deep for the first time since he’d stepped through the hedges, Harper glanced up at the second floor of her fancy new house. Nathan’s window glowed with friendly cheer.
“He’s comfortable with people,” she said, half to herself. “Easy with them.”
“How about you?” He waited until her eyes met his again, the shadows dancing in wicked angles over his face. “Are you just as at ease and comfortable with strangers?”
She wasn’t even that comfortable with friends. But that wasn’t any of his business.
“I’m not seven years old, so I see people a little differently than Nathan does” was all she said.
“I guess he gets that easiness with people from his dad, huh?” Even as his lips quirked, that dark gaze seemed to intensify. “Me, all I got from my old man is my height.”
His expression was easy, his demeanor mellow. Still, nerves did an edgy cha-cha through her system. Maybe it was the mention of fathers, or just the pointed reminder of Brandon. Whatever it was, Harper didn’t like it.
“It’s a little soon to tell how tall Nathan will be,” she said, her words a chilly sidestep to his question. “Thank you for the help finding the ball. I’ll take it in to him now.”
His eyes not leaving hers, he moved closer.
Close enough that his scent—fresh male with a hint of earthy sweat and clean soap—wrapped around her.
Close enough to touch. All she had to do was reach out to trail her fingers over that hard flesh. Was he warm and slick after that workout? Or had his skin cooled, sweat sticking like a salty blanket? Her body hummed, nerves shimmering so hard her fingers trembled. She reached for the ball.
What was he looking for? What was he seeing? Finally, he placed the ball in her outstretched hand. Then, as if expecting something more, he stood there, waiting.
For what?
No matter how much her jump-started libido wanted otherwise, she wasn’t actually going to lick him.
“Thanks,” she murmured, gripping it tight. It was stupid for her heart to speed up now that she was only a moment from safe, but race it did. Harper gave the no-longer-smiling neighbor a brief nod, then turned to duck back through the vine-covered gate.
“Hey.”
One hand filled with the soft leaves, the other gripping the ball to her chest, Harper stopped to glance over her shoulder.
“Everything okay?”
No. But since she didn’t know why it wasn’t, she lied. “Fine.” Unable to resist, she added, “Why do you ask?”
Clouds cloaked the moon now, dimming its light so his eyes were cast in night shadows. But Harper could still feel the power of his stare.
“Maybe I just don’t like seeing a beautiful woman in a hurry to get away from me.” The shadows did nothing to hide the wicked charm of his smile or the hint of sexual heat in that shielded gaze.
It was the same heat Harper felt sizzling deep in her belly. An awareness and a whole slew of promises—all of which were as suited to the dark night as the man himself seemed to be.
Who knew she’d want that so desperately?
Oh, boy, there it was, Harper realized in a flash.
The reason for her nerves. All that masculine energy, all that sensual interest, all the impossible possibilities, they crowded her thoughts, filled her body.
Thankfully, the tiny voice in her mind still had enough control to scream danger.
“I’m hurrying because I don’t like to leave my son inside alone,” she managed, hoping her words didn’t sound as breathless to him as they did to her. “Again, thanks for your help.”
And with that, she tossed pride and dignity aside and slipped through the hedge before he could say another word. It wasn’t until she was inside the house that she realized she was holding her breath. Releasing it in a harsh whoosh, Harper leaned against the closed door and focused for a moment on getting the air in and out.
What was she doing? Getting lusty over a man just because he had a sexy smile and a gorgeous body? Just because his eyes promised all sorts of delights and his chest made her fingers tingle to touch? Sure, he looked as if he could’ve posed for Michelangelo’s David with those sculpted muscles and all that smooth skin. And maybe the hint of an accent and flashes of humor were intriguing. But was that an excuse to picture the man naked? To wonder if he had the kind of talent in bed to make her moan with pleasure?
At that point, Harper had enough breath to laugh at herself. Because if those weren’t reasons to get lusty, she couldn’t think of what was. Deciding to give herself a break, she peeled herself off the door and, resisting the urge to peek out the window, flipped the lock and turned off the lights.
Wouldn’t Andi be proud, Harper thought, grinning and tossing the ball from hand to hand as she climbed the stairs. Not that she would tell her. Andi wouldn’t understand. Because as much fun as it was to discover that, yes, indeed, she had a libido, Harper had no intention of doing anything about it.
No matter how lusty the guy made her feel.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, halfway through her nightly bedtime routine, Harper glanced in the bathroom mirror and frowned. Was that a wrinkle?
She rubbed her finger along the faint line scored between her meticulously arched brows.
Her frown deepened. So did the line. It was a wrinkle. How could she have a wrinkle? She was only twenty-five. Weren’t wrinkles at least a decade away?
What the hell was she thinking, wondering if she should get naked with the hottie next door when her face looked like this? She yanked open the bottom drawer of the floor to ceiling corner cabinet and pawed through the array of bottles and jars and tins. Bubble bath, body lotion, tanning cream. Eye shadows, miracle mascaras, blushers by the dozen. Harper shuffled and dug until, a fistful of samples in hand, she rose to spread the tubes and tins over the bathroom counter.
After squinting her way through the tiny print and wondering if bifocals were next, she settled on four antiaging ones that promised to turn back time. A daytime moisturizer with SPF, a hydration-boosting serum, an age-reversing night cream and a mask rich in botanicals.
She’d need to visit one of those skin care counters at the mall, but she figured there wasn’t a moment to lose fighting the affects that that bitch, age, was trying to gash into her face. She’d be damned if she’d let her win.
Twenty minutes later, she’d washed, masked, toned and moisturized. She flexed a little, feeling righteous in her fight. Take that, bitch, she huffed into the mirror.
Hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and her face glistening with a thick layer that promised dewy youth, she caught sight of herself in the cherry-trimmed cheval mirror.
She had to laugh.
She looked like this, and she was worrying about wrinkles keeping her from hitting on the neighbor?
This was the closest thing to seduction wear she owned. The black nightshirt fit just fine, skimming her breasts and hitting midthigh. But it was roomy rather than revealing, and while the cotton was wonderfully soft, Wonder Woman was so wash-worn that she was more a shadow than an actual image.
She was so not the seduce-the-neighbor-into-a-puddle-of-lust type of woman.
Hoping that little taste of reality would put an end to the crazy thoughts that kept trying to take hold, she headed down the hall. She stopped to take a quick peek at Nathan. In the glow of the star-shaped nightlight, her son slept with his usual exuberant abandon. Blankets kicked this way, arms and legs sprawled. His face buried in the pillow, his hair stuck up in little tufts. Her fingers itched to smooth it down, to straighten his blankets and settle him into the center of the bed. But he’d wake at the lightest