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  Darius loved her natural look, the afro hairstyle suited her and highlighted her creamy skin and sparkling black eyes. The erotic thoughts that played in his head as he looked at her would’ve gotten him into so much trouble if someone could read his mind.

  “It’s been a long time,” she replied. Celina licked her lips, then smiled. “So, is your son here?”

  “Son? What are you talking about?” Darius furrowed his eyebrows, showing his confusion. “I don’t have a son. Unless you know something that I don’t know.”

  It was Celina’s turn to be confused. She pushed her hair back from her forehead. “But my father said the young man who lives next door has been taking care of his lawn.”

  Darius smiled, revealing a set of perfect white teeth. “I see Mr. H. still sees me as that bowlegged kid next door.”

  Celina chuckled softly, sending an unexpected shiver down Darius’s spine. He tried not to leer at her, but the woman standing before him didn’t look a thing like the beanpole girl with whom he used to play tag. She was all woman and looked damned good.

  “I must say I’m surprised to see you’re still in Elmore,” Celina said.

  Darius led her to the sofa where he had napped earlier. “You must tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself,” he said, still unable to take his eyes off her. Now he was leering and he didn’t care.

  Darius watched her mouth as she spoke, fixated on her thick lips, wondering if they were as sweet and soft as they looked.

  “Hello,” Celina prodded. “What have you been doing?”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I was in Washington until last year. My parents packed it in and moved to Florida and I needed a change.”

  Celina nodded as she listened. “What were you doing in DC? Politics? Lobbying?”

  “I worked in the attorney general’s office. After nine-eleven, I decided it was time for me to rethink my life.”

  Celina reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder. “I know what you mean,” she said. “That was a scary time in New York. You really had to take stock of what’s important in life.”

  “Is that where you are? New York?”

  Celina shook her head. “That’s what my driver’s license says, but I’m all over the place. Until I found out about my father I was working on a project in Paris.” A painting on the wall above the fireplace caught her eye and she walked over to it. The print was one of hers. “Did you buy this?”

  Darius tore his eyes away from Celina’s round behind and looked at the painting. “Um, it was a gift. I’m not a big art person.”

  “Any idea who the artist is?” She smiled knowingly.

  Darius shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, I’m not into all of that. But I’m guessing you know.”

  Celina smiled and brought her teeth over her bottom lip. “It’s me.”

  For the first time since he hung the picture, Darius looked at it. The painting was an impressionistic painting of a man and a woman embracing in front of a mirror. This was one of Celina’s most famous paintings.

  Darius followed her over to the painting. “Nice,” he said, looking more at the artist than her work. She had the body of a model and curves he wanted to take a ride on.

  “So, how much do I owe you for keeping up the yard next door?”

  “Sign my painting,” he said. “And join me for dinner.”

  Celina looked at Darius and smiled. “Is that it? I mean, you’ve done a lot of work on that lawn.”

  “For now, that’s all I want. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, Ms. Hart.” Darius’s voice was low and deep, catching Celina off guard.

  She turned around and bumped into his hard chest. Instinctively, Darius put his arms around her.

  “Well, I’m going to go. I’ll stop by later with my paintbrush,” she said, as she snaked out of his impromptu embrace.

  Darius smiled and winked at her as she walked out of the house. “Looking forward to it,” he said.

  CHAPTER 3

  As Celina walked into her father’s house, she couldn’t clear her mind of Darius. He oozed masculine sexuality. His skin was the color of Hershey’s chocolate—the dark variety. And that body. He had rippling muscles that reminded her of the statue of David she had admired when she’d been in Italy. When he’d wrapped his arms around her, his strength surprised and excited her, and the thought of it made her body tingle.

  Wait a minute, she thought. You didn’t come here to get busy with the neighbor. Get your hormones under control. Celina walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa. The house was silent, indicating that Thomas was still sleeping. Celina’s aim was to push Darius McRae out of her mind, but that became harder as she daydreamed about feeling his lips against hers.

