Susan Connell - Rebel's Spirit

“Who rang the bell?” he asked, as she quickly closed the door behind her then leaned against it.

“Dean Callahan,” she said, before covering her mouth to stop a burst of laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

She pressed her hands against her bright plaid cummerbund and leaned forward to catch her breath. “Oh, Raleigh, I always thought professors were so stuffy, but that one’s not. He wouldn’t stop asking me questions about myself. I tried to explain that I was only here catering your desserts and he said, ‘Well, I never heard it referred to as that before.” ‘ Shaking her finger at him, she widened her eyes. “Your Dean Callahan is a very naughty man.”

“Naughty?” He smiled at the thought that the whitehaired gentleman could ever be considered naughty.

“Yes. Don’t you get it?” she asked with an exaggerated wink.

“Don’t I get what?” He felt his smile weakening while he silently prayed that the gods were with him tonight and what he was beginning to suspect was way off the mark.

She took a step toward him. “Oh, Raleigh, look at you,” she said, changing subject and tone as she reached up to cup his jawline in her hands. “You have frosting smeared here…and here.” Dabbing at the sides of his mouth with her thumbs, she squinted at him. “Look. Go like this.”

Her helpful gesture almost made it into the casual category until she puckered her lips. His breath caught somewhere north of his chest. Hadn’t he just convinced himself how ridiculous this illogical attraction he had for her was? Hadn’t he told himself to get a grip? And didn’t she have the softest hands and most engaging expressions?

He closed his hand around one of hers causing her fingertips to stray past his lips. Once. Twice. With her breasts brushing his chest, her gentle yet relentless thumb strokes and the liqueur-laced frosting teasing his tongue, he had all he could do not to lick her. Then her thumbnail grazed the underside of his lip, and her kind act began bordering on a kinky one. Taking a step over the line of common sense, he bypassed warm, fuzzy confusion and headed straight for the Pandora’s box of heat and lust. Curving a hand around her waist, he tugged her against his hips. “Rebecca,” he whispered. Then the doorbell rang again and both of them froze.

Crashing back to reality, Raleigh found himself staring into her eyes. He knew his boundaries; he’d set them up a long time ago. “You were saying something about Dean Callahan?” he asked, as he let go and took a step backward.

She gave him a puzzled look that, after a few nervejangling seconds, transformed itself into a focused, knowing smile. “He thinks I’m your latest.”

“Latest what?” he asked as the doorbell rang again. He laughed out loud; this couldn’t be happening. Where was a lesser god when you needed one?

“Lover.” She cocked her head when he didn’t respond. “Did you hear me? I said he thinks we’re lovers.”

“I heard you.”

“Then why aren’t you laughing anymore?”

He started around her. “Miss Barnett, I have to get the door—”

Her arm shot out, effectively blocking his way as she slapped her hand against the door frame. “And whatever happened to you calling me Reb? I thought we’d come so far, but—”

“Obviously, we haven’t,” he said, wondering why the hell he’d allowed her to put her hands on him in the first place.

“We haven’t?” she asked, her head turning and her eyes twinkling with womanly mischief.

From the other side of the door, Dean Callahan called out cheerfully, “I’ll get that.”

“Miss Barnett, that will be all for tonight.”

She opened her mouth to speak.

“Go,” he said, then cocked his chin when she hesitated. As she walked around him and headed for the back door, his gaze tracked her like radar on enemy aircraft. He felt his body quickening to alert status when she paused with her hand on the knob. Looking over her shoulder at him, she made a new and old and needy ache start up in his heart.

“Raleigh?”

“Yes?”

She touched a fingertip to her lips. “You still have some…”

His hand began drifting up toward his mouth before he came to his senses and, instead, pointed at her. “Out! Now!” he said, managing to hold his ground even though the floor beneath him felt like quicksand when she grinned.

“Just like old times… Mr. Hanlon.”

Her voice echoed through him, soft and sexy, sure and seductive. As she closed the door behind her, he slowly pressed his fingers to where hers had been. After a moment he shook his head and headed for the dining room. “Old times were never like this, Rebecca.”

As Raleigh fastened the last spring lock on the pool cover, he took another look toward the garage apartment. Two days had passed since that rub-and-tickle moment with Rebecca, and he was still battling over what to do about her. Ignoring her presence seemed like the most sensible and least bothersome solution, he decided, as he stored the pool equipment in the cabana. After all, how much trouble could one woman cause in a month? He seriously considered giving Rebecca the benefit of the doubt.

And then he came to his senses. She wasn’t just any woman. She was Rebecca Barnett, complete with a shared history and enough sex appeal to melt the leather elbow patches off his tweed jackets. And she was living a few feet across the driveway from him.

Staring up at the apartment again, he came to the conclusion that while she might be able to stay out of trouble, he was the one with the problem. He couldn’t ignore her presence because he couldn’t put those moments with her in his kitchen out of his head.

Wiping his hands on his well-worn jeans, he headed for the gate. There was only one course of action he could take, he decided, as he closed it behind him. Rebecca Barnett would have to find alternative lodging. And as soon as he saw her-” Finally got that pool closed, did you?”

She was sitting on the second-floor landing of the garage steps, a pair of mud-coated sneakers next to her feet. Her rosy cheeks made him think she’d been outside as long as he had, and her smile made him certain she’d been having more fun.

When he didn’t answer her quickly enough, she thumbed up the suede brim of her baseball cap then leaned her elbows on the step behind her. Propping a sock-clad foot over one knee, she stared down at him. The jocklike posturing accentuated the length of her legs, the womanly curves of her hips and, where her athletic jacket fell open, the distinct pearling of her sweater-covered nipples in the cold afternoon breeze.

“Well, closing it’s for the best, I guess.” She shrugged. “Or who knows what I might have been tempted to do next down there.”

Her smile said she was teasing but that didn’t stop the images from coming into his head. Was there such a thing as nude ice-skating? He rubbed at his brow. This had to stop.

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