Ain’t Misbehaving Read Free Page B

embarrassment at the show of tears in the hospital corridor, no holding back in her hug for Peter.
    Mitch hazarded a guess that her ex-fiancé was demented. True, Kay was no sex symbol, in spite of her extraordinary beauty when she smiled. But Kay was something infinitely more desirable—a lover. Any man who didn’t see that… But Mitch suspected most men did see that. How could they miss it, in the free way she moved, the vibrancy she brought to a smile, the emotions that shimmered in her eyes?
    Lots of men had seen, if not touched. Mitch had only needed to learn of one. He’d tensed up like barbed wire the instant she mentioned having been engaged.
    Ducking his head, he tried to fend off the assaulting rain. He’d been sharing ribald jokes with nurses for thirteen years. Before that, he’d been a fifteen-year-old with an active libido.
    The libido was still active—hollering to make up for lost time. His physical reaction to Kay had been instant, uncontrollable and darned near impossible to hide.
    Unfortunately, he’d missed the entire decade of sexual experience that men his age were supposed to have. How would he dare approach Kay? She was damned… real.
    With his head bowed low, he was barely aware he was following her until she whirled around suddenly. Her umbrella tilted back, and those sherry-brown eyes leveled furiously on his from a dozen feet away.
    “If there’s anything worse than a stubborn man, it’s certainly a stupid one,” she announced with foot-tapping impatience.
    His jaw dropped.
    “Look. You’re soaking wet. Now, just get under my umbrella.”
    He hesitated, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch as he strode forward. When he ducked under the umbrella, Kay jammed the handle into his hand as if it were a lethal weapon and hunched her shoulders as if to announce that he didn’t have to touch her for God’s sake.
    “Where’s your car?” she demanded stiffly.
    “One row over. The gray BMW,” he replied meekly.
    She said nothing, licking up the silence like an offended kitten. She was clutching her purse and walking so stiffly she might have had iron bones.
    He could smell the rain in her hair and the faint hint of some springy perfume; his hip brushed hers and he felt an instant, potent desire rise up in him like flames. Kay was trying so damned hard to establish that her earlier friendliness wasn’t a come-on; she was saying she’d caught the message that he wasn’t interested.
    She was so dead wrong. He would have been happy to seduce her right there in the parking lot, rain and all. There was just the issue of how she felt about raw recruits. Regardless, he’d never meant to hurt her feelings with his coldness.
    Clearing his throat, he began a peacemaking speech. “Listen…”
    She cocked her head but said nothing.
    He groped for something to say. “You said you had a job. What kind of work do you do?”
    “I teach,” she said curtly.
    A huge puddle welled up in front of them. Instinctively, his hand went to the small of her back to steer her around it. Like steel, that spine. She’d stopped puffing steam, but it was obvious that she wasn’t risking any more friendly overtures.
    “What subject?” he prodded her.
    “Don’t ask.”
    “Kay?”
    She stopped dead, glaring up at him, her sherry-colored eyes so defensive that he was startled. “I teach sex education,” she said defiantly. “You want to make something of it?”
    Obviously, over the years a few men had, but, Lord, no. Mitch had no inclination to make anything of it. He didn’t need more bad news. Why couldn’t he have fallen victim to a runaway attraction for a nice, quiet, retiring woman who wouldn’t be able to guess that the closest he’d come to an erotic experience was reading the Kamasutra ?
    Still, she looked so defensive, so furious, so ready to make a chilly comeback, that he had to reach out and push back the strand of hair that was bouncing down in front of her nose. Gently, he tucked it