Love in Bloom -- Part 1

Yes, I know. This is more romantic than my usual schtick. Sometimes even I like a little sugar with my sex. ~DD

***

When Amanda meets her old high-school crush, he doesn’t remember her. A bouquet of flowers and a lost towel spark an affair neither one will forget.

An arm filled with red and pink blooms, Amanda Blakely tugged down the hem of her pink uniform shirt, drew in a deep breath for courage and rang the doorbell.

One minute stretched into two. She rang again.

“All this stressing out over seeing him again, and he’s not even home,” she muttered.

Although why she’d been so excited when she’d written down the name the woman on the phone had given her, she couldn’t have said. The high-school memories she had of Dustin Fremont, if it was even the same guy, weren’t exactly ones she pulled out when she wanted warm and fuzzy feelings. Maybe she was just plain curious.

Or hopeful—that he’d grown a paunch or lost all his thick brown hair.

She shifted the large bouquet in her arms and sighed. This was the last delivery of the day and she was damned if she would try him again later. The roads were getting slushy and a freeze was forecast for the area. She needed to head home soon. She gave the bell one last poke and leaned her ear against the door.

The door swung open and she fell forward with a yelp.

Strong hands gripped her forearms, holding her away, but she thrust out the hand not holding the flowers and her palm slid across damp, naked skin. When she’d caught her balance, she drew in a shaky breath, cringing inside, and lifted her gaze to meet that of the boy she’d crushed on throughout high-school.

Good lord, there was even more of him to swoon over now.

And so, not a boy anymore.

She forced herself to curl her fingers away from his hot, humid skin and straightened away.

“Are you all right?”

His voice was deeper than she remembered but still recognizable for the way it made her body react—with a wash of melting heat. She glanced up and lost her train of thought as her gaze locked with his hazel eyes.

She cleared her throat and nodded, the greeting she’d rehearsed evaporating from her mind like the droplets of water on his skin.

He’d changed. Gotten…thicker. Everywhere. Tanned skin stretched deliciously over a well-muscled frame.

She had a reason for being here—but what was it? She was sure it had nothing to do with the towel beginning to loosen at his waist.

“Flowers,” she said, thrusting the bouquet of roses and carnations at him.

The blossoms slapped his naked chest and he instinctively curved an arm around them, his expression bemused.

He should have looked ridiculous, holding a pretty, feminine armful of flowers against his golden chest with a white towel tucked around his hips, but Mandy couldn’t suppress the little whimpering sigh that slipped between her slackened jaws at the sight of all his manly glory.

His head canted at the sound, his gaze narrowing on her as though seeing her for the first time.

“They’re for you,” she said stupidly, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

His gaze went to the flowers and his eyebrows lowered as he stared at the bouquet, a hint of irritation that pricked her to gather her wits.

“There’s a card. From Simone. Says thanks for…everything. Not that I know what ‘everything’ is, but she told me what to write. Phone in order.” She clamped her lips shut to keep from babbling more.

The corners of his lips twitched. “Guess I should get them into water.”

“She seemed especially eager to get them to you today,” Mandy blurted, then turned crimson. She sounded accusatory. Like it was any of her business why a girlfriend of his would send him flowers as a morning after thank you.

“It’s not what you’re thinking, I’m sure,” he said, his tone wry. Then his eyes narrowed on her again. “Do I know you?”

Rather than answer the question because she’d already embarrassed herself enough, she blurted again. “I was thinking you must be really good.” Good lord, had she really just said that?

“I’m not—” He shook his head. A bark of laughter shook his chest. “Guess I can’t deny it too much or you’ll think I’m gay or sexless.”

“I’d never think that.” Sweet Jesus, would she ever learn to just shut up?

“I know you. That voice.”

No doubt, he recognized her penchant for babbling at him every time he’d smiled at her in the hallway at Reagan High. Her cheeks burned. “Um,” she pointed her thumb down the hallway. “I better go. Delivery boy called in sick. Hope you like the flowers.” She turned and hurried away.

“Wait! What’s your name?”

Amanda kept on walking, pretending she hadn’t heard him. He’d never known it in high-school. Now she was double-damn sure she didn’t want him learning it today.

Amanda turned the corner, hurrying toward the elevator and hit the button. Her heart pounded so loudly, she never heard him coming.

A finger tapped her shoulder. “You didn’t stick around long enough for me to tip you.”

