One Night, So Pregnant! (7 page)

She glanced back at her car, concentrating on the sting of irritation in the hope that it would douse the firestorm of lust. Why did that tone always manage to make her feel as if she were fourteen years old again and sitting in her father’s study waiting to be chastised for her latest misdemeanor?

‘That heap of junk got me here just fine,’ she said with only a minor hint of breathlessness.

‘It got you here an hour late,’ he replied, wiping his face with the end of the towel.

‘Shh,’ she hissed. ‘Keep your voice down.’

‘Why?’

‘She might hear you.’

‘Who?’

‘Jezebel my jalopy, of course,’ she said, hoping to deflect the caustic tone with humour. Just because he had a point about her car, she did not want to argue about it. The last thing she needed to do right now was generate more heat between them. ‘She’s sensitive.’

His lips tilted. ‘The car’s a girl. That figures.’

The heat level shot up another few thousand degrees, and Tess decided that making him smile hadn’t been the smartest idea. His eyes drifted over her face for a moment that felt like a millennium.

‘Follow the road past the house,’ he said at last, his voice rough but businesslike. ‘The cottage is past the cypress grove on your left. I’ll meet you down there. I need to change.’

‘Where are you going to change?’ she asked in a breathy whisper as the sudden vision of him peeling off those trunks made her tongue swell.

His dark brows quirked upwards as his eyes heated. ‘At the pool house.’

‘Okay... That’s an excellent idea.’ She stumbled over the words, the air rushing out of her lungs on a deflating sigh. ‘Right, then. I’ll see you at the cottage.’

As she trudged back to her car she forced herself not to watch him as he walked back towards the pool. She really did not need to see his beautiful backside framed by tight-fitting Lycra. Her resolve was crumbling fast enough already.

Denial was the only sensible option in their situation. But as she climbed back into the sweltering car and stabbed her keys into the ignition she wondered why the sensible option didn’t make nearly as much sense as it had before she’d seen Nate Graystone dripping wet.

CHAPTER TEN

‘P
LEASE
,
Jezebel, give me a break.’ Tess jerked the keys in the ignition for about the fiftieth time and prayed.

The car wheezed, whined, shuddered to life for a second, then coughed and died. She slapped the flat of her hand on the hot dash and wanted to cry.

Squeezing back tears of frustration, she flopped back into the scorching seat and gave up. ‘You traitor. Gee thanks, Jezz.’

No matter how much she begged, the car was not going to start. It really was a heap of junk. And now she was stranded in Nate’s driveway having never even got as far as his cottage.

Her humiliation was complete when she saw his tall figure, clad in a black T-shirt and faded jeans, strolling towards her from the direction of the pool.

Well, at least he had some clothes on now, she thought, dismissing the stupid stab of regret as she got out of the car.

Yet more good news she thought, as she waited for him to reach her. Even though he looked almost as devastating in faded denim as he had in virtually nothing, the low pounding of her pulse had been effectively drowned out by the stabbing headache taking hold of her temples. Good to know, the remedy for an extreme case of sexual frustration was heat exhaustion.

‘Problem?’ he asked, without a trace of the superiority she had braced herself for.

‘Sort of. I think Jezebel finally died on me,’ she replied honestly, all her belligerence having drowned in a pool of wretchedness. Was nothing in her life ever going to go right again? How the heck would she be able to accept his offer of the cottage out here if she didn’t have a car? It was probably a five-mile drive to the nearest store.

Leaning into the Car’s open window, he located the lever under the dash and the car’s bonnet popped open. He lifted the hood with his usual economy of movement and propped it on the metal upright. Dismay filled Tess as she followed his gaze and saw the sizzle of water spitting from the radiator cap.

Nate tucked his hands into his back pockets and gave his head an ominous shake. ‘That doesn’t look too healthy.’

‘Maybe if we refilled it?’ Tess asked with more desperation than conviction. ‘Would that fix it?’

‘I doubt it would fix it for long’

‘But you don’t know for sure?’

He sent her a wry smile. ‘I may be a guy, but lifting the hood is about as far as my knowledge of auto repairs goes.’ The self-deprecating remark had her smiling back at him, despite her despair. She had to give him points for not seizing the opportunity to rub her nose in it. Although, as she watched the radiator cap steam, she wasn’t sure that was all that much comfort.

‘Do you have breakdown cover?’ he asked.

‘Not any more.’ She’d cut her cover a week ago, along with all the other items in her account she’d deemed ‘non-essential’ expenditure. She’d figured she could always take the bus or the cable car if need be. Unfortunately, they didn’t have cable cars out on Highway One. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, letting the dream of moving into Nate’s beautiful estate die a short but painful death. ‘I can catch a cab back today. I don’t suppose there’s much point in me seeing the cottage now though.’

Unhooking the hood, he let it crash down, making her jump. ‘Why not?’

