Blazing Midsummer Nights (Harlequin Blaze) (13 page)

“We’re not serious,” she told him, starting there. “We’ve gone out a couple of times, that’s all.”

He hesitated, opening his mouth to say something, then closing it again. She waited for him to argue, waited for him to ask if she wanted to be, even waited for him to express some relief, since, somewhere deep down, he had to feel the same lack of chemistry she did.

Instead, he just said, “I should probably go or your father will start beeping the horn. Can we talk about this later?”

Hmm. Not exactly the acknowledgment she’d been going for. But it wasn’t an argument, either. As usual, she had no idea what he was thinking. Damn, this strong-and-silent thing was getting on her nerves. She didn’t know why she’d ever found it attractive in the first place.

Maybe because, until she’d met Xander, she hadn’t really understood the appeal of a man who said exactly what he thought, and damn the consequences.

“Dimitri, I…”

The horn beeped. Good grief.

He actually rolled his eyes, which was about as close to annoyed as she’d ever seen him get with her father.

This was a conversation they needed to have. But knowing they couldn’t get into anything serious with a honk underscoring every other sentence, she resigned herself to having to have it later. So when he murmured goodbye and brushed a kiss on her cheek, she smiled and let him go.

Once he was gone, she considered going back outside for the cookout, but Anna hadn’t mentioned it since last weekend, and she didn’t want to intrude on the family reunion. Nor did she want to do anything to make Helen unhappy on her first night back. If the woman was upset, thinking Dimitri had moved on and was dating Mimi, she might not appreciate the reminder.

In the end, she ended up eating a frozen dinner and watching a scary movie on TV. Which was probably a bad idea, because when it came time to go to bed, the Salisbury steak was sitting in her stomach like a cement block, and she was looking for shadows around every corner, certain every gleam of light was the reflection off a shiny knife.

She had just gotten changed into a lightweight summer nightgown when the thought of shiny knives made something else pop into her mind. “Damn. The scissors!”

This afternoon, when Tuck had come running, begging for help finding his erstwhile cat, Mimi had been in the backyard, carefully cutting some newly bloomed magnolias—from a
low-hanging
branch. She’d been using a pair of long, sharp shears, and, when she’d raced off into the woods after the boy, had left them lying at the base of the tree. When she’d come back to the house, she’d been so flustered by what had happened in the woods and by the arrival of her father and Dimitri, she’d completely forgotten to retrieve them.

They were large for scissors, but might not be easily visible to someone who wasn’t on the lookout for them. In fact, they could lying there just waiting to be stumbled across by a rambunctious little boy. If Tuck went running around in the yard in the morning, wanting to explore his new home, he could either fall over them, or find them and decide to play with them. Either way, bad news.

She couldn’t risk it. So, grabbing her robe and dragging it on over her baby-doll nightie, she slipped into her closet and felt her way along the back wall to the secret door. Thinking of the way Xander had come through here one week ago, she had to smile. And to wonder what kind of clothes were in the man’s wardrobe if he had mistaken her silky blouses and dresses for anything he might have hanging in his own.

Outside, all was quiet. It was after midnight and everyone had likely gone inside hours ago. They’d turned off the backyard lights, which couldn’t be accessed from her closet. While the starry, moonlit sky was bright enough, here inside the screen porch it was inky and black.

Twisted shadows, shapes and sounds from the movie crawled into her consciousness, making her tread carefully, wishing she’d thought to bring a flashlight. Not that she expected to stumble over an ax-wielding maniac on the patio, but hey, better safe than sorry.

Her hands out in front of her, she felt her way through the dark porch, trying to remember exactly where the outdoor furniture stood. She remembered too late that everything had been repositioned for the party last weekend and several extra chairs had been set up in here. She found one with her shin, banging into the edge of what felt like wrought iron.

“Ow,” she said with a grunt, immediately bending down to cover the aching spot with her hand.

Which made her bump her shoulder into a portable bar Obi-Wan had bought and had decided to leave up for the summer.

Which made her spin out of the way and slam her hip into the back of a chaise lounge.

Over which she stumbled, landing right on top of it.

Well, to be more accurate, she landed right on top of the person who was reclining on it. Who, fortunately, wasn’t wielding a knife. Just a wide, white smile, which he flashed at her in the darkness.

“Well, I was right, Mimi,” a throaty, sexy voice rumbled. “You beat the sunrise.”

* * *

X
ANDER DIDN’T QUESTION
what had brought Mimi out onto the patio this late, dressed in what felt like that same silky, sexy-as-sin robe she’d been wearing the night they’d met. Like just about everything in his life, he simply went with it.

He certainly hadn’t come out here hoping she might show up. He’d just been antsy, his internal clock off from a few overnight shifts this week. To make things worse, the cat-chasing rugrat who had moved in upstairs had apparently decided to see if he could bring down the 150-year-old house with his two stomping feet. So it seemed like a good idea to try sitting outside for a while, waiting the sleepless kid out.

