She hesitated, knowing Jack was working outside and having no desire to meet up with him. She had been keeping her distance from the sexy gardener who tied her tongue in knots and made her want to do very bad things. Things she’d craved deep in her soul for so long that she wondered if she’d be satisfied with any man.

She peeked through the window and faced the object of her obsession. Shirtless. Dirty. Sweaty.

She flung open the door, annoyed at the interruption and determined to set him straight regarding their worker/employer relationship.

Then she saw the blood.

He held up his hand, wrapped in his white t-shirt and stained muddy brown. His face looked almost sheepish. “Sorry.  I had an accident. May I use your bathroom?”

Julianna stepped aside and took hold of his hand. She pressed the t-shirt more firmly over the wound and led him down the hall. “What did you do?”

“Made an ass out of myself.”

She couldn’t help the tsking sound she made under her breath at his language. Her father’s strict rules of propriety had been drilled into her from birth. But she fought off a bit of amusement at his temper. Evidently, he despised making mistakes that cost him blood. Too much blood, by the looks of it.

“Sit.” She pushed him down on the closed toilet seat, quickly grabbed some washcloths and ran them under warm water. She winced when she drew the shirt away from the gaping wound. A clean cut crossed his hand, deep enough to warrant stitches from the looks of it. She dumped the shirt on the floor and began wiping away the dirt. “You may need a hospital.”

He shook his head hard enough to remind her of a little boy refusing to go to the doctor. “I’ll be fine. You shouldn’t use those cloths, though. They’ll be ruined.”

She shrugged at the delicate rose lace that adorned the towels and kept pressure on the wound. “I do laundry.”

“Yourself?”

Her brow lifted in annoyance. She concentrated on the task and ignored his curious stare. “I know how to take care of a house. I like my privacy.”

“Still, this is a pretty big house. And you don’t look like the type of woman to… clean.”

Juliana refused to take the bait. She couldn’t help her tendency to screen her face with a calm, emotionless façade. Lord knew she’d learned her lesson along the way.  Temper tantrums or emotional outbursts did nothing to help matters. “Interesting. You don’t seem like the type of man who doesn’t know how to handle a mower.”

His rich laughter attacked, then soothed her eardrums.

She reached for the brown bottle under the cabinet, determined he would never know how his laughter affected her.

“Nice shot,” he said. “I’m blaming it on the rental company. They gave me crap equipment to work with.”

“Hmmm. Okay, this is going to sting.”

She poured a generous dose of peroxide into the gaping wound and felt his muscles strain against the burning pain. He cursed fluently under his breath and with a creative flair. She kept her touch brisk and impersonal as she examined the wound and retrieved the appropriate dressings and tape.

“Were you ever a nurse?” he asked. “You seem good at this.”

“No.”

“You don’t like to talk much about yourself, do you?”

She took out a large bandage and studied his hand to determine the placement. His skin was still warm from the sun, golden brown and a bit rough. A callus rested on the tip of his finger. She fought back a primal urge to press soothing lips to his wound. The sizzling energy nipped at the nerve endings of her fingers and made her flinch. She answered his question only to distract him from her reaction.

“Not really. Let’s just say I received a fine education, then came back to take care of my parents.”

He seemed to wait for more, but when she didn’t continue, he prodded. “But you teach. Poetry, right? A full professor?”

“Adjunct. I teach at the local college but never had the opportunity to get my PhD. I did my master’s degree online so I didn’t need to leave the house.”

“And?”

Round and round, the tape wrapped his wrist to hold the bandage in place. “And that’s it. My parents needed someone twenty-four seven, and I have no siblings. I’m the end of the line.” A hint of bitterness leaked through her tone.

“What was wrong with your mom?”

“Manic depressive. She needed to be watched at all times, and my father and I were in charge.” Julianna left out the rest. How her traitorous heart had finally felt free to go explore and live her life when her mother finally passed. She’d done her duty as the good daughter.

She dreamed of finally allowing herself the freedom to experience sexual ecstasy. Her body had been as tightly locked up as her mind and emotions, and she longed to immerse herself in pleasure. Of course, the very night she packed her bags to leave, she learned about her father’s cancer. Another disease that wreathed and slithered like a snake, poisoning her father’s body and stealing her own freedom.

