“Busy day?” The question was casual, though Connor’s expression was anything but.
She decided to try for facetious. “As I’m sure you’re aware, stalking is a legally actionable offense in all fifty states.”
“God, don’t use legalese on me, Abby. Hearing it in your sexy teacher voice is just making it that much harder for me to stay your ‘friend’ for the next…” he checked his watch, “fifty-six minutes.”
Oh it was no use, she smiled a little over that.
“Have you been hiding from me?” he asked abruptly, visibly upset. “I called you twice today. Both times, it went straight to voicemail.”
“I was doing research. My cell phone doesn’t get good reception in certain parts of the library.”
“Oh.”
Seeing him look noticeably eased by that information stuck her with a needle of guilt. What she said was all true, but not the whole truth. She’d spent the majority of her time on the special collections floor and the rest reading on the third floor where she could also eat—two areas of the library where, incidentally, her phone caught just fine. At least, when it was switched on.
“…And maybe I was avoiding you a tiny bit.”
“I knew it.” His eyebrows snapped together. “Are you afraid of me? Do I make you uncomfortable or something?”
“I think it’s more a case of my being too comfortable with you.” She blew out a weary breath, knowing that only made sense to her. “Look, I’m not afraid of you. In fact, why don’t you come in and hang out? I can whip up some food and we can watch a DVD or some TV.”
The look on his face was how she imagined an alien would look upon arriving on a new planet. It would have been funny if it weren’t a bit sad.
She unlocked her door and went in, leaving him free to enter or leave. “You said we could be friends for another hour, right? So come on. I can tell you all about my day hiding out from my stalker.”
Finally, he broke out into a grin and followed her inside, making the temperature in the tiny foyer they were standing in even balmier when he removed his suit jacket.
Lord, the man had a broad chest.
Great arms, too.
“Sorry, I’ll get the AC going. You can grab a beer from the fridge if you want. I was thinking of making some steak fajitas and a salad,” she called out as she made her way to the bedroom to change. “That okay with you?”
“Sounds great.”
She came back out in an old t-shirt and sweats, purposely choosing not to pretty up for Connor.
Oddly, he seemed to appreciate that fact, judging by the pleased smile he gave her when she returned. “Do you need help cooking? I want to earn my meal.”
“Sure. Can you fry up the flank steak for me? The meat is marinating in a ziploc in the fridge.”
She was surprised at how normal she sounded, what with his presence seemingly sucking up all her usual oxygen supply in the kitchen. Her whole house, really, if she was being honest with herself.
Damn, when was that AC going to kick in?
“Hey, are you going to have enough food for me too?” asked Connor as he poked around in her fridge. “Because I can always just eat a ham and cheese or PB&J.”
The thought of this high-powered attorney with his head to toe dry clean only ensemble eating a brown bag sandwich served to finally calm her nerves down. “I always make extra for leftovers the next day so it’ll be fine.”
She started cutting up a few avocados to make some fresh guacamole. “Cilantro, onions, and tomatoes okay in the guac? I make mine chunky.”
“Perfect. Brian makes it the same way.”
“He would. I’m the one who got him hooked on it.”
Connor tilted his head at that tidbit as he threw the meat in the skillet. “I still find it so hard to believe I don’t have any recollection of seeing you after that first day at the hospital.”
She went with a breezy, unoffended shrug. “Guess I just have one of those forgettable faces.”
He gave her a quiet look. “No, you don’t. My point, exactly.”
Good lord, so that’s what a ‘smoldering glance’ looked like? With Connor’s ice blue eyes, the effect was lethal to her lady parts.
“Well, it’s not as if the times we saw each other in passing were momentous events,” she recovered, just barely stopping herself from telling him how unforgettable she’d always found him. “Plus, family gatherings for siblings and friends to meet and hang out weren’t really your parents’ sort of thing.”
“No,” he snorted, “unless you count the occasional $500 a plate fundraising dinners. Which I don’t.”
“Honestly, I think we only actually ‘saw’ each other the couple of times there was some emergency requiring us to do a Skylar hand-off at Brian’s house.”
“That explains it,” he said quietly.
Abby knew what he meant. Each time she’d run into him, the fact that he’d looked criminally handsome had hardly even had a chance to register. Not with everything Beth was going through hanging on them like a dark cloud—the heftiness of why they’d been on opposite sides of a lonely two-way road to and from Brian’s house so often to begin with.
“Was it as hard for you to go there as it was for me?” she asked softly.
“Yes.” He looked up from the stove. “My mother never went over enough to get it, and as cold as it sounds, I don’t know if my father really cared enough to either.”
With a heavy sigh, he turned the steak over and murmured, “You know, Skylar called me ‘dad’ once.”
To anyone outside of the conversation, the comment would seem totally random.
But she got it.
Stark, bleak sympathy kicked her in the gut as she admitted in an equally saddened tone, “Skylar called me mommy a few times, too. Twice, Beth heard it.”
The frustration-laden curse under his breath was an all too familiar one for her too, as the only f-bombs she ever dropped almost exclusively had the word Huntington’s strapped to it.