  A few moments later, Celina busied herself cleaning the living room, hoping it would erase her carnal thoughts of Darius, but she found herself gazing out the front window, looking over at his house, wondering what was going on inside.

  The sound of Thomas’s hacking cough returned her to reality as she rushed into his bedroom to see if he was all right. “Daddy,” she said from the doorway. “Do you need some water or anything?”

  Looking around the room, she saw that it needed a cleaning as well. With all the clothes on the floor, it was hard to tell what was clean or what was soiled. She wondered if his washing machine and dryer still worked.

  “Baby girl, I’m fine,” he replied through his coughs.

  Celina crossed over to the bed and sat beside him. “If you were fine, you wouldn’t have summoned me here,” she said. “Daddy, I’m going to take care of you and you’re not going to fight me on it.”

  Thomas smiled weakly as if he knew that he’d lose a fight with her if he tried.

  “And,” Celina continued, “if you need something, I’m here for you.”

  “Like I should have been when you were growing up. I’ve let you down and I know it’s too late to make it up to you.”

  Celina looked longingly at her father. Part of her believed he was right, it was too late for her to be daddy’s little girl. He had disappointed her in the worst way and taken away the security of a protective father that other little girls had. Sure, John had been there, but he wasn’t her real father. That wound hadn’t healed, but Celina told Thomas that it was okay. She was, after all, twentyeight years old and didn’t need Thomas to take her to the father-daughter spring dance. He needed her and she was going to be there for him, no matter what. Celina touched his forehead, checking for a fever. Thomas closed his eyes.

  “I’m going to call your doctor and see what I should be cooking for you and when we can get an appointment in Columbia.”

  Thomas nodded. “I have medicine, but it makes me so tired. That’s why the house is in the state it’s in.”

  Celina stood up. “I’m going to fix all of that. I’ll have this place looking good in no time. Do you want some more soup or anything to drink?”

  “No,” he said, and then drifted off to sleep.

  Celina crept out of the room, heading for the kitchen to finish cleaning it. The knock at the door startled her as she began to mop the floor. “One minute,” she said as she dropped the wooden mop on the floor. Opening the door, she was surprised to see Darius on the other side.

  He was dressed in a blue and white vest and a pair of khaki pants that hugged his narrow hips and made Celina wonder if he preferred boxers or briefs. Her lusty thoughts shocked her because, after three years of celibacy, she didn’t think that she had the desire to have sex. The last man to touch her was Terrick, the night before she ended their engagement, and it was less than a night of passion, making her vow even easier.

  “Hi,” she said breathlessly.

  “I know you’re probably busy with your father, but I’m grilling out tonight and I wondered if you wanted to join me.”

  “Why not?” she said. Celina, who usually turned down dates as if she’d been offered drugs, was genuinely looking forward to dining with Darius.
r />   “Great. I have some steaks, chicken, and sweet corn on the cob.”

  Celina drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t eat meat, not even chicken.”

  Darius’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You went to New York and got all Yankeefied. You don’t eat meat? If I remember, when we were growing up, you were the hamburger queen.”

  Celina rolled her slanted eyes and placed her hands on her hips. “For your information, I stopped eating meat before I moved to New York and I’m very proud of my southern roots, thank you very much. But that doesn’t mean I have to eat artery-clogging meat.”

  “Calm down, CC, I was just joking with you,” he said, waving his hands as if he were giving signals for a plane to land. A slow smile spread across his face, making Celina’s heart race into overdrive.

  “As was I,” she found the voice to say. It was hard to concentrate on anything he was saying because all she could think about was tasting his kiss.

  “I know how you transplants can be,” he said. “So, tonight, around seven. I have to go back to work. With the big festival coming up, we’ve been busy.”

