Jennifer Greene - Pink Satin

“You didn’t mention your name,” she said lightly, once he’d recovered.

“Ryan McCullough.”

The name suited him. McCullough had the flavor of Scottish highlands and fresh air and the wild, rocky sea coast. And he had the look of a man who would seek out man-against-environment-type challenges. The stereotype of the plodding engineer didn’t fit him at all, arousing her curiosity.

Greer kept her eyes carefully averted from his work boots, praying he wouldn’t notice that Truce had settled at his feet and was trying to pull out the shoelaces. “You’re from…?”

“Maine, originally.” He added abruptly, “How long have you been getting those phone calls?”

“Too long, but honestly, they’re nothing to worry about.” Greer glanced at her watch, hardly believing that nearly an hour had passed. Unfortunately, anxiety attacks always made her gregarious, but that choked-up irrational fear was gone now. Long gone, thanks to one Ryan McCullough, and she’d certainly been bending his ear long enough. She stood up and stretched. “If I’d known you were moving in, I would have brought over a dinner. As it is, tonight was rather slim pickings-”

The phone rang in her apartment, a distant jangle through walls and closed doors. Greer pivoted toward the sound, color draining from her face. Her friendly chatter ceased instantly, sliced off rapidly as if with a knife blade. When the phone rang again, her fingers curled helplessly at her sides.

Firm hands suddenly closed on her upper arms from behind. “Dammit. Now, how the hell often does that happen?”

Her fingers fluttered in the air. She held her breath when the phone rang a third time. Ryan’s firm hands released her shoulders; he swept in front of her toward the door. “Where’s your phone?” he demanded brusquely.

“Pardon?” Tiny pinpricks of moisture beaded on her forehead. She stared wildly at Ryan as the phone jangled a fourth time. Fear was the strangest emotion. A stupid, stupid emotion. There’d been no threat of harm from the heavy breather. It was all in her head, this insidious growing fear of the stranger out there in the city watching her, a man who always seemed to know when she was alone, a man who’d gone to a lot of trouble to learn her new unlisted number almost as soon as she’d had the old one changed. Why had he chosen her? What could she possibly have done to deserve this? What did he want from her?

“There isn’t any reason to be frightened,” she said haltingly. “I know that. It’s totally ridiculous to get so upset…”

“Stay there.” Ryan pushed open her door and disappeared while she stood there. The phone rang once more and then stopped. Very shortly after that, one Ryan McCullough leaned against her open doorway, one leg lazily hooked forward and a definitely determined look to his mouth that she hadn’t noticed before. His eyes bored into hers and just wouldn’t let go. His tone, by contrast, was almost ridiculously gentle. “Didn’t you just offer me a dinner?”

“Did I? Was there-” she hesitated “-anyone on the line?”

“They’d hung up.”

Greer gathered up Truce.

“Is the offer of dinner still open?”

Greer stared at him blankly, almost certain that she’d specifically not offered him dinner. “I…sure.” She couldn’t think. Distractedly, she watched him take the plate and then the cat from her arms.

When Ryan closed her apartment door after they’d entered, she noted vaguely that he locked it.

“Do you have any wine?” Ryan inquired.

“Wine,” Greer echoed. She stared at him blankly until the word finally registered in her fogged brain, and then wandered toward the kitchen and crouched down by the cupboard near the stove. One Christmas, someone had given her a lovely wine rack; the lone bottle resting on its inexpensive side was dusty.

She wiped it clean, searched for a corkscrew, opened the bottle and groped for a wineglass. Her movements were mechanical, her mind functioning at half power. Fear was an intangible thing. It hit in waves, like the ebb and flow of a tide, engulfing her one minute, releasing her the next.

If only she could put a face to The Breather or understand what she could possibly have done to make anyone so obsessively harass her…but she could find nothing, no clue to help her answer that why. She was well liked, successful in her work, had family and friends who loved her. After her divorce, she’d had a rough time, but her world was secure now. Secure, stable, normal-all were qualities she valued. And every single time the phone rang, she felt as if she’d been cut loose from her moorings, as if she were floundering with nothing to hold on to. It had to stop.

Turning, she held a glass of wine out to Ryan, but found he couldn’t very well take it. Both his hands were busy filling a pan with water. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Cooking noodles for tuna casserole. You don’t mind if I putter around a little in your kitchen, do you? Since you’ve already had your dinner?”

