Sure enough, his expression took on that familiar mocking light. “So are you going to tell me or should I start guessing?”
She gritted her teeth.
“Guessing, it is. All right…the kiss was a big thing because…you’re in love with me?”
Miranda’s jaw dropped. “What? No.”
“Huh. Not sure if I should be insulted by how fast you shot that down.” He shrugged. “Okay, then it must be ’cause you’ve never been kissed like that before. It was that amazing, huh?”
Aggravation climbed up her throat. “You’re really not going to drop this, are you?”
“Nope.”
She leaned forward and grabbed her beer from the table. A few sips later, she didn’t feel any less embarrassed about the conversation or the confession sitting on the tip of her tongue.
“Come on, baby, spit it out.”
She met his inquisitive gaze. “It was a big thing because it’s the first time I’ve kissed a man since the twins were born.”
Silence.
And then some more silence.
Seth was staring at her like she’d grown horns and a tail, as if the fact that she hadn’t been making out with men left and right was truly astounding. The longer he stayed quiet, the more uncomfortable she became, and the discomfort only skyrocketed when understanding dawned on his face and she saw him grasp what she hadn’t said.
“Shit, you haven’t had sex in six years?” he blurted out, each word dripping with incredulity.
She managed a quick nod. Her cheeks were so hot she knew she must look like a tomato.
“Six years.”
She finally found her voice. “Seven, if we’re going for accuracy here.”
“Seven years?”
“Yes, and stop looking at me like that.”
“Seven years!”
She heaved a sigh, wishing he would quit acting like her admission was so damn unfathomable. Lots of people went without sex.
Right?
“Wow. Just…wow.” Seth shook his head in amazement. “I guess parenthood does equal celibacy.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He took the beer from her hand and promptly dropped it back on the coffee table, his movements quick and decisive. “You just blew my mind, you know that?”
She clenched her jaw, a little tempted to clock him one. An impulse that deepened when he opened that smart mouth of his and said, “Oh, baby, you need this just as much as I do, don’t you?”
“Need what?” she grumbled.
“Me. You. Naked.” His smile was beyond cocky. “You need to be fucked. And badly, from the sound of it.”
Even while her skin prickled with offense, her lower body tingled and pulsated in response to his lewd assessment of her situation. “I don’t need anything from you.”
“You haven’t been with a man in seven years.” He still sounded downright flabbergasted. “How have you not gone insane yet? What happens when you’re struck with that basic carnal urge to come?”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own urges,” she said stiffly.
“So you get yourself off?”
A fresh dose of humiliation heated her face. “Yes, Seth, I get myself off. Happy?”
“Not in the slightest.” His silvery gaze burned molten hot. “I won’t be happy until I’m the one getting you off.”
Cue the most powerful jolt of desire that had ever seized her body.
As her thighs quivered and her clit throbbed like she’d just placed a vibrator on it, Miranda averted her eyes and tried to compose herself. She suddenly wished she’d gone somewhere else for refuge, anywhere else. Why had she thought coming to Seth’s house could possibly be a good idea? Why had she willingly placed herself in the path of temptation?
“Miranda.”
His husky voice wrapped around her like a lover’s embrace. Why did he have such a sexy voice? Hell, why did he have such a sexy everything? She kept her gaze on anything but Seth, but that didn’t deter him from sliding closer.
She squeaked out a protest when he lifted her legs into his lap. “What are…”
Her voice died. So did her common sense, because when she shifted her head and saw that Seth’s lips were closing in on hers, she made no effort to stop him.
The kiss was as hot and explosive as the one in his bedroom. Flames licked at her skin, spreading to every erogenous zone in her body. Her breasts. Her nipples. The hollow of her throat. Behind her ear. Between her legs. When he nipped her bottom lip with his teeth, her sex clenched, the pressure becoming unbearable.
God, he knew how to kiss. She would have expected him to be rougher, greedier, but he took his time, stoking the fire building inside her with the fleeting brushes of his mouth and teasing exploration of his tongue.
She was helpless to resist. She sank into him, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and clinging to him as if she were hanging off the edge of a cliff and he was her lifeline. Except a lifeline was supposed to make you feel safe, and Seth…he made her feel anything but.
As he thrust his tongue inside her mouth and deepened the kiss to an even hotter, even more terrifying level, Miranda experienced something akin to free-falling. Her sense of equilibrium was gone, her heart pounding, her breath lodging in her lungs.
And that was before he touched her chest. Once his large, warm hand covered one aching breast, all bets were off. Her body went haywire on her—nerve endings crackled, head fogged, pulse raced. Not even the hint of smoke on his tongue could spoil the mood. If anything, the evidence of his bad habit only reminded her of how dangerous he was, and though she wasn’t proud of it, a thrill shot through her. Why did bad boys excite her so damn much, for Pete’s sake?
“You’re not wearing anything beneath that shirt,” he muttered against her lips.
“No.” Her voice was a shaky whisper.
Seth cupped both her breasts possessively, growling as he gave them a not-so-gentle squeeze. When he lightly pinched her nipples through the shirt, she felt it between her legs and whimpered. With no bra acting as a barrier, the flannel abraded her nipples, which puckered and tingled and pleaded for more attention.
