Wrong for You (Before You #3)(16)

Without looking through the peephole, she flung the door open.

“Alec?” She had only seen him a handful of times in the last five days since their hike and the muffin incident—when he arrived at the Foundation around nine in the morning and when he left at three forty-five every day. He never stayed until the Foundation closed and he pretty much kept to himself in the office that used to be hers, not even leaving to eat lunch. Instead, he had lunch delivered for both of them. For the most part, he was like a ghost working behind the scenes, but she had caught him watching her… and the kids from the hall outside the gym on a couple occasions. She never acknowledged his presence. It didn’t seem as though he wanted to be seen, but for some reason she felt it in her bones any time he came within twenty feet of her.

“So I have some good news for you,” Alec said, holding two bags of groceries.

“Uh huh,” she said absently, trying to ignore the small part of her that had secretly hoped to see much more of Alec during his month living in her basement. Unlike her last few tenants, she hadn’t heard any noise invading her house from his apartment, not even music. He was the perfect tenant. She couldn’t invent a single complaint. He paid his rent. He never took her driveway parking spot. He didn’t have guests. He didn’t leave a trace of anything, but something about him drew her in and the more secretive he acted, the more she wanted to know about him.

He was one of those dark, brooding, mysterious types that women lost their minds over. She’d never been one of those women. Open, carefree men captured her attention, or at least she thought so until she met Alec. Maybe that was because no man, in her limited experience, had ever done the brooding, dark, and sexy thing as well as him. He mastered it with his dark blue, heavily lidded eyes that spoke of sin, sex, and a whole lot of wickedness she couldn’t even imagine.

“Am I that boring?” he asked, cocking his head, a full-blown smirk on his face.

Oh crap. He asked her a question and she’d been…daydreaming about him. “Uh, I’m sorry. I was…thinking about eyes.” No, her mind screamed, knowing she sounded like a total idiot. “They’re the windows to the soul,” she added, horrified at the words falling out of her mouth. Good god, she needed a piece of duct tape to slap over her mouth before she started telling him even more embarrassing things like how sexy he looked on her front porch and how she wanted to lick his tattoos.

He raised one dark eyebrow ever so slightly. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” She opened the door wide, pressing her body flat against the door as he came in.

“Purple, huh?” he said, pausing as he took in the color scheme of her house.

“Lavender,” she corrected.

“What?” He turned to look at her.

“My walls are lavender.”

He chuckled. “Right.”

She needed to stop being an idiot around him.

“Do you live her alone?” he asked, taking in the sparsely furnished living room. Besides, a white slipcovered sofa and a cluster of three end tables, pushed together to give the illusion of a coffee table, the room was more or less empty.

“My brother lives here on occasion.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ryder thrives extreme sports, so he only stays here as long as it takes to save enough money for his next adventure.”

“Does he pay rent?”

“My parents inherited the house from my grandmother. They let us live here as long as we do the maintenance.”

“Does your brother help?”

“When he’s in town.” She cleared her throat, trying to change the subject. “How’s fundraising going?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Her stomach sunk. “Giving up already?” She walked toward the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. She needed caffeine for this conversation.

Dropping two bags of groceries on her kitchen counter, he pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” she asked as she scanned the numbers detailed in the spreadsheet.

“One hundred thousand dollars in donations. How’s that for a couple weeks of work?”

She blinked. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Did you say one hundred thousand dollars, as in US dollars?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I said. I’m glad I was able to say something to get your attention.”

Her mouth dropped open and she shook her head. “No way. How’d you do it?”

“I told you. I have lots of contacts and they were more than happy to donate to the Foundation.”

She dropped her coffee mug on the counter and flung herself toward him, wrapping her arms around his waist before kissing him on each cheek. “Please tell me you know more people,” she said, smiling up at him.

His body stiffened under her hands and his eyes darkened, the dark blue of his irises nearly merging with his swollen pupils. Then it hit her. She practically wrapped her braless, pajama-clad body around this man she knew next to nothing about except that he can raise money like it’s falling out of the sky.

“Plenty,” he answered, his voice thick like velvet.

As she stepped back, his hand moved to her lower back, pulling her forward again, his body pressing into hers, his heat seeping through the thin cotton of her white tank top, his spicy citrus scent filling her lungs. It was way too personal and intimate and that thought alone caused her heart to drum against her ribs.