Notorious. Vicki Lewis Thompson
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snip, snip. Noah froze. The sound of hedge shears was unmistakable. And it was coming closer. Snip, snip, SNIP.
He released Keely instantly. “Cover up!” he whispered urgently, getting his feet back under him and clamping his hat back on his head.
With a lazy smile, she casually pulled the cups of her pale blue bra over her breasts and snapped the front fastener. She seemed in no hurry whatsoever as she adjusted the straps.
The sounds of the gardener came even closer, yet Noah couldn’t stop admiring her cleavage and wishing he had a little longer to enjoy it. But the guy would be upon them any minute. “Faster!” he urged.
“What’s the matter?” Her eyes gleamed with mischief as she slowly pulled the laces of her dress closed. “Afraid of getting caught?”
He stared at her and realized that discovery didn’t seem to bother her at all. Maybe once she’d taken off all her clothes for the camera, she’d discarded the concept of shame right along with her clothes. She possessed a freedom that he could only imagine. To his amazement he envied her. He was also incredibly turned on.
Here was a woman who wouldn’t balk at anything.
Keely tied the laces of her dress at the same moment an olive-skinned man in khaki work clothes came around the boulder pushing a small wheelbarrow mounded with clippings, a pair of hedge sheers resting on top of the cut greenery.
“Madre de Dios!” the man exclaimed. He nearly tripped over a giant fern as he backed up a step.
“We were just leaving,” Noah said. He held out a hand to help Keely up and wished he looked as composed as she did. But he could feel the heat climbing up from his collar and he couldn’t meet the gardener’s shocked gaze.
Instead, he glanced at Keely, who was nonchalantly swishing bits of dirt from her shapely knees. She had never seemed more beautiful to him. The flush in her cheeks obviously came from pleasure, not shame. When she finished brushing herself off and peeked up at him, her eyes sparkled with remnants of desire.
He’d kissed off all that satiny peach lipstick, and her dress was rumpled, giving testimony to exactly what they’d been doing. Yes, he was embarrassed that they’d been discovered here, but in a way he was proud that he was the guy this gorgeous woman had been making out with.
While the gardener stared, Keely picked up her purse and the bag containing her drugstore purchases as calmly as if she were leaving a restaurant after a meal and the gardener was the busboy waiting to clear the table.
Noah thought of the boxes of condoms inside that bag and wondered what would have happened if the gardener hadn’t come along. Noah suspected that if he’d been willing to make love to Keely’s breasts, chances were he might have been coaxed to make love to the rest of her. The thought of the gardener coming upon them later and catching something even more involved made him break out in a cold sweat.
Swinging her purse strap over her shoulder, Keely flashed a winning smile at the gardener. “Qué pasa, Jose?”
For one startled moment Noah thought she might know the gardener, but then he glanced at the man’s breast pocket and noticed the name embroidered on it.
Jose’s shock and disapproval seemed to melt in the glow of Keely’s smile. Slowly he grinned back and gave a little shrug. “Nada, señorita.”
She winked at him. “Bien. Adiós.” Then she picked her way carefully around the edge of the rock and headed for the sidewalk.
As Noah followed, he heard the gardener sigh with longing. Keely had made another conquest.
She was waiting for him at the edge of the sidewalk, and naturally she’d attracted a number of glances, both of the curious and of the lecherous kind. The way the damp dress clung to her was close to indecent and the moisture had turned her wavy hair into a mass of ringlets. She looked delicious.
When he stepped out from behind the foliage, several people stared openly. He tried to act as if prowling around in the hotel landscaping was a perfectly normal thing to do.
“Dr. Livingston, I presume?” she said with a grin.
He figured he had to get things straightened out right away. “Keely, don’t get the wrong idea. What happened back there was—”
“All my fault,” she said. “I know. I was a bad girl.” She didn’t look particularly sorry about that.
Bad girl. Damn, but that phrase made his blood race. But he had to control those impulses from now on, or he might as well forget about his plan to rehabilitate her. “No, it wasn’t all your fault. After all, I’m the one who dragged you back there in the first place. From now on, I don’t intend on anything like that happening again. I just want you to know that.” He looked into her eyes so he wouldn’t be tempted to notice how the dress molded to her figure. Fortunately, sunlight filtered down to the sidewalk and the material was beginning to dry already.
“All right.” She looked far from convinced.
“I mean it, Keely. No fooling around. We’re going to get your résumé in shape.”
“And I really appreciate that.” She gave him a saucy look. “I’m just worried that my résumé’s not very well suited to what you have in mind. But if you’re willing to massage it a little, maybe there’s hope. I’m looking forward to your input.”
Heat flooded through him. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” She widened her eyes in innocence.
“You know perfectly well. Your choice of words. Like massage and input. You’re trying to make me think about—” He realized the more he talked, the more aroused he was getting. “Never mind. Let’s go in.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
Noah clenched his jaw and started toward the entrance. He would do this. The object was to set Keely on the right path, while being careful not to amble down the wrong one himself. They were only talking about three days. Surely he could manage to keep his pants zipped for three days.
THREE DAYS IN A PLACE like this would give her plenty of time and opportunity to corrupt Noah, Keely thought as they walked through the glittering lobby toward the reservation desk. She didn’t need to win the war in the first two hours. She should probably cool it.
All things considered, she shouldn’t have allowed matters to proceed so quickly in the underbrush. A kiss would have been plenty for this stage of the game. A kiss would have been quite enough of a sampling, thank you very much. But no, she’d gone completely out of her mind.
Apparently all those years of wanting Noah had created a powerful backlog of needs. If dear Jose hadn’t shown up she would have given away the farm right on the spot, behind a boulder in the front landscaping of the Tahitian. And despite what Noah thought of her shady past, that sort of stunt would be a first for her.
She wouldn’t call it a bad idea, though. In fact, it was a pretty good idea. Extremely creative. But the timing was all wrong. Moving that fast, that soon, would have scared Noah to death, once he’d done the deed and come to his senses. She’d nearly blown her opportunity by overreacting. If she wasn’t more careful, he might reconsider his weekend plan to save her.
And she so didn’t want him to reconsider. After that kiss, if she were a pinball machine she’d be on tilt. The heavenly way his mouth had felt on hers had naturally made her think of how perfect his mouth would feel on her breasts. And she’d charged straight for that goal without thinking of the consequences, forgetting that she might be sacrificing a long-term gain for a short-term thrill.
Yet he was walking toward the reservation desk as if he still had every intention of asking for another key. Maybe after that last demonstration he was even more convinced that he had to save her. Maybe letting her impulses get the best of her hadn’t been such a mistake, after all. Now he really believed she was bad, through and through. Eventually, he wouldn’t be able to resist being bad with