Free House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) by Carolyn McSparren Page B

on the doorknob. “The dinner was wonderful. Good night.” He started to leave, then turned back to her. “Will I screw up the employer-employee relationship if I kiss you?”
    Her eyes widened. “Uh—”
    “Damned if I care.” He slid his good arm around her waist and pulled her toward him.
    She came readily into his arms, dropped the flashlight onto the floor with a clatter they both ignored and wrapped her arms around him.
    God, she felt so soft. Her mouth, still sweet from the wine, opened to him. He pressed her hips against him, knew that he was already too aroused for a single kiss and didn’t let her go.
    She shoved him away. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
    “I think it’s a great idea.”
    “Go home. Please. Just go home.” She turned away.
    He caught Dante’s curious eye, but the big dog made no move toward him.
    “All right.” He wrapped his fingers gently around her ponytail. “I still think it’s a great idea. Thanks again for dinner. I owe you one.”
    He shut the door quietly behind him.
    Halfway down the stairs to the alley he stopped. A great idea? It had been a great kiss, but a lousy idea. Hadn’t he been telling himself that over and over again? Somehow whenever Ann was close to him, all his good intentions evaporated, and pure animal lust—or something—took over.
     
    A NN HEARD his footsteps on the stairs. She wrapped her arms around herself. “No, no, no. This will not happen. He’s everything I do not want in a man ever again. You hear that, Dante? No more good-looking, sweet-talking, mystery men. No more risky relationships. No more getting myself in over my head because of my heart, not to mention other parts of my body.” She turned to the kitchen and began to polish the slate countertops viciously. “It’s been so damn long since I went to bed with anybody, Dante. I thought maybe I was past all the sex stuff. Hah! He even asked if he could kiss me. Is that a ploy or what?” She scrubbed and dried the frying pan and hung it back on the pot rack.
    Then she picked up the telephone and dialed a New York number.
    “Hey, Marti, it’s me.”
    “Good evening, Ann. If I sound cool, it’s because Iam. I have not had so much as an e-mail from you for a month. Where are you? Still in Buffalo?”
    “Sorry,” Ann said softly. “I’m back home doing the Delaney job I told you about. I truly have been busy. And I haven’t had one interesting thing to say. Boring, boring, boring.”
    “So now you do have something to say?”
    “I need some advice. Who else would I call except my dearest girlfriend?”
    “Oh, God, can it. I would like to make you grovel some more, but I’d prefer to hear about the advice thing. Advice graciously given 24/7. What have you done now?”
    “Kissed a client.”
    “God forbid. Twenty lashes. Wait a minute. This calls for a glass of wine and a cigarette.”
    “Marti! I thought you’d quit.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m down to six a day. This will be the seventh, but what the hey, it’s a special occasion. So what’s wrong with kissing a client?”
    “He is gorgeous, well-off, smart and funny, and he’s restoring my favorite house in the world.”
    “So that’s bad? What’s wrong with him?”
    “He’s gorgeous, well-off, smart and funny, and he’s restoring my favorite house in the world.”
    “This does not compute.”
    “Damn right it doesn’t. I keep asking myself why, why, why? What’s his agenda?”
    “Why does he have to have an agenda?”
    “Because men do, as you very well know.”
    “I know that the agenda of most of the men I meet is simply to get into my knickers,” Marti responded. “Then to get out of my knickers and walk away. Do you think that’s your client’s agenda?”
    “His ex-fiancée was a flight attendant, for God’s sake!Somebody asked one of those big rock stars—I can’t remember which one—why he only dated beautiful women. Know what he said? ‘Because I can.’ Trust me, this