A Loving Man. Cait London
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sucked in air when she realized she’d stopped breathing. Men usually thought of her as a good friend. Stefan’s sultry gaze seemed to devour her mouth as if he wanted to kiss her. The quiver passing through her body, the raised hairs on the back of her neck, startled her.
“Are you making a pass at me, bud?” she asked carefully, because men never flirted with her. She’d added the “bud” to keep him at a distance.
His smile was slow and warming and mind-blowing. It was definitely not a good-buddy smile. “So blunt. I will have to adjust to your frank style of conversation. It has been a while, and perhaps I am out of practice at making my intentions known.”
Then he placed his hands on either side of her head, studied the shape of her mouth beneath his and lowered his head. The kiss was that of a man who knew what he wanted and was confident he could obtain it. The kiss felt like a possession, a tantalizing gift and a choice. His lips were firm, yet light against hers, seeking more than demanding, exploring the shape and taste of her as if he had all the time in the world. Rose mentally rummaged for her resistance and failed. She felt herself drift away in the summer evening, tethered only by the temptation of his mouth. The dock shook…or was it her?
When he lifted his head, his eyes were dark and warm and yet tender. Rose slowly pushed away the sensation that she could melt into his arms and forget everything but the steamy pulsing of their bodies— She breathed carefully, studying Stefan’s dark, sultry gaze. “If…if you’re looking to start something, don’t.”
He stroked a strand of her hair, studying the reddish shades in the dying light. “Why not?”
She couldn’t afford to give herself again. While she had explained her love life to him as though it hadn’t affected her, the pain had been terrible. Though the decisions to break the engagements were shared, she’d been left with the sense that others moved on—like her mother—while she was left alone. She did not want to open herself again for a security that wasn’t there. Stefan was only passing through her life, testing her and playing his games. “I’ve never been a one-night stand and I don’t intend to be.”
That warm, intimate look cooled and sizzled with anger. “You think that is what I offer you?”
Rose pushed herself to her feet, gathered her backpack and tackle box and stood looking down at him. Stefan’s arms were behind his head. He took up too much space on the dock, and too much of Rose’s air—she was suddenly finding breathing difficult. She forced her gaze away from that wide chest and flat stomach up to his dark, sultry eyes, locking with them as he said, “You are afraid. You like to be in control of the men you take, and yourself. You fear giving away too much.”
“I do not,” she said harshly. How could he possibly know how she had to be in control, to survive, to take care of her father and herself and the business that supported them? How could he know how much she had loved a mother, who had deserted her?
He slanted her a disbelieving look. “You responded. You are a woman. You are alive.”
“Oh, I hate it when you shoot out those machine-gun sentences, summing up everything to your reasoning. If you need relief, I’m not your girl.” With that she hurried away to safety, to her home. Her hands shook as she shifted her pickup, and the gears protested her careless handling.
Her father continued to sleep and Rose settled in for a restless night. She tossed upon her single bed, the rosebud sheets tangling between her legs. Stefan did not kiss like other men in her experience. He kissed her as if he was imprinting her taste upon his mind, as if he needed the taste of her to carry with him. He spoke very softly, his accent curling intimately around her. She sensed an awakening within herself that wouldn’t be quelled. It was a long time before she slept, the taste of Stefan’s kiss—firm, sensual, tempting, hungry—dancing through her dreams.
She tried to snuggle down in her bed, and into the safety she had created in her life. But dreams of Stefan, stretched out on the dock and looking sexy, wrapped around her.
On the one morning she could sleep in, Rose smelled coffee. If her father—if Maury was tipsy and cooking, the situation could be dangerous. She pushed herself out of bed, and dressed only in briefs and the T-shirt she used for a nightgown, slowly made her way down the stairs. At the kitchen doorway, she yawned and rubbed her eyes and longed to curl up back in bed, regaining the sleep Stefan Donatien had robbed from her. “Dad? Are you okay?”
Sunlight shafted through the kitchen windows and Rose blinked. Seated at the kitchen table, her father waved an airy greeting. His face was wrapped in a towel. A basin was on the table, and Yvette Donatien was rubbing a shaving brush in Maury’s old-fashioned soap mug. She eased off the towel, slathered his jaw with soapy foam and began expertly stroking a straight razor over his jaw. Dressed in another soft flowing, flower-print dress, she looked at home in the kitchen. “’Al-lo, Rose. You look so sleepy, ma chérie,” she said, her voice soft and musical. “Come, sit down. When Maury is shaved, we will eat. Come. Enjoy this beautiful morning. It will only be a moment before Stefan serves his famous Piperade omelet, from the South of France. We have the basket of fresh eggs from the Parsons and a few ingredients from your home, and voila`, my beautiful son’s omelet. I think we will soon have our own cows and mushrooms from the farm’s root cellar. Stefan and I were just passing by and I noticed Maury—looking so alone—in his beautiful rose garden.”
“I invited them in for breakfast. I was going to cook some bacon and eggs,” Maury murmured in nasal tones, because Yvette was holding his nose to shave beneath it. “I said I’d better shave first, and Yvette offered to give me an old-fashioned one with a straight razor. And sure enough I found mine in the medicine cabinet, still sharp as a knife. Couldn’t pass that offer up,” he said cheerfully.
Stefan turned slowly from the kitchen stove to look at Rose. She couldn’t move, pinned by his narrowed gaze, as it roamed her body. Yvette continued to talk while Rose tried to find reality and slow the racing of her heart. Stefan’s look said he wanted to carry her off to bed, to claim her. The stark desire written on his expression terrified Rose…because if his kiss of yesterday was any indication, she didn’t stand a chance to resist him.
“Be right back,” she said and turned, hurrying upstairs to dress in a short, summer shift. After one look in the mirror, she remembered Stefan’s expression as his gaze traced her legs. She quickly changed to jeans and a T-shirt. Instinctively she knew that Stefan was not a man to take a “just friends” attitude with her. He was too intense, and she had to protect herself. She would manage to be civil for their parents’ sake and that would be the end of Mr. Stefan Donatien, she decided firmly.
When she returned, Maury was watching Yvette in the laundry room, located just off the kitchen. Laughing gayly, she was filling the clothes washer, and Maury’s expression caused Rose to stand still and stare. He seemed younger, more intense, and if Rose didn’t know better— She shook her head. Her father couldn’t be flirting. She blinked. Yet he was and there was that hungry male look at Yvette’s hips as she bent over to fill the clothes dryer.
She looked up to see Stefan studying her. “You are worried,” he whispered simply, quietly. “She has a good heart and does not hurt.”
Then he bent to place his cheek beside hers for just that fraction of a heartbeat. “Do not worry, your father is safe. There is no need for you to protect him. It is only friendship she offers. She has never been truly involved with another man since my father, though she likes to dance and laugh and enjoy their company.”
Rose shivered, uncertain of herself, of her suddenly animated father, and of Stefan, who had just turned that slight little bit to brush his lips across hers. That light touch packed a jolt of electricity and she stepped back, frowning at him. She remembered all the times she’d reached for happiness, only to have it slap her in the face. She’d cling to the safety of approaching spinsterhood, no worrying about engagements, weddings or love that just wasn’t there. “I’m just a country girl and I will not be the dessert of the day,” she informed him.
But Stefan was wearing that same hungry expression she had seen on the face of her father.