‘I can’t very well stay all the way out here without reliable transportation.’

Nate studied the weary look in her eyes...and wished to hell he could solve this problem the easy way—by waving the magic money wand and getting a new car shipped up here this afternoon. But he could see the determined tilt of her chin, and knew she’d hitchhike back to the city before she’d accept the gift.

‘Not necessarily.’ Thinking fast, he tugged his smart phone out of his back pocket and flicked through the directory to Zane’s number. ‘I can’t fix the car, but I may know a guy who can.’

Zane might know all there was to know about cars, but he wasn’t a miracle worker. And Nate had a feeling Tess’s car would need more than a miracle. But Zane had more charm than he knew what to do with, and Nate couldn’t think of a better man to stall Tess while he came up with the best way to finesse her into accepting a new car.

‘Really?’ She sounded so grateful for the lifeline, he persuaded himself the white lie was justified. She needed transportation. And he could afford it. Figuring out a way to get her to accept the obvious solution was all that mattered.

He wanted her living in the cottage, so he could look out for her. It didn’t bother him too much that he’d never wanted to look out for any woman before her.

It had to be a result of her pregnancy and the fallout from his own childhood that made him feel responsible for her—and had nothing at all to do with the need that had shot through his system when her gaze had roamed over his chest and then dipped down to the front of his shorts after he’d got out of the pool.

Thanks to the freezing cold swim, he’d kept himself under control long enough to get back to the pool house without causing himself an injury—or letting Tess know the full extent of the effect she had on him.

He’d never wanted a woman this much before—probably because he’d never known one whose naked yearning had matched his own. But that didn’t mean he planned to give in to the urge. He’d discovered as a teenager that the more you wanted something, the less good it did you.

He tapped the call button and listened to Zane’s phone buzz in his ear as Tess watched him expectantly, her eyes wide with hope. Damp tendrils of hair stuck to the slim column of her neck in the heat while her small white teeth dug into her bottom lip. She looked exhausted and worried—all the belligerence of their meeting in Walter’s office yesterday having melted away in the heat. He let his gaze glide down to her flat stomach, wondering if the effects of the pregnancy might be starting to bite. His chest tightened at the thought—the protective instinct both novel and confusing.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she needed his help. And she was going to get it.

Once Zane arrived, he’d figure out how to finesse her into accepting a new car. Zane could help with that—the man was a master at getting women to do what he wanted. For once it was a quality Nate might actually find useful—instead of annoying.

‘Kemosabe, what’s the deal?’ came Zane’s familiar greeting.

‘Hey, Zane. Any chance you could cruise down to San Revelle this afternoon, take a look at a dead engine?’

The sound of background music muted and Zane’s stunned voice came back on the line. ‘The Jeep croaked? No way. It’s less than a year old. That’s the most reliable model in—’

‘Not the Jeep,’ he cut in before his friend died of shock. ‘It’s Tess’s car.’

‘Tess?’ Zane’s puzzled reply was swiftly followed by a low chuckle. ‘Not Tess the British girl you did in a closet?’

‘No, Tess, the mother of my child,’ he countered, holding onto his temper with an effort. It was only as the statement echoed down the phone into silence that he realised what he’d said—and the possessive way in which he’d said it.

‘So I take it you got the proof you wanted?’ came Zane’s sober reply.

No, he hadn’t. Why didn’t that seem to matter any more?

‘Can you come or not?’ Nate replied, not wanting to have this conversation in front of Tess.

There was another long pause, before Zane replied, ‘Sure, I’m near Daly City, shouldn’t take me more than thirty.’

Nate felt an unpleasant tickle in the back of his throat at the eagerness in Zane’s voice.

‘This is one lady I want to meet,’ his friend added.

Nate coughed, the unpleasant tickle firing up the back of his neck. ‘Actually, Zane, forget it, you don’t need to...’ But before he could finish, he was listening to a dial tone.

‘Can he come?’ Tess asked.

‘Yeah,’ Nate said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket and pushing aside the vivid recollection of the waitress’s face two weeks ago in Murphy’s bar when she’d got her first good glimpse of Zane.

This was dumb. Zane might have a face that had women hitting on him in bars, but Nate had never envied the attention he got. Up till now, Zane’s extraordinary effect on women had never bothered him a bit. Call him old-fashioned, but he’d rather be the hunter than the prey.

But the thought of Tess’s eyes clouding over with lust, the thought of her gaze devouring his friend the same way she’d just devoured him, was bothering him big time.

The unease settled in the pit of his stomach.

‘Let’s get you down to the cottage,’ he said brusquely. ‘You could probably use a drink of water.’

He touched her cheek, gratified when her eyes darkened again despite the exhaustion. ‘And the place has air conditioning—you look hot.’ In more ways than one, he thought as her little huff made her breasts rise under the tight-
fitting T-shirt.