Now, though, he was beginning to think he ought to buy the kid a bike or a video game tomorrow. Because he had definitely caused Xander to be in the right place at the right time. Twice.

“Xander? What are you doing out here?” yelped the luscious armful of silky, satiny woman who’d landed in his arms like a gift from his fairy godmother.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I forgot something and was coming out to find it.”

She was definitely on the verge of finding something. And the longer she remained sprawled on top of his nearly naked body—since he was wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts—the closer she was to getting it.

“I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d get some fresh air,” he admitted.

She’d landed on her side, and was draped across the entire length of him. She fit there perfectly, the top of her head brushing his cheek, the side of her breast pressed into his chest, her lush hip curving into his stomach.

Their bare legs were entwined, and he noted the way she moved hers up and down a little, as if by instinct, subconsciously wanting that frisson of excitement that came when soft, feminine skin rubbed firm masculine muscle.

He also noted that she wasn’t trying to work her way off him, wasn’t launching right up, wasn’t rattling off excuses or apologies or trying to pretend he hadn’t been on his knees licking her into a shattering orgasm a few hours ago. In fact, she seemed quite content to settle in for a while.

“Uh…comfy?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. Pushing against his chest, she twisted, trying to straighten up. That just put her curvy bottom more firmly on his groin, making things worse.

“You’re not going anywhere.” He slid his arms around her and rolled onto his side, tugging her with him so they lay facing one another. Their legs were still tangled, their hips and arms met, but the most dangerous zones were at least at a safer distance.

For now.

That didn’t mean they’d stay that way, but they had some talking to do first. No way was he letting his pal Woody show up to the party until he made damn sure she knew what she was doing and wanted it just as badly. Not to mention making sure she’d set her plastic coworker straight about where things stood.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m not as clumsy as you must think.”

“Yeah, you are. But that’s okay,” he said.

She wriggled again. “I should go.”

“Calm down, I’m not Michael Myers.”

Even in the darkness, he could see the whites of her eyes as they grew round as yo-yos. “How did you…”

“Your TV’s pretty loud. I recognized theme from the
Halloween
movies.”

“I like scary movies.”

“Well, they obviously don’t scare you.”

“Sure they do.”

He rolled his eyes. “No way. If they did, you wouldn’t have come out here, in the dark, all alone, forgetting a flashlight, wearing just a robe.”

He glanced down at her body, unable to resist devouring her with his stare. His eyes had adjusted to the low lighting in the porch and he was able to see her very well. He’d seen enough of her naked that his memory filled in now, reminding him of what was under her clothes. As for the parts he’d never seen…well, his imagination was doing a pretty good job with that.

She was definitely wearing the same robe. But during her fall, it had come uncinched, and gaped open. Beneath it, Mimi wore the skimpiest, sexiest little excuse for a nightgown he’d ever seen. The shoulder straps were two thin strips of lace, which held up a few triangles of satin that strained to contain her breasts. A filmy bit of a skirt fell to about her hips and there it ended. He saw a bit of elastic at her hip and knew she had on another of those thongs. All he’d have to do was bend his arms and he’d be able to fill his hands with two perfect curves of her bottom, as he had earlier when he’d been exploring her so thoroughly.

He wanted the gown off her. He might have seen her most intimate places up close and deliciously personal, but he had yet to lay eyes on what he could already tell were a pair of perfect breasts. He desperately wanted to cup them, taste them, suck her nipples and see if she cooed the way she did when he sucked her clit.

Then again, maybe it was just as well he couldn’t. Seeing the rest of her would be like not only inviting Woody to the party, but asking him to burst out and surprise them both. If she so much as flashed a nipple, his cock would be standing up and doing the Macarena. He’d already decided they needed to clear the air before they went back for another round, and the air couldn’t be cleared if his southern brain was in charge of the entire conversation.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to stop looking at her, not when he’d been asking himself for hours if she could possibly have been as incredibly sexy as he remembered her being. Answer: no. She was even more so.

Her eyes obviously hadn’t adjusted as well as his yet, because she didn’t appear to notice the fact that the guy holding her so easily in his arms was in danger of drowning her with his own drool.

“Women in those movies always end up wearing something teeny-tiny at some point,” she pointed out.

“Mmm. True. But if you were the heroine, and you’d fallen onto a strange guy you barely knew, you’d have leaped right up, slapped his face and declared you were staying a virgin until at least the fourth sequel.”

“Silly—the heroine never makes it to the fourth sequel. By that point, she’s too big a star and the movie’s being made for the straight-to-DVD set with B actors.”

Ahh, a horror-movie aficionado. “Also true.”

“But you are right, the ones who sleep around do usually get sliced and diced, don’t they?”

“Yep. So do the man-whores.”

She chuckled softly. “Is that what you are?”

He didn’t laugh, taking the moment to move the conversation where it needed to go. “No. I’m not. I am actually pretty picky when it comes to stuff like…this.”

Her lips parted and she moistened them with her pink tongue. “Like this?”

“Yeah, Mimi. Like this. You and me.”