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Authors: Susan Fox

BOOK: Body Heat
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Grinding her teeth, she went back to her chair and looked at the plate of unfinished food. She shoved it aside and yawned. She shouldn’t have stayed up so late, but she’d gotten hooked watching
Rebel Without a Cause
. No wonder she’d been thinking of James Dean this morning. Though there was really very little comparison. Jesse was taller, better built, his voice was deeper, he was definitely more masculine. Sexier.
Had he had an unhappy home life, like Dean’s character in the movie?
Guiltily, she remembered that she had out and out lied to Jesse Blue. While she truly believed in honesty, she couldn’t confess to being a TV and movie addict. Her parents had raised her to believe such things were a pure waste of time. The television in their house had been solely for watching documentaries and other educational programs, and woe betide her if she ever got caught watching a movie or sitcom.
Maura, find something
worthwhile
to occupy your time.
Movies were for people like Jesse, who wanted superficial entertainment.
She yawned again, then forced her drooping eyes open and glanced out the window once more. He had finished eating and was lying on his back on the grass. Had he been up late, too? Probably not watching movies by himself. More likely, creating his own sex scenes with some gorgeous female.
He looked so peaceful, lazing in the sun on his lunch break. Like a cat, a giant cat, dozing in a sunny spot. Jesse seemed as natural and unselfconscious as a cat, too.
Maura was never unselfconscious, except when she was absorbed in working with numbers. She was always aware of trying to please people, to impress them, to be accepted. She’d heard that orphans were often like that.
It would be nice to be different. To be like Jesse. To not have to put on a poised façade but to be natural, confident. . .
She studied the man lying on the rough grass . . .
Confident . . . She could imagine being more confident. . .
She could imagine . . .
Chapter 4
T
his time, when Jesse glanced toward her window, Maura didn’t move away. What would he do once he knew she was watching?
He rose in that cat-like way of his, taking his time. He stood, stretched lazily, ran his fingers through those long curls. Then he began to walk. Straight toward her.
She didn’t step back from the window. Instead, she reached out and unlatched it. It was a tall window, starting a couple of feet above the floor and stretching almost to the ceiling. When she pushed it open, fresh air streamed in and she smelled the perfume of the cherry trees.
He reached the window and she stood aside. He didn’t stop, just vaulted easily over the wooden frame, and suddenly her office was filled with his presence. The smell of earth and male exertion was intoxicating.
Those tawny eyes glowed with fire and, though she’d never seen passion up close and personal, she recognized it from movies. She knew her own eyes were sending the same message.
He reached out a hand and held it beside her cheek, close but not quite touching. Boldly she leaned toward him, fitting herself to the curve of his palm. He smiled then, a quick dazzle of white in his dark face, and caressed her heated skin. That strong, capable hand was unbelievably gentle, absolutely tantalizing. His palm was hot and dry, rough with calluses. It abraded ever so slightly, and she quivered at the sensation.
He slipped his hand away, then returned with one finger, tracing the outside line of her top lip, then her bottom lip.
She trembled.
His finger teased the crease that separated her lips.
Involuntarily, her lips parted.
He gave a rough chuckle, a satisfied masculine sound.
Then he tipped his head down and his lips touched hers, so soft after the roughness of his fingertip. So gentle. It was disarming, from a man so rugged and male. Again she opened to him and he accepted her invitation, slipping his tongue between her lips, exploring, flirting, seducing her own tongue.
She moaned softly. His lips pressed more firmly as he deepened the kiss, quickened the dance.
His arms came around her, one just below her shoulders and one at the base of her spine. Slowly but inexorably he pulled her toward him and she went willingly, her body yearning to learn the feel of his.
Her chest met his, her breasts softening against the cotton of his T-shirt even as her nipples peaked. He eased her hips forward, and she felt the roughness of denim and then, as a shock, the hardness that told her he was fully aroused. From just one kiss with her.
She nestled her hips closer. He pulled his mouth away from hers and groaned, then whispered, “Maura . . .”
“Maura? Ms. Mahoney?”
Gracie’s voice penetrated her brain and Maura jerked awake. What? Had she been dozing? Had she actually had a
sex dream
? About Jesse Blue?
Cheeks burning, she swung her chair to face the door. Gracie stood there, looking puzzled. How many times had she called Maura’s name?
“Yes, Gracie? Sorry. I was, er, working out some budget scenarios.” And now she was lying to Gracie. Turning thirty had warped her entire personality.
