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“Fine. I’ll be sure to be home on Sunday evening.”

“I’m looking forward to digging around out there to see what plants were original to the garden.”

Jake nodded agreement. “You’ll have my estimate then too.”

“Your rooms are ready, and the kitchen’s well stocked, as is the liquor cabinet in the front parlor. Enjoy yourselves and the house. Perdition has a lot of interesting stories to tell, but don’t be surprised if you hear things; the house is old and drafty sometimes. In spite of that, it’s a pleasure living here. I hope you make the most of it.” The way she said the word
pleasure
put thoughts of hot dirty sex into his mind.

Lexa’s glance was eager and feverish. All he wanted was Faye out of here so he could have Lexa to himself.

Faye chuckled while her eyes cooled to appraising. “I see you understand me, Mr. MacKay. I believe my aunt was right. You do have the touch.”

With that, she nodded and left them. The door was still swinging at her exit when a steady, thrumming throb began in his cock. The hair at the back of his neck rose, and a chill filled the room.

The creak from the hinges died away, leaving the room silent and strangely expectant.

Lexa licked her lips. “Ah, why do I feel we’ve just been left the keys to Paradise?”

“And that there’s more going on in this house than Faye Grantham will admit.” He ran a fingertip from her shoulder to her wrist, tracking her warm flesh in a heated tracery. Sparks flowed from his fingertip to her muscles in a caress of promise. “I think the key to Paradise is in this snap and crackle we feel when I touch you.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head toward the side he stroked, like a luxuriating cat. “I can feel the heat, but it doesn’t hurt now,” she said.

Her nipples beaded, and the sight made his mouth water.

Would they be creamy in his mouth or ripe and tangy against his tongue? Did her skin heat and flush quickly, or was she a cooler breed, slow to rouse? With those hot glances and luscious lips, he bet she was quick off the mark, ready for anything. Her hips flared to perfection, and he wanted, needed, his hands on her soon.

“It feels good,” he said. “You feel good.”

She opened her eyes, and he read acceptance in them. “Let’s have a look around first,” she suggested.

The word
first
made need pulse through his body so fast he had to shift his weight from foot to foot to keep from grabbing her.

This was not the way he operated. When he met a woman he wanted, his normal procedure was to talk, get to know her, find out enough to satisfy his curiosity about her before jumping her bones.

But this was different. Lexa was no ordinary woman. She was
the woman.

The one.

His.

He was already halfway to acceptance, and it scared the shit out of him. Lexa walked through the swinging door with a glance over her shoulder that sent fresh heat roaring through him. His head spun with the onslaught, and he had no choice but to follow.

Do her. Here. In the dining room. She wants it hard and fast on the table.

He shook the wild thought out of his head.

Lexa hesitated by the head of the table and trailed her fingers over the fine china place setting. Elegant and refined, the table was set for two at this end. Their hostess wouldn’t be joining them for dinner.

They really did have the keys to Paradise.

L
exa’s nipples were so hard, her soft cotton bra felt scratchy and too hot against the tender nubs. The china pattern at her fingertips was older than any she’d ever seen, the cut crystal water goblets elegant. Too elegant to sweep off the table so she could offer her body to Jake.

Offer herself? Here? On the table? It was nothing but a crazy hot impulse she refused to act on. But the refusal cost her in nerves.

The idea of sex on the table took hold and sent a gush of moisture to her panties. Warm, so warm. She fanned herself with the photo album, but all it created was hot fluttering air.

“We should walk through the downstairs first,” she suggested, trying like hell not to think about what might happen when they got to the parlor. The breakable china had stopped her from making a fool of herself in here, but she figured a sofa or love seat would be impossible to resist.

“There’s that word again.”

“What word?”

“First.
You say it as if it’s a foregone conclusion we’ll be doing something after we look around.” The look he gave her burned through her clothing. “What is it you think we’ll be doing afterward?”

Heat bloomed in her chest, then crept up to her cheeks. She didn’t normally blush, but now she wondered if she sounded like some skank who took sex for granted.

She shuddered at the idea of stretching out, naked, opening her legs and letting him do whatever came to his mind. Or hers. And since her mind didn’t seem to be under her control right now, that meant any damn thing imaginable.

Not trusting herself to speak, deciding his question didn’t deserve an answer because he knew damn well what she was thinking about, she didn’t reply.

Instead, she walked on unwieldy legs around the dining table and through the front hall past the staircase. The front parlor was jam-packed with heavy Victorian furniture. In the crowded room, every tabletop was filled with figurines or a lamp. Lace doilies covered most surfaces. Taking in the decor gave her a chance to dispel enough of her arousal so that she could think again. She found an empty spot on a marble-topped drinks table and set down the photo album, reminding herself to find it later.