‘How long will your friend take to get here?’

‘A while,’ Nate replied, masking his irritation at the enquiry. ‘By the way, do me a favour when you meet him.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t drool.’

‘Excuse me?’ she said as her brow wrinkled in confusion.

‘Zane’s a good-looking guy,’ he said grudgingly, keeping his hand anchored to her hip as they headed down the driveway.

She shifted round, dislodging his hand. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ve never drooled over a man in my life.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes, yeah,’ she said, looking affronted.

He lifted a sceptical eyebrow. ‘So what were you doing when I got out of the pool? Impersonating a guppy?’

‘I... That’s not...’ Her face flushed from pink to vermillion. ‘How remarkably conceited of you.’

‘But I don’t hear you denying it,’ he said, not sure why he was goading her. Or why her flustered reaction was making the queasy feeling ease off.

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, stop boasting and show me the cottage.’ Swinging round, she marched off down the driveway. ‘And I’ll do my best to resist the urge to impersonate a guppy again.’

* * *

The infernal man.

Tess stalked down the driveway, adding exhaustion to indignation and sexual frustration.

How could he be so crass as to mention the way she’d looked at him by the pool? Right after announcing in the middle of a phone conversation with his friend that she was the mother of his child. It was almost as if he were trying to knock her off balance every chance he got.

Rounding a towering oleander bush thick with showy white blooms, she came to an abrupt stop, her indignation faltering at the sight of the large one-storey hacienda-style building. Pink stone steps led up to an imposing wooden front door studded with brass and matched the terracotta tiles on the sloping roof. Intricate plasterwork and latticed windows added the same rococo flourishes as the main house.

If that was a cottage, she was Cinderella’s fairy godmother.

She jumped as a warm palm wrapped around her elbow. Then cursed herself as Nate smiled down at her.

‘Let’s go in the kitchen entrance. Mano said he’d leave the door open for us.’

‘Who’s Mano?’ she asked, trying not to gawp as heat buzzed where his thumb stroked the inside of her elbow. If he could be cool and collected about the attraction between them, then so could she.

He led her across the flagstone porch and then around the back of the building, to a charming entrance framed by bougainvillea vines.

‘Mano used to be my grandfather’s head gardener.’ He pushed open the door, to reveal a bright airy kitchen with an array of shiny new appliances. A drop-leaf table stood by the large picture window that afforded a spectacular view across the cliffs towards the ocean.

‘Used to be?’

‘He’s the property’s caretaker now.’ Taking a heavy crystal beaker out of a glass-fronted cabinet, he turned on the tap and let the water run for a moment, before filling it.

‘He lives on the property?’ she asked, careful to make sure her fingers didn’t touch his as she took the chilled glass of water.

‘Not on the property, no.’ Nate leant against the kitchen counter, crossed his arms over his chest and watched her. ‘We’re alone.’

Tess took a hasty gulp of the icy water, but it didn’t do a thing to stop the burning in her chest. ‘Until your friend gets here.’

‘He’ll be a good half-hour.’

Heat surged, his implication clear—they’d managed to do quite a bit in a lot less time than thirty minutes before now.

She placed the glass on the table, pleased when she managed not to spill a drop. But as she faced him she decided there was no point in being coy. Not with this man.

All he had to do was look at her and her breasts grew heavy and even more sensitive. Her eyes dipped to the bunch of muscle displayed by black cotton. The memory of his naked chest, lightly dusted with hair, flashed like fire in her mind.

‘Don’t you think it’s a little unwise for us to do this again?’ she said.

He unhooked his arms, braced his hands on the countertop. ‘Maybe. But that doesn’t solve our problem.’

‘What problem?’ she asked, her heartbeat skittering into her throat. Okay, maybe coy wasn’t completely out of the question.

‘I want you. A lot. And after your guppy impersonation by the pool, I know the feeling’s mutual.’

‘Busted,’ she murmured. Why even attempt to deny it? ‘But sex will make a difficult situation impossible,’ she said breathlessly, knowing she was arguing with herself as much as him.

‘Possibly.’ He stepped towards her, and she inhaled the tantalising scent of him—pine soap and chlorine. ‘Or it could simplify it.’

She raised her arms, intending to ward him off, but then he settled his hands on her hips, dragged her against him. And she could feel his need, the thick ridge of his arousal straining against worn denim more persuasive than any words.

She braced her forearms against his chest. ‘How?’ she asked, trying to recall all the reasons why this was a really bad idea.

‘We need to get to know each other,’ he murmured, dipping his head, his tongue touching her ear lobe. ‘And sex will make that process faster and more fun.’

Oh, please. Seriously?

Her breath shuddered out. His logic was ridiculous, and she knew it, but she still couldn’t stop herself from clarifying. ‘Is this a friends-with-benefits scenario? Because they never work.’