Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(62)

Hanging back to hold the elevator door, she let him walk ahead. “You go see for yourself,” she said. “I need a minute.”

He stopped and turned. Glanced down at her disheveled dress. “Right.”

She backed up into the elevator and pushed the button to close the door between them. Anything to get away from him and think.

“Hold on.” Liam stuck his arm in the door and gazed at her with dark, unblinking eyes. “My place.”

“What?”

“My place. Tonight.”

“Just like that?”

He closed his eyes for a second. “Let’s hope so.”

“What about your sister?”

“She won’t be invited.”

Her mind was annoyed with his tone, but her body began to thrum in anticipation. “I don’t know where you live.”

He nodded, glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, and lowered his voice. “It’s a highrise on Beale, at Folsom. My building is the one with the purple guitar sculpture out front. I’ll meet you there, near the sculpture, at seven,” he said. “Can you remember that?”

She turned away, heart racing, and punched the elevator button again. “My memory isn’t the problem.”





Chapter 14

When Bev came into view at the end of the street, casually dressed with a floppy leather purse slung over one shoulder, Liam let out the air he’d been holding in his lungs in a slow, steady exhale.

The breeze whipped her loose hair into the air around her head. The soft, dark waves exaggerated the fine bones of her face, her long neck, the generosity of her mouth. Was she as terrified as she looked? He strode forward to meet her halfway down the block, reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear as soon as she was close enough to touch.

She jerked her head away. “We need to talk.”

First he had to shut up the voice in his head that was shouting, She came! and get a grip on the torrent of emotions tearing through his body. “Let’s go up to my place.”

“I’m not going inside. We can talk out here.”

Stifling a howl of disappointment, he nodded and turned to walk at her side, determined not to scare her away. He wouldn’t touch her again until they were in his condo. “I know what you’re thinking, believe me,” he said. “I never get personally involved at the office anymore. I even refuse lunch invitations from my own staff. Nobody knows anything about me outside of work they didn’t learn from Ed or old newspaper clippings.”

“This is supposed to impress me?”

“You think that getting involved with me—more involved, because let’s face it, we’ve already crossed the line—is going to screw up your goals at the company. Am I right?”

She stopped and crossed her arms over her chest. The sexy dress was gone. Now she hid herself under a pea-green, shapeless sweater his brother might have picked out for himself. He knew what she was trying to do, but it was hopeless.

I can still imagine you naked, babe.

“You can’t convince me it won’t hurt our working relationship,” she said.

“What working relationship? I’ve been trying to screw you over since you got here.” She cracked a smile, and he took the opportunity to guide her another few feet closer to the entrance. “If anything, scratching this itch will probably help us get along better.”

She started walking again. “Wonderful. You’re comparing me to a rash.”

Maybe he shouldn’t wait until they got upstairs to remind her of her own desires. Cupping the back of her neck, he dipped his head down and brushed his lips against hers, inhaling the scent of her deep into his lungs. “I want you, Bev.” He trailed kisses along her cheekbone to the hollow below her ear and felt her tremble. Good. Now don’t push her too fast. He lifted his face a couple inches above hers. “I made dinner.”

She didn’t pull away. “Made? Or bought?”

“I buy the pasta, then boil it all by myself.” He drew back and typed in the keycode at his building’s front door. “You'll like it. Lots of carbs.”

She sighed, annoyed again, and he congratulated himself on distracting her enough to follow him deeper inside. They got onto the elevator, and this time he kept his hands to himself.

The car rose twenty floors, and the doors slid apart.

“You didn’t have to cook.” She didn’t move.

He put his hand in the door and smiled at her. She looked stricken, staring at him. Then she followed him into the carpeted hallway.

April had better not be there. If she hadn’t gone out like he told her to, he’d hack into her blog and decimate her social life. But the condo was quiet and dim and filled with the smells of simmering garlic and tomatoes. He held the door open. “Here we are.”

He heard her breathing the rich cooking smells, exhaling with a distinctly feminine groan of pleasure. He felt a surge of desire so intense he fisted his hands to stop him from pinning her against the front door and taking her right there.

Apparently unaware of his struggle, she studied the furniture. “Of course you have a real Winzler.”

He admired the swell of her breasts, as much of them as he could see under the baggy fabric. “I’m going to burn that sweater.” He hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him for another kiss.