Melting Into You Read online

“I’m ready to move on. Foyer and then kitchen?”

  She looked from the jumping muscle of his arm up to his eyes. Too far up. Instead of intimidating her, his height made her want to toss her hair and swing her hips and send him come-hither looks over her shoulder. In New York, she had avoided the tall, preppy fitness nuts in favor of skinny, Goth artsy types.

  “Of course, right this way, Mr. Grayson.” Her voice was as serious as a funeral director.

  The clomp of his work boots echoed behind her in the grand foyer. On his way to the huge chandelier’s light switch, he shot her a look. “Is everything okay?”

  She wanted to shout, Everything is bad, very, very bad. I’m a little bit high and a whole lot horny. Instead, she plastered her practiced fake, southern-politesse smile on. “Everything is fine. Awesome. Wonderful. Couldn’t be better. Really, really, great.” She drew the last word out like Tony the Tiger.

  His eyebrows rose and the corners of his lips quirked into a honest-to-God smile, but his frown was back in place so quickly she was sure her imagination ran wild. “Miss Hancock, there’s no reason to be nervous. This is simply a preliminary inspection of your electrical system. Although, structurally I did notice some dry rot around your porch that will need to be fixed.”

  “Yes, sir.” For some reason she found herself saluting, which garnered her another slightly bemused flash of amusement.

  He finished in the foyer, and she trailed him into the kitchen. He reached high to check the security of a light fixture, not needing a boost from anything. She had to pull chairs over to reach the top shelf in her cabinets.

  He squatted down to check an outlet, leaving his butt in all its glory again. Their one encounter had only involved drunken sex in a dark room. She’d never actually seen him naked, but she remembered how he’d felt. Sometimes she still dreamed about it.

  If she were honest with herself—and pot tended to heighten her candor to skyscraper-like levels—eighty percent of the reason she occasionally wandered by the Falcon football practices was to see his butt in action. The other twenty percent involved other aspects of his body. She wasn’t proud, but that didn’t change the fact the man was panty-melting hot.

  He seemed to have received a personality transplant since college, which both confused and intrigued her. Gone was the party boy who strutted around the campus like he deserved the adulation. Now he was overly stoic and serious, and as far as she’d been able to determine, he never went out or even dated.

  He was a nut she wanted to crack. Which would make her the squirrel. She let her gaze wander over the shifting muscles of his back and back down to his butt, unable to keep a little smile off her face. Yep, she was a horny little squirrel.

  Leaning on the kitchen island, she propped her chin on a fist. “How tall are you? Six-two, Six-three?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, and her eyes shot back up to his.

  “Six-four,” he said.

  “A foot taller than me exactly.” A flash of him walking her to the door at the end of a date and kissing her had her staring at his mouth. Kissing him like that would give her a neck-crick. It would probably be a terrible, horrible kiss. The worst of her life.

  Yet, even as sloppy drunk as he’d been that night at Bama, his kisses had curled her toes and made her frantic. She couldn’t even blame the alcohol. The two beers she’d nursed at the frat party had given her a buzz but hadn’t impeded her judgment—or lack thereof.

  She closed her eyes and shot back to that night. The pulse of music in the other room, the hum of conversation, the occasional burst of laughter. The sex had been uniquely satisfying. Even though she’d been a virgin, the uncomfortable feeling of being invaded had morphed into a consuming blaze. He’d been dominating and big—everywhere.

  Although her experience since certainly wasn’t vast, nothing had come close to matching the intensity of their one time together, which made her hate him a tiny bit more. Had he ruined her for any other man?

  What would he feel like now? She was no longer an innocent, and the thought sent blood rushing through her body. How insane was she to even be thinking about sex with him? Her one dose of humiliation would last a lifetime.

  It was crazy.

  “What’s crazy?” he asked.

  God help her, she’d actually spoken. She popped her eyes back open and she stared at him while her mind searched. “Uh … adding under-cabinet lighting?”

