Lori Wilde - Gotta Have It

Something in his chest tugged.

Trick of the light and his imagination. He’d been thinking about Abby and now he was seeing her. He killed the engine and climbed from the Jeep to find out if they were Baxter, party of two.

He approached the redhead. “Hello, I’m with Sunrise Tours, did you ladies arrange for a—”

He broke off when the brunette inhaled sharply with a soft, well-bred sound. Quickly she reached up and snatched off her sunglasses.

His heart hammered and his palms went slick with sweat as he peered into those familiar hazel eyes.

It is Abby, he thought, at the same moment she whispered, “Durango Creed.”

FROM THE MOMENT she spied Durango’s long, lean muscular body swinging out of the Jeep, Abby knew she’d been set up.

“Tess Baxter, what have you done?” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“Consider this my thank-God-the-wedding-didn’t-go-off present to you.” Tess laughed.

Before Abby had time to tell her that she was sooo dead for pulling this stunt, Durango was filling her direct field of vision with his breathtaking presence. The man was more impressive than the incredible red rock formations surrounding them.

All Abby had wanted was to come to Sedona, get a massage, maybe take a mud bath or two and have an expert facial. Her goal was to relax and regroup after getting ditched at the altar by her fiancé. But one look in those unforgettable eyes and everything changed.

She felt something shake loose in her chest, like a tearing away sensation.

Omigod, here he is, here he is in the flesh.

She curled her fingers into her fists at her sides and forced herself to breathe normally.

The years had been far more than kind. In fact, time had been embarrassingly generous. He had fully matured, his teenaged shoulders and thighs broadening into manhood. Yet he still wore that cocky, defensive bad-boy stance like a mantle of pride. His face was fuller, less rangy than it had been, but his waist was just as narrow. His hair, long and bound back in a short ponytail, was just as dark and thick. His eyes just as impossibly black.

And wicked.

He was even more gorgeous than before.

Her pulse took off, galloping like a high-spirited Thoroughbred on the last furlough of the Kentucky Derby. She stifled the urge to flee from the intensity of those eyes, which seemed to possess a secret, sinister wisdom all their own.

Then an equally compelling craving had her longing to fling herself into his arms with an ease born of intimate knowledge.

But she did neither.

Five years in the public relations business and twenty-seven years as the daughter of an influential judge had taught her how to sweep her true feelings aside in favor of the politically correct response. Abby thrust out her hand, pasted an artificial smile on her face and repeated his name.

“Well, well, well,” he said, ignoring her outstretched palm and sinking his hands onto his low-slung hips. “If it isn’t Angel Archer.”

Angel.

The sound of his old nickname for her stirred Abby inexplicably. She’d forgotten he used to call her that because she was such a Goody Two-shoes.

She stood there with her hand thrust out, feeling like a fool and not knowing how to gracefully retract it. She had the oddest sensation that if she just stretched her hand out far enough she could caress that night ten years ago, touch the girl she had once been and pull her back from making the terrible mistake of sending him away.

Fanciful, decried the critic in her head. You can’t recapture the past.

Grab him, whispered her long-buried desire. Make a new future.

And there lay the crux of her predicament. Safety on one side, passion on the other and Abby trapped firmly in the middle, immobilized.

Durango sized her up with one long, lingering glance that made her feel completely naked. She didn’t like feeling vulnerable. She didn’t like feeling out of control. And he made her feel both of these things.

Her nose itched.

Thank heavens, she’d taken an antihistamine on the drive up, even if it did make her mouth all cottony. It was better than sneezing her head off.

“After all these years, you still remember me,” he said.

“Of course she remembers you,” Tess babbled. “She still has sex dreams about you and—”

Abby trod on Tess’s instep. Shh.

“Ow!” Tess glared and hopped around on one foot, grossly exaggerating the slight injury.

Abby sent her a look that said, serves you right for interfering in my love life.

Durango’s grin widened. “And you were going to be satisfied with just shaking my hand? You haven’t changed a bit, Angel. Still holding back. Still keeping your emotions under wraps.”

“I don’t think that’s…” Abby began, but got no further.

“Come ’ere.” He strode forward, encircled her in a bear hug and lifted her off her feet.

Oh, my.

Contact with his hard, masculine body threw her into a tailspin. Her breasts were smashed flat against his broad, honed chest. He smelled delightfully of wind and sun and leather.

His muscles rippled as he squeezed her tight. His hair tickled her ear. His chin made contact with her cheek and the slight scrape of beard stubble shoved her long-dormant libido into overdrive.

She wanted him.

Badly.

Abby froze. She remembered now, with distinct clarity, why she hadn’t taken his side all those years ago when everyone in Silverton Heights had turned against him.

She’d been too afraid.

The strength of his life force was just too overwhelming, his passion too raw, his intensity too intimidating for her to handle. She had been the good girl with the stark dread of ending up bad, just like her incorrigible mother.

Durango kept holding her. His big laugh rumbled intoxicatingly in her ears, his ebony eyes sparkling with devilment, his exhilarating scent blinding her to any other smell.

No.

She would not allow herself to get swept away by the force of his energy. She would just wait him out. Eventually he would have to put her feet back on the ground.

It was like waiting out a hurricane.

He just kept standing there. Holding her.

Abby didn’t move. She most certainly did not hug him in return, but his embrace transported her back in time.

In her mind’s eye, she saw the sexually repressed young girl she had once been longing to explore the red-hot passion surging through her veins but was too scared to act. That’s why she’d kept fantasizing about Durango all these years. Because he was the flame she hadn’t been brave enough to extinguish.

At last, Durango set her down and stepped away to eye her once more.

“You look amazing,” he said huskily.

She dropped her gaze. So do you, she yearned to say but prudently murmured, “Thank you.”

“You still living in Phoenix?” His face was lively with interest, his body language compelling.

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s still living in her father’s house.” Tess rolled her eyes. “Of course, she was getting married, but that deal sort of fell through. The groom ditched her for a stripper on their wedding day. Thank heavens. Ken was all wrong for her.”

“Ken Rockford?” Durango cleared his throat.

At the private high school in Silverton Heights that they’d all three attended, Durango and Ken had been archenemies, with Ken the class president and football quarterback to Durango’s rebel without a cause, smoking in the boys’ room.

Abby nodded but didn’t look at him. Gee thanks, Tess, for making things so much more awkward.

Durango snorted but said nothing. An uncomfortable silence fell.

“I’m Tess, by the way.” Tess stepped forward to shake his hand. “Remember me? I was away at boarding school when you and Abby were dating, but we met at your father’s annual Christmas party that year.”