Sizzling Seduction (4 page)

The only place a larger-than-life alpha male like that could exist and not be a danger to those around him was in a romance novel. And the only way for her to change the cycle of abuse that plagued the women in her family was not to date and never be vulnerable again. As long as she kept her focus and stayed away from men like Patrick Hightower, she should be okay.

That should be a snap. She could
totally
do that. No problem.

Patrick who?

Patrick
freaking
Hightower, that’s who! Of al the YMCAs in al the world, or at least in the north Jersey area, he had to walk into hers. Granted, she wouldn’t have been there this evening if Dil on’s usual karate class hadn’t been rescheduled, forcing her to attend the Zuumba class instead of her normal Pilates. She tried to grab an exercise class while Dil on took his karate lessons and art classes at the Y. The family membership was in her budget, and the fact that she didn’t have to spring for a sitter while she exercised and Dil on actual y got to learn new things made the price more than worth it.

She had never seen Patrick Hightower at the Y before. It had been two days since she’d met him at the fire station, two days of her wondering what if she had said yes to his request for a date. It was bad enough he had invaded her mental space. Did he have to invade her gym, as wel ?

And here she was fresh out of class, sweaty, looking a mess with her hair pul ed back in a ponytail, and she had to run into him. He looked great, perfect, with strong muscular thighs and arms in ful view. God bless the person who’d turned those particular pieces of cotton into a T-shirt and shorts. He had a basketbal in his hands and he looked as if he was about to shoot some hoops.

She was just about to pray that he wouldn’t notice her when he looked right at her and walked—no, strutted—his fine self right over.

“Wel , hel o there, Ms. Mil er. I didn’t know you belonged to this Y. Why haven’t I run into you here before?” Patrick offered that smile of his, that half-tilt, sparkly-eye thing he did apparently just to make her skin run hot.

“I’m not usual y here during this time of day. My schedule got turned around.”
And you can best believe it won’t
happen again now that I know I could possibly run into
temptation on legs. Strong, long, take-me-now legs…

“Listen, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot the other day and I—”

Another voice interjected, “Aisha, I’m so glad I didn’t miss you. This schedule change has my day al screwed up.

You said you would help me figure out these forms the next time the boys had karate. And I left them home and had to go back for them. Can you take a look at them now?”

go back for them. Can you take a look at them now?”

Aisha turned and saw Mrs. Oliver walking over, waving a bunch of papers, and for a minute her brain had a disconnect. She shook her head to clear it and remembered that the widowed grandmother, who was raising her drug-addicted youngest daughter’s children, had asked her for some help last week fil ing out the oldest child’s financial aid forms.

When Mrs. Oliver reached them, her eyes sort of squinted and her lips curved. “Oh, I can see you’re busy. I can try and—”

“No, Mrs. Oliver, I’m not busy at al . We have a half hour before the boys are done with karate. Let’s go over here and I’l try to help you as best I can. It’s been a little while since I last had to fil out financial aid forms. They can be frustrating, but we’l get them done.” Aisha turned to Patrick.

“It was nice running into you again, Captain Hightower.

Enjoy your game of basketbal .”

She then took off with her new savior, Mrs. Oliver, and found a quiet spot to help her with the forms.

Sure, she would now wonder what would have happened if Mrs. Oliver hadn’t shown up. And seeing him in those shorts wouldn’t do a thing to chip away his muscular image from her mind. But at this point running was the safest thing for her to do.

Patrick stared after Aisha and he couldn’t help the smile that took over his mouth. It stil felt foreign and he swore he’d never get used to grinning this much. But ever since he’d met her the other day, he’d found himself smiling more, especial y when he thought of her. And he’d thought about her often during the past two days.

Even though it seemed as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him, he sensed a spark there. And even though she was sweat-soaked from her workout, with her hair pul ed back, she looked amazing. He glanced over to where she sat helping the older woman with the financial aid forms and he couldn’t help but remember how she had calmly, patiently and lovingly consoled the little girl the other day. She clearly had a gift for helping others. He liked that.

Her kind and generous spirit was refreshing and intriguing, and seeing her again worked only to make him al the more determined to get to know her better.

The rest of Patrick’s rotation went by in a blur. He was pretty sure he knew what was happening to him. He had an inkling of a feeling as to why he couldn’t get a prim, proper and prissy kindergarten teacher out of his head. But there was no way to know for sure. He had never felt these oddly fluttery…

What kind of man feels fluttery, anyway?

Just picturing her face made him want to burst out into a wide grin. He was laughing at the corniest jokes and in a damn good mood to boot.

He was hardly
ever
in a good mood. He typical y avoided good moods like the plague. Good moods left people wide-open with their guard down, no defenses.

Gruff suited him better. Gruff should have been his middle name. But something was going on with him that was making him, dare he even think it…happy. And fluttery.

Picking up his cel phone, he made three cal s to the three men who would best be able to fil him in on the these weird feelings. His younger, married and in love brothers had al made the plunge into matrimony within the past three years.

Once he had two of the three of them at his house, he was beginning to think it wasn’t a good idea after al . His brothers, Lawrence and Joel, both seemed as if they would rather have been anywhere but there. Al the Hightower men took after their father in looks, and his father, James Hightower, was almost an exact body double for Richard Roundtree, the original Shaft. They were al tal , in shape and handsome, with mahogany complexions and kil er smiles.

Patrick’s younger brother, the second oldest after him, Lawrence, lounged in Patrick’s favorite black leather recliner with his typical nonchalant stare. Lawrence was a narcotics detective with the Paterson Police Department and very little seemed to faze him.