  Celina contained her giddy excitement, wondering how the moonlight would look bouncing off his cocoa brown eyes and creamy, dark skin. Then her mind wandered to tasting his honeysuckle lips in that same moonlight. Celina looked away from him quickly as the vision of his lips grazing hers blossomed in her mind. Darius bid her farewell and Celina returned to the task of cleaning the kitchen, all the while fantasizing about being alone with Darius in the moonlight.

  On the drive to the hardware store, all Darius could think about was Celina. She must have been a milk drinker because it did her body well. If he had his way, they could skip dinner and feast on each other. He wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight, but he damn sure believed in lust at first sight.

  In short, he wanted her in his bed and sooner rather than later. Darius had given up on relationships that came with strings attached. The only strings he wanted to deal with were g-strings that were easily removed. Just thinking about Celina strutting around in a thong caused a tightening in his groin.

  Celina aroused the most sexual part of him with her flirty smile and her intoxicating scent. She smelled like summertime, fresh flowers and sunshine with a smile as bright as the North Star. Darius wanted to bury his face in her cotton-soft hair and fill his nostrils with her fragrance until he was dizzy with desire.

  He didn’t have to worry about Celina putting pressure on him to make a commitment like so many other women he’d dealt with in Elmore because she had a life in New York.

  Darius had a plan, and it involved Celina naked in his bed. She’d changed—grown up and grown sexy—and he knew he had to get next to her. Darius smiled as he walked to his car to head to work.

  “Hey, boss,” Richard called out when he spotted Darius entering the hardware store. “It has been jumping in here since you left. You’d think the governor was judging the competition this year.”

  Darius glanced at the crowd and nodded. “And this is calm?”

  Richard shook his head and smiled. “At least we can pay the bills in full this month.”

  Darius nodded, then headed back to the office to check the day’s receipts on his state-of-the-art computer system. The only thing Darius had changed about the way the store was run were the cash registers and the bookkeeping system. Everything was linked to the central computer in his office. With a few strokes of the keys, he was able to see how much his headache was worth. Darius smiled as he saw the bottom line.

  Work quickly left Darius’s mind and was replaced with visions of Celina kissing him while the embers from the charcoal grill burned out. His fantasy was so real that he could smell her, feel her touch on his cheek. He didn’t notice the woman who walked into his office.

  “I hope that smile is because you’re thinking about me,” came a woman’s husky whisper.

  Darius looked up and his smile was replaced with a scowl. “Tiffany, why are you here?”

  “Because you don’t return phone calls and you’re always buried in this office,” she said as she crossed over to the desk and hopped onto the edge of it. Tiffany crossed her long legs and faced Darius. Despite her beauty, this was one woman that he could do without. But it wasn’t his fault that she’d been hanging around trying to make him her husband—a role that he didn’t want. He’d told her that on several occasions, but Tiffany wasn’t going to give up on having Darius or his bank account in her life, no matter how much he protested.

  “As you can see,” he said as he stood up and walked away from her, “I’m busy. The store is full and that is the only reason you were able to sneak back here.”

  She smiled brazenly and ran her hand down her ample chest. “You act as if this is the first time I’ve been back here.” Tiffany hopped off the desk and closed the space between her and Darius. “Why are you fighting this? We fit. We belong together.”

  On paper, Tiffany Martin and Darius were a good match. She’d owned a fashion boutique three blocks up from the hardware store and seemed to have goals of her own. They’d met at a meeting of the Elmore business association shortly after Darius had taken over the store. Tiffany had asked Darius out for a drink after the meeting and he’d agreed—a decision he’d live to regret. Darius had hoped Tiffany was different from the other women he’d dated since he’d returned to South Carolina. He’d thought that, since she’d owned her own business, she was looking for more in a man than the size of his bank account, but he was wrong.

  It hadn’t taken long for Tiffany to show her true colors and Darius didn’t like the picture. She’d started focusing more on his finances than anything else. That’s when Darius vowed to make sure his relationships with women didn’t extend past the bedroom. He didn’t believe in dates. Just sex.

