Jennifer Greene - Can’t Say No

“Are you listening?” she asked weakly.

He said nothing. She shook the finger on her left hand, having bitten the nail down to the quick. “Hart, I love you,” she said helplessly to the closed door.

It opened as if by magic. Hart’s hair was damp, and he’d wrapped a towel haphazardly around his hips, and he loomed over her like a big, blond, wet bear. The smile that wreathed his features bore no relationship to his thundering growl. “What the hell took you so long to get rid of him?”

“Richard?”

“Whoever.” Hart scooped her up, ignoring her startled squeal. He was still wet. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours, you know.” His mouth hovered over hers, homed in. And lifted again. “If you’d come much later, you would have found me halfway through a bottle of brandy.”

“You mean apple juice.”

“Honey, I mean brandy. And what happened to your eyes?”

“Nothing,” she said tersely, well aware her three layers of mascara had smudged.

“You look like you’ve been through a war.”

“Do I really need this?” she asked the ceiling absently, and found the ceiling falling a distance away as Hart released her and she hit the bed.

Hart followed, a gleam in his eyes as brilliant as a sapphire’s. One long leg swiftly looped over hers, pinning her, but the fingers that reached out to brush back her hair were neither playful nor rough, but infinitely tender. She looked into the mirrors of his eyes, they were that close, and she could see a beautiful, infinitely wanted, deeply loved woman inside them. Her heart slowed down for the first time in hours.

In fact, it went sluggish, as Hart’s lips grazed her temples, then her nose, then her upper lip. His mouth sank down slowly, with exquisite patience. The kiss was soft and cherishing rather than sexual. Her fingers pushed back his damp, thick hair possessively. “Hart? Did you hear one word I said?” she whispered.

“I heard you. And I’ll cook, Bree.” Being Hart, with his particular mammary obsession, his eyes located the broken ribbon on her camisole before she’d noticed it herself. With very little effort, he broke the other ribbon strap and pulled the soft material down to her ribs. Only reluctantly did his eyes shift back to hers. “In the interests of honesty, I have to admit the only thing I can cook is spaghetti. But I buy terrific TV dinners.”

He nuzzled first at her throat, tickling her with a softly lapping tongue, then trailed down to her breasts. He tasted first one and then the other before his eyes returned to hers. “I’ll also make friends with your father,” he promised gravely. “Frankly, I think we’ll get along just fine. We both share a great many values-you being the first one. We both want to make you happy. We both love you. And if I’d come to my daughter’s house and found a man’s clothes strewn all over the yard, I would have killed him. Your father is a man of remarkable restraint.”

“You think so?”

He rose a little to unbutton her shorts. He slid them down and off, tossing them over his shoulder. The camisole followed. Her underpants followed. His towel followed. When he looked back at her, he frowned, as if trying to recall his train of thought. “And I never intended to take over your life, you know. You were running away. You were just too damn good a lady to be running away. There’s nothing criminal about needing a little help once in a while, and you were clearly trying to take the entire world on your shoulders, while I was going nuts trying to make you shift just a little of it to mine. I warned you to need me,” he said quietly.

“I did.”

“You didn’t.” He shook his head, stretched out beside her. “You’re a strong lady, honey. You would have gotten there. You don’t need anyone. But you can still make the choice to share what’s hurting you, and it’s a choice that’s made from love. And I’ve forgotten,” he murmured, “the rest of your terms.”

So did she, for a while. Their bodies edged closer, in a slow, languid hello to each other. Bree closed her eyes, feeling love so strong that it almost hurt, and yet it felt so right. His skin warmed for her fingertips; her heart accelerated for his.

“Your computers,” he murmured suddenly, and lifted his head.

“Pardon?”

“You’re going to computerize my company. That’s fine, too, Bree, but not as important as a lab for your perfumes. You’ll need a lab, and you can either go back to school to learn chemistry, or we could hire you a chemist. Whatever you want, honey-but there was still something else.”

She could think of nothing else. Fleetingly, she considered taking advantage of Hart while he was in such a meek, submissive mood. It undoubtedly wouldn’t last long.

“I know what it was.” Hart trailed a finger between her breasts, circling first one and then the other, and then rubbing a nipple back and forth between his fingers until it rose, aching, like a soft red berry.

“Hart…” She was beginning to hurt from wanting him. It wasn’t so much the terrible surge of passion as the terrible surge of love. She wanted to be joined with him, part of him.

“I know what it was. Did I hear you say you loved me?” he whispered.

She smiled. “I love you.”

“Didn’t hear you.”

“ I love you, Hart.”

“Honey, maybe if you’d shout it…”

She should have known it was too good to last. She poked a fingertip in his chest, and watched the man crash on his back as if hit by a bulldozer. Smiling, she scooted on top of him, pinning his legs with one of hers and, just as he had done to her, she leaned over him, her fingers gently combing back his hair. “I’m sure, Hart,” she whispered. “Very sure that I know what I want, and that’s you. In my life. For all of my life. But you’d better be just as sure, because you know dam well we’re going to argue a great deal-”

“No, we won’t.”

“Yes, we wi-” She stopped, gave him a rueful look and zoomed in for a kiss. “Do you think you could prove just once that you can take a few orders instead of handing them out?” she whispered.

“Certainly.”

“Then put your arms around my neck.”

He complied.

“And move your body, just a little…”

He did.

“Now make love to me, Hart.”

Grinning, he whispered, “See if I ever argue with you again, Bree.”

Jennifer sold her first book in 1980, and since then she has sold more than eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA-a Silver Medallion in 1984-followed by more than twenty nominations and awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame and presented with the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer has been on numerous bestseller lists, has written for Harlequin Books, Avon, Berkley and Dell, and has sold over the world in more than twenty languages. She has written under a number of pseudonyms, most recognizably Jennifer Greene, but also Jeanne Grant and Jessica Massey.

She was born in Michigan, started writing in high school, and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English and psychology. The university honored her with their “Lantern Night Award,” a tradition developed to honor fifty outstanding women graduates each year. Exploring issues and concerns for women today is what first motivated her to write, and she has long been an enthusiastic and active supporter of women’s fiction, which she believes is an “unbeatable way to reach out and support other women.” Jennifer lives in the country around Benton Harbor, Michigan, with her husband, Lar.