One in a Million (20 page)

“Very. The best kind of easy." He agreed. In the past, he'd found the first sexual
encounter in any relationship about as dangerous as
a minefield. There were too many ways to misstep.
But with Stephanie, everything had fallen into place.
He'd never had a sex-only, no-strings affair before,
but so far it was better than he could have hoped.

“
How about a few ground rules to keep things
that way," he said.

She nodded and sat up. "Good idea."
As she'd moved, the sheet had fallen away from
her breasts. He found his attention sliding from her
words to her body. He leaned toward her and
touched his finger to the outer curve of her breast,
then traced a line to the place where that pale skin
darkened to a deep rose. Her nipple instantly tight
ened. After licking the tip of his finger, he brushed
his damp skin against her nipple and waited for her breath to catch.

Damn if it didn't. As expected, his body re
sponded with a rush of blood heading south.

“
Rule number one," she said. "Lots of sex."
He raised his head slightly to look at her face.
"That's a good rule. So good we should probably
make it one and two."

“
Fair enough. Sex and lots of it. You're only in
town for a short period of time. I want to take ad
vantage of that."

“
My kind of woman."
He wanted nothing more than to lean in close
enough to kiss her breasts, but figured they had bet
ter get things settled before the next round. He
forced himself to drop his hand to his side and focus
on the conversation.

“
I'm going to assume you don't want the boys to
know about us," he said.

She nodded slowly. "It would only confuse them.
Brett still worries about me replacing his father and
the twins would only want to bond with you."

“So I'll leave my door unlocked. You can head
downstairs when you're ready to have your way
with me."

“That works. We'll also have during the day until
school's out at the end of the week. If you're not
too busy with your family."

“
I'm not." He reached for her hand and laced their fingers together. "Speaking of my family,
would you mind joining me for a few of the bigger get-togethers? You and the boys?"
He wasn't sure why he made the request and he
hoped she wouldn't ask him to explain.

Luck was on his side. She nodded right away.
"That would be great. I had a good time and I know
my kids did, too. All that family can be a little intimidating."

“I'm not intimidated."

“Because you're a big tough guy."

“You know it." She laughed, then slipped down on the mattress.
"Okay, then I'll think of it as helping out. Sort of
`you scratch my itch and I'll scratch yours.' "

“
I like the sound of that." He moved closer and
drew back the sheet, baring her to the waist. "So
where does it itch?"
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Everywhere."

Chapter Nine

S
tephanie had never considered painting a room
anything but a chore, yet this afternoon she found herself humming while she worked. Suddenly the
squishy swish of the roller on the walls sounded
cheerful and lively. The smell didn't bother her, not
with the gatehouse windows wide open and the af
ternoon sun spilling into the room. Even the low-
grade complaining of long-unused muscles didn't do anything to dampen her happy mood. She doubted
anything short of a serious disaster could wipe the
smile off her face.

Life was good, she thought as she smoothed the
pale paint over the prepared wall. Life was damn
good.

She giggled softly and stretched up her arm. The
movement pulled at her hips, which ached from be
ing extended when she'd parted her legs as wide as possible so she could wrap them around Nash. The discomfort only added to her exuberance. Being sore
after something boring like an exercise class wasn't
very inspiring, but being sore because of mind-
clearing sex with an incredible lover was worth
every twinge. Her insides still tingled with lingering aftershocks and she couldn't stop sighing with con
tentment. While she'd never considered herself an
affair kind of girl, obviously this was something she should have done years ago.

“
It never crossed my mind," she murmured
aloud.

With three kids and a pretty hefty mortgage, she'd been more concerned about staying afloat financially
after Marty's death than getting any sexual needs
met. After a while it had been easy to forget she
even had needs. Making love with her husband had
been very nice, but over time, the memory faded.
She didn't want another relationship with a man, so
she'd figured intimacy was no longer available to
her.

Until Nash had shown her all the possibilities.
And what possibilities there were. They'd made love
twice, then agreed to try and get some work done.
It had been all of three hours since they'd left his
bed and she couldn't wait to get back into it.

Mentally calculating the time until the boys would
be turning in for the night, she wondered how she
would survive that long without Nash touching her.
Now that she knew he was even better than her fan
tasies, she wanted to take advantage of every second they had together.

“You're not working," Nash said as he walked in from the kitchen. "You're standing on the ladder, grinning."
She laughed. "If I tell you that I'm thinking about
us being together will that make it okay?”

