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Was he busy? Had he left his phone? Was he screening?
There was a huge percentage chance she was never going to hear from him again.
But as Rose slid her cell back into her glittery little bag she felt exactly as she had the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.
Like a rookie bull-rider taking hold of that long, braided rope for the first time, just waiting for the chute to open.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PLATO tugged on his cuffs and pushed open Rose’s little gate.
The elderly lady he recognised from his last visit looked up from snipping her camellias.
‘Hello, there,’ said Rita Padalecki. ‘You’re back, then.’
‘Good morning, Mrs Padalecki.’ Plato stopped and nodded formally.
‘She’s been busy this morning. Lots of banging.’
Plato’s mouth twitched. ‘I’ll have to see if I can be of any assistance.’
‘You’re a big, strong lad. I’m sure you can.’
The door was open. He walked on in. ‘Rose?’
He could hear a vacuum cleaner upstairs. He took the stairs by threes, followed the cord into a bedroom where Rose was busily thrusting the head of a vacuum under furniture. She was barefoot and wearing the softest long-sleeved grandfather top, its tails flirting with her wide, round bottom so lovingly cupped by the same tight jeans he’d seen her in yesterday. Her hair was pulled back with a spotted red kerchief.
The last time Plato had seen a woman cleaning a house it had been a good fifteen years ago, and that woman had been his grandmother. Not the woman he had been fantasising about for the past forty-eight hours. Usually those women were wearing a great deal less than Rose. But not one of them had the effect Rose had on him dressed from neck to knee.
Why the sight of that round bottom shifting with the thrust of her body backwards and forwards struck him as sexually provocative he couldn’t have said, but it told him this was only going to end one way. He had tried to ignore it, because this girl was so far from his usual playing field it would have been the right thing to do to walk away before he started anything he couldn’t finish. Even driving over this morning he had told himself to keep en route for the airport. Protect her from himself. As she had tried to protect herself in that odd little message she’d given him last night over the phone.
But he was here, and the line he’d fed himself as he pulled up opposite her house—that he had just come to say goodbye, maybe they could hook up next time he was in town—as he’d climbed the stairs, knowing she was only a few steps away, had broken down.
One look at this warm, curvy woman and she’d shoved all his excuses sidewards. Even separated from her by several feet he could feel the vibrancy that was alive inside her. He hadn’t imagined it. It was all there, burning hotter than ever. He told himself he was just going to warm himself against the fire that was in Rose before he went out into the more prosaic world of deals and cold-blooded decisions. Just a little taste and he would go…it would be unfair to her to ask for anything more…
He leaned down and yanked the cord.
The vacuum died and Rose straightened up. ‘Shoot!’
‘Rose.’
She literally leapt, dropped the vacuum nozzle, and clapped a hand over the vicinity of her heart.
‘Lordy, Plato, give a girl a fright, why don’t you?’
Her eyes were huge and her mouth was trembling, although he couldn’t tell whether she was trying not to laugh or cry.
Her face was scrubbed clean of make-up but her cheeks were red from exertion. Rosy, he thought, and something squeezed tight across his chest. She looked rosy.
Then his gaze dipped. The grandfather shirt was unbuttoned, so that he had a shadowy glimpse of a whole lot of cleavage, and as she stepped towards him her breasts sort of swayed ever so slightly under the soft, clinging cotton jersey. Her large, soft, amazingly rounded breasts…
How old are you, man? Thirteen?
‘Well, cowboy, does a girl have to ask twice?’ she asked a little breathlessly, all eyes.
She looked so wary and hopeful and knocked off-balance he just couldn’t help himself.
He knew he should say something. You just didn’t walk in and grab a woman. You were supposed to have a modicum of sophistication in these situations…
