Chapter Three
Gray felt as stunned as the time in high school when he had been hit by a line drive baseball and ended up with a concussion. In that moment he also understood what his stepfather had told him about love coming to you when least expected. Too bad the woman was looking at him with an expression of horror mixed with fascination as she slowly backed away.
Not wanting to lose her now that he had found her, Gray matched her step for step across the patio.
“What’s your name?” Maybe holding a normal conversation would force his brain to climb out of his shorts.
“Alaina Rowen.”
“I’m Gray Woolphe. W, two Os, L, P, H, E. Some Indian agent’s idea of a joke a hundred and some years ago.” He smiled, hoping he looked friendly and not as horny as he felt.
“You’ve been watching me.” Her words weren’t a question nor an accusation, but a statement of fact.
Gray nodded. “When you wished for a man for your birthday, I knew I could make your wish come true. I’m not a masher or an ax murderer or anything like that. I’m a Marine Corps pilot. I’ve been deployed overseas for the past six months. I’m currently on leave, but start back on duty at Cherry Point next week.”
Even as she nodded, she took another step backward. When her leg connected with the edge of a chair, she lost her balance and landed hard, her gaze still locked on his face. She looked stunned. She looked fearful. She looked like she wanted to rip his clothes off and have him for dinner. Gray eased into the other chair as he sent a prayer heavenward that she would.
* * * * *
Alaina relaxed marginally as he shared a little bit about himself. He was a Marine, which meant healthy and employed. “Would you like a beer?” All at once, the manners her mother had drilled in her since she could walk kicked in.
“A beer would be good.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
She was not surprised when Gray stood as she pushed to her feet. She hurried into the house and retrieved another beer from the refrigerator. When she returned to the patio, he stood where she had left him, staring at the table.
She looked in the direction of his gaze to see what held his interest. When she realized it was her vibrator, she groaned with embarrassment. Stepping forward, she held out the bottle without a word about the still glistening toy on the table.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice dropping even deeper than it had been.
* * * * *
Gray lifted his gaze from the vibrator as he accepted the beer. He waited until she once again sat before sitting himself. Looking at her, he took in her flushed cheeks of embarrassment, then studied the rest of her. She was covered from collarbone to bare feet, though he saw unbound nipples poking against her shirt. The blood red polish on her toenails gave him another clue to her life as her short, neatly-filed fingernails were bare. “Why do you cover up such a knockout body? You should never wear clothes.”
Her smile was sad even as her cheeks pinked up further. “I work for my father. He wouldn’t approve of my showing up to work naked.”
“You don’t like your job. It makes you sad.”
She startled, raising her head to stare at him “Why do you say that?”
Gray took another drink of his beer as he studied her. She was scared. Not of him, but of herself, of the wildness she felt, of letting go and unleashing the wanton woman she hid behind long skirts and oh-so-proper manners. “I see it in your eyes.”
Alaina sighed then shrugged. “No, I don’t like my job. But I can’t do what I really want to.”
“Why not?”
* * * * *
His question stopped her for a moment. Why not? Because to quit her job and do what she really wanted took more faith in herself and her dreams than she had left. Her father had ground her self-confidence from her psyche with endless lectures about being practical and having a proper job with the family firm. Making her dreams come true also took money. And the strength to take on the historical society so she could renovate the second floor of her one-hundred-thirty-year-old home.
She had inherited the house from her grandmother five years before and every month she received money from her mother’s estate, money she had been carefully saving so she could do all the renovations at one time. But it seemed every time she thought she was close, something would break down and need to be fixed, eating into her savings.
With a sigh, she softly admitted, “I’m scared.”
“What is it you want to do?”
“I’ve thought about renovating the house to create three two-room suites. I want to rent them out and take care of people. I’d also like to see if I could sell some of the quilts I design and make.”
“A bed and breakfast? That’s a lot of work for one person, isn’t it?”
“Not a bed and breakfast. I’m thinking more like a rooming house. A place where people rent long term and come together and care about one another like an extended family. I could offer breakfast and dinner family style. Problem is, I’m not sure I can get approval to make some of the changes since this place is on the historical registry.”
“I see only one drawback to your idea.”
“Oh?”
“If you’re renting rooms to people, you won’t be able to run around naked.”
“Mmmm, yes, well, I don’t normally run around naked. It’s just that…” Alaina trailed off, not sure how to explain the hunger, the urges, the need for something more than what she had in her life currently.
“I know what you mean. It’s a wild itch you have to scratch?”
“Something like that.”
Looking at Gray, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“I know you don’t know me, but I want to help you. But you’ll have to trust me. Do you think you could do that?”
Narrowing her eyes, she studied him a little longer. Finally, she blinked and smiled. “As strange as this whole encounter has been, I think I do trust you.”
“Will you take your clothes off for me?”
Taking a deep breath at the surprise of his question, she threw caution, good sense and her father’s expectations, dictates and standards out the window. Gray was hot and she was horny. “I will if you will.”