Switch Me On. Jule McBride

them working on small, intricate things. Boats in bottles. Keyboards. Female parts that usually stayed hidden in folds of flesh. Not that she wanted to know more about him, she told herself. She’d spent years laying the groundwork for the moves she was making this month, and she wasn’t going to risk some man turning her head. She hated to admit it, but men did have incredible power over her. Could she help it if she was female?

      She wished hands weren’t her weak spot. He had awesome hands. Robby had been right about her in that regard. Now the guy was rubbing the sexy hands together in a way that sent a warm thrill through her. Everything in the dim bar became a lumen brighter, the edges around objects sharper. Yes, this guy was definitely tactile. He untwined his fingers, then pressed his palms together again. Using the thumb of one hand, he massaged the webbed area between a thumb and index finger. Nicely trimmed nails, but not too fussy. She hated obvious manicures.

      Because she’d been studying the hands intently, she missed something he said. Before she could ask him to repeat it, jukebox music tidal-waved over them, and a finger circled his ear to indicate he could no longer hear. Bending, he leaned closer, probably to ask if she’d like to dance, but before he could, something took hold of her, either hormones or instincts or alcohol, and she shot him a game grin and simply yelled, “Yes!” For a second, he had made her want to say yes to anything.

      “That’s a record,” he yelled.

      As his hips and shoulders rocked to house music, she decided there was something really edgy about this guy. Easily, he could have seemed too geeky, but he was oh so not. Like how he was still wearing a suit this late on a Saturday night, and hadn’t bothered to undo the tie. Most guys would have loosened the knot, at least. Instead of looking out of place, he seemed like he didn’t care what he wore or what anybody thought of him, and she envied him that.

      “A record?”

      Not breaking dance stride, he brushed back his sleeve, practically forcing her eyes to follow his index finger as he swiped it across the watch. It was as if he’d sensed her attraction to his hands and kept them moving on purpose. Like the suit, the watch looked expensive but utilitarian. She couldn’t decide if everything he wore was custom, or if a female did his shopping, or if he hated shopping but was so hot that he’d look awesome in anything. Tilting his head, he angled it until he’d positioned his eyes in her line of vision again, so she wasn’t staring at his expansive chest.

      “Sometimes it takes me a full ten minutes to get the girl to say yes,” he yelled. “Usually she tries to find out what she’s agreeing to.”

      “Bet you’ve made better time than ten minutes.” He was pretty slick. As he smiled yes, the crowd got hit by something electric and pulsed, pushing her into his arms. Unprepared for the jolt that hit her when his hands settled on her waist, she felt it zip through her, positively electric. All the fabric between her skin and his fingers seemed to vanish. A fireball shattered near her solar plexus, exploding and sending darts of pleasure to all her extremities. For the space of a heartbeat, everything seemed suspended. She could swear those hands were strumming her sides, causing the ripples of vibration, and all at once, she felt really drunk, as if she was staggering, not dancing.

      “You can tell me your name,” he yelled.

      No way, she thought, urging Hot Hands under the glitter ball to get a better look at him before they went one dance step further. Another sizzling jolt of heat pulsed through her veins, this one higher voltage, leaving her nerves jangling. He had more sculpted facial bones than she’d realized. Knitted eyebrows as dark as his hair made him look totally unnerdy, way more calculating. The splash of blue in his gray eyes was more visible now. Whoa! Another fuse ignited, and a line of fire raced through her veins and ended at her heart, making it stutter.

      Not that she could afford any entanglements. In twenty-one days, she’d be out of Blackwater Inlet. Nothing was going to change that, especially not some sexy stranger dragging her toward the steamiest, darkest abyss at the edge of the dance floor and yelling, “Let’s get sweaty, baby.” She wasn’t sure how many songs played before he’d pulled her under the light again, both of them panting hard, but by then, perspiration was coating every inch of her skin, tickling all the crevices.

      He yelled, “Do you have a name?”

      He was still fishing. When she caught a whiff of Boondocks’ most expensive scotch mixed with testosterone and mint, the grain alcohol of the male cocktail, she knew she’d better avoid this guy the way an alcoholic avoided a drink. He’d said, the girl usually says yes in ten minutes.

      “The Girl will do.”

      “What will she do?”

      “Remains to be seen,” she yelled. “And that’s annoying.”

      “Summing people up by their function?”

      Her mother, Mom Mad, short for Mommy Madden, did it all the time. She nodded. The man’s hands were on her waist again. She could feel the itch in the fingers, which were trailing where her hips flared. Drums sounded and she danced away, writhing to the beat, but then some yahoo slammed the guy. For that instant, the whole world was reduced to jumbled impressions. His thigh muscles rippling beneath his slacks; her cheek bouncing off a rock hard chest.

      She should have known the culprit would be Hunter MacKenzie. He probably thought he was helping her out by pushing her into a man’s arms. Hunter Mac still had a warm spot for her, although they’d only kissed a few times in high school, and his Unwelcome Incident had been one of the first. She’d been a bridesmaid.

      The stranger was still trying to steady her. From cheek to toe, they touched all the way down, her breasts cushioned against a chest carved out of granite. She shut her eyes in bliss, feeling all those straining, bulging muscles. It wasn’t overkill, either, like with body builders, just nicely honed. And there was so much tension inside him that when she looked up, into his gray-blue steelies, she felt woozy. Maybe she even tripped. She wasn’t sure. His grip tightened and she suddenly wondered exactly how much she’d had to drink.

      “You okay?”

      No! She was jittery all over! He did the unique, lean-dippy thing he’d evolved due to his height, not stopping until his eyes found hers like laser beams. Chalk one up to Darwin.

      He mouthed, “I’m sorry!”

      “It was Hunter MacKenzie’s fault!” she yelled. She was going to kill him for that stupid body-slam.

      The guy looked frustrated. “I don’t think I can call you The Girl.”

      “Sure you can. You’re The Boy.”

      He smiled. “I can keep that straight.”

      Whoa. He was looking at her with frank sexual interest. It was sort of a relief. She did do the physical part of relationships really well. Kissing, anyway. She’d had sex, too. Not tons, but enough. It was okay, just never the fireworks she’d hoped. No big explosions, and she hated the predictable letdown. In a second she’d feel...yes, there it was. A tug of longing that said this guy would be different, followed by a rush of warmth. The feeling was like a sweet promise that always turned out to be The Big Lie. Not that she was inorgasmic or anything, but sex was supposed to be at least as interesting as a vibrator, right?

      Tonight, she wasn’t going to unwrap the package. She’d enjoy the pretty paper, bow, and greeting card, but she wasn’t sticking around to watch another late-night rerun of her floundering love life, season umpteen. Lifting his wrist to show him his watch, she decided to tell him his time was up, and make some joke about his ten-minute track record—they’d been dancing way more than ten minutes—but when her finger grazed his wrist, she felt his pulse leap. Heat flared like fire on a match. She guessed all the sweaty dances had worked their mojo. The heady elixir of man-sweat had taken his scotch, testosterone and mint cocktail to a whole new level, too. Give me the garnish! Kick it up a notch!

      She was reminded of old advertisements she’d spent hours studying—the Marlboro Man, Old Spice and Irish Spring. He was all of them rolled into one. His hand turned deftly in hers, and as his wrist moved, she figured