Jacquie ’Alessandro - Heating up the Holidays

Feeling more confident, she made quick work of the third corner, then crawled across toward the fourth corner. A wind gust blew the tarp up into her face before she made it there, a gust so hard she had to duck down and press herself to the roof to keep her balance. She muttered a string of curses and edged herself toward the corner of the tarp again, quickly nailing it down with three nails as she used her knees to hold the corner in place.

Finished, thank God. But when she tried to crawl back toward the ladder she couldn’t move. Her leg was stuck. She looked down at the spot her leg refused to move from and saw that she’d managed to nail one leg of her pj bottoms to the roof along with the tarp.

Of all the stupid things she’d ever done…

She muttered a string of curses.

Think. What to do? She tugged at her pant leg again, figuring if nothing else she could rip them off, but the roof was slanted, and if she tugged hard she was likely to fall right off.

Okay, so, she’d just have to slip the pj bottoms off and leave them up here. The world wouldn’t end if she crawled back down the ladder in her underwear. Shivering and soaked, and trapped in a kneeling position by her inept nail-gun work, she dropped the gun, untied her shoes and kicked them off, then shimmied out of the pj bottoms.

There, that wasn’t so hard. In the morning her pj’s would be stuck up here for all to see like a surrender flag made by Victoria’s Secret, but that was better than her being stuck up here with them.

When she was done, she hurriedly put her shoes back on and crawled to the edge of the roof where the ladder was…No, make that, where the ladder had been. The same wind gust that had nearly blown her off the roof, had apparently blown the ladder over, and it now lay in the grass, utterly useless to her.

Another string of curses escaped her lips.

Now what?

She didn’t know anyone well enough in town anymore to call them after midnight to come help her out of this ridiculous bind. Growing colder and wetter by the second, she began to see what she was going to have to do.

Call 9-1-1.

As soon as she thought it, she also realized that would mean the fire department would probably come. And, that meant there was a small but real chance it would be Ryan Quinn who’d have to come up here and rescue her in her underwear.

RYAN STEPPED off the truck and braced himself against the driving rain and wind that lashed him. As he strode across the lawn lit by the engine’s flashing red lights, he turned on the flashlight in his hand and shone it ahead so that he could see where he stepped. Behind him, the removable ladder was being brought down from the truck by his buddy Kyle.

It had been a week since Ryan had seen Lorelei in the E.R., but he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. She popped into his thoughts at odd times of day and night, like right now, as he strode across the yard of a house where it had been reported a woman was stuck on the roof.

Stuck on the roof? This stormy night, of all nights? Well, it wouldn’t be the oddest thing he’d ever seen on duty.

This place, he recalled, was where Lorelei had lived when they were teenagers. He’d come here a handful of times to work on their science project, but he wondered who owned the place now. He didn’t come to this neighborhood often. His own house was little more than a surf shack, a place down the coast he’d been renting for a few years near the best surf break in the area.

Whoever lived here hadn’t taken very good care of it. Last time he’d seen a place in such bad shape, he’d found a meth lab inside. He braced himself for having to deal with some meth head on a rampage, stuck on the roof after trying to fix the TV antenna or something equally dumb.

On the other side of the house, he found a ladder lying across the grass, which probably explained the person trapped on the roof.

Kyle positioned the ladder for Ryan and braced it, then Ryan began to climb up. A minute later, he was peering over the edge of the slanted roof.

The first thing he saw was a pair of bare legs, bent in a squatting position. His gaze followed the legs upward to the rest of the woman, whose face was familiar to him.

Lorelei.

Sweet heaven.

Lorelei, looking wet and cold, but not hurt. He tried not to grin. She had an expression on her face somewhere between anger and self-deprecation, as if she knew how ridiculous she looked but couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh about it.

“Lorelei,” he said. “Hi. Are you hurt at all?”

“No, just wet.”

“Let’s get you down from here. Just take my hand,” he said, reaching out.

She looked at his outstretched hand, then back up at him. “I don’t have any pants,” she said, her teeth chattering between the words.

“Dare I ask why?”

“I…nailed them to the roof by accident.” She tried to say it with a straight face, but laughter bubbled up from her throat, and Ryan couldn’t help laughing, too.

“That must be the polka-dot surrender flag over there flapping in the wind,” he said, nodding to the bit of pink fabric ten feet away.

“Yeah.”

“Take my raincoat,” he said, unbuttoning it as he spoke. Before she could protest, he shrugged it off and handed it to her.

She put it on, and sure enough, it was long enough to cover her to midthigh. “Thanks,” she said, still shivering as she eased herself across the roof and turned so that she could go down the ladder.

He placed a steadying hand on her back, but his gaze was fixed on her bare legs, thin and shapely. He got a flash of heat in his groin as he imagined her thighs spreading for him, imagined those legs wrapped around his hips…

Whoa, there. Time to remember his purpose, which was to help her off the roof, and then maybe, if he dared, apologize to her for his asshole behavior in high school.

They made quick work of the ladder, and at the bottom, Ryan picked up a blanket that someone had brought and left on the ground, and wrapped it around Lorelei.

“All’s well,” he said to Kyle. “I’ll help her back to the house while you get the ladder.”

“Sure thing, man.”

