Free No More Mr. Nice Guy by Jennifer Greene Page B

sensual appetite until her need was beyond control and her desire reached a fever pitch…exactly what he wanted to do.
    Exactly what he was going to do if it killed him. Teasingly, he patted her fanny. “You can stop looking so sassy. I’ve discovered over the last two weeks that any man can learn to cook.”
    “I’m terribly sorry for doubting you,” Carroll said gravely, and resigned herself to a burned dinner. Alan was a whiz at making toast. To give him full credit, he wasn’t bad at ordering a pizza or bringing in Chinese food, either.
    It hardly mattered, when dinner was the last thing on her mind. Alan was wearing a pirate-style black shirt she’d never seen before. She was becoming used to the new and unexpected additions to his wardrobe; reading the new sensual look in his eyes was something else. One minute they were laughing and talking the way they always had; the next she felt lavishly, mysteriously studied by those rich blue eyes of his. It was enough to make a sensible woman’s toes tingle.
    Weeks before, she would have scoffed at the thought. These days she was inclined to sweep a lot of issues under the rug because of those toes, yet her feelings weren’t frivolous but fragile. His continued attentions made her feel loved as she’d never imagined feeling loved. She wasn’t so egotistical as to think she was as fascinating, beautiful and scintillating as Alan’s eyes kept assuring her she was, but inside she felt newly rich, as though every nerve ending now had a coating of luster.
    “Now just relax, kick off your shoes and prepare for a feast,” Alan called over his shoulder. “You’re not allowed in the kitchen—I’ll bring you a glass of tequila.”
    “Tequila?” They both liked a can of beer during a football game and an occasional glass of wine with dinner. Tequila, never. “Alan, you haven’t been experimenting with any fancy Mexican sauces, have you?” she asked with alarm.
    Alan was bringing her a frosted glass of tequila with a layer of salt on the rim. “Will you sit down and trust me?” he scolded before disappearing into the kitchen again. “It’s not retried beans,” he called back by way of reassurance.
    Hmm. Still standing, Carroll took a sip from the glass, shuddered, and stared at the misleadingly innocuous clear liquid. It was pure and simple firewater…and it left a faint dusting of salt on her upper lip.
    Maybe it was the sting of the tequila, but her eyes abruptly started playing tricks on her. Alan’s apartment was normally as familiar as her own. A bay window looked onto a courtyard; his walls were cream-colored stucco; and his traditional furniture in brown and cream reflected comfort and neatness—except for the bookshelf crammed with medical journals.
    Carroll took another sip of the tequila, and let her tongue make a delicate swipe at the salt residue on her lip. The room hadn’t drastically changed, but her eyes were drawn with startling speed to the huge new oil painting that hung over his couch. As she studied the picture, the impressionistic blur of siennas and golds and flesh tones gradually settled into the shapes of a naked man and woman. And the longer she stared at it, the more obvious it became that the man and woman weren’t playing tiddlywinks.
    Heavens. Her gaze swiftly took in the rest of the room. All clutter had disappeared. His medical books and journals had been neatly put away. The only printed material left casually out was an expensive book of prints bound in hand-tooled leather. Orientals prints. Erotic Oriental prints. Alan never looked at that kind of thing.
    Or maybe he did.
    Absently, she rubbed a finger on her temple. Over the past two weeks, she realized that she’d been unfair to ever peg Alan into a predictable slot. And there was no question that she relished the discovery of dimensions in him—and in herself—she hadn’t known about before, but occasionally she felt…well…lost. She never knew what he was going to