“Sorry to interrupt.” The redhead made her rueful-apology face again. “Been doing that all day, haven’t I? Anyhow, I just wanted to tell you I’m going for the day. Unless you, like, need anything else?”
Need. Maura squeezed her thighs together against an unfamiliar ache. Oh, yeah, she needed something, but Gracie sure couldn’t provide it. “No, nothing,” she mumbled, cheeks burning. Good God, she’d never felt so . . . hot and wet, so swollen and achy, when she’d made love with the only two boyfriends she’d ever had sex with. Uninspired sex; sex that hadn’t given her what she needed, either. Let’s face it, her little sex dream, drawn more from movies and books than her own experience, had been sexier than lovemaking with either Bill or Winston.
When Gracie had departed with another quizzical glance, Maura groaned. A sex dream? A little daylight sex fantasy? What was wrong with her? The only time she’d ever before imagined a guy kissing her was back in grade twelve.
Troy Offenbacher, the captain of the debate team. He hadn’t been every girl’s idea of cute, but she’d admired his brain and those big blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. They’d studied together, she’d fallen in love, and he’d asked her to the prom. She’d bought a dress, got her hair styled, done the whole mani-pedi thing with her girlfriend Sally.
The two of them had giggled and fantasized, her about Troy and Sally about her football-star boyfriend, and for once Maura had felt like a normal teenaged girl rather than the plain, serious one who never fit in. She’d felt pretty. Even desirable. Until the night of the prom, when a cheerleader named Nicki had too much to drink and came onto Troy. Maura guessed it was due to a bet or a mean joke.
Troy didn’t give a damn about the reason.
So there was Maura, the girl who worked so hard to avoid being rejected, dumped at her own high school prom by the boy she loved.
Shattered, she’d done something really stupid. She’d let Sally—a girl who definitely had a wild side—convince her that getting drunk would make her feel better. Sally’s football hero had a bottle of tequila, and the three of them had gone down to the beach. The police had caught them and, thank God, not pressed charges. But parents had been called.
Maura had received a “we’re very disappointed in you” lecture, the kind she hadn’t heard since she was ten and Timothy had come home from work with the flu and caught her watching
I Love Lucy
reruns.
A brand-new high school graduate, she’d been grounded for the summer. Not that the grounding mattered, because she was also forbidden from seeing Sally, and Sally had been her only social life. Maura was disappointed in herself, too, and scared by what she’d done, by the way she’d let Sally’s wildness overcome her own better judgment. She’d agreed that the girl was a bad influence.
She’d lost her first love and her one-and-only best friend in one fell swoop—and learned that, as Sally would put it, her own judgment sucked big-time.
Maura gave a snort of disgust and shook her head. The past. Why was she even thinking about this?
A glance into the garden, where Jesse was now hard at work, reminded her. She’d been thinking about sexy fantasies.
How completely ridiculous to have them about Jesse. He was edgy and crude, hated books, and was a petty criminal. He was the opposite of what she wanted in a man.
Even if that weren’t true, and she was insane enough to be interested in him, he was way too handsome and sexy to ever be attracted to a woman like her. There were a couple of times she’d wondered if he was checking her out, but if so, it was just a natural male instinct to look at breasts and hips. It wasn’t attraction. If geeky Troy had blown her off for a cheerleader, she’d never stand a chance with Jesse. Not that she wanted one. She definitely didn’t.
Oh, Lord, why on earth was she having wicked thoughts about him?
Wicked thoughts
. Her lips twisted in a smile. The phrase was pure Sally. The two of them had really had fun together in grade twelve, when Sally’s wealthy parents had moved her from public school to the Wilton Academy in hopes of settling her down and making her apply herself, academically.
Maura had helped her with schoolwork, but it wasn’t in Sally to settle down. She’d unsettled Maura, bringing out a side of her she’d barely known existed.
Sally hadn’t been bad. Just irreverent and a little reckless. Maybe, Maura now thought, she shouldn’t have been so quick to go along with Agnes and Timothy when they’d forbidden her to see Sally again. Maybe kids should be allowed to make some mistakes and learn from them, not have to behave perfectly all the time.
The man she was staring at out the window had made a mistake, too, doing whatever had landed him in court. Did he view it that way himself, and intend to learn from it? Hopefully so.
He pulled up the bottom of his T-shirt and used it to fan himself, giving Maura a tantalizing glimpse of a brown six-pack.
She felt like fanning herself, too, and she wasn’t even out in the sun, much less doing hard physical labor.
