During the last bad winter storm in Hellcat Canyon, a power line had snapped and lay arcing and sparking on the ground in front of Britt’s house until Pacific Gas and Electric came to take care of it.
Britt’s body felt like that all night long.
She could feel the tension in J. T. when he’d touched her. She could all buttastehow badly he wanted her.
But now she suspected the man who had once blithely partaken of women as if they were a bowl of peanuts and probably would have blithely partaken of her, too, before last night... was being careful with her.
She was frustrated. Maybe a little amused.
And also, when she thought about it, unaccountably movedin a way she didn’t necessarily want to feel. Because it made her feel a little exposed. Like that snapped power line.
He’d ferociously protected her last night. The funny thing was, however... she’d felt oddly protective of him, too, from the moment he’d walked into that diner.
J. T. was missing something, she was pretty certain. She wasn’t certain it was only sex.
She did know that she needed to make it clear to John Tennessee McCord that part of taking care of herself meant partaking ofhisbody with wild abandon.
The sooner the better. Or the two of them might never sleep restfully again.
She must have eventually slept.
Because she opened her eyes to a soft early-morning light. She didn’t have to work until this afternoon.
But an inspiration had brewed while she was sleeping.
And now she was quite breathlessly eager to call Gary, which was a first.
She had the pleasure of hearinghismorning voice, which was gravelly and very, very irritable.
“This better be good, Britt. I got an early tee off time and I need all my beauty sleep.”
“Have you lost your mind?” was his response when she told him why she’d called.
“Maybe. I just have a hunch.”
Gary sighed noisily and cleared his throat in a phlegmy way that made her wince. “Okay. I’ll set it up. If you can rent that place to him I’ll know for sure they’re weirder in Hollywood than we ever imagined.”
She’d scrambled to get ready, but J. T. had beat her to the Greenleaf place.
She saw him through the trees as she approached in her car. He was standing in front of the house, his head tipped back, hands in his pockets. He appeared to be studying the roof. Probably critically eyeing the gutters. A very guylike pose.
He turned around when he heard her car. And went still.
She turned off the engine and shouldered the door open.
J. T. tracked her with his eyes when she got out of her car.
Today’s tank top was white and her shorts were denim and the buttons came undone pretty easily.
He remained absolutely, almost unnervingly, silent.
And then he smiled. Slowly, crookedly, purely wickedly.
It was almost knee-bucklingly sexy.
He knew why she’d called him.
That smile was his way of telling her that he would be calling the shots.