AddingHeat

Adding Heat

Cris Anson

A story in the Cougar Challenge series.

Encouraged by friends she met at RomantiCon, widowed
landscape contractor Giselle Sheridan decides she’s finally ready to take the
cougar challenge and explore sex with a younger man. Except she’s too busy
during planting season to go on the prowl.

CPA Conlan Trowbridge is battling the IRS deadline for his
clients, but when Giselle saunters into his office with a tax question, all he
can think of is sex. She’s all luscious curves and smoldering brown eyes, and
he doesn’t care if she’s a dozen years older, she’s a wet dream come true.

Oh yeah, they’re both ready for some hot and heavy sex—in
the tub, parking lots, their offices—anywhere and everywhere. But Giselle is
afraid her age will eventually bother Con, and her longtime foreman also has
designs on her, in more ways than one. When Giselle faces some hard decisions,
will she ultimately be able to keep the heat?

Chapter One

Tempt the Cougar Blog

From Giselle: Sure, I’d like to challenge myself to be a
cougar. But damn, I’m torn. I have a dozen young men on payroll. It would feel
like raiding a high-school basketball game when my boys were playing. I try to
stay away from the jobs because I don’t want my foreman to think I’m
second-guessing him, but I do so love to watch them wrestling balled and
burlaped trees into holes they’ve been digging. Especially in mid-summer, when
they take off their T-shirts because they’re so hot and sweaty, watching those
muscles bunch and strain, well, it’s enough to make me want to go for it.

I can just see the next ad I place in the paper:
“Landscaper with twenty years’ experience looking for hard-bodied men not
afraid to sweat or expend energy. Must be between 25 and 35.”

But suppose I do find someone way younger? What would my
employees think? That I’m robbing the cradle? That I’m fair game? Eeek! They’ll
send the State Police after me.

Giselle Sheridan took a deep breath and posted her note. She
was now an official member of the cougar challenge, a group of women who’d met
at an erotic romance conference and decided to spice up their lives by having
affairs with younger men. But she would only access the blog on the laptop in
her bedroom, not on the two computers in the office downstairs that the foreman
had access to. It would be a disaster for any of her employees to see the horny
side of her. As a woman who’d taken over running her husband’s landscape
business, she had a whip-cracking rep to maintain.

Felix wouldn’t have wanted her to be alone the rest of her
life, but she just didn’t have the time to go cruising in bars. And lord knows,
after nineteen years of marriage and four years of widowhood, she hadn’t a clue
as to how the dating scene worked these days.

With a small sigh, she scrolled down the Tempt the Cougar
blog to ogle the photos her fellow cougars had posted, both of hunks they’d
found on the net as well as their own younger men. One of these days she’d be
posting her success too. That was a promise she’d made to herself.

Before logging off to start her workday, she checked for
responses. Her heart leaped. Here was encouragement. Here was reinforcement.
Here was the kick in the butt she needed to go out and DO it.

From Cam: Giselle, honey, it's not like you're breaking
into people's houses and stealing their teenage boys! If they're twenty-five,
they're legal. And hey, your employees are employees. They work, you pay, end
of story. Don't live your life based on what other people might think. March to
the beat of your own drummer - wait, let me rephrase - dance to the beat :) And
if you find a hard-body who wants to do a horizontal mambo…well, shake it
girl!!

From Autumn: Remember what we talked about? Younger is
better. Just look at Mitch and me and you’ll know what I mean. And don’t let
your employees stop you from grabbing onto life. Hey, I wondered the same
things about the hands at the ranch here, and you know what? They all ENVY
Mitch and think I’m hot, hot, hot. So go for it, girl.

From Elizabeth: You're talking yourself out of it before
you even give it a chance! No "what if's" allowed! What you're
looking for here is, "so be it."

p.s. If you do place that ad, you might want to specify
that you're a
female
landscaper.

From Grace: Don't make the same mistake I almost made and
let an opportunity slip by. Go for it!

With a lighter heart, Giselle shut the computer and trotted
downstairs and out the door to greet the day and the job. A few minutes later,
in her well-worn jeans tucked inside calf-high workboots, she hoisted herself
easily onto the back end of the stake-body truck, eyeballing the flora and
equipment the team had loaded. “Did you get everything?”

“Yep, don’t worry, Moms, I checked every shrub against the
list as it was loaded.”