  “Earth to Darius,” she said, catching his thoughtful gaze.

  “What?”

  “Dinner, tonight? My place?”

  He shook his head furiously. “No way. I have plans. And Tiffany, I’d appreciate it if you would leave and never come back.”

  Shock and disbelief distorted her comely face. “What?” She pushed her hair behind her ears.

  “Did I stutter? You and I don’t fit. You’re not the kind of woman I want in my life and if you come in here again, I will have you arrested.”

  Tiffany searched Darius’s face for signs of laughter, but his expression remained stoic. “You’re serious? But I thought we were trying to build something.”

  Darius didn’t respond, but instead reached for the door and held it open for Tiffany to leave.

  She stomped hotly out of the office and glared at him. “You know what, Darius, you’re going to rue the day you tried to play me.”

  Darius shrugged her comment off as an idle threat from a scorned woman. He ushered Tiffany out and let his thoughts return to his seduction of Celina.

  CHAPTER 4

  Celina looked around the kitchen as she washed her father’s lunch dishes, satisfied that it no longer looked like the trash heap that she’d walked into hours ago. The floors sparkled, the counters shined, and the carpet looked decent. Everything reminded her of how things used to be when she was a child. Quietly, she walked down the hall to check on her father. He was resting peacefully. She’d awaken him a few hours early to make him eat a light dinner of chicken soup and half of a pimento cheese sandwich. Thomas smiled at his daughter as she filled his bowl and cut the bread for him.

  “Thank God for you,” he whispered when she set the food in front of him at the table. Celina didn’t reply, just smiled at her father.

  “Your mother raised you right. I know I should have done more. I’ll always regret that.”

  “Daddy, please,” Celina said in an exasperated voice. “Nothing can be done to erase or change the past.” Secretly, she wished that he could.

  Thomas nodded and ate in silence. Celina hoped she hadn’t sounded too harsh, but she couldn’t listen to him talk about a
childhood that didn’t include him. After he’d finished his dinner, Thomas went into his bedroom to watch an old western movie, leaving Celina alone with her thoughts of what could’ve been. What if her parents had stayed together? Maybe Thomas wouldn’t be sick. “You’re thinking like a child,” she muttered as she washed the dinner dishes.

  Celina looked out of the window over the kitchen sink while drying a bowl and spotted Darius in his backyard preparing the grill. He had changed out of his work clothes and wore a pair of well-worn jeans that hugged his slim hips. The pants dipped down and showed the top of his silk boxers, kind of like Usher Raymond. A white tank top covered his chest. Celina wondered if his body was as hard as it looked from afar. She sucked in her bottom lip as she watched him pour charcoal into the Weber grill, biceps bulging. When he wiped his brow with the back of his hand in a fluid motion, she nearly dropped the soup bowl. Despite her near accident, Celina couldn’t take her eyes off Darius. She wanted to capture him on canvas so that she could have something to remember him by when she returned to New York, if she decided to leave.

  The thought of staying in Elmore with Darius startled her because she’d never wanted to settle down before. Terrick hadn’t induced these types of thoughts in her. She’d spent her adult life purposely sabotaging relationships and here she was ready to settle down in her hometown where the most she would paint would be landscapes of azalea bushes. No, Celina couldn’t dare let a few moments of lust change everything she worked so hard for. Besides, Paris was waiting. If anything, she and Darius would have a brief fling, no strings, no emotional entanglements, and no one would get hurt.

  Celina sighed and turned away from the window, trying to shake the thoughts of Darius out of her mind, but she couldn’t. He invaded her mind like a thief in the night and it didn’t take long for her to start staring out of the window again, watching his every move. What am I doing? I’m not going to be here long enough to start anything with this man, she thought, then headed down the hall to check on Thomas. He looked so small lying in his bed, nothing like the father she remembered.