She’d done the only thing she could. She pretended she wanted to stay and take care of her father, refusing to leave him with a full-time nurse. The only money they had left was tied up in the estate. And, after all, she was good at taking care of people.

Not counting herself.

“Yet you’re still here.” His words were thoughtful, as if trying to solve a puzzle as she worked on his wound. “Your parents are gone now. Why not leave?”

The ultimate question. Asked, yet not answered. The response tripped over her lips in a desperate attempt to escape. She strangled the words and let them die without a trace. “I don’t know.”

She tested the bandage and was satisfied. Her gaze lifted.

And collided with a full-sized predator.

His eyes were the dark whiskey gold her father liked to pour in heavily cut crystal glasses. Liquid fire, potent and seething with heat. His gaze assessed her story and challenged her for the truth. “I don’t believe you. I think you know exactly why you’re still here.”

She retreated behind a wall of ice, refusing to let the sexual heat between them melt her defenses. She had one goal, and a gardener wasn’t going to distract her at this point. “We’re done. You can go back to work.”

Carved lips curled up a notch. His masculine energy pressed down on her and she battled to hold her ground. “I think,” he said, “that you’re so comfortable behind these walls you’ve given up on living.”

“Coming from a handy man with a Peter Pan complex.”

He laughed and shook his head as if in admiration. “Damn, love, you’re a bit of a spitfire all buttoned up tight. How long has it been since you let a man put his hands on you? Or in you?”

The image knocked out her breath. Her almost virginal body fought for dominance as liquid warmth pulsed between her legs and dampened her panties. Her nipples rose painfully against her bra and demanded freedom. She crossed her arms in front of her chest to hide her reaction.

“Oh, surely you can do better than that.” Her tone dripped icicles. “This is straight out of a book, Mr. Wolfe. Poor spinster locked up in a big old house meets sexy gardener who sets her body free. She’s forever grateful for the experience. Blah, blah, blah. Now, if you rather not get back to work, we will consider your job null and void and you can leave my home.”

“Ah, so you did read Lady Chatterley’s Lover?” he drawled. Slowly, he uncurled over six feet of muscled length and rose from the seat to tower over her. “D.H. Lawrence is one of my favorites. ’Course, I’m the gardener rather than the gamekeeper. And you’re forgetting the husband—which you don’t have. The rest is similar. Uneducated working-class man shows sexually deprived wife how to let go and be free to let her body experience pleasure.”

He paused. Dropped his voice to a rough whisper that raked across her nerve endings like fingernails against naked skin. “Wanna play?”

Her heart pounded so loud the sound in her ears dimmed. “Excuse me?”

He laughed. In one swift movement, he reached out and snagged her wrist. Then tugged hard.

Slightly off balance, she stumbled toward him, where he neatly caught her by the waist and trapped her between himself and the sink. The edge of the marble dug into her back when she tried to retreat. Raw masculine energy assaulted her senses, the sheen of sweat on his bare chest, a mass of carved muscles pressed against the curve of her breasts. The scent of dirt and fresh grass and musk rose to her nostrils in an animal attempt to entice her to mate.

“Role play, love. Do you know the things I could teach you? Give me one night and it’ll all be for you. I’ll strip you naked and suck on these nipples until they’re aching and ruby red.”

His fingers tweaked one rigid tip and a streak of raw lust speared between her legs and almost made her moan. Almost.

“I’ll pry your legs open and press my tongue against your clit, taste your wetness, and make you come so hard against my mouth you’ll only be able to utter my name.” His hand slid down the front of her body to cup her mound through her jeans. The heat of his palm burned and she jerked upward, her juices exploding and her clit pounding, as if she could orgasm by the mere image of his tongue in her pussy.

But she was not defeated.

She desperately reined in her body and managed to speak. “Take your hands off me.”

“Ah, you’re a talker. I can tell by your eyes you like to hear the words, like a true poet. Let me tell you what I want to do right now.” He held her still and pressed his thumb over her lips in a rough caress. “I’m going to unbutton these jeans and rip off your panties. Turn you around so your naked ass is exposed. Then I’m going to bend you over, thrust inside your wet pussy and make you come so hard you won’t remember another man before me.”