  The reasonably intelligent recovery smoothed her frazzled nerves, and she listened with half an ear to him explain the need for another breaker if she installed the extra lighting.

  The narrow former mudroom and current office was his next stop. She stayed on his heels. He pushed at the mass of cords with his pen. “You really need a surge protector.”

  “Is that for code purposes?”

  “No, but it would keep your computer working if lightning hits or a squirrel gets fried. I’d hate to see you lose your hard drive. You can pick one up for ten bucks or less at Walmart.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that.”

  He turned toward her, and the room seemed to shrink around them. A squirrel was about to get fried all right. The checks of his shirt blurred into muted shades of blues, and she thought his breathing quickened, but maybe it was just hers. My God, if she didn’t get control of herself, he might wonder if she was having an asthma attack. Yet she didn’t move. Couldn’t move. She trailed her gaze up the corded muscles of his neck to his face.

  She hadn’t been this close to him since college. That one night his eyes had been glassy from arousal and alcohol. Now the green and blue shards glowed sharply against the background of brown.

  His tongue darted over his lower lip. A shaving nick where a small dimple creased his chin made her want to reach up and kiss it better.

  “We’d better”—a frog sounded from his throat, and he tried to clear it, but his voice still rumbled, low and sexy, tumbling through her stomach like a rockslide—“better get on to the second floor.”

  “You didn’t check the outlets,” she said barely moving her lips.

  His gaze flicked over her face, and he took a deep breath. “I’m sure they’re fine. I’ll cover them during the final inspection. Next floor, please.”

  He wrapped a big, warm hand around her upper arm. Her body went slack, ready for him to pull her to him. Instead, he moved her aside and brushed past, his biceps grazing her breasts.

  Oh. My. God. What was wrong with her? Like that night in college, she had zero self-control around him. She rubbed the tingly place on her arm as if she could erase the arousal his touch inspired. Alec was the last man in Falcon she should be messing around with, yet when was the last time her blood sparked like this?

  She stayed at his side up the grand staircase to avoid staring at his butt in action, rambling on about how her ancestors had made the long oak banister. She pointed out a saber gash from the Civil War.

  “We were occupied for a time. Yankee officers commandeered the house. Anna Hancock fell in love with one of them and ran off with him after the war. Quite the scandal.” Unlike her aunt Esmerelda, who whispered the fact like poor Anna was a criminal, Lilliana announced the defection with pride.

  At the top of the landing, they turned to face each other. His mouth was tipped in what probably passed for a smile in his eyes. “You admire her?”

  “She forged her own path in a time when it was difficult to break free of family expectations. Especially for a woman.”

  “You went off to art school in New York, didn’t you? I can’t imagine any other Hancock doing that.” Was that a hint of appreciation in his voice? She was scared to trust her intuition or senses even though the effects of the pot were fading.

  “I did, but you see where I ended up. Back home trying to live up to my family’s expectations.” The weight of responsibility pressed on her lungs, tightening her voice with emotion. “I wish I were as strong as Anna. I would let someone else worry about the old place falling down, let them lose slee
p over loans, let their fingers blister from hours of sanding drywall.”

  She held out her hand between them, palm up to showcase the calluses she’d grown from the constant work. Mindless work that took away from her real passion. He skimmed his fingers over the back of her hand, tentatively at first, but his grip firmed as he brought her hand higher for a closer inspection, his thumb massaging the blisters and calluses along her palm.

  “Family expectations can be tough. But, maybe staying is the brave thing to do, not the weak one.” His touch was unexpectedly tender, his voice understanding.

  She kept her gaze on their hands, afraid to look him in the eyes. She could handle him being brusque and all business. She could even handle him being hot-as-sin. What she couldn’t handle was him being so … nice.

  She pulled her hand away, their fingers tangling for an instant, and led him into her bedroom. He stopped in the doorway, his gaze sweeping the spacious room. His face gave no indication of what he was thinking or feeling. He closed the door behind him and moved toward the first outlet.

