Chapter One Chapter OneHe hadn’t changed in years.
Breanna Miller peered out through the front windshield of her car, watching as Trent Walker stripped off his shirt, sinewy cords of muscle rippling along his rib cage as he bundled up his shirt and threw it aside. It had to be ninety degrees, the heat causing sweat to glisten in each crevice and valley that crossed his chest. He lifted a water jug that sat on the tailgate of his construction truck, the black one-ton backed up to an industrial building site, Trent unscrewing the lid of the jug and tossing water all over his blond head. It made him shiver, water droplets flying off his head, rivulets cascading down his tan body.
Bree almost went home right then.
What was she thinking? she asked herself for the thousandth time. What the hell had she been thinking, flying fifteen hundred miles to meet up with a man she hadn’t seen in ten years, one who probably wouldn’t remember her despite how close they’d been, much less remember her name?
He turned toward her car, his blue eyes homing in on her like he knew she watched him. Bree ducked down behind the steering wheel. Jeez-o-peets, that’d been close. Just what she needed, for Trent to spot her.
The knock on her window a moment later made her scream.
Trent stared down at her, his big body bent forward as he peered into the driver’s-side window, gorgeous blue eyes curious.
“Bree Miller?” he asked, his voice clearly audible in the dead silence of the car.
Oh. My. God
He’d recognized her.
“You are Bree, aren’t you?”
How the hell had he recognized her? a voice screamed inside her head. Granted, her black hair was still the same, but she’d long since lost her glasses and twenty pounds.
Bree blindly fumbled at the window control, warm air hitting her face like she’d just stepped into a hothouse.
“Well, hi, Trent. Fancy meeting you here,” she said.
Lame. Stupid. Beyond dumb. Now he was going to ask—
“What are you doing here?”
She almost closed her eyes, almost flopped her head back. Instead she forced herself to think.
Think, Bree.
“Well, um, actually. I just flew in.” And boy are my arms tired. “I, ah, just happened to stop here to get my bearings.”
Liar, liar, liar.
“No kidding?”
“No kidding,” she echoed back.
Did he believe her? Bree searched those hazardous-to-your-health blue eyes and found no sign of mockery.
“So you’re in town for the weekend?”
“I’m here on business.”
True, though not the kind of business he had in mind. Monkey business.
“Wow. Well, we’ll have to get together.”
“How about tonight?” Bree asked, cursing herself immediately. Jeesh, could she sound any more desperate?
You are desperate.
“Well, I don’t know—”
But it was too good an opening to miss. The whole way over, she’d wondered how to excuse her presence at his job site. She’d been sitting in front of the place contemplating that very problem when he’d begun his striptease and she’d become . . . distracted. Now she saw an answer.
“It’s been so long, Trent,” she said, giving him a wide smile, even though inside she quaked in her pointed-toe boots. “And just think what a huge coincidence it is that I stopped here. Right here,” she repeated. “To, umm, look up directions.” She absently reached for the map that she kept nearby, only to shove it away when she spotted the giant, black X, that marked his job site.
“Tonight?” he repeated.
She nodded.
But then his face cleared, his eyes doing some kind of smoky, sexy thing that made her nervous. “Okay. Sure.”
She almost lifted her hands in victory. Step one accomplished.
“What time?” he asked.
“Why don’t you meet me at my hotel—the Embassy Martinique—around six?”
“The Embassy Martinique,” he said back. “That sounds great.”
Now if she could just get through step two: having sex with him.
Bree told herself she had nothing to worry about. She’d just meet him for drinks. Nothing had to happen—not if she didn’t want it to. He’d never have to know the truth behind her sudden appearance at his construction site. He never needed to know that she’d traveled all this way to see him again because of something they’d shared in their past.
But that didn’t stop her from dressing the part, in something sexy, not slutty. After all, she didn’t want to scare the man away—jeesh, she still couldn’t believe he’d recognized her. But as she dressed in a little back dress, the tight halter top and long, flared skirt a perfect re-creation of Marilyn Monroe’s famous white dress, she wondered if she’d gone off the deep end.
You haven’t even finished dressing and already your hands are shaking.
“I can do this,” she told the mirror. “It’s going to work out.”
But what if Trent had a girlfriend and he didn’t want to sleep with her?
You’re making excuses, Breanna girl.
It was true, because the truth of the matter was, the thought of having sex with Trent Walker scared her to death.
But you have to.
She’d come too far to back out now. And if she didn’t push herself to do this now, she was desperately afraid all the therapy to put Humpty Dumpty back together again would be for nothing.
So she slipped on black, strappy heels, ran her hands up her long legs to ensure they were smooth as glass, and brushed her loose hair one last time. When she’d finished, she forced herself toward the door. Forced because there was a part of her that still balked.
She knew the moment she entered the crowded bar that the dress had worked. Male heads turned to stare appreciatively, more than one woman took one look at her, narrowed her eyes, then dipped her head to complain to a friend who would also turn and glare. It’d be kind of gratifying, if she weren’t shaking in her stiletto heels.
He was easy to find—right at the bar where he said he’d be, his blond head towering over the lesser mortals standing nearby. And as Bree got another look at him she felt her anxiety slip away as a surge of pure, feminine appreciation took over.
Oh my.
All he wore was a white T-shirt, the logo of the company he worked for branded across his chest. That T-shirt clung to every previously noted muscle, the ones that hardened his chest and lower abdomen. Arms the size of ham hocks flexed as he lifted a drink to his mouth, his head swinging around.
