"Careful." Jeremy caught her at the waist as she toppled forward. "I've got you."

That deep voice rumbled across her psyche with such a.s.surance she fought off a sigh. Strong hands did have her.

She should have been relieved at his a.s.sistance, but her pulse ramped into high gear at being so close to Jeremy. Touched by him. Lean muscle filled out his six-foot-two body nicely.

Better than nicely.

She missed his warm scent she'd breathe in whenever he worked shoulder to shoulder with her in the yard. Smelling him this close was so much better. The women in the gym saw only a tall, blond male with sparkling green eyes. She saw the edge beneath his casual facade, the keen look in his gaze and the unyielding planes in his face.

This was a man with hidden layers and secrets.

Jeremy turned as he lowered her, handling her weight with an ease that confirmed he got plenty of return from his investment in a gym. She'd inherited her mother's five-foot-seven height, but not her mother's determination to keep her weight down.

Life was too short to pa.s.s up banana splits.

But she worried about his leg injury even though she'd noticed him adding a series of workouts on the leg exercise equipment this past week.

She stared up into a face that was a study in tanned skin over sharp angles. He'd been gifted with handsome lips that CeCe had felt only in her dreams. Heat swirled in those lightning green eyes, holding her prisoner.

Her lungs refused to expand.

Jeremy's fingers moved up an inch, touching her abdomen, and lit a slow-burning fuse for fireworks waiting to go off in her lower half. If he could do that just by holding her at the waist, she could only imagine what he'd feel like skin to skin.

What he could do with that s.e.xy mouth.

When her feet touched earth again, she was close enough to get a whiff of his aftershave. He smelled masculine, virile... potent, something that could be called All Night Fantasy.

A wicked blend a man wore to lure a woman to a dark place.

She had a very dark bedroom and a few slippery fantasies to match.

"You okay?" Jeremy asked softly, then grinned.

Pure rascal.

What she wouldn't give for just one night with that grin.

When she didn't answer, his smile softened into concern. "Did you get too warm up there? Your makeup is smudging."

Too warm? More like she might combust if she didn't get away from him.

The reporter's face popped into view over Jeremy's shoulder, reminding her she had an audience.

Not to mention Vinny might show up Vinny might show up.

"What are you doing here?" CeCe jumped out of Jeremy's grasp, flinching over the pained look that chased across his face for an instant. He'd never ask her out again if she acted like a witch. "I mean, uh, I'm surprised to see you."

"I was in the area." Jeremy shrugged, but his eyes narrowed as though he was cautious, and who wouldn't be after the way she'd just acted?

d.a.m.n it, why couldn't life be simple? Her reaction wasn't her fault. Just a safety precaution to protect him if anyone was watching. She didn't want Jeremy to just disappear one day.

CeCe held up a finger for him to give her a minute, then turned to the reporter. "Do you have any more questions?"

"Can you hear anything while you're in this deep state?"

A flicker of some man's voice crossed her mind. What in the world had he said? Take care of my booty Take care of my booty.

She pondered for a moment before answering. "Yes, bits and pieces. I probably hear more than I realize, but the words may not register until later. Anything else?"

"No." He handed her a business card. "This will be in tomorrow morning's paper."

"Thanks." When the reporter left she turned back to Jeremy. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound unappreciative, but I'm slow to come out of that state so I may be weird the first few minutes." She couldn't get involved with him-yet-but she didn't want to run him off either. Yeah, she realized that might sound contradictory, but she really liked Jeremy. Enough that she didn't want Vinny and her brothers to hurt him.

Which meant no dating right now. Surely Jeremy would give her another chance in a few weeks.

She flicked quick glances around them, watching for any sign of an aggressive Italian male built for championship wrestling heading their way. Jeremy was just as beefed up as Vinny, but she doubted he could take on all three brothers, which was exactly what would happen if Vinny, the attorney in the family, sent out a call to arms.

"That's okay." Jeremy's face eased back into happy as if he accepted her ridiculous excuse for acting like a Chihuahua on acid. "I'll have to get tomorrow's paper."

Idiot that she was around him, she just smiled, happy to see him. He had a rugged outdoorsy look, like a buff surfer with that white-blond hair falling to his collar. But she'd grown up around a pack of alpha males and knew when she entered the heat zone of one.

When Jeremy wasn't joking around, he had a powerful aura about him that warned others not to step into his arena unless they were up to the task. Some women might miss what hid behind the charming window dressing.

The wind stirred his hair in a loose and free way that made her wonder how he'd look in the morning after a night of hot s.e.x.

With a body like that she'd bet on an endless night.

"You'll be famous," he added.

Reminding her about the photo brought her back from mental wandering. "I don't think so. How famous can someone made up to look like a statue be?"

"I'd know it was you even under all that makeup."

A tingle of regret over the picture and article inched up her spine. She didn't want fame and her family might not be happy that she'd talked to a reporter. Stop obsessing and don't overreact Stop obsessing and don't overreact. Besides, it would probably just be a d.i.n.ky article buried under weekend events. Her ident.i.ty had been hidden under layers of caked-on makeup. And layers of Vinny's expert paperwork.

CeCe picked up the baby doll. When she turned back to her fibergla.s.s base, Jeremy was studying it.

"You've got a crack in this thing," he muttered.

"Someone backed into my stand at my last event."

He lifted the sculpted base, not seeming to mind the white powder he'd gotten on his hands from her body makeup. "Where's your truck?"