Another quick scan and she jumped off to land lightly on the
balls of her feet. She gave the laborer a playful whack on the shoulder with
her clipboard. “I’m not your mom. Your mom doesn’t ogle all your muscles the
way I do.”

The two other young men chuckled, posing and flexing their
biceps in between last-minute checks of their tools.

“You guys better get going. You’ve got a lot of planting to
do today.” Larry Pulaski, Stonehedge Landscapes’ foreman, came up alongside
her. Felix started the business shortly after they were married and Larry was
his first employee. If it weren’t for him, she might not have been able to keep
the business going after Felix died. She loved the man like a brother, but he
sounded like a growly bear today.

“Everybody got their water jugs? We don’t want any workers’
comp claims from fainting.” Giselle winked as she peered inside the driver’s
window at the crew who had clambered inside. It was the last of the four jobs
she was sending out today.

“We’re good to go,” the driver responded.

“Work safe and make us a profit.” She gave the door a slap
of her palm and stood in the staging area, watching through the dust as the
two-ton truck left the yard. One of these days she’d have to find the money to
asphalt that long driveway.

“You know, ’Zelle, you gotta be firmer with your employees.
They need to respect you.”

Giselle smiled at Larry’s protective attitude. “They respect
their paychecks. And I think it makes for a smoother workday when everyone can
banter and have fun while they work.”

“Yeah, well, have you ever thought that one of them could
sue you for sexual harassment?”

Giselle stopped in the act of turning back toward the house
and all the paperwork. “You’re kidding, right? I can’t believe any one of them
would—”

“Just don’t lead ’em on is all I’m saying.”

“Larry, I’ve never had any intention—”

“You’re no spring chicken, you know. You should act your
age.”

Giselle bit her tongue against a nasty retort. Larry and
Felix had been in high school together, so she knew for a fact that he was
around fifty, half a dozen years older than she was. Damn, but his attitude was
reinforcing the call of her cougar group, if only to prove to Larry that she
could still make it.

“What you need is a man. Someone who’ll take care of you.”

That stopped her short. She plunked her fisted hands on her
hips. “Larry, take a look around the nursery, at the equipment. Remember all
the jobs I designed and costed out and executed. I’ve kept this place running
for four years.”

“I didn’t mean you can’t handle the business, ’Zelle. I
mean…” He wouldn’t meet her stern gaze. “I mean, don’t you ever hanker to have
a man in your personal life? Someone who thinks the world of you? Someone who
wants to take care of you?”

Whoa. Where was this coming from?
Giselle was stunned
into speechlessness.

He stepped closer, raising his arms to grasp her shoulders.
In his dark brown eyes she saw something she’d never seen there
before—yearning. “Let me show you what you’ve been missing.” He pulled her into
a clumsy embrace and dipped his head.

When his lips met hers, she dropped the clipboard and
clutched at the beefy arms holding her immobile. No other part of their bodies
touched, but suddenly an overwhelming desire swept through Giselle. She closed
her eyes and, without considering the consequences, gave herself over to the
feeling of a man’s kiss, a man’s touch. For the first time she realized how big
Larry was, how
male
.

The phone vibrating at her hip distracted her. And not a
moment too soon. This new side of Larry—of herself—had shaken her to her core.
Surely it was just the morning’s cougar blogs that had allowed her façade to
slip and remind her of what it could be like to have a man in her life, in her
bed again.

With shaking fingers she whipped out the phone. “Stonehedge
Landscapes, can we make your life greener?”

“Oh, thank heaven I’ve got you.”

“Aunt Esme, what’s up? You sound harried.”

“I need you to drive me to the Senior Citizens’ Center right
away.”

Giselle tamped down her annoyance at her aunt’s peremptory
tone. “Why? What’s happening?”

“There’s this nice young man, the son of Maurice’s golf
partner, he’s a CPA, you know, and he donates his time to help older folks get
their income taxes done.”

“That’s nice of him. And?”

There was a dramatic pause. Aunt Esme liked to be dramatic.
“Well, it
is
April eighth.”

The light dawned. “Oh no, don’t tell me you’ve just started
thinking about filing your tax return!”

“Well, I used to use Con Senior, but he’s retired, and he
used to call to remind me. I just found this notice in the pile of junk mail I
finally got around to sorting that Con Junior—he’s single, by the way—does this
free thingie on Thursdays in March and April, and I looked at the calendar and
realized that this is the last Thursday before taxes are due. And I had to
start withdrawing from my IRA last year and I’m not quite sure how to handle
it, so…”

Giselle sighed and turned toward the house for her car keys.
“Okay, I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. Make sure you have all your paperwork.
And be ready!”