Patrick had only seen Lawrence’s cool, calm demeanor crack once. That was when Lawrence had met the woman who was now his wife. Lawrence had darn near turned himself into the woman’s personal shadow and walked around like he couldn’t figure out right from left for at least three months. And when he final y realized that it was love that had taken him out, he almost blew that.

Patrick frowned. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea talking about any of this with his brothers after al . They probably wouldn’t have useful advice, since they had each struggled in their situations. But they al had their women now and they were al happy….

“Are you going to sit there al night twisting up your face, grunting and mumbling to yourself, or are you going to fil us in on why we had to pul ourselves away from our very beautiful wives? I knew you’d turn into a grumpy old man one day, big bro, but the grumbling and mumbling is a bit much even for you.” Joel, the family prankster, always had a joke or wisecrack ready to go.

There was always one jokester in every family. And, unfortunately for the Hightowers, their one had gone and found the other pea to his pod. Between Joel and his spitfire wife, Samantha,
no one
was safe. If one didn’t have a joke or a wisecrack, the other one was more than wil ing to comply.

Joel sat on the black leather sofa, constantly checking his watch, with a wiseguy smirk on his face. He had final y gotten over his bad feelings about his career-ending injury and was content working at Hightower Security and no longer being a firefighter.

“I’m waiting for your baby brother to get here. I need al of you clowns here so I can do this once and only once.”

Patrick wondered what was keeping the youngest Hightower.

Even though Patrick had been the first to get married out of the bunch and the first and only one to get divorced, Jason Hightower had been the first to fal in love. He lost his heart to his wife, Penny, when he was barely ten years old.

The childhood friends and teenage lovers had broken apart for fifteen years, but they were back together now, married and the parents of the cutest two-year-old girl and the most handsome seven-month-old little boy Patrick had ever seen, with the exception of Joel and Samantha’s little ten-month old son.

Patrick was very biased when it came to his niece and nephews. He was becoming the world’s largest Mr. Softie and those three blessings were the main reasons why.

Being an uncle brought him a happiness he couldn’t describe. It also brought a deep longing for a family of his own.

“You know Jason can never pul himself away from his family whenever he has time off. Little Cee Cee has him wrapped around her pudgy two-year-old finger. And he dotes on Jason Jr. so much, we’re gonna have to take the little boy out every now and then when he gets older to toughen him up. Jason is almost as bad with his kids as Joel and Samantha are with Joel Jr.” Lawrence shook his head in mock disgust.

“Like you’re gonna be much better when Minerva has your baby. She’s barely showing and you already can’t stand to be away from her.” Joel let out a hooting laugh.

“No, Joel. He could barely stay away from her from the first moment he set eyes on her. My brother the police officer official y became a stalker. I was worried about you, bro. I’m glad Minerva made an honest man out of you and gave you a legal reason to hang around her al the time.”

Patrick joined in Joel’s laughter.

“Now both of y’al got jokes, huh? I’l tel you what. How about you get to whatever—” Lawrence’s ringing cel phone stopped him midsentence.

“Hey, baby…” Lawrence’s normal y tough-guy tone went down a few octaves and Patrick immediately knew who was on the other end of the line. If the loving tone of voice didn’t give it away, then the ear-to-ear grin certainly did. It had to be Minerva. And whatever she said had to be bad because his brother’s grin fel into a deep frown and he cut Patrick a glaring look.

“That’s cool, baby. You have fun with the girls. I’l see you when we both get home. I can just pick up something quick from the diner.” Lawrence gave Patrick another angry scowl.

Food! How did Patrick know Lawrence’s sour mood had something to do with food? Because Lawrence’s mood could always change when it came down to him getting a good home-cooked meal.

Lawrence hung up his cel . “You owe me big-time, man.

What do you have to eat in this dump? Apparently, Mom and Dad decided they wanted to spend some quality time with al their grandchildren and this freed Samantha and Penny to kidnap my wife and take her shopping for al the

‘cute little maternity clothes she’s going to need.”’

Lawrence mimicked the high-pitched, gleeful sound his sisters-in-law made when they talked about clothes and shoe shopping. “So the wonderful home-cooked meal that my wife was going to make for me is no more and you have to feed me.”

The doorbel rang and Patrick shook his head as he went to answer it. “Joel, order a pizza and some wings for your always hungry brother while I let baby bro in.”

The pizza and wings came and they sat in the living room with a basketbal game on the flat screen as white noise.

They didn’t get a chance to hang out nearly as much as they used to before his younger brothers al got hitched.

Patrick missed that sometimes, but what he got in return—

with wonderful sister-in-laws, a niece, two nephews and a new baby on the way—more than made up for the male bonding time he was missing with his brothers. Stil it was moments like these when they did hang out that made him happy to have them.

“So.” Lawrence leaned back, rubbing his now ful stomach, content for the moment, with a hint of a smile even. “What was so important that we al had to get over here tonight?”

“I think I know what it is.” Jason shook his head. “Aw…

man…did you find out that Courtney was moving back to Paterson?”

His ex-wife? Moving back to Paterson?
Say what?

“What you talking ’bout, Jason?” Joel laughed at his own impression of Gary Coleman and everyone else just stared at him before turning back to Jason.

Patrick rubbed his chin as he waited for the anger and hurt to surface. It had been ten years since he had found Courtney in bed with another man. Patrick had come down with a severe case of the flu and he’d had to be relieved from his shift at the fire station. He had come home expecting his stay-at-home wife to pamper him and make him feel better.

Instead, flu or no flu, he had ended up opening up a can of whup-ass on the no good lawyer and church deacon he had found in bed with his wife. She begged forgiveness and wanted them to try counseling, but there was just no coming back from that as far as he was concerned. They had only been married for four years. He had hung up his player status at twenty-six to marry a woman he thought was true. And for many years he wondered if she had been cheating the entire time.