her neck as the sun rose in the sky. She had to be hot in that suit she wore. A few tendrils of curling red hair clung to her nape. The skin there was covered with those freckles she seemed worried about. He took a sip from the Evian bottle in his hand to keep from leaning down and blowing on her overheated skin.
“So…” she said.
He raised one eyebrow at her. If she had an inkling of the direction his thoughts had been heading, he was in deep water.
“Are you ready to confess all?” she asked with a gamine grin.
“No. But I am curious about you.” Joe decided to go on the offensive and drive her back into hiding. He’d been called brooding more than once by the women he’d dated. Why was it so hard to keep Holly at arm’s length?
“I’m an open book,” she said.
Her blue eyes said otherwise. Interesting. He’d really like to delve beneath her depths and uncover her secrets. But he didn’t think he could do that and still keep her at arm’s length.
“Yes. I already know you’re a pastry chef,” he said.
She took a bottle of water from the refreshment table. “In fact, I was at work this morning before I came down here.”
“You must really love baking,” he said. Though his family had made its name in the gelato business, Joe had never taken to baking or cooking. He could heat frozen dinners and reheat the casseroles that his mom sometimes sent to her kids’ houses. But beyond that he wasn’t even interested in trying.
She put the water down and stepped closer to him. Again her scent assailed him. It was time to end this conversation and get on with the rest of the day’s activities. As soon as she answered, he’d say something vague and move away from her.
“I do. The kitchen is the only place where I’m totally in control. Totally alone. There’s a…peace to it.”
“Why aren’t you ever alone?” he asked.
“Family,” she said. That one word summed up the way he sometimes felt about his.
He patted her shoulder trying for a brotherly touch, but knew he failed. Her arm under his hand was soft and he couldn’t help sliding his hand down to her tiny wrist. She wore a charm bracelet there with a tiny gold rolling pin on it. “I know what you mean.”
Who had given her the bracelet? A lover? Jealousy took him by surprise and he ran his finger under the fine gold chain, resting his finger on her pulse. It threaded steadily.
“Joe?”
Ah, hell, he thought. He knew better. Why was he even looking at her this way? “Did a man give you this?”
“Yes,” she said huskily.
“A lover?”
Her pulse doubled. “No.”
Her pupils had dilated and he saw more than awareness in them. He saw the same hunger that was coursing through his veins. Her lips parted and the air around them seemed to stop moving.
He leaned forward. “Would anyone object if I kissed you?”
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“There’s no man in my life,” she said. Holly watched him with feminine speculation in her eyes, and Joe knew he’d never be the same.
Two
Joe lifted her wrist slowly. Her heart beat so hard she thought it would jump out of her chest. Sensation trembled through her body, but she was helpless to stop it.
His breath brushed against her wrist, warming the gold chain her dad had given to her for her twenty-first birthday. Though Joe’s mouth didn’t touch her, she felt the humid warmth, and a sensual beating started deep in her center.
Holly’s experience with men outside her family had been limited. She’d worked during high school, which had left her little time to date. Then she’d skipped college and went instead to the Culinary Institute.
But that didn’t explain why she hadn’t dated in the past six months. The truth was, few guys wanted to wait for her to finish working two shifts at the bakery, and drive to her dad’s house to fix dinner for him and her brothers before getting to her place to get ready for a date. The men she had dated tended to be career-minded as she was, and ultimately more interested in their jobs than in her. None of them had had a tenth of the raw sexuality she sensed in Joe Barone.
His dark eyes blazed with a passion she’d read about but never experienced. His mouth on her inner wrist started a chain reaction that ended deep inside her. His hand on her arm forced her to remember she was more than a sister and chef.
Joe reminded her that she was a woman in every sense of the word. He called to her femininity and made her want to reach under the civilized facade and bring the elemental man to the surface. A man she sensed needed more than the solace he could find in her body.
Instincts she’d spent years ignoring forced her to take notice. Damn, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to wake her up now. There wasn’t time in her life for a man. Sure, this could be a little harmless flirting, but it felt like more.
She curled her fingers around his jaw. He was clean-shaven but she felt the fine stubble under her fingers. He turned his head in her palm and dropped one kiss in the center of it.
He nipped the fleshy part of her hand before lifting his head. He looked up into her eyes and she felt the world drop away. She wasn’t aware of where she was or what she was doing. She only knew that she wanted to bask in the intensity of his gaze for a long time.
Standing on tiptoe, she brought her face closer to his. His scent was spicy and outdoorsy. She shut her eyes and inhaled deeply, then leaned just the tiniest bit toward him.
His suit and hers should have provided a better barrier but didn’t. His heat and strength still surrounded her. His grip on her wrist changed and his hand slid around her waist, resting on the small of her back.
“Holly?” His voice was husky and deep.
She opened her eyes.
“I want more.”
She shivered, afraid to ask for what she wanted. But she’d always lived by the rule that honesty was the best policy. “Me too.”
“This could be complicated,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said. She’d learned enough about life to know that you took what you wanted when it was offered because it seldom was presented to you again.
“I thought you were going to kiss me,” she said.
“I was.”
“Changed your mind?”
He shook his head.
“Then what?”
“We need privacy for the kind of kiss I want to give you.”
Holly forgot all about everything at his words. He’d shocked her. Not what he’d said but that she’d inspired it. She wasn’t really a lust-at-first-sight kind of girl. But he made her feel like one.
“Mr. Barone?” a woman called from the open doorway.
“Yes, Stella,” Joe said, turning toward the woman but not letting go of Holly.
Holly stood there watching him. The sound of his deep voice rushed over her. She didn’t listen to his words, just wondered what it would be like to curl up next to him in bed, her head resting on his shoulder while he murmured words in that baritone voice of his.
“I’ll meet you in the foyer for your building tour in ten minutes,” he said to Holly.
“What?” she asked.
“Stella needs me to sign a