Rachel Bailey - Return of the Secret Heir

“Fair enough, princess,” he said with a rasp in his voice.

Her heart missed a beat. “Don’t call me princess.”

“Is that a rule or a request?”

“A ground rule, JT.”

“Sure,” he said too casually. “If you stop saying my name like that.”

She did a quick mental scan of how she’d been saying it, but couldn’t see anything to give offence. “Like what?”

“Say it,” he commanded in a low, seductive voice.

“JT,” she said.

A lazy smile spread across his face. “Yeah, like that.”

Pia stared at him, perplexed, but he didn’t explain why simply saying his name could be a problem.

“And while we’re at it,” he said, “that chain has to go.”

She glanced down at her necklace. A simple gold chain with a P that hung low. “I’ve always worn it.”

“I know, and it’s always driven me crazy. If you want our past off the table, then you need to remove it.” He blinked slowly. “It sits in your cleavage and you don’t want my mind going there any more than I can help.”

His gaze locked on hers and didn’t waver. Her pulse raced erratically. He’d cornered her with a few words and he knew it. If she refused, she’d be inviting his flirting and she was so close to doing that already that she couldn’t take the risk of sending the wrong signals. With trembling fingers she slipped off the chain. As soon as he left, she could put it back on-he’d never know because she shouldn’t be seeing him again. She dropped it on the coffee table.

“And,” he said, seeming to warm to his subject, “you need to keep your feet covered.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

“You’re not the Pia I remember. You’re buttoned down and covered up. The only hint of my Pia is those brightly painted toe nails.”

A delicious shiver zipped across her skin at the way he said my Pia, but she ignored it as she looked down at the hot pink she’d painted on yesterday while she’d been home sick. “It’s just nail polish. Lots of women wear it.”

“But they wear it somewhere people can see. I’m guessing you never wear it on your fingers. Only on your toes, and then you always wear closed-toe shoes at work. No one sees your polish, do they, Pia?” he said, voice low.

She lifted her chin, not happy with his assessment-or its accuracy. “It’s not professional.”

“Then don’t flash your toes at me either.”

She moistened her lips. This was becoming ridiculous. “You won’t be in my house again to see,” she said, but her voice wavered.

“Even so…” He left the thought hanging and her pulse hammered with the tension in the air.

“Then you keep your biceps covered,” she blurted.

“My biceps?” he said, his eyes widening.

She waved a hand in the general direction of his arms, trying not to look. “You swagger in here in a T-shirt that stretches tight over your arms, and then have the gall to tell me to have my toes covered and take off a chain.”

“My biceps?” he asked again, slowly, as if realizing that meant she’d noticed them. Awareness flashed in his eyes. “It sits better under the jacket if it’s firm,” he said absently.

Feeling edgy, she closed her teeth over a long index fingernail and watched him follow the move with his eyes.

He swallowed hard, then swallowed again. “And don’t do that.”

“Do what?” she whispered.

He took a step closer. “Touch your mouth.”

She lost her breath. He was so close.

“Why?” she said, heart racing, knowing to ask was playing with fire, but nonetheless helpless not to say the word.

JT looked down at that lush mouth and was tempted beyond endurance. He closed the last inches that separated them and brought his mouth down, groaning when he could feel the moist softness of her lips. His arms reached out and snared her waist, pulling her sumptuous curves against his body. No woman had ever felt like Pia against him.

He touched his tongue to her lips and she hesitated for a moment, then he felt her throw caution to the wind and part them, granting him access to the heated depths. A tremor ran through her body and he held her tighter, feeling her hands reach to twine behind his neck, holding him in place. There was no need-he wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t planned on kissing her, but there was nothing he wanted more in this moment. Her mouth, with its taste of ambrosia, moved under his, and she rubbed seductively against him, inviting. As he nipped at her bottom lip, his hands roamed down from her waist, over the flare of her hips, wanting more-

Pia wrenched her mouth away. “JT, I’m not doing this again,” she said breathlessly.

“Sure you are,” he said on a smile and lowered his mouth again.

She placed her hands on his chest, her features resolute. “No, JT, I’m not.”

Body screaming its protest, he drew in a lungful of air and released her. Then he took a step back and shoved his hands into his pockets to stop them reaching for her, seducing her into kissing him again. She’d said no.

When he had control, he thought back over her words. “Not doing what again?”

“This.” She waved a hand back and forth between them. “Getting involved.”

Involved? That’s where she thought he was going with this? He sobered. “Oh, princess, it’d be a cold day in hell before we got involved again.”

Her body stiffened. “Then don’t kiss me.”

“I like kissing you.” In truth, he’d like to do a whole lot more. For fourteen years, his memories of making love to Pia had been enveloped in a golden glow, no matter how hard he tried to stamp them out. He knew it was because she’d been his first love, but knowing wasn’t enough to fix the problem.

Now they’d stumbled across each other, maybe they should make love one more time-put their past into context and take the romantic luster from his memories. He could prove to himself she was just like any other woman. He could move on.

Although that didn’t seem like a plan she’d agree to from the annoyance on her face.

“I need a glass of water,” she said and walked away.

The curtains twitched and he looked up to find a large white cat with black patches gazing at him with feline disdain. Seemed he was striking out with all the residents of the apartment tonight.

He followed her into an adjacent kitchen of steel and chrome with white benches, and waited to see if she’d offer him a glass as well. He wouldn’t be surprised either way because adult Pia was a mass of mixed signals-reluctant to meet him and not letting him sit down in her living room, but kissing him like the world was about to end.

The ingrained hostess training that all the Baxter girls had been given won out-she poured him a glass from a jug in the fridge.

“Or would you like something stronger?” she asked.

“Water’s good.” He accepted the glass, took a drink, then put it on the counter. He gazed at Pia as she sipped hers and shook his head. “Look at us, standing in your kitchen, drinking water. JT and Pia fourteen years later.”

It wasn’t how he’d imagined their future back then. Factor in a brood of kids, a house with a yard, Pia a famous fashion designer and it’d be closer to the truth. Of course it probably would never have gotten that far-at the first sign of trouble she’d abandoned him, ripping his heart from his chest in the process, so better it had happened when it did than once they had a mortgage and three or four children. He’d never forget that when the going had gotten tough, she’d cut and run without a backward glance at him.

He’d dodged a bullet that day and he’d made damn sure never to get himself in the firing line again. He would never open himself to a woman-especially not this one.