Undressed. HEATHER MACALLISTER
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pointedly, but waited.
“You look like the kind of gal who has a tool kit or knows where one is.”
She hated being called a “gal.” “Yes. Do you need to borrow something?”
“Screwdriver, for starters. I’ve got an idea. Hang on and I’ll be back.”
“Oh, joy.” But he didn’t hear her.
Leaving the door unlocked, Lia returned to the office and began to close up the store. Minutes later, J.C. appeared with a laptop.
“Where did you get that?”
“It’s mine. Thought I’d see if I could help you out.”
“I appreciate the thought, but all my files are on the hard drive.”
JC moved the fan aside and set his laptop next to hers. “Seems like Ms. Gray ought to look into having more than one computer.”
“So noted.”
J.C. sat in the desk chair—the only chair—and smiled up at her.
What an evil, rotten thing to do. The man had long eyelashes tipped in gold, innocent (ha) blue eyes and an indecent mouth.
“Tools?”
Yeah, he had tools. And knew how to use them. “Um, are you, like, a computer geek?”
“Do I look like a computer geek?”
“Are you trying to?”
“Not very hard.”
“Good job.”
His dimple appeared. “I know a little bit about computers.”
“I’m thinking I should wait for someone who knows a lot about computers.”
“And I’m thinking you better get me that screwdriver.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m trying to make amends here. You’ve got a dead computer—what harm can I do?”
Lia knew enough about computers to know that a lot of harm could be done, even on a dead computer. “I’d like to try to recover the data.”
“So would I. You gonna get me that screwdriver?”
She got the tool kit.
J.C. unscrewed his laptop and carefully removed the hard drive. “Do not jounce this. Do not sneeze or otherwise breathe heavily in the vicinity. Do not spill your drink on it.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“No, but you’re excitable.”
“Only when there’s a reason to get excited.”
He gave her a look. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Lia gave him a look right back. “Please don’t.”
J.C. began opening up the salon’s laptop. “Why? Have you already got somebody giving you reasons to get excited?”
“No, and I’m not looking. Believe me, work is exciting enough.”
He shook his head. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“The computer?” She stared into it over his shoulder, expecting to see a blackened mass of fried computer guts.
J.C. set down the screwdriver. “No, you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“‘Work is exciting enough’?” He looked pained. “Selling wedding dresses is so exciting you’ve sworn off men? Do you not see the irony?”
“I could be seriously disillusioned by the fact that forty percent of those happy brides will end up divorced.”
“But you’re not.”
“No,” she admitted.
“So, to be clear, you’re really saying you aren’t attracted to me.”
That was blunt. “Bingo.” Technically, it was more accurate to say that she wasn’t going to act on her attraction. A transient who fancied himself a singer and was sleeping in a dressing room? Yeah, no.
J.C. grinned. “Fair warning—I’m going to change your mind.”
The face…the eyes…the smile…the voice…She was doomed. Doomed. “Don’t bother. Really.”
“It’s no bother. Really.”
Ignoring the little quivers his voice caused, Lia waved at the computer. “Will you please finish with whatever you’re doing?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He lifted her hard drive and set it in his computer.
She saw where he was going. Good idea. Lia hoped it worked. “Have you switched hard drives like that before?”
“Nope.”
She couldn’t watch. But she did. “How do you know about computers?”
“Since I spend a lot of time on the road, I’ve had to learn because there isn’t time to leave my laptop at a repair place.”
“Are you some sort of salesman?” she asked.
He stopped working with the tiny screws as he considered the question. “I suppose I am.”
If he had to sleep in dressing rooms, he must not be a very good salesman, she thought.
After J.C. finished installing the hard drive, he said, “Cross your fingers,” and booted up his computer.
Lia waited, hardly daring to breathe. And there it was—the soul and brains of her computer in J.C.’s body. Computer body—case. Whatever.
He gestured to the keyboard and she opened the connection to Zhin.
“Everything is there!” Lia went dizzy with relief. She immediately chimed Zhin and e-mailed her.
Whoo hoo, came right back and an answering chime sounded as Zhin accessed the network and the orders. Lia stared at the icon indicating Zhin was on the network until it sounded a tone and blinked off.
She leaned over the keyboard and typed, Got everything?
Yes.
Her knees actually went weak. “It worked. You actually made it work,” Lia said to J.C. as she typed her goodbyes to Zhin.
At his silence, she became aware that her breasts were just inches away from his face.
She pretended that she was not aware that her breasts were just inches away from his face and logged off the network.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She straightened. “I’m so relieved and so grateful I could just—”
“Kiss me?”
The words hung in the air. “I was going to say burst.”
“Let’s go with the kiss.”
Before Lia could protest, J.C. hooked his arm around her waist and tugged her into his lap, using a neat maneuver with the chair to buckle her knees.
Scooping her hair away from her nape, he cradled her head with one hand and pulled her against him with the other.
And then he kissed her.
5
FOR ALL ITS seeming spontaneity, it was a crafty, well-thought-out move, probably plotted while her breasts dangled in front of his face.
J.C.’s mouth met hers with confident intent, shifted in a series of erotic pulses—she was going to remember that trick—and settled at the perfect angle.
The. Perfect. Angle.
He was in complete