Crush on You (9 page)

“Christ,” he ground out, not the least bit satisfied by her answer. “You’re a woman—”

“Widow,” she corrected, then frowned. “Well, almost a widow.”

Worse than a widow, Penn decided. A baby almost-bride who might as well be buried beside the hometown boy who’d died too young to make good. People looked at her and saw tragedy instead of a living, breathing person. Hence the acquiescence to her every request, the tremors at her every tear.

She took a step closer to him, bringing her scent that much nearer. He sucked it in, and his head spun. But his vision was clear enough to make out the thrumming beat of the pulse in her throat, and he knew his nearness affected her, too.

He saw her face flush and her pupils dilate, but she challenged him all the same, silly woman. “Satisfied now?” she asked.

Silly, silly woman. “Not even close,” he answered, knowing as he did that he was no longer going to keep his hands to himself. He couldn’t, not with that scent in his head and this clamoring need to show baby bride that she wasn’t as cold as that corpse in her past.

As he bent his head closer to her lips, he slid his palm inside that half-opened shirt that had made him crazy all the long, damn day.

Alessandra saw the kiss coming. She had all the time in the world to leap away from Penn or to push at his chest and shove him back. But her feet seemed rooted to the scarred floor and it was only at the last second that she arched her spine, avoiding his mouth.

The movement pushed her chest toward his descending palm.

His callused fingers slid right between the gaping edges of her cotton blouse, to glide under the cup of her bra. Maybe he only meant to cop a quick feel over her clothes—or at least give her the scare that he was trying for one—but she’d provided him with intimate, naked contact. In instant response, her nipple tightened to a painful bud, her breasts swelled, and goose bumps broke out like prickly heat over the rest of her skin.

He was infecting her again, and she was helpless against the virus rushing through her system. It paralyzed her.

Him, too, perhaps, because they just stared at each other, as if they were complete strangers surprised to find themselves bedmates in the quarantine ward.

“W-what are you doing?” she whispered.

His gaze dropped from her face to his hand, half-hidden by her clothes. She saw the long muscle in his arm flex. Yes. Good. He was going to pull away.

Instead, his fingertips drew toward each other, each one taking a short path until they met around her stiff nipple. The back of her neck burned, and even her watery knees couldn’t put out the fire, it was just that hot. “Penn,” she managed to choke out, but she didn’t think he heard her.

He appeared fascinated with his hand, or maybe it was the budded center of her breast because he tested it with a tiny squeeze, his face going hard as she twitched in helpless, pleasured reaction. “You like that,” he said, his voice husky. His gaze flicked to hers. “Admit it. You like me touching you.”

“Don’t.” Not
don’t
, she thought.
No
. She should say that, right?
No
was on the tip of her tongue, it was echoing in her head, but then that inner voice amended the word.
Yes, yes, yes
, it moaned instead as he tightened his fingers in a second gentle pinch.

She couldn’t breathe. Her nipple was throbbing now, matching the pulse at her throat and the second one thrumming between her legs. It was soft there, aching, and it had been so long since she’d felt sensual pain—and it was so wrong to feel it now, with Penn Bennett, a man she didn’t like—that her brain couldn’t prescribe a plan of action.

“I . . .” Her voice drifted off as he applied more delicate pressure. A shudder raced down her spine.

“Alessandra, admit you like me touching you.”

“Penn,” she said, protesting his familiarity, his expertise, the confidence in his damn demand. Her fingers closed around his wrist. She was going to remove his hand, show him the door, kick his disturbing presence out of the cottage and out of her life.

But instead she hung on as he caressed her again. This time she voiced her moan, a soft and needy sound that brought a small smile to his face.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, sweetheart. You and I, we could . . . we
should
. . .”

But he didn’t finish the thought. His head came up and his eyes narrowed. Something over her shoulder caught his attention and within another short breath his hand was gone and her shirt was buttoned up to her chin.

She hated her disappointment. No, damn it. She hated
him.

Righteous indignation returning, she shoved at his chest. “You’re never touching me again,” she said.

He looked at her with pity. “Keep telling yourself that, baby.”

“I mean it!”

His head was shaking back and forth. “We—”

“Will never be alone together after this,” she spit out, furious with herself as much as she was furious at him. “You might like to play these kinds of games—” She broke off as he laid a finger over his mouth.

“It’s not a game, Alessandra, it’s visitors.” He gestured behind her with his chin. “We’ve got company.”

She whirled. Through the open doorway, she could see Clare and Sally climbing out of a car. “Oh, God.”

“I was hoping to hear that in an entirely different context,” he murmured.

A rattlesnake would have envied the venom she put into the look she sent him over her shoulder. “No way.”

“Way,” he replied. “Maybe not now, maybe not today, but between your history and our combined combustibility, we’re not going to be able to ignore this chemistry forever.”

It was too late to put him in his place, not with the other women almost over the cottage’s threshold. Alessandra settled for pasting a smile on her face, and it was a genuine one, too, full of the welcome only a woman who’d been saved—partly from herself, she had to admit—could feel. “Sally! Clare! I am
so
happy to see you!”

She pretended not to hear the dark chuckle behind her.

Lucky for her, it seemed the mother-daughter pair’s preoccupation with the upcoming wedding caused them to overlook her flustered state and still-burning face. At their request, she showed the bride and her mother around the cottage, describing her vision of the finished product.

They ended in the bridal boudoir, where Penn was at work again. He’d removed his T-shirt, revealing the contrast between the pale blue of his low-slung Levi’s and the toasty, warm color of his skin.

