Abby adjusted the fire under the potatoes and followed the men as they trooped outside. She studied them surreptitiously as they settled companionably in the chairs ranged around the grill, content just to listen to them talking among themselves while she examined the earlier thought.
It had been damned near two years, she realized with a touch of surprise, since she'd enjoyed any kind of intimacy at all and she'd done her utmost to put her last relationship from her mind. If she discounted that, at least two years.
In all honesty, though, she didn't think she could put the attraction down to the drought. Seth was pure eye candy.
She shrugged that off. There was a lot more to him than that—a lot—but still, eye candy, like she wasn't used to seeing, sheer male beauty personified. Cameron, his complete opposite in coloring, was just as classically handsome—they both were—classically handsome, possessed of almost what she wanted to call aristocratic features, but the appeal they exuded went way beyond skin deep, well beyond features so perfectly formed they almost didn't seem natural. She had the feeling that they would've been just as attractive to the female of the species if they hadn't been half as handsome as they were. It wasn't anything she could put her finger on, but she felt it so strongly that it had pierced the cocoon of self-absorption and terror that had insulated her from everything and everyone for so long that she hardly knew how to interact with people any more.
Adrian and Jerico had it, too—the animal magnetism that kept her buzzing whenever she was near them even though she was hardly aware of it, or at least hadn't been at first. They were more ‘boy next door’ good looking. Actually, she supposed with wry amusement, more like ‘boy from the wrong side of the tracks’ good looking. Even though Jerico was almost as fair as Cameron, he still managed to exude the dark and dangerous appeal women tended to feel when they were with the ‘love and leave ‘em’ type they absolutely couldn't resist trying to capture, even knowing the chances were that the man was just going to make them miserable.
She shouldn't have felt the least bit comfortable around them. Truthfully, on many levels, she actually wasn't. On a purely primal, chemical level, just being around them was enough to keep her body on slow simmer, the sort readiness that left her wide open for any seduction they might take it into their heads to try. One kiss, she suspected, and she would be putty in their hands.
Hell, Seth hadn't even kissed her and she'd been putty in his hands!
Intellectually, she also wasn't comfortable. For all she knew the four of them were as bad, or worse, than Mikhail. She didn't think they were, but she was savvy enough to realize that she just didn't want to, that she'd already been seduced by their potent sexuality into wanting to ignore any warnings her reasoning mind threw out.
Seth being a cop didn't preclude that assessment, unfortunately. There were just as many, or maybe more, corrupt men that used the law to their advantage as there were honest ones.
And even if he was true blue, the fanatical cops were almost as bad as the criminals, willing to use any low down trick to ‘get their man.'
It bothered her that they seemed to know each other so well. In all fairness, she realized she'd jumped to the conclusion that they didn't when she'd discovered Cameron, Adrian, and Jerico were only visiting, but they certainly hadn't made any attempt to disabuse her of the notion.
She didn't know that they knew each other, for that matter, but it seemed to her that their behavior suggested a longstanding connection.
Maybe that even explained the seemingly impossible circumstance of happening upon four such dangerously attractive men, together, at the same time, when she might go years without meeting even one that held a candle to any of them. Birds of a feather?
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It had been damned near two years, she realized with a touch of surprise, since she'd enjoyed any kind of intimacy at all and she'd done her utmost to put her last relationship from her mind. If she discounted that, at least two years.
In all honesty, though, she didn't think she could put the attraction down to the drought. Seth was pure eye candy.
She shrugged that off. There was a lot more to him than that—a lot—but still, eye candy, like she wasn't used to seeing, sheer male beauty personified. Cameron, his complete opposite in coloring, was just as classically handsome—they both were—classically handsome, possessed of almost what she wanted to call aristocratic features, but the appeal they exuded went way beyond skin deep, well beyond features so perfectly formed they almost didn't seem natural. She had the feeling that they would've been just as attractive to the female of the species if they hadn't been half as handsome as they were. It wasn't anything she could put her finger on, but she felt it so strongly that it had pierced the cocoon of self-absorption and terror that had insulated her from everything and everyone for so long that she hardly knew how to interact with people any more.
Adrian and Jerico had it, too—the animal magnetism that kept her buzzing whenever she was near them even though she was hardly aware of it, or at least hadn't been at first. They were more ‘boy next door’ good looking. Actually, she supposed with wry amusement, more like ‘boy from the wrong side of the tracks’ good looking. Even though Jerico was almost as fair as Cameron, he still managed to exude the dark and dangerous appeal women tended to feel when they were with the ‘love and leave ‘em’ type they absolutely couldn't resist trying to capture, even knowing the chances were that the man was just going to make them miserable.
She shouldn't have felt the least bit comfortable around them. Truthfully, on many levels, she actually wasn't. On a purely primal, chemical level, just being around them was enough to keep her body on slow simmer, the sort readiness that left her wide open for any seduction they might take it into their heads to try. One kiss, she suspected, and she would be putty in their hands.
Hell, Seth hadn't even kissed her and she'd been putty in his hands!
Intellectually, she also wasn't comfortable. For all she knew the four of them were as bad, or worse, than Mikhail. She didn't think they were, but she was savvy enough to realize that she just didn't want to, that she'd already been seduced by their potent sexuality into wanting to ignore any warnings her reasoning mind threw out.
Seth being a cop didn't preclude that assessment, unfortunately. There were just as many, or maybe more, corrupt men that used the law to their advantage as there were honest ones.
And even if he was true blue, the fanatical cops were almost as bad as the criminals, willing to use any low down trick to ‘get their man.'
It bothered her that they seemed to know each other so well. In all fairness, she realized she'd jumped to the conclusion that they didn't when she'd discovered Cameron, Adrian, and Jerico were only visiting, but they certainly hadn't made any attempt to disabuse her of the notion.
She didn't know that they knew each other, for that matter, but it seemed to her that their behavior suggested a longstanding connection.
Maybe that even explained the seemingly impossible circumstance of happening upon four such dangerously attractive men, together, at the same time, when she might go years without meeting even one that held a candle to any of them. Birds of a feather?
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter
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