Again (27 page)

Here’s a scintillating look at
Alison Kent’s
DEEP BREATH.
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W
hile Georgia had holed away in the suite’s monstrous bathroom to shower, shave, shampoo, and pull on a clean pair of undies, her T-shirt and jeans, Harry had been busy. Busy doing more than getting dressed and ratcheting up the who-is-this-man-and-where-did-he-come- from stakes.

He wore serious grown-up clothes as beautifully as he wore casual, and as well as Michelangelo’s David wore his marble skin.

She’d walked out of the steamy bathroom and only just stopped herself from demanding what the hell he was doing breaking into her room before she realized her mistake. He was that amazing. And her heart was still dealing with the unexpected lust.

The man was the most beautiful thing she’d seen in forever. Her first impression made from Finn’s truck when looking down from her window had been right on the mark. But he was so much more than a girl’s guide to getting off.

His smile—those lips and dimples, the dark shadow of his beard—was enough to melt even the most titanic ice queen. Not that she was one, or anything…

Sitting as she was now in the hotel’s salon, having her hair and makeup done, she kept sneaking looks over to where he sat waiting and reading a back issue of Cosmo. Every once in awhile he’d frown, shake his head, turn the page. If she hadn’t been ordered not to move by her stylist, she might never have stopped laughing.

When Harry told her he’d arranged not only this appointment but another with the hotel boutique’s personal shopper for jewelry, shoes and a dress, she’d asked him if he thought she was made of money.

He’d pulled out his wallet, handed her a five to pay back the tip, then reminded her she was the one donating to General Duggin’s Scholarship Foundation tonight.

Making sure she arrived looking the part of a wealthy collector rather than pack rat was the least he could contribute to the cause—a cause he’d then started to dig into, asking her questions about her family and the importance of the documents Charlie had sent her to find.

Since she’d been stuck on the pack rat comment, frowning as she ransacked her duffel for the sandals she knew that were there, thinking how she really had let herself go since being consumed by this quest, she’d almost answered, had barely caught herself in time.

The story of her father’s wrongful incarceration and her determination to prove his innocence had been on the tip of her tongue before she had bit down. If Harry knew the truth of why she wanted the dossier, he would quickly figure out she had no intention of delivering it to Charlie Castro.

Then, no doubt, they’d get into an argument about the value of her brother’s life versus that of her father’s name, and he’d want to know why the hell were they going through all of this if not to save her brother.

She really didn’t want to go there with Harry. She was having too much trouble going there with herself. Finn would understand; she knew he would. As long as he was alive to do so when this was over…

At that thought, she groaned, the sound eliciting the stylist’s concern. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Too much color? Not enough? The highlights are temporary, remember? Three washings max, you’ll be back to being a brunette.”

“Oh, no. I was thinking of something else,” Georgia assured the other woman, meeting her reflected gaze. “I hadn’t even looked…”

But now she did. And she swore the reflection in the mirror couldn’t possibly be hers. “Wow,” was the only thing she could think to say, and so she said it again. “Wow.”

“Yeah. I thought so, too.” The stylist beamed at her handiwork—and rightly so. Georgia had never in her life looked like this. The highlights in her hair gave off a coppery sheen. Her layers, too long and grown out—she had been desperate for a new cut, had been trimmed, colored, and swept up into an intricate rooster tail of untamed strands.

And then her face…was that really her face? The salon’s makeup expert had used a similar color scheme, spreading sheer terra-cotta on her cheeks, a blend of copper and bronze on her eyelids, finishing off with a gorgeous cinnamon-colored glaze on her lips.

And all of it matching the beautiful ginger-hued polish on the nails of all twenty fingers and toes. She could go for this girly girl stuff. Really.

Especially when she lifted her gaze to meet Harry’s in the mirror. He stood behind the stylist, his shoulders wide in his designer suit coat, his hands jammed to his lean waist, his smile showing just a hint of teeth.

She had no idea when he’d moved from where he’d been sitting to her chair, but the look in his eyes, the fire in his eyes, and the low sweep of his lashes was enough to make her swoon.

It had been so long since a man had shown that kind of interest in her that she didn’t know what to do, how to react, to respond. Except the truth was that it wasn’t the men. It was her.

She had refused to let any man close enough to do more than notice her skill for ferreting out valuable antiques for years now, longer than she could remember.

But now, here came Harry into the middle of her personal catastrophe, a veritable stranger who had the body of a god and a killer smile and eyes that were telling her dangerously sexy things about wanting to get her naked. He was helping her in ways that went above and beyond.

And she still had the night to spend in his room. “Can we charge the makeup to the room? I’ll pay you back.”

“Sure.” His eyes sparkled. His smile grew wicked. “And it’s my treat.”

The stylist swept the cape from around Georgia’s shoulders and Harry offered his hand to help her from the chair. It was a Cinderella moment that she had no business enjoying, but she couldn’t help it.

She hadn’t done a single thing for herself in so long that it was impossible to brush aside this feeling of discovering someone she’d thought lost.

She was well aware of why she and Harry were together, the full extent of what was at stake. But it had been years, literally years, since she’d considered herself attractive—not to mention since she’d felt confident that someone of the opposite sex found her so.

Harry did. She didn’t doubt it for a minute. Even if it did up the nerve-wracking factor of the long evening ahead in his company.

While Harry tipped the stylist and settled the bill, she took the bag of cosmetics from the cashier, absently noticing how the attention of every woman in the salon, whether overtly or subtly, was directed toward the checkout station and the fit of Harry’s clothes.

She wanted to laugh; here she was, panicking over sleeping near him when he could crook a finger and have any woman here in his bed.

And then she didn’t want to laugh at all.

She wanted to grab him by the arm and drag him out of there, leaving a battlefield of bloody cat scratches in her wake. Like he belonged to her or something, and how ridiculous was that? He was nothing but a man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, who was going out of his way to get her out of a jam.

Finn would have done the same for a woman in need. Her ex, hardly. They’d been married, and he wouldn’t have done it for her. Unless there was something in it for him…hmm. Too bad she hadn’t snapped to that before.

Harry scrawled his signature across the bottom of the ticket then handed the pen to the cashier. Georgia cocked her head and considered what he could possibly hope to gain from helping her out. He was going to a lot of expense…and sex was the first thing, the only thing, that came to mind.

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Copyright © 2006 by Sharon Cullars

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