"I have a hand cart to move that with," she protested, then took in his arched eyebrow and unrelenting expression to mean he only wanted directions to her truck. She finally pointed. "Over there near the theater. Last spot before the railroad tracks."

This was the first time he'd spoken to her since she'd given him a lame brush-off for his dinner invitation. The look of disappointment in his face had eaten a hole in her stomach.

Was a normal life too much to ask for?

One not built around lies.

CeCe walked companionably beside Jeremy, sneaking peeks at his confident stride and casual manner.

He almost seemed... shy? No way. Just laid back today.

Why couldn't she have a man like him in her life?

Because her family wouldn't accept a clean-cut upstanding citizen like Jeremy and she wouldn't accept a man they approved of, so she couldn't win either way.

Didn't mean she had to live like a monk, did it?

Jeremy placed her fibergla.s.s base in the truck bed then dusted the powder from his hands. When he turned to her this time his smile made her swallow hard.

She craved this man.

A long horn blast from the railroad tracks entering Marietta warned everyone a freight train was approaching and would pa.s.s through downtown not fifty feet behind them.

"Look, CeCe, maybe we could..." Jeremy hesitated as if the words in his head were waiting for a sign of encouragement.

Long white guardrails lowered into place with warning bells clanging at a deafening level. Automobiles stopped on each side of the crossing. The ground vibrated as the lead engine raced by dragging a string of loaded railcars. Loud rumbling prevented any conversation for a few minutes.

Her heart jumped at the desire pulsing through Jeremy's eyes, the male interest he didn't try to hide. But if she let him finish that sentence they'd both be disappointed with her answer.

After a minute of metal-on-metal pounding the caboose blew past, sucking the noise down the tracks with it.

Jeremy opened his mouth to finish his sentence.

"Ah, gee!" CeCe snapped her fingers.

"What?" Jeremy looked as alarmed as she sounded.

"I just realized I'm going to be late."

"For what?"

Answering that question was going to give her nightmares, but she had no choice. "Drinks at a friend's house. She wants me to meet-" Just say it! Just say it! Use the one line that would put Jeremy off for a couple weeks, because she couldn't keep doing this over and over. Use the one line that would put Jeremy off for a couple weeks, because she couldn't keep doing this over and over. Say I have a girlfriend who wants me to meet a guy she thinks would be a good match for me Say I have a girlfriend who wants me to meet a guy she thinks would be a good match for me. CeCe had been raised around lies. Why were these so difficult to tell?

Jeremy waited, expectantly. "She wants you to meet... who?"

CeCe opened her mouth to give the right answer, but instead said, "Her friends... she, uh, wants me to meet her girlfriends."

His face relaxed.

She accepted the stab of guilt that cut her in half over leading him on but couldn't bring herself to completely destroy the light of interest in his gaze. Not after three weeks of getting to know Jeremy. Three weeks of heaven.

She'd never laughed so much. Once she got him to open up, he'd shared stories of setting up the gym and the people who worked for him. It was as if he'd never shared those stories with anyone else. She'd never spent so much time alone with a man who wasn't family and realized she felt safe with Jeremy.

If not for her overzealous stepfamily of men who had sworn to her dying mother they'd protect CeCe, she'd enjoy getting to know Jeremy much better.

Jeremy opened the driver's door on her dual-cab truck where the interior was covered in plastic. When she gained her place behind the wheel amid much crackling noise, he leaned in the opening and said, "See you... tonight."

As if he meant to do exactly that.

Be still my heart.

Hormones were going to get her in big trouble if she stayed in that rental house so close to him. Vinny would never have approved the lease if he'd realized just what kind of man lived next door to her. The little old lady who owned both houses had a.s.sured Vinny her other renter-Jeremy-was a quiet man who traveled often and kept to himself.

A sweet guy who never brought women to his house.

G.o.d forgive her, CeCe had jumped on the speculative look in Vinny's face the first time he glanced over at Jeremy limping around his yard. She realized Vinny had made the mental leap that Jeremy was gay. CeCe did everything she could to keep her brother convinced her neighbor was no threat to her.

Vinny might not be so at ease if he ever met Jeremy in person. He'd recognize another alpha and figure out quickly that her attractive next-door neighbor was not gay.

Not by a long shot.

Oh boy, had she screwed up or what?

If her defenses didn't hold up Jeremy would be in trouble. Her brothers took overprotective to a whole new level and enforced a no-engagement rule with a .357 Magnum.

But she hadn't moved here to live in hiding the way she had at home. The minute she convinced Vinny to return home to D.C. permanently she would rush next door to invite Jeremy on a date that would end up at her house... in her bed... with her.

Until then she had to keep away from him.

Two.

Jeremy wheeled his Tahoe sport utility through the side roads heading home from Marietta Square and trying to beat CeCe back by taking the quickest route he knew. He felt like a teenager with his pulse racing, but he intended to arrive home in time to unload her fibergla.s.s base and find out if he'd imagined that bedroom gaze she'd just given him.

Maybe he wasn't the only one experiencing the attraction between them.

Maybe she wanted to give him a shot.

Or maybe he was just hoping that look she'd given him meant she wanted to lick him from head to toe.

All Shelilah had wanted was a set of skilled hands to stroke an itch.

When Jeremy politely backed out, Blade had shaken his head at him and led the two women to his car with the intent of appeasing both females tonight.

Jeremy didn't care. Blade could have all the women in the world... except CeCe.

Whoa, hold it. That smacked of sounding... possessive.

A date. That was all he was trying to accomplish with Cece, to start.