When I write sexual tension I hope my readers will want to push the heroine aside and take her place. In the first scenes I have a woman who doesn’t want to desire/love her ex-husband. Their history would make having sex with this man unwise. Therefore I wanted to make him difficult to resist.
Scene 1
I got the cake, thin layers of cake with raspberry mousse fillings between. A loud flapping sound and a rough ride announced the death of a tire as I neared Dee’s school.
Well, Hell. I’d planned to wait in the car. Some days Dee saw me as an okay mom. Others she didn’t want to be seen with me. I popped the trunk and prepared to lug the spare and the jack out. My cell rang in my pocket. What now? I half rose, banging my head on the trunk lid. Stars filled my vision while pain made me feel faint, a tad nauseous.
“Need any help?” A deep voice resonated near me, the masculine drawl familiar as my own. God, I really hit my head hard. That voice can’t belong to Jay. Most of the men in this part of Georgia had the same charming drawl, so much more pleasing than some I heard every day. Other drawls didn’t send shivers up my spin the way Jay’s did.
I opened my eyes and saw long, muscular, denim-clad legs
near the back fender. Heat spread over my face as my attention followed the legs to thick thighs, then the worn placket over the zipper. What a package, so far. I should straighten and look the man in his eye, but my stiff back had been bent too long.
A deep, masculine chuckle made me blush as I placed my hand on my back and tried to escape the position that made studying his lower body too easy. By the time I managed to straighten, the man’s chuckle stopped.
“Sonovabitch!” His expletive wasn’t loud, but he hadn’t whispered it.
Jay looked shocked. I felt like climbing into the trunk and pulling the lid closed.
Now I’d bet I had no color. “What the hell are you doing here?” Of all the people I’d have expected to see here, he wasn’t one. He wasn’t supposed to be in town on leave yet.
He glared at me as if I were in the wrong place. “Rose asked me to pick her sister up from school and bring her to …”
“Why would she send you here? I took the afternoon to get Dee and the cake and gifts to Mama’s house for the party.”
“Rose …”
I interrupted him, using my superior teacher’s voice. “She’s called herself Electra for the past six months.” Don’t you know anything?
He frowned, as if he knew nothing about that. “My daughter’s name is Rose and that’s what I’ll call her. You let her get by with way too much.”
I didn’t have time to argue with GI Jay, so I reached for the jack again, but one large, tanned hand reached past me and grabbed it first. The man’s other hand grabbed the spare tire as if it were a donut.
“I can do it,” I insisted.
He shook his head at me, loosened the lug nuts in a few twists, then positioned the jack and raised the car in seconds. “You don’t need to do it with me here to help.”
I glared at him. “I work out. I’m not helpless.” With my hands fisted at my waist I felt like a kid throwing a tantrum, but I couldn’t back down. I’d have let any other man change the tire and thanked him, but it bugged me that my Ex didn’t think to ask me if I needed help. While other men would have offered, he just took over, as he always did.
“Don’t argue,” he said as he made quick work of changing the tires faster than I could have jacked the car up.
He tossed the flat tire into the trunk as though the thing weighed nothing. I knew better, since I’d changed tires before.
He closed the trunk and eased around the car.
I heard books hit the ground and Dee’s squeal. “Daddy!”
My heart ached when my daughter threw her arms around the waist of the man who didn’t believe she was his child. Dee’s heart was in that hug and I was willing to hit him with the tire. Read the rest of this entry »
