Falling for Mr. Wrong(7)
Chapter Six
Harper closed the door as quickly as possible behind her. She didn’t want to risk Noah racing after her right into this man’s house. She wouldn’t put it past him. She looked up and made a quick assessment of the place. Cute. Bright, cheery, beachy, with blond wood furniture, aqua-and-white-striped lounge chairs, and a sunny-yellow sofa. Only at the beach could you get away with a sofa that looked like a giant lemon.
She would argue, though, that the décor in here fit far more with what a woman would choose than a man. But who knew? Maybe his sister decorated it for him. Or his mother. Ugh, hope he isn’t a mama’s boy. That would be bad. Oh, but it could be a rental, in which case who knew who decorated it? Maybe he bought it, lock, stock, and barrel. But a closer look showed it wasn’t beat up enough to be a rental. No dings in the drywall. No scuffs on the hardwoods. The furniture looked like it came from that expensive home goods store on the beach road not far from her place. No one would buy nice things from there only to let renters beat the crap out of it.
“I’ve got a bar set up in the living room. And let me see if I can find the cat,” Danny said. For a minute she was so lost in thought she’d forgotten about him. At least she was pondering home décor and not dirty, rotten ex-boyfriends who looked so damned handsome she wanted to scream. Ugh, Noah did look amazing, didn’t he? Sort of rugged. The scruff of beard growth on his face looked delicious. And she didn’t want to stare—at least not when he might have been looking—but when she’d glanced carefully in the rearview mirror, those almond-shaped hazel eyes she’d loved so much were reflected in it. His dark hair was shorter, but it still curled in wild waves at the nape of his neck. Which was someplace she used to love to bury her fingers; it felt like sinking your toes into a thick new carpet. “Any of those sound good to you?”
Oh crap. He said something she totally missed. She shook her head to erase those thoughts and instead smiled at him, devoting her full attention. “I’m sorry, I was so caught up in admiring your lovely home that I missed what you said.”
He waved dismissively. “It’s all good. I’ve got beer, wine, bourbon, tequila, Baileys, milk, orange juice. What sounds good?”
Harper scrunched her nose. “Definitely not milk. I mean maybe if you had some fresh-baked cookies. But then again, do you have some Kahlua? I could take a little of that with milk.” She licked her lips and then wished she could unlick them—it felt too suggestive. Not that she hadn’t already been Forward Franny with that kiss she planted on him in the car. Oy. What was she thinking? It was so outside of her personality to do that! Clearly she’d gotten rusty with so many years of neglect. She’d become the Tin Man of Sexual Inactivity. She didn’t even know the proper protocol for kissing a near stranger. She blanched. Danny. Danny was actually a near stranger. Well, she’d spent several hours—enjoyable hours—with him tonight, but did she know him? For all she knew, he could be a serial killer and she wouldn’t even realize it.
How awful would that be? After all this time, she finds a guy she thinks she could have some fun with and instead he ends up being like a psycho clown or something, one of those men who lures women with the promise of White Russians and beach views. Dressed in a clown costume, big red wig, blue-and-white polka-dotted one-piece get-up, large red shoes. And a gleaming butcher’s knife.
Oh for goodness’ sake: the man wasn’t dressed in a clown costume. She was being ridiculous. He was a perfectly nice man offering her a drink. A nightcap, now that she thought of it. Which was such an odd thing to call it. So retro. No one said that word anymore, did they? Oh well, maybe he was old-fashioned that way.
Suddenly, she hoped he was old-fashioned in some other ways as well. Please, dear God, don’t have him jonesing to get into my pants tonight. Upon further reflection, she didn’t want her first sexual experience since Noah to be with a complete—or nearly so—stranger. Even if he did make a fine nightcap. She had to be a little bit more discerning than that. Although she’d been through a hell of a dry spell. Like Moses-and-the-Israelites-parched-in-the-desert dry spell. Which was crazy. How could it have been that long since she’d had sexual relations with a man? Relations. That was a weird one too. What did her mother sometimes call it? Sexual congress. Harper always pictured bald, paunchy men in the US Capitol gaveling in a meeting whenever she said that. Though for real, there were enough scandals in that place over the years, perhaps it was a fitting term.
Oh goodness. Her mind had taken to wandering like a lost child in the woods. This was not uncommon for Harper when she was frazzled. And she was frazzled. Because she was unexpectedly hornier than a Cape buffalo, but she feared it wasn’t the man before her who had stirred up a hornet’s nest worth of buzzing in her nether regions. It was like that part of her had woken up from the damned dead upon seeing he-who-shall-not-be-thought-of for fear it might trigger some kind of spontaneous-combustion orgasm in her. She was a veritable sexual Rapunzel, dead to the world for ages and then poof! come and get it! Chuck wagon’s ready! Although she certainly found use for her battery-operated “mystery date” several times a week, she’d pretty much had her legs clamped tight for far too long, and now all of a sudden, she was like a damned sexual volcano, about to burst right out of her lava chambers—if that’s what you’d call it.