her brand new rotisserie oven.

Cammie Jo paced the tiled bathroom, arms folded across her chest. What to do? She couldn’t stay in here all night.

Or could she?

Tempting thought, but considering the way he’d chased after her, Mack didn’t seem the kind of guy to let things go without a fight. He would probably send someone in after her.

Rats, rats, rats.

And then her gaze landed on the window.

Hmmm. Small opening, but she was petite.

Cammie Jo climbed up on the sink and leaned over to raise the window. She stuck her head out and peered down.

Yipes!

The ground was farther away than she expected. Never mind that directly underneath the ladies’ washroom window sat a row of sturdy, metal, bear-proof garbage cans that looked as if they could skin a girl something nasty.

Cammie Jo pulled back, and mulled over her choices. She could take a header, or more precisely, a footer out the window, or she could face Mack again.

Which was easier to do?

She closed her eyes briefly and wished for the totem.

If wishes were nuts and cherries we’d all have a Merry Christmas, Aunt Kiki was fond of saying, although Cammie Jo had never quite understood the adage. Herself, she’d always wanted clothes and toys for Christmas, not nuts and cherries.

“Camryn?” Kay’s voice called to her from the outer room. “Are you in there? Mack’s looking for you.”

Ulp. It was now or never.

Cammie Jo dangled her legs over the window ledge, took a deep breath and jumped, stiletto heels and all.