“What have you done to your hands?” she asked, her question hitching a little in the middle.
Quade followed the direction of her gaze, down to where his large hands completely overlapped hers on the iron. For a moment he could only think of that, her soft warm hands under his, wrapped firmly around the hard shaft…
“Your hands?” she repeated.
Dragging his mind up out of the gutter, he noticed the raw scratches. He’d forgotten about the thorns. Standing this close, with erotic imagery pumping through his body, he could be excused for not remembering his name.
“I’ve been gardening,” he said shortly.
“I thought you intended doing nothing aggravating.”
“I intended doing whatever I felt like. Today I felt like gardening.”
“Gardening or attacking blackberries with your bare hands?” She drew a breath, then let it go. “Have you put anything on those wounds?”
“Such as?”
“Antiseptic. Salve. Peroxide. I don’t know what you’re supposed to use.” Her voice rose sharply, aggrieved, and when he looked into her eyes he noticed they echoed her distress. Something stirred deep in Quade’s gut, something that wasn’t lust.
Something that scared the bejeebers out of him.
He let her hands go and took a quick step backward. Away. “I guess that means you’re not going to play nurse,” he teased, desperate to lighten the mood.
But the words acquired a sensual weight of their own and hung there between them as her gaze roamed his hands, his forearms, his abdomen. Color rose from her neck to taint her cheeks, and he knew she was thinking about tending his wounds, about touching him in all those places.
This time the heat in Quade’s gut was lust, pure, simple and so intense it held him paralyzed while he imagined the soft hot caress of her hands on his skin.
She lifted her face to look right at him. Standing this close he could see the black rim of her coffee-dark irises, could feel the allure of their rich depths. Eyes a man could sink right into, he thought, if a man wanted to lose himself. There had been times these past months when Quade had wanted to lose himself, badly, but never to another woman whose only passion was career.
“I’m not much good at playing anything,” she said finally, and her voice held a husky edge that stroked every place her roaming gaze had missed. “Nurse, sports, golf.”
Smiling at her wry quip, he took another mental step backward, although his libido lagged behind. “And your golf swing needs a lot more attention than my scratches. Come on, Chantal.” He gestured from the iron in her hands to the golf ball at her feet. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“You want me to just hit it?”
“Yup. Relax and slog it.”
“What about the accuracy you mentioned as crucial? What about caressing the ball?”
Quade lifted a brow. “Who’s been telling you about caressing the ball?”
“Craig.” The admission came slowly, reluctantly. “The local pro.”
“Huh.” So that’s why she was all decked out by Golfers R Us. To impress Craig, the ball-caressing pro. Feeling unaccountably snippy, he watched her go through the same shoulder-rolling attempt at relaxation he’d witnessed earlier. Her white-knuckled grip indicated a distinct lack of success. “Didn’t your Craig mention two hands as one?”
“He’s not my Craig.” Adjusting her grip, she stepped up to the ball. “And I usually get that bit right.”
Quade stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Through the plush warmth of her sweater he felt her tension ratchet up a notch and had to stop himself kneading the tightness. “Just relax, no pressure. We’ll start without the ball. Transfer your weight,” he instructed quietly.
“Like this?”
“Not bad.” With a sense of fatalism riding him hard, he moved close behind her, puffed out a breath. Okay, he could do this. Adjust her hands without allowing his to linger. Guide her arms without wrapping his around her waist. Steady the sway of her hips without drawing them snug into the cradle of his. “Can you feel the difference?”
“All I can feel is you breathing on my neck,” she murmured in that sense-stroking voice.
Quade closed his eyes for a moment. He decided not to tell her he’d been thinking about putting his mouth on her neck, right there on the delicate pale skin behind her ear.
“How was that?” she asked, finishing off her swing.
“Better, but follow right through.”
He kept her at it, correcting, adjusting, suggesting, encouraging. Trying not to admire her determination, trying not to admire anything about her.
“The trick is having your weight in the right spot when you connect with the ball.”
Dark gaze hot with frustration, she swung around to face him. “When do I get to connect with the ball?”
“When you stop lifting your head.”
“Craig said my head position is just fine.”
“Craig was probably too busy watching your ass to pay any attention to your head.”
Outraged, her eyes widened along with her mouth. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. He placed a hand at the back of her neck and directed her head into the correct position.
“Head down, like this, when you strike the ball.” The tension in her neck vibrated into his hand. The heat of her skin hummed into his blood. He moved his palm, just a fraction, massaging gently. “You’re not relaxing.”
With an angry exclamation she swung away from him. “How can I relax with you touching me?”
Holding his hands out, palms up in a conciliatory gesture, he retreated several yards. “Hey, I’m not feeling too relaxed, either, not with that club aimed in my direction.”
She lowered the iron she’d been brandishing like a weapon and sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“You’re right. But before we pack it in, how about you give that swing one last try?”
She looked dubious.
“I’ll stand way over here. No breathing. No instructions.” He gestured toward the ball. “Have at it.”
When she connected with a solid thunk, when it sailed out in an almost straight trajectory, he could see the delight in her face. In her smile. Felt it shining as brightly as the late-afternoon sunshine, reaching out to wrap him in its warmth. What could he do but smile right back?
“There you go,” he said through his smile.
“No need to sound so smug.” She swung the club around in several rapid-fire circles, like a gunslinger after a showdown. “I was hitting an occasional decent one before you happened along.”
“You were woeful.”
“Was not.”
Quade laughed out loud—at her belligerence and because he simply felt like it—and when she closed the distance between them and stood smiling up at him, he felt a powerful urge to capture that delight between his hands, to taste it on his lips. When he felt her gaze focus on his mouth, he knew he’d been staring at the source of his temptation.
That full-lipped, soft-textured, smart-talking mouth.
Sobering instantly, Chantal stared up at him. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he replied with equal gravity.
As