A Seal's Touch. Tawny Weber

about this?” Cat frowned, wishing she could touch her face. It felt normal. She dropped her bottom lip, opened her mouth wide, shifted her chin from side to side. It even moved. “You’re more excited about this than I am.”

      “That’s because I’m seeing the possibilities while you’re talking yourself out of them.”

      “What!” Closing her mouth so fast her teeth snapped together, Cat frowned. A part of her was relieved that she could.

      “You need to spend time with a guy who isn’t intimidated by your strength. You need to have some fun, and by fun I mean with people who don’t use hammers for a living. And most of all,” Ashlynn said as she twisted pieces of Cat’s hair back while leaving the rest loose, “you need sex.”

      “Sex?” Cat would have laughed if she wasn’t afraid Ashlynn might pull her hair out. “You think this date is going to net me some sex?”

      A tiny bead of sweat dotted her upper lip. Cat felt as if a giant elephant was sitting on her chest, squishing out all of the air. The very idea of her and sex and Taylor in the same thought made her dizzy. A good kind of dizzy.

      “Taylor Powell is a hottie and you’ve been crushing on him for years. If you feel like you look good, you’ll be more inclined to act on your crush. You act on it, you might get laid. You get laid, you’ll be able to tell me if all those rumors about Taylor’s sexual prowess are fact or fiction.”

      Cat’s laughter chased away the dizziness. “Gossip?”

      “I live for gossip,” Ashlynn claimed in a breathy voice as she fluffed the hair around Cat’s face. “Besides, I figure if you start having regular sex, you’ll loosen up a little. Once you loosen up, you’ll be ready for changes. You need changes.”

      Cat was silent as she tried to process all of that.

      “I’m not leaving Peres Construction,” she finally said. “And my chances of having sex on this date? Do a snowball and hell have any meaning to you?”

      “Whatever you say.” Ashlynn tossed the brush into the bag with her makeup before gesturing to the mirror. “What do you think?”

      Cat hesitated for a brief second then got to her feet. There was no point pushing. Ashlynn liked to speak her mind, but she never spoke it unless she wanted to. Cat could beat against that wall of stubbornness, but she had a date picking her up in ten minutes. Besides, the argument would be pointless. Cat wasn’t going to leave Peres Construction. And no matter what Ashlynn said, she wouldn’t be having sex with Taylor—except in her favorite dreams.

      “Whoa.” She leaned closer to the mirror, then back, then close again. “I look like me. Me, only...”

      Better?

      “Stronger.”

      Oh. Cat narrowed her eyes. Stronger was good. Her eyes looked sexy, smudged at the corners so they looked bluer. Her lips looked fuller, her cheekbones a little sharper. Instead of the weird curls she’d thought she’d have, her hair was simply full, soft, waving around her face in a dark gold cloud.

      Okay. She wasn’t leaving Peres Construction.

      But maybe she and the snowball would both get lucky.

      * * *

      TENSION THROBBED, LOW and ugly, at the base of Taylor’s neck, the roar of his Harley not doing its usual job of massaging it away.

      He shouldn’t have gone by to check on Mouse. Definitely not while the guy was on duty. That dumb-ass move had only shaken Bertowski; Taylor had seen it on the other man’s face. His own lame-ass worry had put the other man off his stride, had probably done more harm than the damned mission itself. He’d claimed he was just there to invite Mouse to join them at the beach, that they could all use a break. Mouse had brushed him off like a bad habit.

      So Taylor had done the only thing he could. He’d shoved his worries back into their corner of his mind, slammed the door on it and got on with the day.

      He hadn’t lied, though. Nothing said relaxation like a day at the beach. Maybe the sun would relax the stress out of his head better than the bike had worn away at his tension.

      And nothing guaranteed a relaxing day at the beach than an ace in the hole. Taylor pulled into Cat’s driveway, ready to pick up his ace and get the day started. If nothing else, Cat would be one hell of a fun distraction.

      He’d only been here once, back when he’d been corralled into helping Cat move in. But it was easy to see that the carpenter fairy had been working her magic. The cracked driveway had been repaved with a stamped cobblestone design. She hadn’t replaced the overgrowth of dead plants, tree stumps or parched crabgrass that had passed for a yard the last time he was here, but she had cleared them away.

      It was hard to picture Cat here, he thought as he leaned on the doorbell. This was a grown-up place. Whenever he’d thought about Cat over the years, he’d always pictured the skinned-knee kid in cutoff overalls with grease on her chin. She’d been a cute kid. Smart and funny.

      Despite that image, he knew he could count on her. He trusted few in the same way he trusted his team. But he trusted Cat.

      She was that kind of friend.

      Before he could wonder where his friend was, the door swung open.

      “Hi there, Taylor.”

      “Ashlynn?” He smiled once he’d placed her. The bubbly brunette had moved into the house three doors down from his mom’s fourteen, fifteen years back. “How’ve you been?”

      “Doing good but running late. Cat’s almost ready. Why don’t you go on inside?” Ashlynn said, giving him a hug and heading down the sidewalk like a brunette whirlwind.

      Wondering if the woman ever slowed down, Taylor was grinning as he strode into Cat’s place.

      Whoa. Impressed, he looked around. He remembered the place as a hive of small, dark rooms covered in ugly flowered wallpaper and stained carpet.

      She’d opened it up. The walls were pale blue trimmed in glossy white with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the back. The furniture looked Scandinavian with blond wood, sleek curves and narrow lines. Books leaned against each other in the bookcase. A pair of work boots lay under the coffee table and another pair was tucked in the corner, along with a baseball bat and glove. The dining table had the inner workings of what looked like a toaster spread over newspaper and a half dozen rolls of blueprints on top. And, proving that Cat was a smart woman with great taste, a big-screen TV covered one wall.

      He’d never really considered Cat’s decorating style, but he wasn’t surprised to find her taste ran to the simple and bright. As he wandered over to check out the view of the backyard, Cat stepped into the room, her scent, light and fresh, arriving a second ahead of her.

      Taylor turned to say hi but he couldn’t get the word passed the knot in his throat.

      Was that really Cat?

      “Hey, Taylor.”

      It was Cat’s voice, the husky timbre easy and cheerful.

      But the rest?

      A sexy goddess stood in the doorway, hair flowing like molten gold over strong shoulders, framing a face he’d known for years and suddenly didn’t know at all.

      The Cat he knew had blue eyes, yeah. But not sultry eyes framed by lush black lashes.

      The Cat he knew had a wide smile and a cute overbite, but he’d never noticed her full, pouty pink lips before.

      And the Cat he knew might be a woman, but he’d never—not in the twenty years he’d known her—seen her in a dress. If he had ever stretched his imagination far enough to think of her in one—which he hadn’t—he wouldn’t have imagined her in a clinging sundress with a laced-up bodice. As baffling as Cat and sexy was in his head, Cat and laces was even weirder.

      Laces were meant to be unlaced.