For Her Eyes Only. Tori Carrington

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СКАЧАТЬ Where were you planning on taking me?”

      A glimpse of a grin played around his full lips. “I know this nice place that serves great French food.”

      She raised a brow.

      “In Baltimore.”

      Her burst of laughter surprised even her.

      There was no playing with this guy. He was as straight as they came. If she asked him how many times a week he took his suits to the cleaners, he’d probably not only answer her, but answer her accurately, down to the time of day he took them in.

      She wondered if those same painstaking characteristics would make him thorough in his lovemaking, as well. He’d take his time. Explore every crevice and hollow. Make sure he was giving more pleasure than he was taking.

      She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Sorry, but I’ve already eaten.” She grasped the door again. “Thank you, though.”

      She climbed into the car, half expecting him to stop her. He didn’t.

      She rolled down the window.

      He leaned over, his hands tucked into his pants pockets. “Mind if I ask where you’re going?”

      “No, I don’t mind. But even you’d have to agree I’d be stupid to tell you.”

      He nodded. Her gaze was riveted on his mouth. While everything else about him bespoke discipline and order, his lips hinted at a passion she didn’t think even he knew the depths of. She remembered the firm, silky feel of them against hers. His initial hesitation. Then his soft groan, and the confident pressure of his mouth as he returned her instinctual kiss. She could almost still taste him there, on her tongue.

      She started the car’s engine. “You’re not going to follow me, are you?” The thought both excited and scared her, but not for the reasons she would have thought. While Jake McCoy posed a threat to her freedom to find Lili, she got the distinct impression it was an altogether different autonomy he threatened.

      Then again, one night with this man who looked at her in a mixture of wonder and desire might not be such a bad idea.

      “Probably,” he answered.

      She settled on excited.

      “Okay. Guess I’ll be seeing you on the road, then.”

      “Yeah. On the road.”

      3

      THE NERVE-GRATING CHIRP of the cell phone filled the otherwise quiet interior of the car. Jake fumbled in his jacket pocket then pulled it out. McCoy Place, the display read. He reached over and chucked the phone into his glove box. Until he saw what was going to happen over the next few hours, there was no point in talking to David. Michelle Lambert and her intentions took priority over a hiking trip. He glanced into the back seat, where all his new gear was tucked neatly into an oversize blue nylon backpack. The manager of the sports equipment store had told him everything he’d bought was top of the line. A sleeping bag no thicker than his linen bedsheets was guaranteed to keep him warm when the temperatures dipped below freezing, and dry when it rained for days on end. He leaned forward and stared at the sky. It definitely looked like rain.

      He put both hands on the steering wheel and zoomed in again on the rusted Ford two car lengths ahead of him in the right lane. He was sure there was a law against the amount of exhaust the tailpipe was spewing out. And the wire holding her back bumper in place looked ready to snap. His gaze trailed to the open driver’s window. Every now and again, tendrils of Michelle’s curly hair trailed out and whipped in the wind. Like now. He watched her run her fingers through the unruly mass, casually gathering it on the other side of her head.

      Jake adjusted the car’s interior temperature. It was the first time he’d ever turned it past the sixty-seven-degree point. But that didn’t bother him. What did was the irrepressible urge he had to turn the damn air conditioner off and roll his windows down. To feel the early evening air skim through his short-cropped hair like a woman’s fingers.

      He smoothed the front of his jacket and focused on the overhead sign coming up. Welcome To Pennsylvania. He’d driven this route before many times. Up through Maryland to Penn State, then either west to Pittsburgh or Cleveland or east to New York or Boston. When possible, he preferred driving to flying, and often times he got there faster on these shorter routes. They had yet to make a business-class airplane seat with enough leg room to keep him happy.

      He relaxed a bit. The Pennsylvania turnpike was the only direct route through the mountainous state this far south. Not even he would attempt navigating off the four-lane thruway.

      Off to the west, the sun was sinking toward the horizon, thin summer clouds throwing off shades of pink and purple. The vibrant colors made him think of the woman in the car ahead of him. Of her provocative nature. Of her small, round breasts. Her great legs. Her chattiness. His mind wandered, and he let it. As his doctor told him last week, there was no safer sex than mental sex. No one ever got pregnant or contracted an STD by indulging in fantasy. And sex with Michelle Lambert was—and would stay—nothing more than a harmless fantasy.

      Images of rumpled bedsheets, an empty wine bottle and a Do Not Disturb sign on the door conjured a scene that made him squirm in his seat. She would be a talker in bed, that one. Pleading with him to touch her just so. Knowing instinctively just where to touch him. She would be insatiable….

      Whoa.

      Jake made a quick steering correction, then stared at his lap. The last time he’d gotten a woody just thinking about a woman was when he was a teen. And he’d never indulged in fantasies about an overtly sexy, attainable female. While Farrah Fawcett had been his brother Marc’s angel of choice, Kate Jackson always had been his favorite. Trim, neat, ordinary. Watching her in her high collars and conservative slacks had really flicked his switch.

      Why, then, was he lusting after a woman who was a puzzling combination of Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn and va-va-voom Raquel Welch? One that went in for plunging necklines and short, short skirts? Didn’t make any sense at all.

      The wind caught Michelle’s dark curls again, jerking Jake’s mind to those bedsheets. They would be white and crisp, a contrast against all that inky black….

      Tearing his gaze from the car in front of him, he pushed the button to turn off the air, then rolled the windows down.

      JUST KNOWING Jake McCoy was behind her made Michelle feel erotically appealing. She’d never had a man literally pursue her before. Okay, his reasons weren’t exactly what she’d like, but she’d bet his job wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

      She turned down the radio station cranking out rock and roll oldies, then gazed into her rearview mirror. She spotted Jake and his dark Caprice immediately. He never let more than two cars separate them and stayed for the most part in the left-hand lane, except to let others pass. How charitable of him. She caught herself smiling, then cleared her throat. She should be thinking of what lay ahead of her in Akron, Ohio, south of Cleveland. Instead she watched Jake. Noticing the way he held his hands on the steering wheel in the traditional three o’clock position. His correct, upright posture explained part of the reason his suit appeared barely wrinkled.

      One hand on her own wheel, she reached down and plucked off her shoes, then slid them under her seat. Her speed let up a bit, and she instantly compensated. Jake did the same behind her.

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