The glance she aimed over her shoulder slid down to his towel, which was still loosening. Because she didn’t think she could take the stress any longer, she reached for the ends working their way free and pulled them together, retucking them at his hips.

When she realized what she’d done, she froze, her fingers still trapped against his skin.

The elevator door slid open behind her and she didn’t dare glance back.

His still features didn’t change. Must have been in shock, which suited her fine.

Things couldn’t get any worse, but she had to get away. She pulled free her hand and stepped backward into the elevator, her mouth gaping when his towel puddled at his feet. The doors slid closed between them.

“Oh my,” came a breathy whisper from behind her.

Mandy glanced at an elderly woman whose grin stretched wide across her face.

“Thanks, my dear. I’ve wondered about him for years.”

“You’re welcome,” Mandy muttered.

The elevator stopped twice more on the way to the bottom floor. Only then did she breathe a deep sigh of relief, happy the ordeal was over and ready to go back to the shop to lick her wounds in privacy. Seriously, could she have mucked things up any worse?

She stepped out of the elevator, but only made it three steps before a hand wrapped around her wrist and she was pulled into the stairwell next to the elevator and trapped against the wall and Dustin Fremont’s broad chest.

“I didn’t want a tip,” she said, shocked to her toes that he’d run down four flights of stairs to stop her. But why?

“We weren’t finished.”

She glanced down. The towel was back in place. She wasn’t sure if she felt relief or not, but now that she knew exactly what the fluffy terry hid, it wasn’t any protection. And what it hid tented against the material.

“Ignore it,” he bit out.

“Impossible,” she sputtered.

“Your own damn fault.”

“How? Did I ask you to answer the door naked?”

“You rang the bell three times. You could have taken that as a hint I wasn’t ready for company.”

“I didn’t want your flowers to wilt,” she said, then pressed her lips together as she fought the urge to cut her gaze down to the towel again.

“So you can conduct a conversation,” he said slowly, his voice deepening to a sexy rumble.

“This is an argument. Which we can end as soon as you let me go.”

He snorted. “Go out with me.”

“What?”

“Sorry, but there’s a breeze in this stairwell and I don’t have time for niceties. A date. I buy you dinner. You tell me your name.”

“I know what you’re packing. Think I don’t know what you really want?”

“Is that a problem?”

If anyone else had said that she’d have slapped him silly, but hadn’t she been thinking about just what he inferred even before he opened the door to his apartment?

Before she’d rang his bell, she’d tried to shore up her confidence to ask him out, reminding herself that she owned her own business, sat on the neighborhood development committee where she could string reasonably educated sentences together, but then she’d reverted to a stammering geek at the first sight of his manly frame.

Some dreams were best left behind in high-school.

“I respectfully decline, Mr. Fremont.”

“Why?”

“Has no one ever turned you down?”

“No.”

“Then let me teach you one of life’s little lessons. Sometimes, you can’t have what you want.”

A deep exhalation caused his shoulders to droop. His hand dropped away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assault you.”

“Since I didn’t exactly conduct myself like a lady either, I forgive you.”

He cleared his throat and one hand went the knot at his hips to hold the towel in place.

She breathed a little easier.

“Who are you?”

Mandy rolled her eyes. “I’m the delivery girl for Passionate Posies.”

“Your name.”

“You always this stubborn?”

One corner of his mouth kicked up. “I’ve never exposed myself to someone whose name I don’t even know.”

“Well, let me be the first. I have to go.” Since he still cut off the exit with his bulky frame, she gave him a pointed stare. “It was nice seeing you again.” Then her cheeks flushed with heat when she thought a second about what she’d just said.

One side of his mouth slid up. “Wish the ‘seeing’ had been mutual.”

Impatient now because his expression was filling with amusement the redder her cheeks got, she pushed against his chest. “I have other deliveries. You’ll get me fired,” she lied.

“Sure,” he said standing to the side to let her leave. “And I better get back before someone calls the police.”

“Or takes a picture. I’m sure this isn’t the one you want posted in the business section.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “You’ve seen my pictures there?”

“I’m a business woman myself. Of course I read that section.”

“I’ll be seeing you again.”

She shrugged. “Bound to run into each other sometime.”

When she left him, she couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. She’d survived. And she’d intrigued him. She knew it from the glint of challenge in his gaze.

No one had ever turned him down before.

***

Dustin turned over the card he’d found stuck in the bouquet and tapped the glass to get the cabbie’s attention. “Hey, would you hang a right at the next street? I have a quick stop I want to make.”

