Jill Shalvis - Tangling With Ty

“You look gorgeous,” Suzanne said, with a long look at Taylor. “You have such a beautiful body, Nicole.”

“A little skinny.” Taylor sniffed, but then smiled. “But some men go ape for a toned body like that.”

Someone knocked at the front door, and while Taylor went to answer it, Suzanne said quietly, “You really do look amazing. This is going to be so much fun.”

How to tell her she’d rather have a root canal? “I’m not wearing stockings or heels.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. I-”

“You’ll never guess who I found,” Taylor said, coming back into the room. “A man. And just when we wanted a man’s opinion, too. He just wanted to drop off some papers, but…” Smiling the smile of a cat with the canary’s tail still hanging out of her mouth, Taylor moved aside.

Ty stood there, looking sweetly baffled. Until he saw Nicole, then all that sweet bafflement turned to heat as his eyes slowly took in the crazy dress she wore.

“What do you think?” Taylor asked Ty innocently. “Good enough for an engagement party?”

“Good enough to eat,” Ty said, the Irish heavy in his voice.

THE LAST TIME Ty had seen Nicole she’d been walking away from him, and the taste of her had still been on his lips. He’d watched her go and decided not to do that to himself again.

No more watching.

Well, he was looking plenty now, wasn’t he? Looking so hard he could see her every little breath, which seemed too quick and shallow for her to be half as calm as she was pretending, standing over there in that killer dress.

But hot as that bod was, it hadn’t been the dress that nearly brought him to his knees. No, the look in her eyes had done that. The look that said “back off” and “want me,” all in the same flash of those gray, gray eyes.

Suzanne and Taylor were grinning at him proudly, as if they’d personally created the vision standing before him.

“She does look good enough to eat, doesn’t she?” Taylor said, clapping her hands. “Just wait until we get on the thigh-high stockings and do-me heels.”

“Okay, I’m done.” Nicole pointed a finger at Ty. “You. Stop staring. And you.” She whirled on Taylor. “No stockings. No high heels that say do me or otherwise.”

Ty did his best to stop staring as she turned her back on him to chew out Taylor, but as he caught a good sight of the rear view, he nearly swallowed his tongue. Now he could see why the stockings would have to be thigh high, the dress dipped so low he caught a peek-a-boo glimpse of her peach, silky-looking panties.

Nicole, rough-and-tumble ready, tomboy, warrior of her world…and she wore peach silky panties. If that didn’t completely destroy him, he didn’t know what did.

“I have got to get to work,” she grumbled, bending for her discarded clothes and showing more peach silk.

Not that he was looking. Nope. Not looking-

She caught him looking. With a furious glance that singed the hair right off his arms, she stalked by, giving him a quick scent of shampoo and clean, very angry woman.

“Hey, I thought you decided to cut back your hours,” Taylor called out to her. “So you don’t kill yourself before you hit the big three-oh.”

“No, you decided I should cut back my hours. I decided to stop trying to convince you I’m just fine.”

“You’re not fine.” Taylor stood beside a nodding Suzanne for unity. “You live and breathe that job, without time for anything or anyone else. It’s not right, Nicole. You’re hiding out from life. Tell her, Ty.”

Nicole dared him to say a word with stormy eyes.

He lifted his hands. “I don’t-”

“Oh, please.” Taylor pointed to Nicole’s face. “See those dark circles under her eyes? Lack of sleep.”

Ty hadn’t slept well either, mostly from the memories of Nicole’s mouth on his, from the feel of her body beneath his hands, from the little needy sounds that had escaped her throat before they’d broken apart for air.

Under the circumstances, with his own dark circles beneath his eyes, he didn’t really feel he had the right to say anything.

“If I want a mother, I’ll call mine,” Nicole said.

“Which reminds me, yours came by.” Taylor lifted a brow. “Checked me out. I must have passed muster, as she told me to make sure you get your sleep, eat your veggies and don’t take extra shifts at the hospital.”

Ty lifted his own brow at Nicole’s impressive and colorful opinion of that. Then watched her very fine ass sashay to the door.

“Don’t ruin that dress yanking it off,” Taylor told her. “And use a hanger!”

The door slammed, and Taylor snickered.

Suzanne sighed. “You shouldn’t have baited her that way.”

“Are you kidding? If I didn’t, she’d never have put the dress on, much less agreed to wear it. And she really does need to eat more veggies, you said so yourself.”

“She didn’t agree to wear the dress,” Suzanne said.

“Oh, she’ll wear it.” Taylor tossed them both a positive smile. “She’ll wear it with bells on.”

Ty was just thankful he wouldn’t have to see it. In fact, he was still thanking his lucky stars when Suzanne turned to him and said, “You’ll be invited to the engagement party, of course.”

“Me?” Panic was a taste he hadn’t eaten in a good long time.

“Yeah. I think you’re going to be around a while.” Suzanne gave him a little smile.

Oh, boy. There were matchmaking plans in those eyes. Unintentionally, he backed up, making both women laugh.

“Don’t tell me a man who wears clothes as well as you do has an aversion to dressing up like Nicole’s?” Taylor said.

“No, but I do have an aversion to being set up.”

“Set up?” Taylor cocked her head to the side. “Most men would be drooling to go out with a woman who looked the way Nicole just did.”

“Not me. I get my own women, thank you. Didn’t you want to show me your contractor bids? You wanted my opinion, right?” He could hear the desperation in his voice. “Can we get back to that?”

“We’re not talking marriage here, Ty.” When he didn’t relax, Taylor just sighed. “Fine. I’ll let you in on a little secret I think will help the situation here, all right? Nicole and I? We plan on remaining single. Forever. No white dress, no white cake and no diamonds on our ring fingers. If there’s any hooking-up going on, it’s of the one-night variety only. Follow?”

“But telling him that only gives him an unfair advantage over Nicole!” Suzanne protested.

Taylor kept her amused gaze on Ty. “I have a feeling he’s the one who needs the handicap. Hurt her though,” she said casually. “And we’ll hurt you.”

“Oh, definitely,” Suzanne agreed.

They weren’t serious, Ty thought. They couldn’t be serious. He laughed to prove it.

They didn’t laugh back.

“Actually,” Taylor said seriously, “if you hurt her, we’ll hunt you down and cut off your balls. So…” She clapped her hands and smiled. “Ready to get to work?”

American women were insane, he thought. Completely insane.

TWENTY MINUTES later, Nicole ran back out of her loft. She needed to lose herself in something, and the first thing to come to mind had been the hospital. Her mind was now firmly on work.

Okay, not true. Her mind was still wrapped around the way Ty had looked at her in that dress. Oh, man, how he’d looked at her in that dress. Her knees still were a little weak. Who’d have thought a man could have such heat in his eyes? She’d nearly imploded on the spot from the intensity.

But she was absolutely not going to waste time thinking about that, or analyzing her reaction to it. She was going to concentrate on work-