Dipping his head, Seth nuzzled the crook of her neck. “You smell like heaven, baby.” He nibbled on her feverish flesh. “Taste like heaven too.”
His facial hair scratched her in the most delicious way, but there was nothing more delicious than the way he continued to fondle her breasts. Squeezing, pushing them together, teasing her nipples into two hard peaks.
“See, you need this,” he rasped, his breath hot on her neck. “You want this.”
Arousal had tightened her throat and rendered her vocal cords useless. He had her at a complete disadvantage—here he was, sure of himself, confident that his touch was having the desired effect, and here she was, struck mute, hardly able to remember what sex even felt like, so desperate for release she couldn’t even make her hands work so she could touch him in return.
“Ahem.”
At the sound of someone clearing his throat, Miranda flew off Seth’s lap as if her life depended on it. She swiveled her gaze and found Dylan in the doorway, his short blond hair damp from the shower, lime-green eyes twinkling with amusement.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked casually.
“Yes,” Seth grumbled, at the same time Miranda blurted out, “No, not at all.”
Dylan smiled faintly. “Uh-huh. I see. Anyway,” he glanced at Seth “Cash called. He spoke to the LT, who says everything’s a go for tomorrow, rain or shine.”
“Shit. They’re gonna drop us in the middle of the ocean for that training op even if the storm’s still raging?” Seth sounded anything but excited.
“Yesiree.”
“Well, ain’t that gonna suck.”
As the men hammered out a few more details, Miranda was grateful for the opportunity to collect herself. She discreetly fixed the neckline of her shirt, then ran her fingers through her hair. Were her lips red an
d swollen from those blistering kisses? And could Dylan see how hard her nipples were?
Oh God. This had been a much-needed interruption. If Dylan hadn’t walked in…shit, what would have happened?
You would have let Seth Masterson fuck you.
Miranda gulped. Wow. That matter-of-fact voice didn’t hold back any punches, did it?
But the voice was wrong. She wouldn’t have slept with Seth just now. Her good judgment would have reared its head and stopped her before she did something so reckless, right?
“I’m turning in,” she burst out, cutting Dylan off midsentence.
Seth was off the couch in a nanosecond, his expression darkening. “It’s only nine thirty.”
“And I have to be up at six. Besides, I’m super exhausted,” she lied.
“Miranda…” She heard the note of warning in his voice.
“You two keep chatting,” she said in an overly cheerful voice. She edged toward the doorway. “And thanks again for letting us stay here tonight. I really appreciate it.” Two more steps and she reached the door. “So, um, yeah, g’nite, guys.”
She darted out of the living room before either man could respond. A moment later, she walked into the dark guest room and released a breath of relief. Disaster averted. She’d gotten out of there, and now there was no chance she’d be having sex with Seth tonight.
Her gazed moved to the double bed, the only piece of furniture in the room other than the tall chest of drawers against the adjacent wall. Seth and Dylan took the word minimalist to new extremes, though she suspected that it had a lot to do with their military status. She didn’t imagine there to be much clutter or waste in the navy.
Sophie and Jason were sleeping soundly beneath the patterned comforter, lying on their sides on opposite ends of the bed. She smiled in the darkness, then undid the drawstring of the pants Seth had lent her and let the material pool at her feet. Seth’s shirt hung all the way down to her knees so technically she didn’t need to worry about modesty, but she still went to the dresser to rummage through the neatly folded pile of clothes Dylan had left there. She found her black bikini panties and slipped them on, then climbed onto the bed, doing her best not to wake the twins.
Sophie stirred in her sleep and made a soft sniffling sound, prompting Miranda to lay still. She needed both her kids to get a good night’s sleep.
Because at this point, who knew what chaos tomorrow would bring.
Chapter Six
Oh, this was bad. It was so very bad Miranda actually felt like throwing up. Choking back the rising nausea, she met the sympathetic eyes of her landlord and said, “How long will the cleanup take?”
“To pump it all out and remove the floors, two days,” he replied in perfect, albeit heavily accented, English. “The crew will discard any contaminated items. Everything will be documented for the purposes of insurance.”
“What about all our personal belongings? When can I come in and catalogue everything?”
Marco didn’t answer for a moment, signaling to a passing member of the cleanup crew and calling out something in Italian. The men moving to and from the vans parked at the curb wore an array of protective gear—green hip waders, rubber boots, gloves, masks. You’d think there was a hazardous waste spill in there instead of a few feet of rainwater.
Then again, even one foot of water would have been an utter disaster. Miranda’s heart had dropped to the pit of her stomach when she’d followed Marco into the apartment to survey the damage. Most of the water had been drained, so she’d been able to walk around in her yellow rain boots with no trouble.
No, the real trouble was the fact that anything with the misfortune of touching the floor was soaking wet and most likely unsalvageable. Luckily, most of her clothing was dry—everything in the top dresser drawers had escaped the flood, as did the hanging items in the closet. Even better—her important documents had come out unscathed, since she stored them all in a portable file folder at the top of her closet. And the twins’ room had barely been affected, which was the biggest miracle of all because now she wouldn’t have to replace any of their gazillion toys.
