“No, I mean what are we doing? This is crazy.”
Luke stood up and regarded her at eye level again. She was right. This was crazy. He had an erection that could drive nails into a wall, but that didn’t make this the right place or time for them to have sex, or even foreplay.
Damned if she didn’t turn him into a crazy man.
“You’re right. We should stop.”
Jane crossed her arms over her bare breasts and let out a ragged sigh. “Yeah. My sisters are probably taking turns pressing their ears to the door.”
“This isn’t a chapter from your book, is it? ‘How to Drive Men Insane’?”
“No, that’ll be the title of my next one.”
She fumbled into her bra and then tugged her shirt back on. Luke lifted her down from the counter and smoothed her skirt back over her hips, pinning her with his gaze the entire time to let her know exactly how hard it was for him to put on the brakes.
“We’d better go back—” Jane said, glancing at the door.
“We’re not finished yet.” He held on to her hand as she tried to escape. “I don’t want my date panting over some other guy.”
“I wasn’t panting.”
“You might as well have been.”
She shrugged. “Okay, maybe you’re not completely wrong, but couldn’t you just help me make him a little jealous?”
“You ask me that right after I had my face between your legs?”
Jane blushed, and Luke felt a pang of something in his gut—jealousy? Was he really jealous that a woman he’d only just met had a crush on some loser she’d mistaken for Prince Charming? Okay, so he was. But regardless of the fact that they’d just met yesterday, Luke knew there was something different about Jane.
Something maddening.
“I think we need to establish some guidelines for our…working relationship. You’re my bodyguard, or personal security specialist, or whatever, but you’ve also asked me out on a date. So what are you expecting here?”
Yeah, what was he expecting? Luke wished like hell he knew, but he gave the obvious answer. “I’m just looking for the chance to prove you wrong about sex.”
“If you want to know the truth, I find you attractive, but I’ve been interested in Bradley for a long time. He and I have a sort of connection, and I’d really like to see what might come of it.”
“A connection? Is he aware of it?” An image of Brad’s uninterested body language when Jane approached him earlier flashed in Luke’s head, and he realized in that moment that she was completely delusional when it came to this guy.
“I don’t know. I think he and I just need a chance to spend some time together, but I haven’t quite worked up the nerve to ask him out.”
Luke tried to ignore the blow his ego felt at having this conversation with a woman he’d just kissed for all he was worth—a woman to whom he was wildly attracted, no less. But then he reminded himself that he was dealing with the author of The Sex Factor, and he assured himself his attraction was purely sexual, probably born of sexual deprivation brought on by her book.
“Just be careful, Jane, that’s all. You can’t afford to let your guard down around any guy right now.”
“Even you?”
“Even me.” He closed the space between them and brushed his fingers against her cheek. “My motives are very, very questionable,” he whispered right before he dipped his head down for one last kiss.
JANE LET LUKE LEAD HER by the hand down the hallway and back out into the party. Her head was in a fog, her body in turmoil and her panties in a bunch. Having Luke around was a crazy sort of torture—hot, dizzying, insane, fantasy-inducing torture.
And what the hell had just happened in the bathroom? One minute she’d been moping about Bradley, and the next she was in a lip lock with Luke. So much for being the guru of sexual restraint. Offer up one testosterone-pumped male and she had her legs wrapped around him in record time.
Memories of his kiss, his touch, his mouth on her breasts, flooded her brain all at once, and she nearly had to go back to the bathroom and provide herself a little self-induced satisfaction.
It took her a few seconds to notice that every eye in the house was glued to herself and Luke. She scanned the room for Bradley and spotted him standing across the dining room staring at her with what she couldn’t help but call new interest.
It figured. She’d answered letters in her column from what seemed like a thousand disgruntled men who were suddenly head over heels in love with their ex-girlfriends after they’d been dumped for another guy—the old “don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone phenomenon.” But Bradley hadn’t even gotten her yet, so she couldn’t quite be sure if the phenomenon applied here.