Bree pasted a smile on her face. Their eyes met. If she’d been any other woman, the look he gave her would have made steam emerge from her panties. Instead it made her throat tighten in fear, made her smile wobble a bit.
“Hey there,” he said in a low voice as she came up to him.
“Hi,” she said,’ slinging her purse off her shoulders and placing it on a bar stool he’d saved for her. She smiled up at him in a wide, I’m-So-Happy-To-Be-Here smile. It’s just Trent, she reminded herself. The guy you used to pal around with. Your best friend from high school. Remember? Sure, you haven’t seen him in years, but it’s the same guy just the same.
Actually . . . it wasn’t.
She couldn’t believe how big he’d gotten. In a lot of places. She noted the blue jeans he wore clinging to his crotch. He looked like he worked hard for a living, his body honed, arms tan, fingers callused. He looked like a man, not the pubescent boy she remembered.
“God, Bree. It’s been—what—almost ten years?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I can’t believe we ran into each other like that.”
“Actually,” she said, forcing her throat to work so she could swallow. “It wasn’t exactly an accident.”
“No?” he asked, looking surprised.
“No. I, um, sort of planned it.”
“Really?”
“Really.” And then she forced a fake and hopefully sultry smile to her face. “Look. Do you want to get out of here?”
She saw his pupils dilate a bit, saw the flash of something close to surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I mean go up to my room.”
The pupils flared again, so did his nostrils, the look on his face going from soft and friendly to hard and predatory.
“I mean, if you don’t have a girlfriend or anything.”
He didn’t say anything. Music began to play, a throbbing beat that instantly made people straighten up and voices get louder.
He leaned toward her. Bree told herself not to draw back. “Are you propositioning me?”
“Ahh . . . yeah I guess I am,” she admitted, telling herself not to look away.
But she did glance away, only to see him finger the rim of the drink he’d been sipping. “What’s the matter? You nostalgic for the good ol’ days?”
But she’d been expecting the question. “I’m a professional, Trent. I don’t have time for relationships. Nowadays sex is just a release for me. I try to fit it in when I can.” She gave him the practiced smile. “No pun intended. When I realized I was coming here on business, I thought I’d look you up to see if, you know, you might have some time for me.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Really,” she repeated, running her foot up his left leg. “We used to have some fun, you and I. I was hoping you’d want some more.”
Actually, he’d been her first love, but that been a long time ago.
She thought he might refuse, thought he might laugh in her face. Lord, she’d envisioned so many different reactions to her words.
His, “Let’s go,” was the reaction she’d hoped for. What she didn’t expect was the way hearing those words would make her feel.
Oh God, Bree thought, her palms going sweaty. She started to panic. Her heart pounded against her chest.
He took her hand, Bree sliding off her bar stool. Trent, she reminded herself, it’s just Trent. But the reassurance didn’t help.
“What floor?” he asked.
Bree realized they’d crossed the lobby and she hadn’t even known. She blinked, trying to realign her mind. Floor? What floor?
“Fourth,” she said.
A minute later the elevator closed. Trent pressed a button, then turned her toward him, his head moving to her lips before she could stop him.
“Trent—,” she managed to say before those lips covered hers. Familiar lips. Lips that had kissed her intimately . . . once upon a time.
But he’d changed. He wasn’t the soft-mouthed teenager she remembered. Oh, no. This man was hard. He nipped at her mouth, his tongue caressing the sensitive swell of her bottom lip in a way that should have had her moaning in pleasure.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered.
The elevator doors opened. They pulled apart.
“What’s your room number?” he asked, tugging her out the door.
“489,” she said, letting him pull her along even as her ears began to ring.
“Key?” he asked.
Bree fumbled in her purse, handed him the white card. He inserted it in the card-lock, and with a loud click and a snick, the door opened, light flowing in from the row of windows directly opposite. The moment she stepped inside, he pulled her to him.
This was it then, a voice inside her said. This was what she wanted him to do. Amazing how easy it had been—
He kissed her, his tongue slipping past her lips before she could form another word, and the shock of that hot, masculine invasion made her gasp. But she didn’t panic because he tasted . . . familiar. Safe. Sweet.
Yes, she silently hissed. Yessss. This was what she’d hoped for. What she’d prayed for. He might have changed on the outside, but she knew this man. He’d been her first lover. Her first boyfriend. Her first friend. She needed that gentle man back.
And for a moment or two it worked. Her body sank into his. Ripples of excitement moved down her body. She felt herself swell and moisten as hope sent her spirits soaring.
And then he picked her up.
Bree went stiff, reality returning like the bracing slap of subzero breeze.
Oh God
He set her down on the bed, slipped his shoes off, his hands moving to the fly of his jeans.
He unzipped himself, slipping down his jeans and his boxers in one, smooth motion.
His penis sprang free, the head of it fully engorged. His top came off next. And when he stood over her naked, his eyes were as hot as a swallow of whiskey. “Get undressed.”
She couldn’t breathe.
No, that wasn’t true. She panted. Fear gave everything a crystal clarity. His erection, the veins swollen and engorged. The goose bumps just above his blond pubic hair. The fitness of his body, every muscle pumped and at the ready.
“Bree?” he asked again.
She looked up, her vision having narrowed so that all she saw was his blue eyes. “I can’t,” she said.
“You can’t?” he asked, his voice so low, she couldn’t hear him at first.
“I just can’t,” she said, looking away and then darting to the edge of the bed.