“I’ll have the men working around the clock so we can get you and your family back here as soon as possible,” Marco said kindly. He was only in his midthirties, but when he squeezed her arm in reassurance, his touch was oddly paternal. “Tomorrow morning you can come back to go through your things. The crew we hired is full-service, so they will assist with the cleaning and drying.”
“That’s a relief,” she said gratefully.
Marco lightly touched her arm. “I promise you, Ms. Breslin, everything will be taken care of. I apologize again for the inconvenience. I was not informed that the gutters were built improperly.”
She believed him. Marco had been genuinely horrified yesterday when he’d discovered the state of the ground-floor apartments. He’d already insisted she didn’t have to pay next month’s rent and had refused to budge when she’d protested.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to come home in three days, four days maximum,” Marco added before moving away.
Miranda loitered on the tidy front lawn for a moment, staring at the two-story building she’d been calling home for the past four months. White stucco made up the exterior, the tiled clay roof a pale shade of pink. There was no lobby, just an open walkway and two sets of stairs at each side of the building leading to the second-floor apartments. The place was nothing to brag about, but it was pretty and clean, and even though the backyard was small, it was big enough that she could plant a garden back there. And at least she had a yard—the upstairs apartments got balconies, which was why Miranda had been ecstatic to land a ground-floor one.
Well, she wasn’t feeling too ecstatic anymore.
With a weary exhalation she headed to the curb where she’d parked the sedan. It was nine thirty in the morning, the sun was shining and the sky was a cloudless blue. The only hints that a storm had ravaged the area yesterday were the leftover puddles on the asphalt.
Since morning had brought with it nothing but good weather, most schools were open today, including the twins’, and she didn’t have to pick them up until three. She’d been hoping to spend the day at the apartment cleaning up, but now that Marco had sent her away, she had no idea where to go.
Back to Seth’s? Both he and Dylan had been gone when Miranda and the twins wandered into the kitchen this morning. She knew they were at the navy base doing some kind of training operation, and she kind of hoped it lasted until the wee hours of the night because she couldn’t face Seth right now. She’d barely slept last night. Rather, she’d lain there sandwiched between her kids, tossing and turning, thinking about how incredible Seth’s kisses had felt and how badly she wanted to kiss him again.
Until she figured out how to get a handle on this attraction to Seth, she needed to keep her distance from him.
She finally decided to drive into the city. She’d seen on the news that most of the inland flooding had occurred in her neighborhood, Imperial Beach, along with several of the other coastal towns in the area, but San Diego hadn’t experienced much water damage. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check on the dance school.
To her relief, the building that housed All That Dance was in perfect condition, and when she wandered through the various studios, she found nothing but glossy wood floors and sparkling mirrors.
She ended up changing into a leotard and dance shoes, deciding to get a workout in as long as she was here. Popping her iPod into the dock near the door, she queued up her favorite play list, the one she turned to in times of stress. At the school she taught ballet and modern lyrical, but today she decompressed with straight-up hip-hop moves that left her sweaty and breathless by the time she called it quits an hour later.
That little dose of dance medicine was all she’d needed to brighten her spirits, and when she got back to Seth’s place a short while later, she was even whistling to herself as she let herself in with the key he’d given her.
r /> The whistling died in a sharp wheeze when she entered the kitchen and found Seth at the counter. He wore black basketball shorts that hung low on his hips, a gray T-shirt, and his feet were bare.
“What are you doing home?” she asked in surprise.
The coffeemaker clicked, and Seth grabbed the pot by the handle and poured himself a cup. “We’re done for the day. Want some coffee?”
After a beat, she nodded, then accepted the mug he handed her. She blew on the hot liquid and said, “How are you done for the day? It’s barely noon.”
“Baby, I was up at four o’clock in the morning and in the ocean at five for some heavy-duty underwater demolition. I’ve earned the right to call it a day.” He sipped his coffee and headed for the sliding door, an unlit cigarette in his hand. “Join me outside?”
She hesitated again.
“Jesus, Miranda. I don’t bite.”
An unwitting laugh burst out. “Yes, you do.”
Seth’s lips twitched. “Yeah, you’re right. I do bite. But only the good kind of biting.”
He looked like he was waiting for her to ask “and what’s the good kind?” but no way was she opening that door.
Holding her mug with both hands, she followed him out to the concrete patio, which housed a small round table and two plastic chairs. Although the surrounding grass was mowed, the yard was as barren as most of the house’s interior. No garden or flowers or bird feeders or any of the fun things she and the twins had put in their own yard.
“You and Dylan really don’t care much for decorating, do you?” she said wryly.
“Not really,” he replied, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He shoved a hand in his pocket and extracted a black Bic lighter. The lighter hissed as he flicked it, the tip of his cigarette glowing as he brought it to the flame.
Miranda didn’t lecture him. She wasn’t a smoker herself, but she believed in letting other people make their own mistakes. Besides, who was she to reprimand anyone about bad choices? She’d made quite a few of those in her own life.
“So what did your landlord say?” Seth sat down, exhaling a cloud of smoke in the direction opposite her.