He got back to work and she kept watching. No, she wasn’t fantasizing, she was supervising. By now she’d figured out his method. He used the edger to cut a curving line, either at random or following some pattern in his head. Then he used the wicked-looking mattock to peel up strips of turf. When that was done, he shoveled soil onto the lawn and broke it up with the fork. Finally he put the turf back, with the grass side down, and piled the soil on top. It was clever and efficient, she had to admit. He was basically swapping soil for grass, with nothing left over to dispose of.
He leaned over to drink out of the hose, letting water splash his face and down his front. She wondered if he would take the T-shirt off. She doubted her blood pressure could take it, yet she was sorry when he didn’t.
Above and behind Jesse, another window opened. Mrs. Rudnicki rested her arms on the sill and gazed down into the garden. Maura would bet a month’s pay that she and Sophie Rudnicki weren’t the only females watching the show.
She forced herself back to work. Across from her, the leather jacket was a constant, disturbing reminder of the new male presence in her life. The purple orchid flowers arched toward it, their full mouths opening in sexy smiles.
Sex. Now even her orchid plant was making her think of sex. This was ridiculous.
By the end of the afternoon, Maura’s shoulders and neck ached from tension. She’d have gone home for a relaxing bath before her birthday dinner if she hadn’t had to supervise Jesse.
Of course, if she hadn’t had to supervise Jesse, she wouldn’t be tense and stressed.
No bath, no change of clothes, but there was one thing she could do to make herself feel better. She pulled open her bottom drawer and took out her hairbrush. She removed the pins that held her hair in its neat knot and let it tumble free, halfway down her back. Rotating her swivel chair to face a bookcase, she leaned back in the chair and lifted her legs to rest her feet on the second shelf.
Maura began to brush. A hundred long, slow strokes. When she was little, before her parents died, her mom brushed Maura’s hair this way. Later, when Agnes and Timothy took her in, no one had brushed her hair for her. She’d done it herself, her small hands growing larger and more deft over the years.
Now, this was still a favorite method of relaxing. She’d even been known to exceed the hundred strokes.
 
Jesse flipped the last strip of turf back into the new border and shoveled soil on top of it. He stretched aching shoulders, then tidied up his tools and washed up, using the courtyard tap. That was three borders ready to plant. Tomorrow, he and the boss-lady could go shopping for supplies. If she could force herself to get into a car with him.
Probably should check in with her, because she was supposed to keep track of his hours. Besides, she had his jacket.
He locked the courtyard door behind him and saw that there was a different woman at the receptionist’s desk now—a sturdy woman with gray-streaked brown hair. She studied him without warmth. “You’re Jesse Blue. Gracie told me about you.”
When she didn’t go on to give him her name, he flashed her a cocky smile. “Pleased to meet you.”
She hmphed.
“I’m supposed to check in with Ms. Mahoney,” he said. “I know the way.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she said, “Fine.”
Jesse strolled down the hallway. It was past six o’clock, and obviously his boss was still there or the nameless receptionist would have told him. Did Maura Mahoney always work Saturdays, or was she only doing it so she could supervise him? If so, he owed her.
He didn’t like owing people.
When he stepped into the doorway of the office, Jesse froze in place. She was seated behind her desk but had swiveled her chair so she was facing away from him.
Long hair streamed over the back of the chair, gleaming under the overhead light. The length, the color, the shininess stunned him. He tried to find a name for the color, somewhere between blond and red. The best he could come up with was copper-bronze.
Her right hand lifted lazily, holding a hairbrush. She stroked through her hair from crown to ends, tilting her head slightly as she did. He couldn’t see her face, but he’d bet it wore an expression of sheer pleasure.
What she was doing—the simple act of brushing her hair—was one of the most sensual things he’d ever seen. He could imagine her naked in bed: that creamy skin, the vibrant hair flowing over her shoulders and down her chest. Almost hiding her breasts, but not quite. Allowing the slightest glimpse here and there. Perhaps a nipple peeking out, growing hard as she became aware of his scrutiny.
And speaking of growing hard . . . He took a silent step backward, out the doorway, suddenly realizing he had a hard-on.
Grateful no one else was in the corridor, he paced up and down, trying to think of anything but the ice queen with the honey-dripping name. Mahoney. My honey. He wondered how many men had called her that. He guessed not many. She’d be picky about the men she allowed into her life. Lawyers and doctors, probably. No calloused-hand laborers for her.

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