“I…no.” Since he had half the ingredients already laid out on her counter, there seemed little else she could say. Her new neighbor had a slight tendency to mow down people in his way. Within seconds, she found herself sitting at the kitchen table with the wineglass in her hand. Rather bewildered, she sipped from it.

Ryan grinned. By the time she took another sip of wine, her hands had stopped trembling. Satisfied, he turned back to the stove. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, but he wasn’t absolutely sure whether he was hungrier for dinner or for the lady in the white cotton robe.

On sight he’d liked her bubbling warmth, her easy humor, the natural confidence that was part of her. That appeal had been strengthened when she’d unconsciously run full tilt into his protective instincts. His new neighbor clearly didn’t approach life via logical, rational thought patterns. If she did, she’d never have let a stranger into her kitchen. And she certainly wouldn’t still be sitting in front of him in that robe.

Ryan was beginning to be very fond of that robe.

The lapels opened just slightly when she moved, revealing a shadow of satin-soft breasts and the promise of more. And earlier, when she walked in, the fabric had parted to reveal slim, long legs to midthigh, give or take the interim covering of a slip. Satin didn’t hide much anyway, and the absolutely hideous color of her slip fascinated him.

Within seconds of meeting her, he’d figured out she was sensitive about that outstanding figure of hers, and she hadn’t wasted any time letting him know she was the girl-next-door kind of neighbor, not fair game.

Fine. Both men and women transmitted sexual available-or-not signals on first meeting. Greer’s choice of signals intrigued him. The neon-colored slip, the motherly neighbor routine, her matter-of-fact mention of Jockey shorts: The message was a blunt Don’t waste your time; this lady’s only interest in bed is sleeping.

The message was interesting.

Particularly since she was the sexiest lady he’d come across in a long time.

Her figure stirred definite temptations, but not exclusively. At thirty-four, Ryan was too old to believe that the allure of a potential lover lay solely in her curves and dimensions. Sleeping partners came in all shapes. The best of lovers brought much more to bed than flesh and bones. And it was Greer’s face that radiated all the promise in the word lover.

Her voice came from deep in her throat, as lazy and sensual as black silk. Her dark, soft eyes and other features were not quite beautiful, yet they were mobile, expressive, feminine. Her hair was brown with sun streaks, the style short and casual, wind-tossed and touchable. That was it, exactly. All of her looked infinitely touchable. She radiated vibrancy, a graceful energy, a woman’s special joy in life.

He couldn’t shake the desire to see her naked, to touch and taste, to see if she was as special as his instincts told him she was.

He glanced fleetingly around the kitchen. Hanging plants were clustered in front of the windows; embroidered pictures hung everywhere. The chair seats were needlepoint, and recipes had been jammed into thick cookbooks on the counter. The walls had been painted a warm, feminine coral, and an overstuffed purse perched on a chair near the door. It was a baking-bread kind of kitchen, as no doubt the lady meant it to be. More unambiguous messages that the lady was a homebody rather than a lustful lover.

Perhaps.

Ryan stirred his concoction on the stove. “Almost ready for another glass of wine?”

“Pardon?” It was certainly past time to stop mulling over her mysterious caller. Greer glanced ruefully down at her empty wineglass. “I believe this was intended for you.”

“Maybe later.” He’d itched to hold her when she’d been so upset, but she’d hardly known him an hour. The wine, at least, had calmed her down, and there was color in her face again. Sinking into the chair across from her, Ryan reached for his plate and the wine bottle. “I seem to have made enough food for two, and I’ll refill your glass…”

“No, thanks. Really.” She’d regained her emotional equilibrium, watching him cook. Actually, what she’d really regained was her sense of humor. He was certainly aggressive about finding the pans, but his knowledge of what to do with them afterward was not so extensive. With her chin perched on her palm, Greer peered at his culinary effort, a sassy grin on her mouth. “Are you absolutely positive that’s edible?”

“I’ll have you know I survived through college on tuna-noodle casserole.”

“‘Surviving’ looks like the applicable word,” Greer teased.

“Now, don’t judge until you’ve tasted.” He speared a small amount on a fork and aimed it at her mouth.