CHAPTER 1

 
 
When the door opened, a naked torso faced
Clarice. Not just any old torso, but a hot, muscled, six-pack naked
torso. She blinked and blinked, and then she blinked some more. She
couldn’t understand why a grown man would be wearing a towel, just
a single white, fluffy towel wrapped around his waist, to answer
the door.
He was leaning against the doorframe, one
hand supporting his tall, lean, muscular body that, Clarice noted,
any female would want in her bed, including her. Not that she’d
bedded any male, of course, since she was still a bloody virgin,
for God’s sake.
As her eyes traveled up to his face, her
heart decided to do a disco dance, moving in time to the sound of
the very popular music currently playing in the background
somewhere inside the man’s house.
She felt a little breathless and
lightheaded. Her cheeks flushed the same shade as the bouquet of
scarlet roses in her arms. Not that she was florist or a delivery
person or anything. No, the florist was one of her best friends,
Elise, and the delivery person was too sick with influenza. So
being the great best friend that she was, Clarice offered to
help.
Elise had begged because this was her VIP
client. Elise herself was too busy preparing for the many orders
for Valentine’s Day, which was tomorrow, so the job was thrust upon
her with little room for argument. And Clarice herself had
succumbed to Elise’s bribery of free roses, which she really
loved.
Now here she was, knocking on the door of 99
Summerson Street in Herne Bay, one of the
wealthiest suburbs in Auckland. At the moment, her eyes were busy
blinking rapidly at the half-naked male specimen standing before
her. But my oh my, did she almost forget she was holding on to the
bunch of roses because, heaven help her, this man was
G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. That slightly wet, dusted-corn hair had a
sparkling golden sheen beneath the afternoon sunlight. The man
looked so hot she couldn’t help ogling at him.
Putting all the symptoms together, which
included the pronounced asthma-induced breaths, the
after-the-marathon heart rate, and the light-as-a-feather feeling
inside her head and stomach, Clarice concluded this condition was
due to the fact that she had never seen a naked man in the flesh in
her whole twenty-nine years of life. If she had counted the time
she had seen her young nephews during their bath time, however,
then yes, maybe she had seen the male species displaying their
valued male anatomies. But for the likes of men like this one, so
well toned, so well made, and with so much testosterone, then the
answer would be a definite no. Those arms looked so strong, so
muscular, so—
“Can I help you?” he asked, drawing her
senses back to reality, breaking the spell, and making her blink a
few more times before she became aware of the mission she came to
accomplish.
“Umm.” Suddenly, she realized she’d lost her
voice. Her throat was dry as dust. She tried to speak, but the only
sound that came out was, “Umm…” again. Knowing any attempt to speak
again would only make her sound like more of a complete idiot, she
resorted to using hand gestures.
Clarice practically shoved the bouquet right
in his gorgeous face. That took him by surprise and he moved
backward.
“So… sorry,” she croaked. There, finally,
she’d found her voice. Even though it didn’t sound anything like
her natural voice, at least she could pass her message across
verbally.
“No, that’s fine. Just a little startled,
that’s all.”
Gosh, this man has such a nice voice,
she couldn’t help thinking.
“Darling, what’s taking so long?” A singsong
voice traveled from somewhere inside the house. “Come back to
bed.”
The hottie turned to smile at whoever it
was, then said softly, “Be back soon.”
He has such soft eyes, Clarice
thought when he turned to smile at the woman she assumed to be his
wife. They were azure blue, like a clear, cloudless summer sky.
Dear heaven! Why are all good and
handsome men taken? They were like car parks. All the good and
available ones were taken, whereas the ones that were available
were the ones you had to parallel park to get. Damn my parallel
parking.
His attention suddenly shifted back to
Clarice, and what she saw written on his face she did not like. His
once soft and subtle azure eyes that had spoken of gentleman breed
had now completely vanished. In its place shone a glittering spark,
those pupils exuding a strong, wicked gleam, like the devil about
to play with his toy. His once broad and friendly smile had also
been completely wiped away. Instead, the corners of those lips
quirked up to form a devilish grin.
Danger! Danger! Playboy alert!
Clarice’s radar screamed at her when those wicked eyes started
undressing her, causing her scarlet cheeks to burn even more. But
before she could take a step back to assess her situation, the man
caught hold of the bouquet, capturing her hands in the process.
“Hey, let… let go.” She struggled, trying to
remove his tight grasp.
“Naaaoooohhh.” He shook his head, that
devilish grin still plastered on his face, his eyes still sparkling
with mischief.
Clarice tried harder to release his viselike
grip, but it was no use. His fingers were like dental clamps,
wrapped around her hands so securely one would require pliers to
release them.
“I said… ” Clarice couldn’t finish her
sentence, as she almost stumbled backward when the man suddenly
released her.
“Why—” She was about to give him a piece of
her mind when he interrupted her yet again, and she was struck
speechless.
“You like what you see?” he asked, posing
even more seductively on the threshold of the doorframe, contorting
his body as if he were a model out of Vogue magazine.
“Huh? Excuse me?” Clarice asked,
puzzled.
“Obviously you came here to give me these
roses,” his voice drawled out huskily. “You must like me; otherwise
you wouldn’t be here. And Valentine’s Day isn’t until
tomorrow.”