She disconnected, grateful for a reason to postpone the
discussion she had to have with Larry, and soon. This time she couldn’t meet
his eyes. How could she have allowed herself to mix business with pleasure?
What would this do to their working relationship? She called over her shoulder
as she strode to the house, forcing a lighthearted yet authoritative tone to
her voice. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Aunt Esme needs taxi service again.
I’ll run the payroll after I get back. You’ll finish gathering the specs for
the Gower job today, right?”

“Yeah. But that old bat oughta program her phone to dial a
cab company.”

Secretly agreeing with him, she nonetheless felt compelled
to come to her aunt’s defense. Esme was the last of her parents’ generation.
“It’s been weeks since I’ve seen her. Maybe I’ll take her to lunch after.”

Or maybe Junior would be interesting. Anything to get her
mind off Larry’s kiss and her fervent response to it. She resolutely avoided
looking at him as she drove away, leaving him standing in the dust.

She racked her brain as she drove to Esme’s tidy Cape Cod on
a quiet street a couple of miles from her own place. Yes, she thought she
remembered meeting Uncle Maurice’s golf partner—Conlan, that was his name—at
Maurice’s funeral. Nice-looking man, ramrod straight as though he’d been in the
Navy, hazel eyes, nice smile. Maybe taking Aunt Esme to see Con Junior wouldn’t
be a total chore.

But just in case, she had the latest erotic romance by
Desiree Holt in her satchel.

* * * * *

Conlan Trowbridge, Jr. almost dropped his pencil when he saw
the woman who accompanied his father’s friend, Esme Archer, to his makeshift
office in the Senior Citizens’ Center. Mesmerizing dark eyes shining with
intelligent curiosity. Dark brown hair scraped back into a ponytail that
couldn’t hold back a bunch of curlicues framing a perfectly oval face. Snug
white T-shirt with grass-green lettering that he couldn’t quite make out under
an unbuttoned aviator jacket in faded denim.

And oh my, snug jeans outlining a pair of rounded hips and
thighs he instantly wanted to press against. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Kim
Kardashian in one glorious package, alive and voluptuous and striding
no-nonsense up to his desk. It took all his willpower to focus on his manners
and force his eyes to his appointment.

“Mrs. Archer.” He finally got his legs to heave him upright.
“So nice to see you again.”

“You get better looking every day,” she said. “This here’s
my niece. She was good enough to drive me here. I can’t legally drive, you
know. I have a cataract in my left eye. But,” she said as she sat down regally
in the chair next to his desk, “I can still see enough to know if you’re
cheating me.”

Con let out a bark of laughter. “I wouldn’t dare, Mrs.
Archer. Maurice’s ghost would haunt me the rest of my life.”

He couldn’t let this opportunity pass. Subtly drawing a
fortifying dose of air into his lungs, he thrust his hand across the desk to
the beauty who stood inspecting him as though she was the accounting board
director and he’d just embezzled a trust fund. “Conlon Trowbridge. My friends call
me Con.”

As she accepted his handshake, her twinkling gaze grabbed
his and wouldn’t let go. He noted tiny lines around her eyes when she gifted
him with a smile that weakened his hard-won upright stance. “Giselle Sheridan.
I’ll haunt you, too, if you cheat my Aunt Esme.”

You could haunt me any time, he wanted to say. You
will
haunt me.

“Um, I’ll just sit…” She looked around and he finally
realized he was still gripping her hand. He let it go as if fire had shot into
his palm.

And maybe it had. He wanted to get to know Giselle Sheridan.
Intimately. Thank God for Aunt Esme and her income taxes.

* * * * *

“Well, that about does it.”

Giselle’s mind snapped back to the desk where Conlan
Trowbridge was huddled with Aunt Esme. She’d been thinking he was maybe a hair
older than her employees, so if he was over thirty, she wouldn’t be robbing the
cradle, would she? And if she kept him apart from the business, none of her
workers would know of her cougar-ness, right?

She’d found a folding chair in the Activity Room and
schlepped it back so she could wait in a corner while unobtrusively observing
this paragon of volunteerism. She noticed the sprinkling of freckles across the
bridge of his long, straight nose, just under eyes so blue it almost hurt to
look at them. But it was the dimple in his left cheek when he smiled that most
intrigued her.