She’d been fantasizing about giving herself to a total stranger, a man she knew nothing about, for pity’s sake. While the thrill of the fantasy might call to her, she was still a practical kind of gal. Even in her flights of fancy, she needed to know more about him than just what she saw. Yanking her good sense back into place, she asked, “Where are you from, Jake?”

“Florida.”

“That’s a long way away.” A very long way. Too far to think about, really. Whatever happened between them would be here and now only. There wouldn’t be a next week or a next month. Just this weekend.

A weekend in Perdition. Suddenly the flight of fancy took an easier path. Jake would have to be crazy to expect more than this weekend.

Hallelujah!

The man in question focused on her face as if he could read her joy at his answer. “We don’t see many real Victorians in Miami. Most of the restoration work I do is on Streamline Moderne.” His lips turned down at the corners.

“Don’t like that era?”

He smoothed a palm down the dark wainscoting. “Not as interesting as this.” His hand, broad with square-tipped fingers, fit him, and the sight of the stroke of his hand on the burnished wood brought a new fire.

“If you haven’t worked on a lot of Victorians, then why did they call you?” Her area of expertise was perfect for Perdition House’s gardens, so calling on her made sense.

He shrugged. “No idea. Maybe they got my name from someone, but if they told me, I can’t recall. Both Faye and the woman on the phone mentioned I have the touch.” He looked at his hands, flexed those long strong fingers that could wreak havoc along her nerve endings.

“Maybe it’s got something to do with the burning sensation I get when you touch me?”

He faced her straight on, and something in his face stilled and went serious. His gaze caressed her face, and she wanted to close her eyes, tilt her mouth up, and beg for a kiss. He stepped close. “The burn’s all yours, Lexa. I’ve never felt it with anyone else before.”

She nodded. “Me neither. It’s kind of scary.” She paused, crazy with delight at the idea that this was a private, intimate sensation they shared only with each other. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said when he looked surprised. “It excites me too. I like it,” she confessed so he’d know she wanted more of the sizzle and crackle.

“I’m glad.” He looked happily satisfied with her answer. “So, tell me, if you were to find yourself in a completely different climate, different soil, seasons, and so on, would you be able to transfer your skills? The way a carpenter can? Building is building, after all.”

“Good design doesn’t change. It’s much like architecture. What works here will work anywhere as far as layout goes. And soil composition is highly erratic. You can have heavy clay in spots and light soil in others, even in the same garden.”

He nodded. “Sounds technical.” He frowned.

She could go into more explanation, but he obviously wasn’t a gardener, and boring him to death was a surefire way to kill his interest.

In the wide bow window, Boston ferns in heavy oak stands stood next to a window seat covered in plush purple velvet. A gold tassel hung beside thick red velvet drapes.

On an impish impulse, she tugged the bell pull. A distant chime came from the kitchen. “They used this to call the maids for help or food.”

An ornately carved fireplace mantel filled with knickknacks and bric-a-brac provided a focal point on the far wall.

“Faye’s aunt said she insisted on the best of everything. I guess that meant service too. This place is like a living museum.”

Jake wandered over to the fireplace to inspect the mantel. “This solid cherry is in immaculate condition.” He muttered a soft curse and stared hard at the carvings. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Come over here and take a look.” His glance brought fever to a whole new level.

She hurried over to where he stood in shock.

Carved into the cherrywood were naked sultry women sucking the hugely erect cocks of well-muscled men, while the men had their faces buried in pussy. The head-to-tail trail of people started at the floor and continued up each side to meet in the middle of the top cross beam. “Often you’ll see cherubs or horses and hunting dogs carved into mantels, but this is unique,” he said, his voice a hot, hollow shadow of its usual vibrancy.

She moved in closer for a better look. “Wow, am I crazy or does it look like they’re writhing in sexual ecstasy?”

She blinked but the moving illusion continued—the men’s cocks strained toward the slightly orgasmic faces of the women, while women moved their hips in demand for more tongue, more pressure, deeper cunnilingus. The whole mantel was as hot as anything she’d seen in a porn flick.

He leaned in close, the heat from his body sending her own into the stratosphere. She pulled her cotton shirt away from her chest to let cooler air flow around her.

A pulse of sexual energy beat in her pussy, then moved up, increasing in tempo until it reached her chest. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and let the pounding beat surge around her heart in a throbbing rhythm. She set her feet apart, dazzled by the sheer sexuality racing up from her depths. Needing help to stay upright, she braced her hands on the mantel, cupping the faces of two of the women giving head. Magnificent, sensually delightful head.

“God, you’re hot,” Jake said in her ear.

“Yes, hot,” she whispered as the orgasms careening through the carved women roiled inside her. She rode out one, then the other as she moaned and rolled her hips in supplication.