It was a sad comfort to have someone else around that knew exactly what the last decade had been like for her as Brian’s best friend.
After a long, heavy silence, Connor eventually looked up at her again with a speculative glance. “Hey, what about Skylar’s third birthday party?” he asked, his tone now several tons lighter. “The pool party?” His eyes made a slow pass over her, the return trip back up lingering in places that made her think of sexy supervillains with flame-throwing gazes. “You in a swimsuit? There is just no way I could’ve seen that and not remembered.”
If it was possible, his hot look scorched ten degrees higher when it settled back on her eyes.
Luckily, the very vivid memory of that party was funny enough to prevent her from succumbing to a heat stroke. “I think you had your hands full that day.”
He looked genuinely puzzled by that.
“Oh, to be an archived entry in your little black book,” she tsked. “Or should I say entries.”
Slow understanding dawned in his eyes. “Shit, I forgot about that.”
“Yup, you made that admission a few times that day.” And the resulting reality show worthy catfight at the pool had been colossal.
He cringed. “To be fair, I didn’t actually invite either of those women to that party.” His tone turned innocent. “Just like I didn’t invite the woman I was dating at the time, either.”
Shaking her head, she began setting the food on the coffee table. “No wonder you have the reputation you do.”
“I don’t have a reputation.” He brought over the steak and their bottles of beer, correcting her with a grin, “I earned it.”
Abby burst out laughing. “You’re kind of an ass, you know that, right?” The rest of her laughs got lodged in her throat when she turned and practically ran right into him.
Holy swizzle sticks, did he have to be so masculine?
“But you like me anyway,” he prodded in that low, melting Vegas hypnotist voice, leaning in without any
regard for her personal space. “Despite my ass-likeness.”
So close. He was so close she could bury her face against his neck if she wanted. Breathe him in whether she wanted to or not. “No,” she lied, backing up a step since it was clear he had no intention of doing so. Yep, an ass for sure.
One she wanted to rub up against like a cat finding her purr.
She took another ginormous step back.
He followed, invading her sanity even more than before. “No? So what do I have to do to change that?”
Christ, he wasn’t even trying yet?
“Alright, alright, so I like you. Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, right?” It’d do a world of good to remind herself, too. With a big, friendly smile, she sidestepped him and gestured back over to the coffee table. “C’mon, let’s eat. Sit. The food’s getting cold.”
At first, she felt a twinge of disappointment when he conceded and reluctantly backed away…until she heard his husky, murmured caveat, “Fifteen more minutes, Abby.”
The time remaining in their friend truce.
She held strong, refusing to let her imagination run with what exactly the man could do in fifteen minutes otherwise.
But then he had to go and tuck a throw pillow behind her as she sat down, fluff it for her to make sure she was comfortable.
Not to win points.
Rather, just because he was that guy.
The unconsciously sweet bad boy.
Now why’d she insist on this truce again?
CHAPTER SIX
CONNOR COULDN’T BELIEVE he was sitting on a living room floor eating dinner with Abby. He hadn’t done something like this since college.
It was…nice.
“So besides hiding from me, what were you doing in the library today?”
She gave him a shy smile. “One of my dissertation research questions focuses on the swinging pendulum of business and technical writing instruction throughout history. My research has unearthed some pre-college cases after the technology boom—a few pivotal high school cases as early as the 1900s. To contrast these findings with the present, I’ve been collecting data from school resources all across Arizona.”
She was speaking so fast now, it was kind of adorable.
“You know, I’ve even found old teaching materials that are strikingly similar to current trends, though they’re rarely linked in scholarly articles. And amazingly, each instance that’s impacted the pedagogical foundation of today’s technical writing landscape correlates directly to societal goings-on at the time. It’s fascinating.”
Oh yeah, she was an academic alright, through and through. He grinned at the pink in her cheeks. Not quite the type of passion he’d been hoping to inspire in her, but moving just the same.
“What’s wrong?” he asked when she didn’t continue; she’d been on such a roll.
She gnawed on her lip. “Sorry, I know this all sounds boring and nerdy to…well, any normal person. You’ve actually lasted longer than most of my friends and family. Their eyes would’ve been glazed over by my second sentence.”
The way she smiled at him—like he was a foot taller than he’d been a minute ago—filled him with an inordinate amount of pleasure.
“On the contrary, a lot of what you said was pretty thought-provoking.” He gave her a reassuring grin. “Don’t get me wrong, some of your explanations did bear an uncanny resemblance to the college lectures I used to somehow take notes in without any conscious brain involvement,” he teased, “but your passion kept me engaged in everything you were saying. It’s obvious you’re a good teacher.”
There was that smile again. If she kept it up, he’d be growing in other ways too.
She shook her head and focused on assembling another fajita. “You know, you’re nothing like I expected.”
“I’m glad you gave me a chance to redeem myself.”
Her brows rose at the reminder. “Yeah, what was with that freak-out at your house yesterday? It seemed a little…excessive.”
