One Week with her Rival:Eden Manor, Book One(5)

     



 

Before she knew what he meant or what was happening, he'd leaned forward  to capture her mouth with his. She gasped against his lips, one of her  hands lifting automatically to clench in his T-shirt.

His kiss was firm and skillful, but also strangely questioning, as if he  was testing something out, seeing what might happen. Vanessa knew what  should happen. She should push him away, get into her car, and drive  away.

She didn't, though. Her body softened against him, and her lips parted just enough for him to slip his tongue between.

Pleasure and excitement fired off from every nerve ending as their  mouths moved together. One of her arms wrapped around his neck, and she  pressed her body against his. She heard herself making an odd, silly  sound at the back of her throat-a helpless expression of how good she  was feeling, how much she wanted this to happen.

How much she wanted even more.

"Damn, Vanessa," Joe murmured against her lips. "You're the sweetest, hottest thing I've ever known."

The rough words shouldn't have moved her as much as they did, but her  excitement spiraled even higher at the sound of them. Her pulse, her  whole body, throbbed as she rubbed herself against him, trying to feel  him as much as she could.

She had no idea how long the kiss would have lasted or how deep it would  have gone had she not heard a sound from the house-maybe a door slam.  Whatever it was, the sharp noise pierced through her heat-clouded mind,  and she jerked violently as she realized what she was doing.

Kissing Joe Coleman-eagerly, shamelessly-against the side of her car  where anyone might see. Most of the workers had gone home now, but  still...

What the hell had she been thinking?

She took a ragged breath as she pushed him away from her. "What are you doing?"

Joe was flushed, and his expression was hot and almost groggy, like he  hadn't fully pulled out of the kiss. "I think we both were doing it."

"Yeah, but...but it was crazy. We don't do that."

"We could do that."

"I don't want to." She rubbed at her mouth, trying to get her mind to  work. This was Joe-her rival, her taunter, the man who drove her most  crazy in the whole world.

He closed his eyes for a moment, but he was almost smiling when he opened them. "Yeah, you do."

"No, I don't. I don't even like you."

His smile widened as he gently stroked her hot cheek with his knuckles. "Yeah, you do."

She tried to control her breathing, since she didn't want him to see how  much his kiss had affected her. "You're crazy. We're not doing that  again."

"Whatever you say."

She made herself turn away from his big, warm body, his expression that  looked both hot and affectionate. Her hand was trembling as she opened  the door to her SUV. "Can you step away please? I need to leave."

"Whatever you say." He did step back, despite the amusement in his tone.  And she knew he was watching her as she fumbled with her seatbelt and  then managed to get the car into gear.

He was still standing there, watching her drive away, as she managed to  escape down the driveway. She had no idea what he was thinking, why he  would have kissed her the way he had.

Even back in those first months she'd met him, after Carl had died, when  she'd believed he was really interested in her, he'd never kissed her  like that. Just little brushes against her lips, against her cheeks.  She'd believed he was so sweet, so tender.

But Vanessa wasn't naïve anymore, and she knew better than to take him seriously.

It might have felt like he'd channeled years of longing and desire into the kiss just now, but it just wasn't true.





Wednesday


Vanessa didn't sleep well that night. She kept waking up to visions of  Joe, kissing her, doing even more. Some of the dreams were so vivid she  could actually feel him touching her, but then she would open her eyes  to a dark room and frustrated body.

In the morning, she was exhausted and irritable, grumbling under her  breath at everything from the coffee pot to the politicians on TV. No  matter how much she told herself to snap out of it-that what had  happened yesterday with Joe didn't mean anything, didn't change  anything-it still felt like her stability and peace of mind were  crumbling around her.

She'd lived a fairly sheltered and uneventful life. She'd only dated a  couple of other men before she'd met Carl, and she'd dated no one since.  Women kissed men they weren't really into all the time. Kissing Joe  didn't mean anything at all.

But the truth was-Vanessa never kissed a man unless she really liked  him. So she had no idea why she'd done something as stupid as kiss Joe.         

     



 

As she left the house, she tried to distract herself with the work that  needed doing today. She needed Hal and his buddy to take care of the  paneling in the entry hall, so she decided to work on the fireplace  herself. Manual labor was just what she needed to clear her mind of Joe  and how it had felt to kiss him.

He wasn't around when she arrived at Eden Manor. She talked briefly with  Peter, who was carrying boxes of trash down from the attic, telling him  that Carl's grandmother didn't know anything about the history of Eden  Manor but had said he should ask Mabel Harris, whose family had lived in  town for two centuries. Then Vanessa checked on Ruth, who had already  started on the balustrade and was making good progress. When Vanessa saw  Joe's truck pull up the drive, she ended the conversation quickly and  slipped into the dining room, closing the door behind her.

Joe wouldn't be working in the dining room for a few more weeks, so he would have no reason to come in and see her.

Until she figured out why she was responding to him so wrongly, she was just going to avoid him completely.

She arranged her tools and then found a fairly comfortable position on  her knees before she started to work on stripping away the layers of  plaster and paint from the tiles. A small, contrary part of herself was  disappointed that Joe didn't poke his head into the room with a teasing  greeting, but the rest of her was incredibly relieved.

She didn't need to see him. She didn't want to see him. Carl had never  made her feel like this-like she was jumping out of her skin. It  couldn't be healthy. Best to just carve Joe out of her life as much as  possible.

She took out her frustration on the manual labor, and she was surprised  when she realized it was after noon. She needed to rest for a while and  grab some lunch. A quick look out the window proved that Joe was still  parked out front, so she was careful as she left the house and headed to  her SUV.

He must have been around the back of the house, since she saw no sign of him.

She drove home for lunch and to rest for an hour, but then she came back  to keep working for the afternoon. It was slow going, and she was only  halfway through the fireplace when she checked her watch and saw that it  was five o'clock.

She hadn't seen Joe all day. That was a good thing.

It was good. It wasn't a letdown.

Since Ruth was just finishing up, Vanessa went out to the entry hall to  say a few words and check in on the progress. After raving about the  work Ruth had done so far, she glanced out the window to see if Joe's  truck was still there.

It was gone. He'd left for the day. Evidently, he didn't feel the need to talk to her after he kissed her.

Of course, she'd been avoiding him too, so she had nothing to begrudge him about.

Deciding it would be smart to keep working for a little longer, so she  wouldn't go home and sit alone, thinking about Joe, she repositioned  herself so her back wouldn't hurt so much and wiped vigorously at two  more tiles she'd exposed, trying to get the last of the plaster off  them.

"There you are."

The voice surprised her so much she gave a violent jerk and dropped the rag onto the floor.

Taking a deep breath to recover herself, she picked up the rag and  started wiping with it again. She didn't need to look back to see who  was standing in the doorway. "What does that mean?"

"It means I haven't seen you all day, so I was wondering if you were avoiding me."

"You haven't appeared to make great effort to find me." She kept her  voice light, not wanting him to sense that she was disappointed in the  least-not wanting to even feel disappointed.

"I was giving you some space."

"Very sensitive of you. But what makes you think I need any space."

Joe had been approaching as he spoke, and now his voice lowered as he  knelt down beside her in front of the fireplace. "So you're saying you  want to be close to me?"

She tensed at the sexy timbre of his voice. "Don't be ridiculous."

She heard him sigh before he said, "You're upset."

Since that was the last thing she wanted him to believe, she turned to meet his eyes for a moment. "I'm not upset."

"Yes, you are."

"I think I'm the best judge of whether or not I'm upset."

"Of course, but that assumes you'll tell me the truth about it."

"I'm telling you the truth. I'm not upset."

"It was just a kiss."