Tess couldn’t think. She couldn’t even remember to breathe, and ended up gasping for breath when he finally pulled slightly away, pressing his forehead to hers and saying in a very raspy tone that conveyed that he was not asking, “Invite me in.”
Normally, Tess would balk at the idea that some man she barely knew was demanding to be allowed into her home. She didn’t play those kinds of games. She’d never slept with a man on the first date in her life and she didn’t intend to start now, and she felt he had a right to know that, even if it meant that he left her worked up and frustrated on her front porch.
“I’m not going to sleep with you.”
He didn’t seem to bat an eyelash at that. “No, you’re not,” he agreed, as if he was telling her instead of the other way around.
Although she desperately wanted to know why he was asking to come in if he didn’t intend to press her for sex, Tess decided she didn’t want to mess up a good thing and turned to fumble with her keys in the lock.
Finally, since she was getting nowhere fast, he took the keys from her and opened it in seconds himself, standing to one side to allow her to enter first like a true gentleman. Her house was small but cute, decorated in a very feminine fashion in pale pinks and sea foam greens, with lots of plants and family photos adding to the comfortable ambiance. He felt immediately at home there, like he hadn’t anywhere else for a very long time, and once he’d shut the door and locked it behind him, he came to take her back into his arms, only this time he didn’t kiss her.
Instead, his lips nibbled almost playfully around her ear, tugging gently at it until he finally whispered, “You have been very naughty, you know.”
Sean felt her tense in his arms and simply held her, fully prepared to release her if she let loose with an indignant scream or began to struggle in earnest to get away. He had absolutely no interest in forcing anything about himself on anyone.
But he thought he had read her right, and her response to his occasional verbal forays in that direction had assured him that he was indeed on the right track. She was, in fact, neither screaming nor trying to escape his embrace. Instead, she had become stock-still, like a rabbit that senses the presence of a predator. The comparison was more accurate than she could know.
In a tone surprisingly soft and gentle, he informed her as he began to pull her inexorably closer against him, “You see, I remember that you pass me every morning in a great hurry, when it’s clearly not safe to do so–”
Her head, with its heavy curtain of gorgeous hair, came up immediately as she felt the need to defend herself against his damning statements. “I am a very careful driver, and I always make sure there’s plenty of room to pass you!” She sounded downright insulted.
“Whether you have determined that it’s safe is irrelevant.” There was the steel she’d felt was always waiting to underscore his statements, no matter how tender his tone. “The law forbids passing on a double yellow line, even if you knew there was no traffic coming in the other lane for the next ten miles, doesn’t it?”
Tess frowned so severely that he found it hard not to chuckle at her, but he managed to keep himself under control. “Well, I suppose if you put it that way,” she agreed with obvious reluctance.
“And although I don’t believe that there are any laws against directing obscene gestures at other drivers–”
Damn! He had remembered! She began worrying her lower lip again, not daring to peek up at him.
“I don’t consider that to be acceptable behavior for a lady.”
Tess did lift her head at that, opening her mouth to reply something about how sauces for geese and ganders ought to be pretty much the same, but he beat her to it. “Or a gentleman, for that matter.”
“But–”
She was never able to finish that sentence, because as he was talking; he had dropped gracefully down onto the subtly-patterned loveseat behind him, bringing her down with him – not to sit down beside him, as she’d assumed, but instead to be carefully, firmly positioned over his lap, which she was humiliated to find gave him a bird’s eye view of her much-too-ample bottom as it was forced into embarrassing prominence.
Sean didn’t wait in the least before delivering five cracking swats to that well-rounded bottom, making Tess wish she’d worn a Kevlar skirt, instead of hauling out one of her good linen skirts for him.
“Hey, cut that out! You can’t spank me just because you’re an abominably slow driver!”
His hand claimed the entirety of her bottom before swatting her again. “Let me think about that for a moment.” Sean resumed raining down crisp, hard swat after swat. “No, I think you just might be wrong about that, Tess.”
Sarcasm noted, damn him! “Stop – Sean – ow! That really hurts!”
“I know. It’s supposed to hurt, to help you remember not to endanger your life – as well as the lives of others – by driving so recklessly. And also, not to make obscene gestures at people you don’t know, no matter what the perceived provocation.”
She knew it was the absolute wrong thing to do, but Tess couldn’t keep herself from issuing a derisive snort at that speech. It just sounded abominably pompous.
Then she felt his hands go to her hips and her skirt