“I…” Once again her speech was interrupted
when she saw a blonde entering her field of vision, striking a pose
as fashionable as the man before her.
The woman leaned onto the man and gave him a
peck on the cheek, oblivious to Clarice’s presence. The woman
proceeded to move down to the man’s lips, making a sucking sound
like a fish out of water, then to his Adam’s apple, until the man
cleared his throat, drawing her attention to the fact that they had
a guest.
Clarice’s eyeballs almost dropped to the
floor when the blonde turned to face her. She too was only dressed
in a loose towel, covering just enough for her breasts not to spill
out.
The woman eyed her briefly. Then sensing
Clarice had the same significance as the potted plant displayed on
the front porch, she turned back to her man.
“Hunter, honey,” she whined and then kissed
Hunter right in front of her again. “You took way too long, so I
had to come and get you.”
Hunter didn’t look like he was interested.
His eyes were roaming elsewhere, and Clarice just happened to be
their target.
Gosh, get a room, you two! Clarice
wanted to yell at them for being this intimate in broad daylight.
And why am I still here anyway? Her job was done. She should
get going. But somehow, though, she wanted to get even with this
blasted Hunter, who was still grinning at her flirtatiously.
As if on cue, the blonde turned to her,
giving her an evil glare. She said, “Why are you still here? Who
are you and what are you doing here, kid?”
KID? All right, that did it. Clarice
snapped. Who was this chick calling her a kid like she’d just been
born yesterday? She was almost thirty, for God’s sake. This bimbo
was clearly her junior by almost a decade and had no right
whatsoever to insult her. After all, she was very sensitive about
her age, and her pride just couldn’t take it when someone called
attention to it.
Clarice wanted to growl. This younger
generation, they just didn’t show respect to their elders. She
really needed to set the record straight.
With that thought in mind, she clenched her
fists tight in self-determination, lifted her head to meet their
eyes, and said, “I’m here—”
“To give me roses for Valentine’s Day.”
Hunter grinned.
That did it.
“You bitch!” the blonde screeched, like an
angry cat running its claws across a chalkboard, grating her
eardrums. If Clarice were to stay around listening to this bimbo
for another second, she could guarantee she’d lose her auditory
senses.
What to do? she thought. That was
when she saw Hunter’s eyes again. There was that wicked gleam. That
was when it came to her. She knew why he’d said all that stuff
before about the roses and Valentine’s Day. This blasted man wasn’t
this bimbo’s husband. They were merely playmates. Oh, what was she
saying? Why use euphemism? They’d practically just had sex moments
before she knocked on the door, and now, if she suspected right,
Hunter wanted to break up with the blonde and he was using Clarice
as his outlet.
Not so fast, you handsome beast. You’re
not getting away this easy. Before the blonde could do further
damage to her eardrums and before her hot temper exploded like a
boiling kettle, she threw the bouquet in Hunter’s face, grabbed
both their towels, one in each hand, and yanked them off their
bodies, exposing his and her anatomies to the black cat sitting on
the fence, birds in the trees, the bees sucking nectar from flowers
on the porch, and whoever happened to glimpse them at that
moment.
The blonde screamed, the man growled, and
Clarice twisted on her heel and ran for her life, sprinting like
the devil had taken chase. Of course, she knew the devil would
never come chasing after her in his naked state. But she did stop
to catch her breath when she was halfway down the block because her
limbs refused to take another step for fear of her lungs
collapsing.
Wow! Clarice couldn’t believe she’d
just done that, yanking off their towels like that. Then she began
to laugh—so hard her stomach hurt. Once she managed to calm down,
she thought it was a shame she’d been too busy making her escape to
clearly see his male glory.
Stop thinking stupid thoughts this
instant!
What was with her and her sudden fascination
with the male anatomy anyway? Was it because her biological clock
was ticking, telling her it was almost time for her to start
thinking about producing some babies? Good Lord, she wasn’t looking
forward to her big three-zero.
How was she supposed to make babies if her
forbidden door downstairs had yet to be unlocked? And worse yet,
where was she supposed to find the right key for her door? A
naughty thought ran through her head. Maybe Hunter had a secret
key to unlock my door. Then her heart did a little
somersault.
Ah! She messed up her hair in her
thought process. Calm down, my dear heart. She placed her
hand upon her chest to stop the thrashing beat of her heart.
Otherwise, she might have gone into cardiac arrest, and there was
definitely no hospital near this part of town.
Once her heart settled again, her thoughts
returned to the blond-haired, azure-blue-eyed Hunter. What was she
thinking that he might have the right key for her door? That beast
was a playboy, a Casanova, who saw women as nothing above a piece
of bacon. That shaggy dog man-beast, eyeing her like a steak,
wanting a piece of her. Well, he wasn’t getting a piece, even if
this steak was getting old—like tough leather old.
Clarice sighed in defeat. There was no point
in sulking over matters like this now. She must call Elise tonight
to apologize for the turn of events. Elise might lose one VIP
client, but it was better for her staff not to be harassed or taken
advantage of by that Casanova Hunter.
Shelving the thought for later use, Clarice
turned to walk back to her car, her shoulders slumping, mentally
counting down the days until she would meet her doomsday.
But that particular day came faster than she
expected.