Really Something by Shirley Jump Page B

class. Stop dispensing that easy smile, something he gave out like beads at Mardi Gras.
    He let the water run a while, then filled a teakettle and set it on the stove. The gas, however, refused to spark. The stove clicked, but nothing happened with any of the burners. “I need to find some matches.” Duncan pulled out a few drawers, but they all came up empty.
    Allie ran her hands up and down her arms. “How long has it been since anyone lived here?”
    â€œFive years.” Duncan didn’t elaborate. “I can’t get this damned stove to work.”
    â€œThat’s fine. I don’t really need the tea.” What she could use was him—his arms around her, his body against hers, but she was not about to say that.
    Or make that mistake again.
    She moved to sit down, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “But you’re soaked. You must be freezing.”
    No, now she was hot.
    Nothing about her felt cold, not anymore, not with Duncan’s eyes on her. Damn the man for still having that power over her, for still being able, even after all these years, to ignite a flame with nothing more than a glance for kindling, a smile for tinder. “Yeah,” she said, breathed really.
    Get a grip, Allie. You’re over him.
    â€œI’d hate to see you get sick,” he said, touching her nose, trailing along her cheek, her lips. “Having the sniffles in the summer is terrible.”
    â€œMmm…really terrible,” she echoed.
    â€œI’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you. I wasn’t expecting company.”
    â€œWhat were you expecting, Duncan?” For that matter, what was she expecting? She’d come here to do a job, maybe flirt with him, ramp up his testosterone then roar out of town, leaving him wondering who that blonde had been and where things could have gone, had she stayed around longer. Never had she intended to lure the spider into her own complicated web.
    â€œI wasn’t expecting you, that’s for damned sure.” His finger traveled along the edge of her blouse, lifting the damp collar away from her skin. Cool air rushed in, raising prickles of skin. “I won’t give you what you want, you know.”
    â€œHow can you be so sure what I want right now?” Because L.A., Jerry, and the film had been Pluto’d—ripped right out of her immediate solar system.
    And, apparently, also out of his, she realized, as their gazes met. Held.
    A moment passed. Another. Rain slashed against the windows, pattered the glass. Wind whipped the clapboards, whistled along the roofline. But what Mother Nature brewed outside barely compared to the storm inside.
    The smile Allie had memorized, the one that had starred in her dreams, stared back at her from the Tempest High yearbook, curved across his face, only this time with a sexier edge. Allie tried to steel herself against its power, but this was not like resisting the last piece of fudge on Aunt Tilda’s crystal-cut angel platter.
    This was Duncan. And he carried way more temptation than a bunch of cocoa and sugar.
    â€œI think,” he said, low and sexy, his voice a heated whisper in the empty, half-dark house, “what you want is to get out of these wet clothes.”
    Oh yeah.
    His gaze dropped to the pale fabric of her blouse, flattened against her bra, now as transparent as Scotch tape, parading lace and skin, the faint outline of her rosy, peaked nipples.
    She should leave. But the rain continued to pound outside, and her clothes were drenched and Duncan Henry’s hand held hers, so warm and strong, and everything she’d dreamed of in those late-night teenage fantasies.
    But that had been high school. And this was all very, very grown-up stuff.
    â€œDuncan, maybe I should…”
    â€œNot argue with me,” he said, putting a finger against her lips. She wanted to open them, to taste his skin, to quench her curiosity finally. But she held