Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2)(22)

She thought about going to the bathroom; privacy would have been best obviously. The only thing was, she didn’t want to pause this conversation. Also, she was freezing her ass off. So she quickly stripped out of her wet clothes, like a fool, and tried to get into his sweats before he turned and caught her naked.

“Why did you stop seeing her?” Krista asked, quickly turning the sweats right-side out. Evidently she should have checked the merchandise before she went and stripped down to bare skin.

“Wait, no under-roos? I have to free-ball it?” She muttered to herself, eyeing the giant sweats made for a monster, and a shirt the same size. She might as well flash him right then because in his clothes she’d flash him all over the place anyway. She wouldn’t even have to bend over to do it!

“Here,” Sean said, walking into the other room and tossing her a pair of whitey-tighties.

Krista hadn’t realized he’d left. She’d been too busy frantically turning the sweats inside-out to put them on.

As she caught the briefs she caught his eye. He raked his eyes down her na**d body, and then winked at her. Apparently fair was fair.

She gave him the stink eye from behind a hastily made shield of fabric before he disappeared down a side hall.

“Same reason you stopped calling Paul. Someone always gets hurt,” he called from a different room.

“I doubt Monica would have been hurt. She doesn’t seem like the type. Lacking human emotion, that one.”

After a pause he said, “She isn’t. But you would’ve been.”

“I …” Krista’s stomach clenched as she realized what he said. What was worse, it was true. She couldn’t deny it.

Even worse still, he knew. And if he read that about her, what else had he ferreted out?

“Okay, well, yes maybe, but only because she was gross, and you could do better.”

He just laughed as he re-entered the room with a dirty mug. Even though she was in his clothes, which were too big, and braless, he didn’t look her over again. He passed on the way to the kitchen, cleaning up. She might as well have been a plant.

The formal dining room led into the kitchen, which was separated by a long counter with bar stools. In the spacious kitchen was another, small table, probably for quick meals. The room had granite counter tops, the latest appliances, and was recently remodeled. The dining room had a china cabinet with a few pieces of china and some plates, but was mostly bare. It was largely a bachelor pad. There was a wine rack, mostly empty, which was a travesty.

There was a hallway that must have led to the rest of the house, and the hallway from whence they came that joined this room with the entryway. She wandered down the path not taken toward the living room and saw large, overstuffed couches and a huge TV. Off the living room was a huge bay window that had the curtains drawn. She opened them, and as she thought, there was the expanse of ocean, as far as the eye could see. Now it was just a black area without lights, but she could imagine seeing the waves crash and the azure blue of limitless water.

What a view.

“Same view from my bedroom, only better,” Sean said from right behind her.

Krista turned slowly, goose pimples erupting all over her flesh. Sean just looked at her, apparently content to see her in his clothing.

“I would let you show me, but I have already lost my knickers and am afraid to go up against your strength as a salesman,” Krista said nervously.

After a pause, quietly he said, “Wise.”

They looked at each other for a beat. He was about two feet away, eyes steadily holding hers.

Into the din, she said, “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. It wasn’t nice and it wasn’t fair.”

He continued to look down at her in silence. She thought he might step closer. He thought she might step closer to him. But neither of them moved. It was hard to say why, because both of them wanted to, but now there was a great divide, and neither knew the safest way to cross, or even if they wanted to, unsure what lay on the other side.

They also realized it would be a huge mistake. They knew each other too well for a purely physical relationship, but not enough for anything substantial. Not yet. Nothing ruined friendship, or a working relationship, like sex. Someone always fell…and in that, Krista had the track record, though Sean suspected it might be him this time because he was already heading down that road head first. He’d already been rejected once, though, he didn’t want it to happen a second time.

Finally Sean let out a breath, and held out some menus. “What’s for dinner?”

It was a Saturday, and Krista found her dumb ass in the stupid office trying to finish up some last minute things that she didn’t have the heart to stay late and do on Friday. There was just something wrong with working late on a Friday. Friday is the best office day of the week. You couldn’t spoil that by working all night!

The floor was as quiet as death as she trudged her way to her office. She dropped all her stuff and turned on her computer, just like she might on a Monday. It was thoroughly depressing.

She, like the rest of the team, was utterly pooped after the last week. They had worked their asses off for this new client. And while the client was grateful and impressed with the quality of the work, the creativity of design, and the thoroughness of the information, the contract was for a great deal of money, and they should get every penny out of Sean’s team.