Her lips parted, and he took the hint with a rapacious growl that sparked a fire inside.

Jake took her lips in a kiss that seared from her mouth to her spine and down to her tailbone. Mouth against mouth, she writhed with need and desire. She wound her arms around his neck to hold him tight and close and let him eat at her lips, taking and holding and increasing her need for him.

With each hot swipe, sparkly heat vibrated between them, and she lost her hold on reality.

Primed by a force of sexually heightened awareness, Lexa gave Jake all he sought in the kiss. Heat burned and coiled deep in her belly, melting and puddling into her panties. His palms molded her backside and tugged her close and hard into his erection.

And erect he was. Hard as iron. She squirmed against his hips, pushing her softer flesh toward the heat she needed so desperately.
In. In. In. InInInInIn,
she pleaded silently, echoing a voice she heard only in her head.

“In,” she said between ravening kisses. “I need you inside.”

She pulled at his shirt, dragging it out of his jeans. Her hands found heaven when she palmed his belly, then moved up to his lower ribs. Hair! Oh, she loved a man with hair on his chest. She skimmed her hands up to cup his pecs. She tweaked his nipples between her thumb and forefinger, then tugged. She rolled her thumbs across them, delighting in his response.

“I want inside, too, but I didn’t bring condoms.”

She groaned. “I don’t have any either. Aren’t we just Mr. and Mrs. Responsible,” she said in a quickened breath. “Suggestions?”

Jake moaned and slid an exploratory finger up the right leg of her shorts. “We’ll manage without them,” he ground out.

Trails of heat followed each light stroke of his finger. Without a thought to stopping, she widened her stance and bore down, seeking his fiery touch on her sodden panties.

He found her, wet and straining with need. He slid the wet cotton away from her clit while she silently egged him on for more. Her clit was a plump full packet of screaming nerve endings that pulsed until he pressed a finger, hard and fast against the throb. She took the press and roll from his thumb into herself and held it, hard and tight inside while she allowed pleasure to roll in liquid waves up from her deepest belly. She rolled her hips and pushed toward the pad of flesh he used against her.

She loved what he was doing, loved it and embraced every aching slide of his thumb. While it bathed her in pleasure, it also served to create more need.

Her belly clenched low and hard as she rode his thumb, until she cried out, unable to hold back from confessing. “Fuck me, Jake,” she panted against his mouth. Her belly collapsed in on itself in a writhing bundle of desire.

“You’re so wet, and hot,” Jake growled in a low burr that rumbled from the delicate, receptive flesh behind her ear down to her hips.

“I’m burning up.” She wrapped one leg around his hip and pressed as close as she could while his hand continued its exquisite explorations from her clit to her inner lips, which opened in need. But he didn’t press in.

“Scorch me, then. I need your fire.”

She bucked and rolled against him, while her mouth sought his; her fingers pulled and tugged on his nipples, and she danced on the knife edge of orgasm.

Finally, finally, she felt the tip of his finger penetrate lightly. She rocked and bore down, seeking more of him. Needing. Needing. Needing.

Up, up, up she went until she could go no higher. The world tilted, and she fell off the edge, gushing moisture into his palm as she came and crashed against him, a safe haven in the storm of her flying apart.

Jake lifted her so Lexa could ride his hips while he carried her out of the parlor. He got as far as the staircase before her nibbles and kisses made him falter. Whatever the hell was going on with this curse of his, he was up for it. He’d never been so hard, so hot, so ready.

He’d never had a woman shatter in his hand the way Lexa had. He’d barely touched her and she shuddered and shook and cried out in her release. She’d drenched him with her creamy hot juices, the scent of her making him wild.

His cock was on fire, full and so ripe he could hardly walk.

She wrapped both legs around his hips, and his cock strained for entrance. She nipped the skin of his neck between her even white teeth, and he lost all thought. He’d never make it to a bed. Between the sparks that flew from his body into hers and the images that invaded his mind, he felt like one big firecracker ready to explode. “I have to have you now. Here,” he demanded, and set her down on the fourth stair.

“Yes,” she replied, reaching for his belt buckle. She undid the clasp, then started on his fly.

“Careful. I’m so hard, there’s no room to unzip.”

She laughed and grinned, her eyes a hot swirl of need and salacious delight.

“Sounds delicious,” she said on a breath of deep, hot desire. Her legs were splayed open, so he could see the wet spot on her crotch where she’d gushed with her come.

He’d never seen anything so arousing. “Get your shorts off.”

He took over the work on his fly, taking care not to catch his burgeoning cock on the teeth of the zipper. He eased his jeans down, then kicked off his shoes. By the time he got naked from the waist down, she was too.