Mindy Neff - In The Enemy's Embrace

He stopped the car in the circular driveway beneath a porte-cochere and shut off the engine. A warm breeze lifted her hair as she got out of the car. Cicadas and crickets harmonized with the deeper hum of tree frogs, the sound pressing in on her ears.

She shivered. She’d grown up on a ranch, dealt with snakes and all manner of varmints, yet the thought of thousands of huge insects and critters blending in with the trees, watching her with their buggy eyes, gave her the creeps.

“You cold?” Nick asked as he reached past her to open the front door.

“No. It’s those stupid locusts. I think they deliberately antagonize me because they can sense I don’t like them.”

A corner of his mouth kicked up. “I don’t think you can go anywhere in Texas and get away from them.”

“No place that has trees, that’s for sure.” She ducked under his outstretched arm and crossed the threshold to the foyer. A fortune in marble paved the floor, flowing like polished glass until it met the thick carpet of an enormous living room.

Jessica was impressed despite herself. Heck, she came from a wealthy family. But the layout of Nick’s home was breathtaking.

A solid wall of windows beckoned her farther into the room, where comfortable leather furniture cohabited nicely with priceless antiques. Doors opened onto a patio, where subtle lighting turned the swimming pool into a fantasy-like paradise.

Unable to resist, she walked right out the doors, drawn by the water, and inhaled the scent of chlorine and the sweet perfume of honeysuckle vines.

He switched on the patio and yard lights, and Jessica was further awed. Manicured lawns, shaded by mature oak and elm trees, sloped down to a tranquil lake where a wooden dock extended out into the water. A sporty powerboat was moored at one side of the dock, tied to cleats and protected by bright orange buoys.

She turned to Nick, raised a brow. “A swimming pool and a lake?”

Hands in his pockets, he stood several feet away as though he didn’t trust himself to come any closer. “I swim in the pool and fish in the lake.”

“Ah, a man who knows how to bring home dinner.”

He was silent, watching her as though she were a bobcat ready to pounce. She clearly made him nervous, and Jessica found this a delicious turn of events. She was no longer the thirteen-year-old girl with a mad crush, the girl who’d been humiliated when her kiss had been rebuffed. With her now twenty-five, the eight-year age difference put them in a completely different playing field.

And judging by the hungry look in his eyes, she had the home advantage.

“We should probably go in before the mosquitoes start biting,” he said, his hands still in his pockets, his dark gaze trained on her.

“Vitamin B. I take it religiously and they never munch on me.” Because it was past midnight and they were both a little punchy from the drama of the evening, she preceded him into the house and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the darkened windows when he turned off the outside lights.

For pity’s sake. In all the hoopla, she’d completely forgotten that she still wore her Victoria’s Secret pajamas. Oh, they were modest enough, thin sweatpants in a pink-and-red heart pattern and a matching tank top. Looking down, she noticed the insoles of her sandals were imprinted with toe-shaped smudges from the water and soot remnants of the fire.

She yelped and jumped up onto the fireplace hearth.

Nick took an immediate step forward, switching on the overhead lights, his gaze scanning the floor. “What?” He nearly shouted the word.

She knew he was imagining they’d let a critter in through the open doors, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. At this point, a bout of laughter might well turn into that hysteria she’d been worrying about earlier. “My feet are dirty.”

“Your…”

She held up a foot, letting her white sandal dangle from her toes. Even her gold toe ring was tarnished black. “I hope I didn’t track this mess on your beautiful carpet.”

“The rugs can be cleaned, Red. My heart’s not so easily repaired.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to shake you up. And why do you keep scowling at me like that?”

“I’m not scowling.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look in the mirror, why don’t you. And while you’re at it, could you bring me a towel so I can rake some of this gunk off my feet? Honestly, I should have jumped in the pool while I was out there.”

“I can give you a hand if you like.”

She looked at him and laughed. “A push, you mean?”

A dimple creased his cheek. Amazing, since his expression was still nearly as solemn as a judge’s.

He turned to leave the room, presumably to do her bidding. Man, oh, man, Nick Grayson had one fine derriere. Jessica sat down on the brick hearth and rested her chin on her raised knees, sniffed, then lifted her head. No wonder Nick was keeping a respectable distance between them. She reeked of smoke.

Her gaze was still on the seat of his jeans when he suddenly turned and caught her staring. Except now she was staring at the fly of his jeans.

She lifted her eyes to his scowling face. “Well,” she said. “You’re the one who turned around. If you’d just kept going, I could have ogled your backside in peace and you’d have been none the wiser….” Her words dried up as he crossed the room toward her, bent down and scooped her up in his arms. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Taking you to the shower.”

“Fetching a towel was too taxing for you?”

“My towels are white. You’d ruin them.”

“The man owns a swimming pool and a lake and he quibbles over a towel.” She sighed and clutched the blanket that was still around her shoulders.

“Red?”

“Mmm?”

“You smell like charred wood.”

Yes, and if she closed her eyes, her mind replayed the horrible image of flames licking at her neighbor’s window. “You’re such a gentleman for pointing that out, Grayson. No sense complaining, though. I didn’t ask for the impromptu ride.”

“A good host should bear up under any hardship.”

“Now I’m a hardship. You’re not exactly endearing yourself to me.”

“I wasn’t trying to.” He lowered her feet to the tile floor of the bathroom.

Jessica wasn’t sure what imp got into her, but she dropped the blanket from her shoulders and turned to face him.

In a typically male reaction, his gaze dipped to her tank top where thin cotton adorned with little hearts stretched over her breasts. She felt her nipples harden and nearly groaned.

But she’d started this, and she wouldn’t act like a shy maiden now. Never mind that she had little handson experience in the male-female relationship department; she’d learned years ago that men were drawn to the voluptuous curves of her body, and she’d perfected a seductress act that could have a guy panting like a puppy in two seconds flat. And while Nick wasn’t exactly panting, his dark eyes flared nearly black—a perfect match for his clothes.

A muscle worked in his jaw as he backed out of the bathroom. “You didn’t happen to stuff an extra change of clothes in that backpack purse, did you?”

“‘Fraid not.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with.”

He closed the door behind him and Jessica let out a slow breath. Her hands were trembling—heck, her entire insides were quaking.

Darn it, she was not attracted to Nick Grayson. She’d gotten over that years ago. They rubbed each other the wrong way, couldn’t have a decent conversation without tempers igniting. So why the devil were her nipples poking out as if she’d just dipped herself in an icy lake?

Undressing, she turned on the shower, adjusted the water temperature and stuck her head under the steamy spray. From the corner of her eye, she saw the bathroom door open and she froze.