Joan Pickart - Taming Tall, Dark Brandon

“Believe me,” he said, a weary quality to his voice, “I’m very aware of that.”

“This... this whatever it is that has taken place between us is very understandable.”

“It is?” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “This ought to be good. Why don’t you explain it to me, since you have it all figured out.”

“Certainly,” she said, lifting her chin. “In my case, my overreaction reaction—”

“‘Overreaction reaction’?” Brandon interrupted with a burst of laughter.

“Do you mind?” she said with an indignant little sniff. “I have the floor.”

“I humbly apologize,” he said, curbing his smile. “You were saying?”

“Yes. Well, my rideculous reaction to your... masculinity is due to the fact that I am in a state of total exhaustion. I’m a tad vulnerable, not conducting myself as I normally would.”

“I see,” Brandon said, stroking his chin. “That makes sense, I guess.”

“Indeed it does. Granted, you’re a very attractive man, but I deal with good-looking men every day in my profession. They don’t cause me to be unable to think, make it impossible for me to move, or breathe, when they look at me.”

“But I do?” he said, grinning again.

“Would you stop it?” she said, planting her hands on her hips.

Brandon cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“Once I’ve rested,” Andrea continued, “I’ll be fine. No problem. You’ll just be another handsome man in a long line of same who cross my path and whom I ignore.”

Brandon narrowed his eyes. “Is that a fact?”

“It is,” she said with a decisive nod.

“And my overreaction reaction to you? Would you care to explain that, as well?”

“It’s very simple, Brandon. Fainting in your arms brought out the Tarzan-Jane, knight-in-shining-armor instinct in you. It’s nothing to get all in a dither about.”

“Let me be certain I have this straight,” Brandon said. “I’m suffering from a massive machismo rush because you fainted?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll view me as just another man in the multitude of men out there once you’ve overcome your state of exhaustion?” Brandon started toward her slowly. “Have I got that right?”

“Well, I guess... Well, yes, that about sums it up,” Andrea said, taking a step backward as Brandon continued to advance.

A shiver coursed through Andrea. Was this fear? she thought frantically. Brandon seemed suddenly like a sleek panther stalking his prey—her. Was she frightened? No, it was a strange, sensual excitement that was consuming her, causing that thrumming heat to pulse low in her body once again.

This was insane! She should stand her ground, demand that Brandon Hamilton leave her room immediately. Yes, that was exactly what she should do.

But she wasn’t going to.

Because a part of her that she hadn’t even realized existed wanted to know, had to find out, just exactly what Brandon intended to do when he finally closed the distance between them.

Brandon stopped in front of Andrea and cradled her face in his large hands. He looked directly into her dark eyes, and his voice was deep and rumbly, and very, very male when he spoke.

“Your grand theories may be on the mark for all I know,” he said. “I really don’t have a clue. What I do know is that I resent being heaped with every other guy in a pair of pants. That’s totally unacceptable.”

“I certainly didn’t intend to insult you,” Andrea said, her voice trembling slightly. “I was just explaining my theory about what’s happening between us.”

“Mmm. Well. put this in your data bank, Ms. Cunningham, and see if you don’t come up with a rather different conclusion.”

Oh, my gosh, Andrea thought, he’s going to kiss me. No!

Brandon lowered his head and captured Andrea’s mouth in a searing kiss, parting her lips, delving his tongue inside the sweet darkness to seek and find her tongue.

Yes! Andrea thought, her lashes drifting down.

Their bodies were inches apart, not touching, yet the heat of rising passion wove around and through them, as though they were one entity.

The kiss went on and on, and desires soared.

What in the hell are you doing? a voice thundered in Brandon’s head.

He was allowing his damnable male ego to run roughshod over common sense and decorum.

For Pete’s sake, man, get a grip.

Brandon broke the kiss, took a ragged breath, and dropped his hands from Andrea’s face. Without speaking, he turned and strode from the room, closing the door behind him with more force than was necessary.

Andrea blinked, placed one hand on her racing heart, then rested the fingertips of her other hand on her tingling lips.

Never in her entire life had she experienced a kiss like the one she’d just shared with Brandon.

That kiss had stolen the very breath from her depleted body.

That kiss had created vivid images in her mind of clothes being torn away so that there was no barrier between her and Brandon.

That kiss had been the prelude to slow, exquisite lovemaking with Brandon that would have been ecstasy in its purest form.

That kiss never should have taken place.

“The nerve of that arrogant man,” she said, narrowing her gaze. “How dare he just march across the room and kiss me senseless? Just who in the blue blazes does he think he is?”

In the next instant she sighed, her shoulders slumping as fatigue swept over her.

She could rant and rave from here to Sunday, she thought dismally, but it wouldn’t erase the fact that she had been a very willing partner in that kiss. She’d savored every sensuous, heart-stopping second of it, and had not wanted it to end.

She had never behaved so recklessly, so... so wantonly.

“I’m not myself,” she said, pressing one hand to her forehead.