Flowers. He needed something to give his secretary. She might have a coronary that he’d thought to bring her something for Valentine’s Day. But she’d worked for him for eight years; it was about time he thought of something besides the blueprints.

And why not check out the florist shop responsible for yesterday’s delivery? The identity of the flustered woman who’d fallen across his threshold was still driving him crazy. He knew her. Maybe he’d even dated her. Something about all that strawberry blonde hair, china blue eyes and complete lack of sophistication sparked a memory.

Once he’d figured it out, the mystery solved, he could move on.

After he’d satisfied more than his curiosity. Since she’d first fallen against him, nearly tugging his towel off in the process and raised those wide baby blues, he’d been snared.

Part of him was bored with his usual go-to list. Not that there were many. He hadn’t had a lot of time to meet anyone new in months. And the ones he did know didn’t make it past the third date before they started leaving things behind in his apartment. And since none of them were what he was looking for, he quietly deleted their numbers from his speed dial and got busier at work to make sure he was never available for their calls.

A coward’s way out, but he didn’t like dashing hopes. Hated a woman’s tears because they made him feel guilty. And he didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. He never led them on. The women he dated tended to think too highly of themselves, like clinging to his arm at a function was a favor he owed them something for.

They weren’t what he wanted.

The girl in the pink-bibbed uniform shirt probably wasn’t either, but she was different. Lacking any poise or artifice. Lacking even the ability to hide her intense interest in what lay beneath his towel because her gaze had slipped downward one too many times, her cheeks blooming with color to rival the roses she’d slapped against his chest.

He thought he might enjoy giving her plenty of reasons to blush. He turned down the collar of his jacket, pushed through the glass doors, and entered a fragrant garden.

Passionate Posies wasn’t what he’d expected. Sure flowers were arranged in vases, but the wild colors and the size of the arrangements hinted at a lush sensuality.

An older woman looked up from the sales counter. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a woman,” he said, grimacing at her instant grin. “She works here. She made a delivery yesterday.

The woman’s gaze sharpened, then gave him a brief onceover that had him gritting his teeth because the sparkle in her eyes said she knew what had happened.

“She’s in the back room, working on an arrangement,” she said, pointing to a door behind her. “You can go on back.”

He reached for the counter ledge and lifted it, heat flushing his cheeks
because she craned her head to watch him pass. What the hell else had the delivery girl told her about him?

When he walked through the door, he caught sight of his quarry sliding a long-stalked flower into an arrangement bursting with color.

Her back was to him, and apparently she hadn’t heard the swish of the door closing behind him, which suited him fine because this time he could look his fill.

Not just a delivery girl, he thought, noting the way she played with the grouping of blooms and long ferns.

Her wildly curling hair shivered around her head every time she turned her head to eye the arrangement from a different angle. At last, she must have been satisfied because she reached behind her to untie the bow at the back of her pink apron and began to draw the garment over her head.

The blouse she wore beneath it rose as well, and she was half out of her shirt before she realized the problem.

“Dammit,” she muttered, reaching for the hem of her blouse but finding her arms trapped inside the armholes of the apron.

He stepped forward, and lifted the coverall and the blouse the rest of the way off. “That better?” he murmured.

She gasped and spun around, her hands covering her breasts.

“Not so funny when the shoe’s on the other foot, huh?” he drawled.

She eyed the tangle of clothing she’d just shed, and then straightened her shoulders. Her hands dropped to her sides and she gave him a glare that dared him to say something else.

“I’m heading out to grab a bite,” the older woman called from the shop room. “I’ll lock the door on my way out.”

The blonde in front of him rolled her eyes.

He moved in closer, liking the way her cheeks flushed a deeper rose the more he crowded in. Any other woman he knew would be eyeing him with catlike satisfaction. “Is she matchmaking?” he murmured.

She wrinkled her nose, and her hands swung forward then back like she still wanted to cover herself. “She probably poked her head in the door and saw you stripping me and jumped to all the wrong conclusions. Why are you here?”

“I came about that date.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You came all this way because I turned you down?”

Dustin shook his head. Sure, he’d been a little taken aback that she hadn’t said yes, but that wasn’t why he’d made it a point to seek her out. Watching the emotions slide over her face and mobile mouth aroused him more than any woman’s practiced smile had in a long, long time. “I came because I really wanted to see you again.”