Isabel Sharpe - Take Me Twice

’Bye!

Laine

P.S. Of course I’ll give the full report if my Vain Foreigner writes back.

GRAYSON STRODE DOWN the dark, stuffy, narrow eighth-floor hallway of Laine’s apartment building, carrying his overnight bag, briefcase and laptop, and clutching the enormous bouquet Roger the doorman had asked him to bring up. Apparently some guy named Ben was sending Laine flowers on a regular basis. Grayson did not like the sound of that, not that he had a claim on her anymore. Not yet at least.

Eight-K, 8-L… He reached 8-M before his brain kicked in that he was going the wrong way to get to 8-C. He let out a groan and turned around, wanting to wipe away perspiration at his temple, but too impatient to drop everything to take care of it.

What a day. Disaster meeting at Borg Engineering, a cancellation at ETJ Hutchins, which they hadn’t bothered to mention until he’d shown up, and now he found the idea of this guy sending Laine flowers damned irritating. A lot of money to be spending on a woman who wasn’t interested if what Roger said was true. Grayson wasn’t so sure. A guy would have to be nuts to invest that kind of money and energy into anything but a sure lay.

No point wasting time sniveling about it. Grayson was going to be spending time with her—intimate, everyday-living time. If this guy wanted her, he was going to have to do a lot better than dialing his florist.

Eight-A, 8-B and bingo, 8-C. He grinned at the number and jabbed the buzzer—four short, one long, two short, one long—Morse code for S-E-X, a silly game they’d started in college. It was going to be so good to see her. He wouldn’t be surprised if the sight of her induced the rush it always had, even when he saw her every day.

The door swung open and she stood there smiling. Yeah, the same rush hit him, maybe twice as hard for all the years he’d been without her.

“Laine.” He bent to ditch his laptop, overnight bag and briefcase, and gathered her in for a one-armed hug, inhaling her scent, wishing he could drop the damn vase to hold her the way he wanted. She always managed to smell as if she’d just come home from a day in a field of wildflowers. Total aphrodisiac.

He released her only far enough to bring her face into focus. Five years older, but only more beautiful. Blue eyes shining under straight, dark hair, perfect skin—to hell with getting reacquainted; he wanted to drag her off to his cave right this second. “It’s much too good to see you.”

She pulled away, laughing and flushed, and took the flowers he handed her. Immediately he missed her warmth and energy and wanted them back.

“Wow, are these from you, Grayson?” She lifted the vase, teasing already. She knew the odds of him thinking to buy her flowers were about one in several hundred million.

“Aren’t they always?”

“Um, no?”

“Some guy named Ben apparently makes this a habit.” He watched her closely. “Friend of yours?”

“Not really.” She darted a glance down and back. “A friend of my cousin’s. He’s just—”

“Trying to get in your pants? Or thanking you for having been there.” He registered the sharp edge in his voice at the same time she did and wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. Down, boy. Stay cool.

“Oh, for—” She threw up her free hand in a typical Laine gesture of exasperation. “Still thinking with your other head, I see.”

“It’s my favorite.” He shrugged, all innocence.

She grinned unwillingly. “Ben’s harmless. Zero interest on my part, I even told him so. Right now he’s just my self-appointed protector and florist.”

“You told him you weren’t interested, and he’s still sending you flowers?”

She nodded and inhaled rapturously over the blooms. “He’s a very sweet man.”

“No one’s that sweet.”

“Hmm.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Not that I would expect you to know anything about the concept, but apparently some men are.”

“Ha!” He grinned and put his hands on his hips, studying her, the tension of the day falling away, the energy she’d always been able to light in him strong as ever. “It’s damn good to see you, Laine.”

“You, too, Grayson.” Her gaze lingered and softened. “You look great.”

“Not as great as you.” He meant it. She was still his every fantasy of woman—city sexiness and sophistication layered over this elusive country-fresh thing she had going. His very first glance at her clingy midthigh skirt and knit sleeveless top told him her body was still strong and lean. And he knew what she could do with every square inch of it.

But he supposed suggesting they retire immediately to her bedroom for some naked gymnastics would be pushing it.

“How are your folks?” He reached to her forehead to brush aside hair that wasn’t out of place.

“Fine. Terrific. Whatever.” She lifted her arm, let it drop down against her thigh. “I’ve lived here for eight years—Mom still tells me I better come home where I belong and did I know Geoffrey Wrango was divorced and he’s always asking after me, and my sister is expecting her gazillionth child next month and aren’t I worried about getting too old? Because I can have a career anytime, but the longer I wait the greater my chances of having a kid with Down’s or not conceiving at all, plus at my age the good men are going fast, and by the way my father isn’t going to last forever and how hard could it be to jump on a plane back to Ohio and blahblahblahblahblah.”

She took a huge breath to replenish. “In other words, nothing new. Yours?”

He didn’t answer right away, actually he couldn’t. Or didn’t want to. He stood there, grinning at her, letting delight wash over him. And even though delight was a total girly emotion, damned if she didn’t delight him. He hadn’t felt this buzzed since…the last time he’d seen her. Only clinching a big deal came close to a Laine high.

“Hello?” She quirked an eyebrow and leaned forward as if to inspect his skull for some sign of occupation. “Your mom and stepdad? How are they?”

He bent to match her movement, so their faces were only inches apart. She blinked in surprise, then her sexy mouth curved up and she lifted her other brow expectantly.

“Let’s see.” He dropped his gaze to her grin, then back up to her eyes. Blue and enticing, black-lashed and mischievous. He’d spent so much time inside them that staring at her up close this way felt like coming back to a place he’d always loved. “Paris this month, Costa Rica in the fall, concerts, parties, gardening, dinners at the club, sorry, can’t talk long, the Harrises are due any minute, you remember Bob, don’t you, head of his class at Harvard, he’s now CEO of his own Fortune 500 company. In other words…”

“Nothing new.” She laughed, then lingered long enough to dart a glance at his mouth and straightened. “Come on in and see the palace.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He followed with his bags, staring unapologetically at the sway of her firm rear, imagining himself into the beginnings of an erection. God, what pigs men were. He should be asking her how she was doing, where her life had been, where it was going, not salivating over her ass. But damn it, the woman had one fine ass.

They passed the tiny kitchen area to the left and entered the living room straight ahead, where Laine put the vase on a glass-topped coffee table, picked up what must be last week’s fading bouquet and disappeared into the kitchen to dump it. Regardless of what Laine said, this Ben guy must have reason to think he’d caught the scent to heaven. No guy was that much of a sap otherwise.

Grayson parked his stuff against a beige couch and looked around. Hardwood floors with the Oriental rug she bought in Murray Hill a few years after college, TV in a wooden cabinet whose open doors revealed a disarray of workout tapes and chick movies and a white ceramic lamp that had belonged to her mother. Against one wall stood the dining table; above it hung the detailed print of the Sacre Coeur she’d bought on a high school trip to Paris. He glanced at the overstuffed armchair he and Laine had found on a curb, hauled up to her old apartment together and had re-upholstered. He ran his hand over the armrest. The chair probably wasn’t worth a cent, but to them it had been the fantasy of stumbling over a discarded priceless antique.