She didn’t care how angry her theories had made Brandon. They were sound and true. Her state of exhaustion was causing her to act and react out of character.

She would dismiss from her mind what had taken place in that room with Brandon. When she saw him again in the hotel, she’d be pleasant but cool, nod a greeting, and keep moving. She would not engage in further conversation with Mr. Hamilton, and she certainly would never be alone with him again.

The rest she desperately needed would restore her to normal, she told herself. The two-week sentence she was facing in this freezing cold little town would pass quickly, then she’d get into her ridiculous red sports car and whiz back down the mountain to Phoenix, where she belonged.

With a decisive nod, Andrea retrieved her suitcase, opened it and removed dry clothing. When she entered the bathroom, she gasped as she saw her reflection in the mirror above the sink.

“Oh, good night,” she said with a burst of laughter.

She looked like a drenched kitten. Her hair was sticking up in places and was plastered to her head in others. The circles beneath her eyes were darker than ever, making her appear ghostly. Her suit and blouse were wrinkled and soggy.

“Why on earth,” she said, leaning closer to the mirror, “would a man like Brandon Hamilton want to kiss you?”

Andrea straightened and then frowned, aware of a funny chill tiptoeing around her heart.

Brandon hadn’t wanted to kiss her, she thought. He would have kissed anyone who had insulted his masculine ego the way she had. The kiss had been a product of his anger, not his desire for her.

That made sense.

Then why, if that was so all-fired reasonable, was she registering feelings of disappointment and rejection ?

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, unbuttoning her suit jacket. “And I don’t care. Just forget it.”

Please, Andrea, she thought, dropping the sodden jacket to the floor, just forget it. For your own good.

Three

When Brandon left Andrea’s room, he glanced longingly at his apartment door at the end of the hallway, then shook his head and went to the elevator. He hesitated, his finger poised at the button.

He’d walk down the five flights of stairs, he decided, in lieu of taking some much-needed private time in his apartment. It wouldn’t be fair to Jennifer to leave her stranded at the front desk when she had things to tend to in the dining room.

Brandon started down the wide, carpeted stairway, each step thudding in an angry cadence directed at himself.

He should be shot at dawn, he mentally fumed. Strung up by the thumbs. Tarred and feathered. Run out of town on a rail.

Where was his brain? His sense of right and wrong? He was the proprietor of a hotel, who had blatantly kissed one of the guests without her permission. Cripe, he was probably staring at a lawsuit that would wipe him out financially. One kiss and he would now be rendered a moneyless derelict, living on the streets of Prescott.

Brandon stopped on the landing of the third floor and dragged both hands down his face.

Andrea Cunningham had pushed his macho buttons, and he’d behaved like a Neanderthal. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, her dismissal of the fiery attraction between them had ignited his fury. He’d become blindly determined to prove her ridiculous theory wrong.

So, he’d kissed her.

With a shake of his head, Brandon resumed his plodding trek down the stairs.

That kiss, he mused, had been sensational. Desire, hot and heavy and coiling, had exploded within him like a rocket. He’d been consumed by it, and had come very close to losing total control.

Brandon narrowed his eyes.

That reaction, by damn, had been mutual. Andrea had returned the kiss in heated abandon.

What did that mean? Why hadn’t she shoved him away, smacked him right across the face, then hollered the roof down?

Hell, he didn’t know what had gone on in Andrea’s mind when he’d kissed her, nor what she might be thinking now that she was alone. Women were so complicated, he wouldn’t live long enough to understand any of them.

The question at hand was... now what?

What should he do, say, how should he act, the next time he saw Andrea?

Maybe he should just wait and see, take his cue from her. That seemed like a very good idea, since he was messing up royally when left to his own devices.

“You’re such an idiot, Hamilton,” he muttered as he reached the lobby.

Jennifer smiled at Brandon when he returned to the registration desk.

“Did you get Andrea all taken care of?” she said.

“In a manner of speaking,” he said gruffly.

Jennifer frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Would you have some soup and a sandwich sent up to Andrea in about an hour?”

“Yes, but—” Jennifer glanced at her watch “—it’s getting late. Don’t you think Andrea will be ready for a full dinner?”

“Good thought.”

“Why don’t you call her and ask if she’d like dinner sent up, or if she plans to come down to the dining room? For all we know, she might wish to leave the hotel for her meal. Yes, you’d best phone her, Brandon.”

“No,” he said quickly.

“Why not?”

“Because...because that’s not efficient time management, Jennifer. I’d have to track you down if Andrea told me she’d like to eat in her room. Therefore, you call her.”

“Well, all right.” Jennifer paused. “Andrea’s quite pretty, don’t you think? Even not being at her best, she’s attractive. She has lovely eyes.”

“Mmm,” he said, straightening some brochures that didn’t need straightening.

“I hope she doesn’t get lonely spending the holidays in a hotel. No family. No friends here. That sounds like a rather bleak Christmas.”