she wanted…no, desired…no, needed…no, hungered for…Turner in a way she had never experienced before. And she hungered for him now. So she needed to be alone with him. Now. Because her hunger was so strong, she wasn’t sure even the presence of scores of people in her employer’s home would prevent her from having him. Now.
Having? she asked herself then. Hah. That sounded way too tame for what she intended to do to him. She felt downright predatory right now. If she didn’t get Turner outside this minute, she’d be tearing off both their clothes and consuming him, the crowded room be damned.
“Please?” she heard herself say again, not even sure when she’d decided to speak. “Just for a quick stroll in the back.” Or a long roll in the sack. “It’s just so hot in here.” And then, when he still looked uncooperative, she added the clincher. “You can have a cigarette.”
Not surprisingly, that seemed to do the trick. Although Turner did continue to regard her with suspicion. Probably he was thinking about the last time she’d told him she was so hot, and then had proceeded to remove her shirt and climbed onto his lap. Well, she hadn’t been able to help herself! There had just been something about him that night that made her want to be naked with him. Just like there was something about him this night that made her want to be naked with him.
This time, though, she intended to be naked with him someplace where they wouldn’t be interrupted.
“Please, Turner?” she said again, moving her hand to the back of her neck, where perspiration made her flesh damp. It really was much too hot in here. Englund ought to look into his heating situation. “Just for a few minutes.”
He nodded, but with clear reluctance. “Just a few minutes,” he repeated. “It shouldn’t take more than that to turn us both into Popsicles, anyway. Don’t you want your coat first?”
Why? she wanted to ask. It would just be one more thing she’d have to take off.
“No, we won’t need them,” she told him. Boy, was that an understatement.
“If you’re sure…” he said.
“Oh, I’m sure, Turner. I’m very, very sure.” And not just about the coat, either.
Setting down their drinks, they maneuvered their way through the crowd, Becca’s pace increasing with every step she took. Instead of heading for the hallway entrance through which they had originally entered, however, she made her way toward an exit she spotted on the other side of the room, through French doors that opened onto a patio on the side of the house. There were other people out there smoking, she saw, so she figured the doors must be unlocked. Strangely, however, in spite of her offer just now to Turner, she had no desire to go out there and join them for a puff.
And she didn’t want Turner to join them, either. No, she had a different kind of smoking planned for him.
He, of course, didn’t realize that yet, and the moment they passed through the French doors, he simultaneously closed them and withdrew a half-empty pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket pocket. Before he could shake one free, though, Becca circled his wrist with sure fingers and led him to a walkway that wound toward the back of the house.
Where it was dark.
And isolated.
And uninhabited.
“Becca, where are you going?” he asked as she led him in that direction. “The designated smoking section is back there.”
That, she thought, depended on the kind of smoking one wanted to do. “It’s too crowded,” she said. “Too much secondhand smoke. And that stuff’ll kill you.”
“But—”
She halted and spun around to look at him, but didn’t release his wrist. “Turner, if we stand there, we’ll have to talk to those people,” she pointed out. “And I don’t feel like making small talk with people I don’t know.” No, she’d much rather be with someone she knew very well. Though, admittedly, she didn’t want to talk then, either.
He nodded in understanding, but Becca suspected he didn’t understand at all. However, he continued to follow her as she strode forward again. She didn’t stop until they’d cleared the back corner of the house, where, as she had suspected, the valets had parked a good many of the cars. But not Turner’s Saturn, unfortunately, which was what she had really been hoping to find. Because as hot as she was, she didn’t relish the idea of being naked in nearly freezing temperatures.
“Whoa, will you