Clare nudged Alessandra with an elbow. “Poor you,” she whispered. “Having to work all day with a guy who looks like
that
.”

Pretending she didn’t notice the play of muscles in his shoulders, arms, and back, Alessandra shrugged. “The fact is Penn doesn’t really need me. I’ll be back to my regular work in the office tomorrow.”

The hitch in his hammer stroke told her he’d heard. His backward glance touched her face, then moved on to Sally’s. “Ah,” he said. “But I don’t think I can guarantee this place will be wedding-ready without that extra pair of hands you provide.”

The instant alarm on Tommy’s mother’s face goaded Alessandra into stepping closer. She ignored the distracting ripple of Penn’s pec muscles as he turned to face her. “Listen,” she told him, “there’s no doubt whatsoever—”

“We had a deal, didn’t we?” he said. “And you said you had someone filling in at your desk.”

The intern was nearly as good as Alessandra herself, not that she’d tell him that. “I know, but—”

“And face it,” he continued. “You’ll have a better chance of restarting your social life out here with me than if you’re holed away in your office.”

Oh, that rat.

Sally was already swinging toward Alessandra, a new distress in her expression. “Allie, are you . . . are you
dating
?”

“No.” When Tommy’s mother’s tension didn’t ease, Alessandra shot Penn a sharp look and raised her voice. “
No
.”

“My bad, Mrs. Knowles,” Penn put in affably. “I can’t help myself. Around my friends, I’m always the one match-making.”

He smiled at Alessandra, all pearly whites and Hollywood-style sincerity. “I see a pretty young thing like this,” he pointed to her with the business end of his hammer, “and I just can’t help myself from wanting to . . .”

“Wanting to what?” Sally prompted.

His glance slid to Alessandra, his eyes laughing. Her neck burned again as she relived the sensation of his fingers on her breast.
Admit you like me touching you.

“He wants to embarrass me,” she muttered.

Clare was regarding her with raised eyebrows. “I think he’s right, you know I do,” she murmured. “It’s past time you returned to the dating circuit.”

Dating wasn’t what Penn had in mind, and unfortunately, Alessandra’s traitorous body wasn’t interested in miniature golf or a night at the movies, either. “I’m not looking for anyone.”

Sally sidestepped closer and slid her arm around Alessandra’s shoulders to hug her close. “Because it would be impossible to replace Tommy in her heart. Everybody knows that.”

“Everybody knows that,” Alessandra echoed. “So let’s let Penn get back to what he was doing—”

“Not when Penn thinks it would be so easy to find a man to take my Tommy’s place,” Sally countered. “If you’re going to be working together every day until the wedding— and Allie, I’ll only feel confident if you’re right here by his side—I need to take just a minute to explain how very irreplaceable my son is.”

Alessandra barely held back her groan, now neatly trapped into weeks of more togetherness with Penn.

As Sally began describing for Penn the superb athlete, student, and cancer survivor her son had been, Clare pulled Alessandra a short way from the other two.

“I really thought my wedding would give Mom a new purpose,” she said in a low voice, her expression glum. “But she’s still focused on Tommy.”

Alessandra patted her friend’s arm. “She
is
enjoying herself, Clare. And letting her make so many of the decisions has been very generous of you.”

Her friend didn’t look cheered. “Just trying to live up to my dead brother.”

“Oh, Clare—”

“But let’s not go there,” the other woman replied. Her face brightened. “I want to pump you for information instead.”

“About what?”

“Your cousin, Gil. Tell me everything you know about this woman he’s seeing.”

Alessandra frowned. “Gil’s always seeing a woman. They come, they go, they—”

“Never exceed their ‘best used by’ date.” Clare pushed her newly highlighted hair over her shoulders. “But I have a feeling this one is different.”

“I don’t know who she is. Anyway, you’re his best friend. If he’d tell anyone, he’d tell you.”

Clare was already shaking her head. “No, he’s very close-mouthed around me these days.”

“Interesting. But maybe there’s nothing to tell. If the relationship is so new, he’s probably not having sex with her yet.” Alessandra met Clare’s gaze.

“Nah,” they said together.

“Six-foot-five, two hundred twenty-five pounds . . .” Alessandra started.

“Of sexy Italian stallion,” Clare finished, then her voice turned sly. “And speaking of sexy.”

Alessandra kept her gaze from even flicking toward Mr. Hollywood. “Yes? Do you need help picking out your honeymoon nightwear?”

Clare made a face, then jerked her thumb at Penn, the movement hidden from him by the angle of her body. “Allie, why not? He’s delicious, and you deserve a, um, social life. Why don’t you . . .”

“No.” She wouldn’t let her friend finish the thought. It was bad enough that she was going to have to work with Penn. Going “social” with him was completely out of the question. A dozen reasons made it a bad idea, ranging from his annoying arrogance to her sinless status in the community.

Clare didn’t appear convinced. “Allie . . .”

“I mean it,” she told her friend, loud enough to get her point across, she hoped. She would work with him, but that was all. “Not going there. Definitely not going there.”

“But you already said yes,” Sally Knowles’s voice joined their conversation.

Alessandra blinked, then realized her words had been taken as part of a different discussion. “I’m sorry, Sally, I was responding to something else.”

“Oh, good,” Tommy’s mother answered. “For a moment I thought you were backing out of the barbecue at our house tomorrow night. I invited Penn to come and I assured him that while you don’t ‘date,’ no one will think anything about the two of you attending together.”