Mystery Man (Dream Man #1)(9)

Lordy be, the man had two dimples.

Two.

“Do you not get why I’m pissed?” he asked gently through his smile.

“No, I don’t and there’s never a good excuse for being a jerk so, again, please, if you’re so busy, allow me to stop wasting your time and just go.”

“You f**ked up today, Gwen,” he told me.

“I think you’ve made that clear, baby,” I shot back.

For some reason the warmth in his eyes deepened at the same time he whispered his warning. “Don’t call me baby when you’re pissed, Sweet Pea.”

“Don’t call me Sweet Pea at all, baby,” I retorted.

“You call me baby when I’m f**king you,” he stated and I didn’t know if this was a demand or a recall but it was probably both.

“Well, don’t hold your breath for that to happen again.”

The warmth in his eyes got deeper, hotter and his thumbs stroked my jaws again. I tried to pull my face away but his hands tightened and I stopped.

“You shouldn’t make a threat you can’t carry out,” he advised, still talking gently.

“How many times do I have to tell you to go?” I asked.

He ignored me and declared, “I end things.”

Seriously, he was not for real.

“It’s good to experience change in life, refreshing, keeps your senses sharp,” I informed him.

“Don’t push that shit, Gwendolyn,” he warned. “You won’t like the consequences.”

“What’s your name?” I asked on a dare.

He called my dare and raised me. “You call me baby.”

“What’s your name?” I repeated.

“Sometimes honey,” he continued.

“What… is… your name?” I demanded.

“But I prefer baby.”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and snapped, “God!” at the same time I stomped my foot, realized my hands were at his waist and I pushed back.

He didn’t budge.

My eyes rolled back to him and I instantly noted my mistake when I found one of his hands had disappeared and his mouth was at my neck, his lips at the skin behind my ear and then I felt his tongue there.

Without my permission, my body did a top to toe tremble.

His face came out of my neck, it got in mine, his hand returned to my jaw and he whispered, “Yeah.”

Then he pulled me away from the door and like a freak of nature, one second he was there, the next he was gone.

I stared at the closed door then moved to the window and checked and I was right. He was gone.

Then I turned my back to the door and stared into my messy living room.

And I was thinking I was pretty sure he felt the tremble.

Chapter Three

The Day of Epiphany

My house was an old farmhouse that once graced fields but now was situated in a neighborhood of much newer houses, that was to say built in the last fifty years, on the close outskirts of Denver.

Once you made it through the narrow walls with kickass stained glass of the entryway, my house had a living room that ran the length of the front. To the right behind sliding inset glass doors was a dining room or den, but it was nothing now. Empty space. To the left, a swinging doorway into a big kitchen. Upstairs were three bedrooms, one somewhat small so I made that into my office, and a mammoth bathroom.

My father had not let me move in until he and his buddy Rick had installed a new bathroom. He said this was because the bathtub was imminently going to fall through the floor. I thought he was being dramatic because he hated my house and still does. Even so, why I thought this I really did not know because my father was not a dramatic person. Therefore I shouldn’t have been surprised when they started working on the bathroom and the tub proceeded to crash through the floor.

So Dad redid my bathroom, after, of course, he rebuilt the floor, and now it was gorgeous with claw-footed tub, pedestal sink, heated towel racks, the lot. He also redid the wood plank floors in my bedroom and the office and re-skimmed the walls in both rooms. Meredith and I painted my bedroom and Meredith made me killer roman blinds to go in the windows of my bedroom and in my office. My friend Tracy and I painted my office. I then proceeded to the fun phase of renovation: decoration, while Dad moved onto the kitchen on which he worked with Troy. The completion of this took five months because they both got sidetracked with other things like their own lives and the faucet in my half-bath downstairs not turning off and the roof leaking and the light switch in my bedroom not working and the furnace going out, stuff like that.

But now the kitchen was fantastic, cabinets painted a buttery cream; a big battered, rectangle farm table in the middle with six chairs; butcher block countertops; fabulous appliances that Dad sourced for me on the cheap through his construction network and because they were damaged but in places you couldn’t see. I’d decorated it in countrified charm with a whimsical twist. I wasn’t country, not by a long shot, but the kitchen was an old farmhouse kitchen so it demanded country and there were times I could be whimsical.

So after MM left, I went to my kitchen, made chocolate chip cookie batter, took the bowl, a spoon and a cup of coffee to the table and grabbed my phone.

Then I sat with one foot on the floor, one heel to the chair and stared at it.

I should call Camille. Camille was a straight-talker. She was smart. She was worldly and she had her head together. Camille was living with Leo who was a cop and they’d been together for five years. It was a good relationship, loving but challenging because both Leo and Camille had attitude. But if they ever broke up it would be like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell breaking up, that was to say proof that the world would soon be coming to an end.