Indecent Encounters by Delilah Hunt, Erin O'Riordan, Pepper Anthony, Ashlynn Monroe, Melissa Hosack, Angelina Rain Page B

squared her shoulders and lifted her head, giving him a quivering smile.
    “Thanks for the pep talk,” she said. “I can really use it today.” She ran her hands back through her hair, releasing an invisible cloud of woman-scent that made more crazy things happen in his groin. Mesmerized, he kept his hand on her back, circling gently.
    “So who’s this Alex guy?”
    “He’s my rotten kid brother. He loves to give me a hard time.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    She gave him a sideways look, like she was measuring him in some way. Finally she sighed.
    “The truth? Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m turning forty. Seeing those black roses, it suddenly hit me that I’m officially old now.”
    Sandy gaped. Forty? This soft, sexy woman he’d fantasized about nearly every day for the last five years?
    “No way!”
    She smiled. “You’re sweet. But yeah, I’m gonna be forty.”
    “No way,” he said again. “You having a big party?”
    She crinkled her nose and shook her head. “Nobody but Alex knows. I prefer it that way. Besides, I have drawings I have to finish this weekend for work.”
    He stared down at her for another minute, loving the way the warmth of her back came through the t-shirt and into the palm of his hand. Loving her smell, and the fact that she wasn’t moving away from his touch, a crazy idea popped into his head and he blurted it out.
    “Come with us.”
    “With you?” She drew back.
    “Yeah. To the beach. Lincoln City. We’ll totally help you celebrate. Come with us.”
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    Melanie stared up into the earnest expression of Sandy, her lawn maintenance guy. In the space of three minutes he’d gone from hunky, young enigma to something quite different. Before, there had always been a yawning chasm between them, made up of a mix of factors like age, gender, privilege, and employer/employee relationships. Suddenly, all of that was gone. He’d bridged that chasm entirely with his simple act of compassion.
    And oh how good that felt! As she reached up and wiped away her tears, she was acutely aware of his clean male scent and the broad wall of his chest crowding her shoulder. His big, warm hand continued to caress her back, raising lovely tingles of gooseflesh all over her body. Even her nipples were getting into the act now, tightening into hard little nubs of anticipation.
    Oh. My. God. She drew herself up. How inappropriate!
    Here he was, offering her true friendship and sincere support, and suddenly all Melanie could think about was how much she wanted Sandy’s talented hands on other parts of her body. A long slow blush moved up her chest and warmed her face. She started to move away. He moved against her at the same time, and her arm came in contact with the firm, unmistakable ridge of an erection straining at the fly of his jeans.
    An erection! Wait a minute. Did that mean this big strapping guy was sexually aroused too?
    By her ?
    A thrill streaked through her as she struggled to focus on what he was saying.
    “Well, what do you think? Wanna come?”
    “To Lincoln City?”
    “Sure. We’re gonna make camp right on the beach, sleep in the back of the truck. I’ve got a camper shell that fits down over it. We’ll all be warm and dry.”
    An enthusiastic grin lit up his whole face. Oh how she wished she could be that young and carefree again. To just pick up and go and not worry about anything but where to park a truck. How great would that be?
    And what about that other tantalizing thought that kept playing at the edge of her imagination? How great would it be to have Sandy touching her in all the places no man had touched her in way-too-many-months? The goose bumps fizzled over her again and she let out a long sigh, wishing like anything that the erotic images going through her head were more than a silly fantasy.
    But she wasn’t twenty-five anymore. She had to act like a grownup. She had work to do this weekend. And whatever the cause of that erection, she