Mr. Perfect Read online

  “Don’t tell me I’m crazy!” she shouted, putting her finger over the nozzle to narrow the opening and thus get more force, and distance. “I’ve had it with people blaming me for everything!” She got him in the face again. “I’m so damn sick of you, and Shelley, and David, and everyone at work, and all the stupid reporters, and BooBoo shredding my cushions! I’m fed up, do you hear?”

  He abruptly switched tactics, from evade to attack. He came in low, like a linebacker, not trying to evade the blast of water she aimed at him. About half a second too late, she tried to dodge to the side. His shoulder crashed into her midriff, the impact driving her back against the Viper. Quick as a snake striking, he snatched the water hose from her grip. She lunged for the hose, and he wrestled her back into place, pinning her to the Viper with his weight.

  They were both breathing hard. He was soaking wet from head to toe, water leaching out of his clothes into hers until she was almost as wet as he. She glared up at him, and he glared down at her, their noses only a few inches apart.

  Water was clinging to his lashes. “You sprayed me,” he accused, as if he couldn’t believe she had done such a thing.

  “You scared me,” she accused in return. “It was an accident.”

  “That was when you sprayed me the first time. You did it on purpose the second time.”

  She nodded.

  “And you said ‘shit’ and ‘damn.’ You owe me fifty cents.”

  “I’m putting in a new rule. You can’t incite me to riot, then fine me for rioting.”

  “You’re welshing on me?” he asked in disbelief.

  “You bet. It’s all your fault.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You deliberately scared me, and don’t try to deny it. That makes the first word your fault.” She gave an experimental wiggle, trying to slide out from under the pressure of his weight. Damn, he was heavy, and about as unyielding as the sheet metal behind her.

  He squelched her escape attempt by settling even more heavily against her. Water from his clothes dripped down her legs.

  “What about the second one?”

  “You said f—” She caught herself. “My two words added together aren’t nearly as bad as your one word.”

  “What, they have a points system now?”

  She gave him a withering look. “The point is, I wouldn’t have said either word if (a) you hadn’t scared me and (b) you hadn’t cussed at me first.”

  “If we’re assigning blame here, I wouldn’t have cussed if you hadn’t sprayed me.”

  “And I wouldn’t have sprayed you if you hadn’t scared me. See, I told you it was all your fault,” she said triumphantly, tilting her chin at him.

  He took a deep breath. The movement of his chest flattened her breasts even more than they already were, making her abruptly aware of her nipples. Her nipples were acutely aware of him. Uh-oh. Her eyes widened in sudden alarm.

  He was looking down at her with an unreadable expression. “Let me go,” she said, more nervous than she cared to reveal.

  “No.”

  “No!” she repeated. “You can’t say no. It’s against the law to hold me against my will.”

  “I’m not holding you against your will; I’m holding you against your car.”

  “By force!”

  He shrugged an admission. He didn’t seem very alarmed at the prospect of violating any laws against manhandling neighbors.

  “Let me go,” she said again.

  “I can’t.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Why not?” Actually, she was afraid she knew why not. “Why not” had been growing in his wet jeans for a few minutes now. She was doing her dead level best to ignore it, and from the waist up—except for her rebellious nipples—she was mostly succeeding. From the waist down, she was an abject failure.

  “Because I’m going to do something I’ll regret.” He shook his head, as if he didn’t understand it himself. “I still don’t have a whip and chair, but what the hell, I’ll risk it.”

  “Wait,” she squeaked, but it was too late.

  His dark head dipped.

  The late afternoon spun away. From somewhere up the street she heard a child shriek with laughter. A car drove by. The faint sound of hedge clippers drifted to her ears. All of that seemed very far away and disconnected from reality. What was real was Sam’s mouth on hers, his tongue tangling with hers, the warm male scent of his body in her nostrils and filling her lungs. And his taste—oh, his taste. He tasted like chocolate, as if he had just eaten a Hershey bar. She wanted to devour him.

  She realized she was clutching fistfuls of wet cotton fabric. One at a time, without breaking the kiss, he peeled her hands off his shirt and tucked them around his neck, allowing him to settle more completely against her, from knee to shoulder.

  How could just a kiss arouse her so totally? But it wasn’t just a kiss; he used his entire body, rubbing his chest against her nipples until the friction made them stand out, hard and aching, moving the bulge of his erection against her stomach with a slow, subtle rhythm that was nevertheless as powerful as a sea surge.

  Jaine heard the wild, smothered sound that erupted from her throat, and she tried to climb him, tried to get high enough to position that bulge where it would do the most good. She was burning hot, dying with heat, half-mad from the sudden onslaught of sexual need and frustration.

  He was still holding the water hose in one hand. He locked both arms around her and lifted her the few inches needed. The stream of water arced wildly, splattering BooBoo and making him jump up with an outraged hiss, then splashing against the car and wetting them even more. She didn’t care. His tongue was in her mouth, and her legs were wrapped around his hips and that bulge was right where she wanted it.

  He moved—another of those subtle, rolling thrusts—and she damn near climaxed right there. Her nails bit into his back, and she made a guttural sound, arching in his arms.

  He tore his mouth free from hers. He was panting, the expression in his eyes hot and wild. “Let’s go inside,” he said, the words so low and rough they were almost unintelligible, not much more than a growl.

  “No,” she moaned. “Don’t stop!” Oh, God, she was close, so close. She arched against him again.

  “Jesus Christ!” He closed his eyes, his expression savage with lust barely restrained. “Jaine, I can’t fuck you out here. We have to go inside.”

  Fuck? Inside?

  Oh my God, she was about to do it with him and she wasn’t on the pill yet!

  “Wait!” she yelled in panic, pushing against his shoulders, uncoiling her legs from around his hips and kicking wildly “Stop! Let me go!”

  “Stop?” he said in outraged disbelief. “You said ‘don’t stop’ just a second ago.”

  “I changed my mind.” She was still pushing on his shoulders. She was still accomplishing exactly nothing.

  “You can’t change your mind!” He sounded desperate now.

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Do you have herpes?”

  “No.”

  “Syphilis?”

  “No.”

  “Gonorrhea?”

  “No.”

  “AIDS?”

  “No!”

  “Then you can’t change your mind.”

  “What I have is a ripe egg.” That was probably a lie. Almost positively a lie. She would probably start her period tomorrow, so the little ovum was long past viability, but she didn’t take chances with potential offspring. If any life was left in the bundle of DNA, Sam’s sperm would jump-start it. Some things were just a given.

  The ripe-egg news gave him pause. He thought about it. Offered: “I can use a condom.”

  She gave him a withering look. At least, she hoped it withered him. So far, he was remarkably unwithered. “Condoms have only about a ninety to ninety-four percent success rate. That means, at best, their fail rate is six percent.”

  “Hey, those are good odds.”

  Another withering look. �€