He took his time chewing his food, trying to phrase his answer in the least offensive way. “Let’s just say women showing up at my home half-dressed isn’t exactly an unusual occurrence for me.”
“Right, of course. That happens a lot on this street too.” She chortled. Mostly at his expense.
Of all the different facets to Abby’s personality, Connor decided he liked the feisty one the best. “Don’t laugh. You’d be surprised what lengths some women will go to seduce a man they’ve built up in their heads.”
She leaned over and butted his shoulder with her own. “Oh, don’t get all modest on me now. We both know you probably live up to every expectation these women have of you.”
His smiled faded and he turned to face her fully. “Don’t.”
Startled, she looked up at him. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t go thinking I’m someone I’m not.”
Studying him carefully, she replied as if she were teaching something so obvious to a five-year old, “I won’t if you won’t. Sounds to me like you think a lot less of yourself than you should.”
It was a compliment wrapped in a slap upside his head, and it had him actually wanting to be that man she seemed to see.
Of course, figuring out how such a man would respond to her shut-up-and-accept-it admiration of him, however, had him stumped. His normal reply would’ve been of the pulling-off-her-clothes variety.
He was guessing that wasn’t the right response here.
She cleared her throat, probably to bring his eyes back up from her bare shoulder. How the woman managed to look so sexy in a huge, beat-up men’s football tee was beyond him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you just said.”
Her look told him she knew he was anything but sorry. “I asked why you were so convinced I was a gold-digger. You’re a handsome guy, couldn’t a wet t-shirt wearing woman on your porch step just be after you for sex? The uniform would suggest so.”
He shrugged. “Most of the ones who’ve shown up have been. But if I were broke off my ass, they wouldn’t have been standing at my door to begin with.”
“Point taken.” She chewed thoughtfully. “So you’re saying the only women who you deign to let in your home are the ones who aren’t interested in your money at all?”
“If I did, I’d have to take a vow of celibacy,” he replied honestly. “It’s a catch-22. Typically, the women not interested in my money are also not interested in a one-month arrangement.”
“Ah yes, the infamous one-month Connor Sullivan rule. Brian’s told me about it. I bet that’s another factor for some of these women who throw themselves at you—trying to become the white unicorn who you one day break your rule over.”
His jaw firmed. “Never going to happen.”
The corner of her lips quirked up. “Don’t worry, stud. I’m not submitting an application or anything.”
Now why did that declaration fill him with a touch of disappointment?
“Enough about me,” he said gruffly. “Tell me more about you. Something besides your research.”
She laughed. “Well that narrows it way down. Now that I’m in my final year of my PhD program and done with all my coursework, my dissertation is the only big thing in my life right now. Other than that, there’s really not much to tell.”
“What about work? Don’t you tutor at Skylar’s school?”
“Oh, I do that as a volunteer. A couple of afternoons a week for the kids that are struggling.”
How noble. He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d met whose idea of volunteering wasn’t strictly confined to sitting on an executive board or planning a fundraising event. “I could’ve sworn Brian told me you teach English.”
“I do. I teach English full-time at ASU as a part of my fellowship. I get my tuition covered and get paid a lecturer’s salary, which isn’t much. Thankfully, I’m saving a ton of money renting out this guesthouse from one of my professors. Living here costs way less than what I used to pay for my apartment in
Tempe two years ago. And, I basically get this entire half of their big ole lot all to myself.”
Connor leaned back, stuffed, surprised at how easy it was to talk with Abby. “Doesn’t sound like you have that much time for yourself. What do you do for fun?”
She got up to grab them another two beers from the kitchen. “Honestly, I’m a homebody. Never got into the nightlife scene here. Plus, by the time I was twenty-one, I was basically babysitting Skylar all day every weekend, and nearly all my weeknights. Since that pretty much carried on clear until last year, I guess my idea of fun is hanging out with her. Lame, I know.”
He felt like he was talking to a martian.
He hadn’t realized she’d spent even more time babysitting Skylar than he had. Tons more. And he knew for a fact—from Brian’s complaints about it—that she hadn’t taken a single cent from them for babysitting.
For God’s sakes, she was just so nice.
“So you don’t do anything just for yourself? Just for you, just for fun?”
“Well, I have been privately executing my mission to learn how to cook the most beloved dishes from every country in the world,” she returned with a big smile as she plopped back down on the ground. “That’s fun.”
It was possible baby bluebirds helped her get dressed in the morning.
She was just that sweet.
“You’re driving me crazy.” He swept an arm around her waist and lifted her right up onto his lap.
“Connor!”
He slid a hand into her hair, rubbed a thumb over her heated cheekbone as he brought his lips to within inches of hers. “I shouldn’t want you this much. You’re everything I’m not, and I’m everything you couldn’t possibly want. I know I should leave you alone, but I just can’t. I can’t stop myself from wanting you.”
Her breathing had grown so erratic, he was actually starting to get concerned. “Say something, sweetheart. I’m baring my soul here.”
“I shouldn’t want you either,” she whispered, “but I do.”
His arms locked around her, instinctively staking a claim on her.
Mine.
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