  Instead of crouching down, though, he stared at the small portrait hung where only she could see it when she closed the door. She curled her hand into a fist, waiting to hear his opinion. She flashed back five years to the panic-inducing anxiety of having a professor rip her creative vision to shreds.

  “You did this?” He pointed like a toddler as he glanced over at her.

  “Yes.” She shrugged, the word sounding more like a question than a statement.

  A long pause made her squirm on the edge of the bed.

  “It’s absolutely incredible.” He turned back to study her pencil portrait of an old woman in Central Park. She let her mouth drop, his praise unexpected.

  She and the old woman had been regulars during the afternoon lull between grown-up lunchtime and kids getting out of school. Lilliana had done her best to impart the beauty and tragedy of the woman’s life in detailed pencil lines on stark two-dimensional paper. Pencil was her favorite medium, though the one she was the least confident about. There was no color or brushstrokes to hide behind.

  “I see joy but sadness too. Is that what you intended?” He looked over his shoulder, his eyes serious, before turning back to the picture.

  She controlled the urge to hug him once more. This time for seeing what she had taken pains to reveal yet feared she’d failed at doing. “Everyone’s life is a mixture of joy and sadness, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t answer, yet stared for another long moment at the portrait. Finally, as if coming out of a dream, he crouched at the first outlet and went to work. She sat on the edge of her bed and watched him work with an efficiency of movement that reflected his athletic background.

  “Everything in here checks out electrically. But your balcony is a hazard. Get it fixed, and for God’s sake don’t take one step onto it until you do. Next, I want to see the bathroom that caused so much fuss last year.” His voice was back to its short, brisk usualness.

  The moment she’d been dreading. Without offering an excuse, she led him to the Pepto-Bismol bathroom. She propped a shoulder against the doorjamb instead of following him into the tight space.

  The handheld machine he used let out a series of beeps as he checked the outlet. He grunted and dropped to his knees to check under the cabinet. Even from the doorway, Lilliana could see the tangle of wires that Carl hadn’t known what to do with.

  Pulling out a flashlight and crunching his shoulders into the tight space, he muttered, “Good Lord.”

  Having your inspector utter calls to the Almighty didn’t bode well. After a couple of minutes of grunting, he clicked off the flashlight and reversed his shimmy. Would she need to tear the wall out? Rewire the entire upstairs? She waited for the crushing blow to her plans.

  “Dammit!” He jerked as he ducked his head out from under the cabinet. Crouching on the nauseating pink tiles, he fingered a tear in his shirt. Blood oozed, but she couldn’t tell how long or deep the scratch was.

  “Goodness, how bad is it?” Falling to her knees, she tugged his shirt out of his pants, lifting it to reveal his wound. She traced smooth, firm skin alongside a long, shallow scratch. Her voice creaked a little. “It’s not bad. Let me dab on some ointment, and I can stitch the tear in your shirt. It’ll only take a minute.”

  She went to work on his shirt buttons from the bottom, her breathing pacing faster to match the beat of her heart.

  “Stop. I’m fine. I have other shirts.” His words sounded rushed, panicked.

  He grabbed at both her wrists, but the movement only flipped his shirt apart, exposing the bottom half of his chest. Something dark edged from the checked cotton. He froze, his hands loosening. She finished working his buttons open and spread the shirt to expose his entire chest.

  “Oh. My. God.” Her words compressed out of lungs that held no air.

  She wasn’t in shock from the defined muscles of his chest. That she’d expected. It wasn’t even the sexy dusting of hair trailing into the waistband of his pants. What hypnotized and held her rapt was the enormous tattoo that covered one side of his torso.

  The vibe was difficult to nail down. Tribal with some Picasso cubism thrown in. Script played peekaboo along his side, obscured by the shirt hanging on the curve of his shoulders. What words would a man like him pick to inscribe on his body? One thing was certain—his tattoo was a work of art. Now she was less interested in his warm, man-scented skin than what was drawn on it. Impatiently, she pushed his shirt off his shoulders to hang at his elbows.