“Absolutely."
He leaned against the door frame, a tall, good-
looking man holding spackle and a putty knife. He'd
pulled on a dark blue T-shirt over worn jeans. She
liked how he was competent in whatever he did,
whether it was patching a wall or making her scream
with pleasure. She liked how he was comfortable
asking her what she liked when they were in bed,
and offering to help out around the house when they
weren't. She liked that he was a bit nervous about
being around his new family and that he wanted her
there to act as a buffer. Not that he'd ever said the
latter, but she'd read between the lines.

What she liked most was that they were equals.
He had needs, she had needs. No one was more in charge. No one was subservient. They were taking
care of each other, while getting what they wanted.

She dipped the roller into the paint on the tray.
"How's the patching coming?" she asked.

“
All done in the kitchen." He turned his attention
to the walls. "Are you sure you don't want me to
do the painting in here? You're kind of short to
reach the top of the walls."

“
That's why they invented ladders," she said. "I
like doing this. If you want to help, you're welcome
to paint the windows. I already taped the glass, but
I haven't started on the frames yet."

“Sure. Let me put this away." He covered the can of spackle, then set it on the makeshift workbench she'd created by placing a flat
door over two wooden crates. After he left, she
heard running water. The man cleaned up after himself, she thought happily. Did it get any better than
that?
Nash returned and took a nearly empty gallon can
of paint and a brush, then walked over to the large
window. She watched him expertly brush the wood
trim.

“
So how did an FBI negotiator learn how to
paint?" she asked.

“I helped paint our house a few times when I was
growing up. Since then I've been dragged into a
couple of projects with guys from work."

“Do you like your job?"
He glanced at her then returned his attention to
the window. "Most of the time. Not when it goes
bad."
She didn't know all that much about what he did,
but knew it had a lot to do with negotiating with
criminals holding hostages. A bad day for him
would mean someone died.

“How did you get in that line of work?"
He shrugged. "I was recruited by the FBI out of
college. I worked in
Dallas
for a while, got my mas
ter's in psychology. I went into profiling, then I attended a lecture by a negotiator. I trained, worked
with him for a while and figured out it was some
thing I had the temperament for."

“
Meaning you can handle high-stress situa
tions?"

“
That and disconnect from the emotions inherent
in the incident."
Low-key and distant, she thought. He'd been that
way with his family at the pizza-night dinner.

Friendly, but not completely involved. She envied
him his emotional detachment. If she'd been able to
muster a little for herself, she might have been able
to leave Marty.

“
So you were probably really annoying when
your wife wanted to pick a fight," she said. "There
she'd be, all crabby and on edge, and you'd be ra
tional and logical."
She'd been teasing, but instead of smiling at her
words Nash looked thoughtful.

“
We were different," he admitted as he contin
ued to paint the window frame. "Tina lived on the
emotional edge most of the time. Drama fueled her.
I never figured she would make it as an agent."
Stephanie nearly dropped her roller. She grabbed
the handle with both hands and tried not to look
shocked. "She was an FBI agent?" Nash nodded.

Who would have known? Stephanie hadn't much thought about his late wife, but if she had, she would
have assumed the woman was a... She frowned, not
sure what she would have assumed. Certainly not a federal agent.

“
We met during training. I was one of her in
structors. I thought she was too impulsive and
wanted to flunk her out. I was outvoted." She turned back to the wall and resumed painting.
Better to leave a few streaks on the walls than to
stand on the ladder with her mouth open. "Not a
very romantic beginning," she said.

“
It wasn't. I thought she was a flake, and she
thought I was a hard-nosed rule follower. She
moved on and I forgot about her. We hooked up
about a year later, on assignment."
Doing something dangerous, she thought wist
fully. Capturing bad guys or saving innocent lives.
There was tension, adrenaline followed by passion.

Stephanie didn't like the knot that formed in her stomach or the feeling of being a fairly typical, fairly boring thirty-something single mom.

“
If you two were married, you must have
changed your initial opinions of each other," she
said.

Nash shrugged. "We were always opposites.”

“Sometimes that works."

“
It didn't for you and Marty."
That was true. "I'm not sure we were opposites
so much as we wanted different things," she said,
thinking it was safer to think about her late husband
than Nash's late wife. "Or maybe it was just that I
wasn't willing to pay the price for always doing
what I wanted. I didn't like always having to be the
grown-up, but Marty didn't seem to give me a
choice. Someone had to make sure the bills got paid
on time and that there was food in the house. But
there were times when I envied his ability not to
worry about things like money and consequences. I
could never let go that much."