CHAPTER ONE
KATIE JAMES COASTED her fingertips across the muscular chest before her. Mmm. Cool to the touch and wonderfully rigid. Warmth tingled in her veins, more intoxicating than a moonlit kiss. Not that she’d ever experienced a moonlit kiss, but she’d seen one in a movie, so, same thing. Right? Right. Anyway. Images of silk sheets, entwined bodies and slow caresses filled her mind, a wispy catch of breath parting her lips.
How could this man affect her so powerfully? How could he affect her at all when he’d never spoken a word to her? Or anyone!
Because he was beauty personified? How shallow of her. In the game of life, physical beauty was a momentary blip, there and gone; it meant nothing.
To maintain a romantic relationship, a couple, any couple needed something beyond a stunning outward appearance. But…
Even knowing the absolute foolishness of this forbidden attraction, she couldn’t think past this guy’s incredible physique.
Her wild side whisper, So why not embrace it?
Katie moved her gaze over him slooowly. He was tall and cut with muscle, his shoulders broad and his abdomen ridged in sinew. A thick mane of hair framed the face of a warrior-angel.
Though he stood outside, surrounded by a brilliant bouquet of pink and blue azaleas, he was the absolute essence of masculinity, and she could not get enough. Gimme!
He belonged in a gladiator arena, with an arsenal of weapons at his disposal. Or a bed with an arsenal of toys.
With a dreamy sigh, she rested her cheek against his shoulder. She could almost imagine his breath fanning her crown. “If only you were real…”
But he wasn’t real. He was formed entirely of smooth, gray stone. A beautiful statue, nothing more. And what an irony of fate. The first man to captivate her belonged in a museum, not her life.
Straightening reluctantly, she traced his bottom lip with the pad of her thumb. His eyes of stone seemed to project a message: Kiss me.
Yes, yes. No!
Gah! Maybe she had a previously unrealized statue fetish? Why was she surprised by her infatuation with a beautiful, silent, unreal man, anyway? Having grown up with five older brothers, she knew just how annoying real men could be. Forget how they drank out of communal cartons, burped and scratched their junk, their derogatory jokes and irritating bro code. How many men enjoyed charming the pants off an unsuspecting conquest, then lost interest and moved on?
Too many! It didn’t help that the few men who’d asked Katie out on a date had quickly proven to be uninterested in getting to know her outside of her likes and dislikes in the bedroom. Of course, they’d stopped caring about bedding her as soon as they’d gotten a taste of her abrasive personality, all spice without sugar, and her “no sex until we’re in love” policy.
So. Yeah. She’d never actually been in love, which meant she’d never actually had sex. And she hadn’t been—wasn’t—keen on waiting, either. She just wanted to know the guy she chose would be willing to stick around.
The current tally? Zero. She liked to imagine she was a comic book superheroine, with anti-dating superpowers. It’s not a bird. It’s not a plane. It’s Cock Block Katie, able to deflate a man’s erection in ten seconds flat!
A wave of depression crashed over Katie. “Why can’t you be real?” she asked the statue. Unlike her dates, he wouldn’t ditch her, hoping to find someone better. He couldn’t. He was permanently mounted to a marble base in her garden. “I’d date you so hard.”
Kiss him. Kiss him now.
The thought whispered through her mind, as tempting as a pot of gold. Fighting a primitive urge to surrender to temptation, just one time, she expelled another sigh. Maybe, for a little while, she could pretend she’d found someone of quality, who made her feel cherished.
I want to feel cherished.
Kiss him.
“Well. Someone has a one-track mind, and it’s me,” she muttered.
The chilly Dallas breeze failed to cool her ardor, and with each passing second the stone warrior’s unwavering stare unraveled more of her resistance. Why not kiss him?
What would it hurt?
Would she look like a (bigger) fool and a weird pervert? Only if someone lurked nearby and watched. In this spot, she was hidden by walls of foliage.
Katie caressed his jawbone, marveling. The artist deserved an award. His jaw had a rough exterior, like sandpaper, to mimic morning beard stubble.
Next, she traced the outline of his ears, his neck…shoulders…chest and even his small, puckered nipples. Fiery heat rippled across her nerve endings and—nope, no way. He had not uttered a soft moan. Her grade A imagination was running wild, that was all.
Deep breath in, out. Good, that was good. She—
Gravel crunched in the distance, jolting her from her thoughts. Someone had just driven up her driveway.
Katie scrambled off the dais and darted past the foliage just in time to watch a black sedan park in front of her dilapidated Victorian-style mansion. Her eldest brother’s sedan.
Though her cheeks burned with mortification, she marched across the “pleasure garden.” Naked sculptures littered the entire enclosure, similar to the warrior she wasn’t going to think about ever again.
As her brother emerged from the car, the cool breeze died down, the sun glaring with more vigor. Those bright golden rays loved him, turning his pale hair platinum, making his blue eyes sparkle and his tanned skin glisten.
She called, “Dam—darn it, Gray. What are you doing here?” Ugh. Gross. Had she really just gone fully granny and used the word darn? What was next? Drats?
“Still working on our cussing, I see.” Grinning, not the least put out by her brusque tone, he kicked the car door shut. Guess he’d gotten used to the tone over the years. “Well, bad news, Kit Kat. You owe me thirteen cents.”
“I do not!” Because of a chronic potty mouth Katie gave a quarter to anyone who caught her saying a curse word. If alone, she put the quarter in a jar. “I stopped myself from finishing the curse.”
“You did, yes. After you’d uttered the first half of the word.”
“Fine!” Every morning she rounded up four quarters, just to be safe. Now she dug one from her pocket to lob at him. “Keep the change. Happy now? Why are you here, anyway? You never said.”
He laughed. “I’m here to tour your newest acquisition. And earn a little extra cash.”
“Ha-ha.” He’d come here to check on her, as usual. All five of her brothers considered her a delicate flower in need of twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week protection. So what that she was six feet tall and in top physical condition. So what that she’d attended numerous self-defense classes. So she’d taken self-defense classes and ran her own business. So what. “What’s the real reason you’re here? I already know the answer, but I’d like to hear you say it. Be honest.”
“You know I’m always honest…when it suits me. Unfortunately for you, there’s only one truth I’m willing to admit at the moment. Your house is a massive dump.”
“You’re a massive dump,” she retorted. For the past four years, she’d kicked butt flipping houses. A job she adored. She had an instinct for real estate, and she always made a profit.
Again, Gray laughed. “You caught me. There’s another reason I’m here. Steven Harris is a new detective in my unit, and everyone likes him. He—”