Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(105)

“You did?”

“Uh-huh. Before. When we were all soapy.”

“Jesus.”

“I know. That has never happened to me. It was right after you shoved your leg between mine. Everything was so slippery. And your chest hair kept rubbing against my nipples. You were kissing me, so you probably didn’t realize how much noise I was making.”

“Nora?”

“Uh-huh?”

“You’re turning me on again.”

“Sorry!”

“No, not a bad thing. Just … give me a few. I’ll be at your service.” She laughed. “I’m not worried.”

She poured some shampoo into her palm and rubbed it into her hair. She handed him the bottle so he could do the same, then stuck her head under the nozzle and rinsed. “I swear, I am also capable of having sex not standing.”

“Sure you are.” She rubbed her fingers over her hair, and it emitted a squeaky sound. He took her place under the shower, rinsing his hair. “I’m taking you out tonight.”

“What, like a date?”

“Yeah, like a date.”

“A first date,” she said, almost reverently.

He wasn’t as sure about that. A first date implied a string of other dates, implied a future, and he … he wasn’t sure he had a future, let alone one in which he could include her. “I guess.”

“Because we never had a first date. Right? We can’t count the party, because we were both already there. That was where we met. We can’t count the phone, because, well, it was the phone. And can’t count any of this, because it’s not a date. We’re at your house.”

“True. So tonight. Dinner and live music.”

“I can totally deal with that,” she said. “I even brought a skirt and nice top. Not that—I wasn’t thinking—”

He grinned. “Cut the bullshit, Nora. You called my friend to get my address. You flew a thousand miles. You’re allowed to admit you had some … expectations.”

She laughed. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s call them hopes, though. Sounds a little less stalkerish.”

They got out of the shower and he tossed her a towel.

“Hey, Miles?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to help you work on the tile project. Before we go to dinner. I don’t want you to waste this weekend.”

That made him laugh. “This weekend is the furthest thing from a waste I can imagine.”

“But you were going to get that done, and then I showed up. Torpedoed your real life.” This is way better than my real life.

But it reminded him that he had a real life, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t. And if they were going to do something as official as have a first date, he had to make sure she knew what she was getting herself into.

“Get dressed,” he told her. “I’ve got something I need to tell you.”

*

He’d left her alone in the bathroom to get dressed. Who said, “I’ve got something to tell you,” and then fled the scene? That was bad manners.

In the empty, echoey bathroom, her feet cold against the ceramic floor tile, Nora’s vivid imagination had a field day.

I’m married. I’m an alcoholic. I’m a recovering ax murderer.

Maybe he had a few kids by a previous marriage. She could handle that.

But if it was really bad, she could still walk away, right? A midnight kiss, a few phone calls, some phone sex, plus the sex on the floor of his front hall and in the shower—surely she was not in so deep that she couldn’t extricate herself.

Surely.

She shook her head at herself. If it’s really bad, Nor, you need to walk away.

But all the other bits of her brain, the ones that should have said, Uh-huh! Yeah! We hear ya! We will!, were silent.

She stepped out of the master bath and into his bedroom, which occupied most of the upper floor of the house, under the eaves. Skylights everywhere, a low platform bed against the far wall. His quilt was black and white and the walls were gray, and—maybe it was the faint masculine scent of soap and aftershave—the room reminded her of men’s dress clothes. Of the excitement of seeing a finely dressed man appear before you when the last time you’d laid eyes on him he was a grubby guy in jeans.

Being with Miles felt that way all the time, she realized. The treat of his physical beauty, the way he was so assertively male. A lean grace to how he moved, how he spoke, how he treated her, his demeanor as pleasingly hard as male muscle.

Right now he was standing in the middle of his bedroom, wearing a pair of jeans low on his hips and nothing else, and that would be how she would fantasize about him tomorrow night when she was back in her bed by herself. Flat abs, the slanted ridge of muscle at his hips that dove under his waistband, the trail of curly dark hair that directed her gaze downward. And when she tore her focus from his crotch and looked back up, the planes of his pecs with their dusting of half curls. Her own nipples tightened, remembering how that hair had felt.

When her eyes finally met his, she found that he’d been watching her watch him, and her breath caught. But he shook his head, as if to say, Not now.

His face was so serious, it made her stomach hurt.

“I’m a suspect in a criminal investigation.”

Her vitals went nuts then, a flurry of manic heartbeat and tight chest and shallow breath, while her brain made fight-or-flight calculations. Door that way, large, well-muscled male between her and all exits. Oh, my God, what kind of self-destructive lunatic flies from Boston to Cleveland and enters a strange man’s house on her own?