Ryan followed Lorelei around the side of the house to the back door. Once she was inside, she turned to face him, took off the blanket, and unceremoniously removed her jacket. He took them when she held the stuff out, and then his mouth went dry as he took in the sight of her stripping off her sweatshirt and grabbing a towel to dry off.

He watched as she toweled off, transfixed at the way her panties pressed against the flesh at the apex of her thighs and her nipples showed through the thin fabric of her wet pajama top. And before he lost all good sense, he shrugged on his raincoat again in the hope of hiding his growing erection.

She had a woman’s body now, with heavy breasts and a narrow waist, smooth skin and a shapely ass. She looked glorious there in her tiny white panties and pajama top, wet hair clinging to her cheeks and shoulders-not like any teenage fantasy he’d ever had, but like a totally grown-up one.

He would have loved to reach out and touch any part of her-hell, every part of her-to confirm that she was not a figment of his imagination. Then he’d pull her close and warm her against his naked body-

“Thanks,” she said. “You can go now.”

Right. Of course he could.

“I hope you’ll, um, wait until after the storm to do any further nailing of clothing to your roof.”

She grinned sheepishly. “I’ve got a leak. I was trying to cover it with a tarp.”

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full with this place, huh?”

“My mom let it fall into disrepair. She hasn’t lived here for years. I thought I could move in and renovate it, but, yeah, it’s turning into quite an ordeal.”

“I used to work construction-maybe I could help,” Ryan blurted before he could stop himself. What the hell was he thinking?

He wasn’t thinking, at least not with the head he should have been using. His brain was too clouded by erect nipples and wet panties to think clearly now.

“Oh. Wow, um, thanks, but I couldn’t ask that of you. I mean, maybe if you know any good contractors or carpenters or roofers, you could recommend someone?”

“Absolutely. But seriously, one of my hobbies is carpentry. It would be my pleasure to help-anytime.”

It occurred to him then that maybe while she was standing there in her wet panties wasn’t the best time to be having this conversation. There-a sensible thought.

She gave him an odd look.

Ryan felt his cheeks burning. God, all he was supposed to do was apologize, not try to insert himself into her life. Why was he being such an ass?

Because she was a beautiful, nearly naked woman, and he was a guy. It wasn’t any more complicated than that. Besides, she looked even hotter soaked with rain than she did dry.

He forced his mind off the wet-naked-Lorelei fantasy that was threatening to overcome him and back to reality.

“Listen, I know it’s late, and you’re cold, and I have to get back to work. Maybe we could talk about this later. I’d be happy to give you some names of people to call, if nothing else.”

“Sure, thanks. That would be great.”

“How about tomorrow? Will you be around for me to stop by?”

“It’s my day off.”

“Great, I’ll see you then,” he said, then turned and walked away before he said anything else stupid in the face of her panties.

He needed to get a grip. But dammit, he wanted her. His whole body was so pent-up with frustrated desire, his dick pressing against the front of his pants, his mouth parched…it was a minor miracle he hadn’t grabbed her and made love to her right then and there.

No, he wasn’t going to behave like a Neanderthal. Not again. Not when he had a chance to make things right. He’d help her with her house, if she’d let him, and when the time was right, he’d tell her how sorry he was for his behavior in high school. His self-respect depended on it-he couldn’t walk around in the world knowing he’d been a jerk without making amends for his actions.

That was it. He’d apologize, and all would be right in the world again.

He absolutely wasn’t going to sleep with her again. Well…not unless she really wanted to.

AS SHE WAITED for someone at Monroe Brothers Roofing to pick up the phone, Lorelei stared up at the growing water stain on the ceiling and muttered a curse. Living in a house should not be so hard. She was beginning to think the hut she’d lived in in Kenya had not been such a bad idea. At least when a thatched roof leaked, no one was surprised.

Finally the phone was picked up, but it was only a recorded voice explaining, “Monroe Brothers Roofing is currently unable to take on new roofing jobs for the immediate future, due to high demand for roof work. Please call us back in February if you need an estimate for new work. If you are a current customer-”

Lorelei hung up the phone and muttered a curse at the phone book. The other two roofing companies she’d already tried were not working during the winter months. She was beginning to feel as if she were starring in a bad movie version of her own life, in which the hapless, overeducated doctor meets her match in a house determined to fall down rather than be renovated.

Her brooding was interrupted by a knock at the door. As she went to answer it, she did a quick check in the mirror and saw that she hadn’t yet brushed her hair, and her face, untouched by makeup, bore the puffy, dark-circled evidence that she hadn’t slept much the night before.

Whatever. Anyone who dared to knock on her door at nine in the morning after an epic thunderstorm would get the frightful sight they deserved. It was probably a neighbor knocking to ask if she had electricity-the answer was no, she didn’t-or to tell her that some of her belongings/tree branches/whatever had blown into their yard and needed to be removed.

But the moment she jerked the door open, she regretted having answered it at all. Ryan Quinn stood on her doorstep, still wearing his uniform.

Him again. Was fate trying to beat her over the head with him or what? She said a silent Fine, you win to Kinsei and gave in to the truth of the matter. He was right. She was going to have to sleep with Ryan to get rid of him from her life for good.

“Hi,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry to bother you so early-”

“I’ve been up for a while,” she said, cutting him off. She didn’t want to stand here engaging in niceties right now, not when she looked like this.

How was she supposed to conquer the ghosts of her past with bad hair and raccoon eyes?