  The tattoo extended to his shoulder and over his upper arm, stopping at mid-biceps like a permanent sleeve. In all the football practices she’d attended, he’d never revealed his ink. Unlike the boys or other coaches, he wore long-sleeved workout gear and used a towel tucked into his shorts to wipe away sweat, but she’d chalked his habits up to being a quarterback and needing a protected throwing arm and dry hands.

  Never in a million years would she have guessed what preppy, uptight Alec Grayson had up his sleeve. Literally.

  “It’s old. From when I was young and stupid. Most of my teammates in Philly had tats and I thought I was the sh—” He muttered to cover the curse word and ran a hand through the top of his hair, mussing the regimented style. “I’m planning to get it lasered off.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  Clarity struck like a shot of adrenaline to her heart. He was ashamed or at least embarrassed by the tattoo. With trembling fingertips, she skimmed the outer line of a dark black swirl of ink tracing the muscle of his pectoral. At first contact, the muscle jumped, and he flinched away as if in physical pain.

  “Don’t you dare,” she repeated in a whisper leaning in to follow the line with her lips.

  Chapter 2

  Alec watched in disbelief as Lilliana Hancock’s dark head moved closer. Tendrils of her tousled, long hair tickled his stomach the instant before her lips made contact with his skin. He took a sharp breath, the action pressing his chest into her touch.

  Jesus Christ, the woman was driving him insane. How many nights had he dreamed about her sassy mouth and flashing eyes? Eyes that followed him at practice like daggers in his back, making him fumble the ball and forget his game plan. He’d never gotten the idea she was at all attracted to him. Wanted to do him physical harm? Yes. Wanted to do him? No.

  Ever since the city hired him to enforce building codes, he’d learned not to take the townspeople’s ill feelings or resentments to heart if he failed to pass their work. He didn’t do favors, and he didn’t accept bribes. But even though he and Lilliana had been at odds the past year over his inspections, something more seemed to fuel her distaste of him.

  He’d tried to keep things professional, tried to tamp down his attraction, tried to force himself to be cold and distant lest she guess his interest. Today she’d thrown him off-balance. He’d steeled himself to endure her caustic tongue, but she’d seemed mostly at ease and teasing.

  Until this moment, he�
��d assumed her flirty eyes and touches were part of his overactive imagination where she was concerned. More than a few solo sessions had been incited by picturing her mouth around him while she gazed up at him with her exotic sloe-eyes.

  Shudders cascaded through his body, the epicenter where her lips continued to trace the hated ink on his chest. The trail of her lips felt cool on his skin even as his blood tore a burning path through his body, hardening the erection he’d been fighting since she’d cornered him in her tiny office.

  She tilted her face up, her lips close but not touching his. Every nerve ending reached for her. Her half-lidded eyes were dilated, and arousal blurred her features.

  The logical side of him, the one he’d put in place after his life had self-destructed, beat drums of warning in his head. Why was she suddenly into him? Was this about him giving her a pass on the inspection?

  But the part between his legs growing bigger by the second shut his brain down. Her oversized T-shirt had fallen off one shoulder exposing a thin white bra-strap through the curtain of hair. He’d rarely seen her hair down. She usually had it pulled into a ponytail or braided into a thick rope.

  “You’re beautiful,” she whispered as her fingertips glided over his collarbone.

  Beautiful? Wasn’t he the one who should be telling her that? He opened his mouth to spout some inane tripping compliment, but she dropped her lips back to his chest, silencing him. Her tongue flicked his nipple, the one surrounded by ink. She trailed her hands up his sides leaving him a quivering mess of sensation. Sensation that needed an outlet or he would explode.

  With his shirt caught at his elbows, he took her face in both hands and pulled her up, his mouth seeking hers. No coaxing was needed. Their lips moved in synchronicity, no awkward fumbling of a first kiss present. Her teeth nipped at his bottom lip, and he slid his tongue inside her mouth, rubbing and twining, burying all thoughts but one. He needed to be inside of her, needed to feel her nails on his back, her lips at his throat, her legs pulling him closer as she came around him.