by Alison Kent
What he didn’t want to do was forget about his future because he’d gone and fallen in love.
Once he reached her chair, he braced both hands on the padded arms, leaning down to nuzzle her hairline from temple to ear. Lauren moaned and Anton pulled back, but only far enough to snuggle his nose to hers. “Still complaining?”
She nodded, and this time he moved to look into her eyes. “What’s wrong now?”
She slipped the noose of her arms around his neck. With her lips brushing his in light butterfly kisses, she whispered, “You’re not naked and I’m wearing too many clothes.”
“A single-minded wench, aren’t you?”
“Now who’s complaining?”
Giving in would be so easy. Too easy. He finished the kiss she’d begun, then ducked away from her hold. “That would be me. But only because I’m meeting Leo in twenty minutes. Not enough time for a wench of your nature.”
“Oh, now suddenly you’re the expert on my nature.”
“I do know your nature, Lauren.” His voice was soft and coaxing, convincing. This was one thing he didn’t think she understood. “Better than I think you know yourself.”
“I’m some sort of mindless bimbo. Is that it?” She’d tucked her heels up on her chair, pulled her knees to her chest. A childlike defense. Fetal. Protecting herself from his prying eyes. As if he needed to see her to know her.
He’d taken too long to answer, and she’d started to fidget, rolling her thumb over the trackball of her mouse, sending the cursor in a jerky flight across the screen. He knew her well enough to lay odds on her imminent flight.
Five, four, three, two, one. She was out of her chair.
“I can always move back in with Macy. I’m sure she’s climbing the walls by now, being on her own.”
“You think I wouldn’t be climbing the walls if you left?” He’d taken hold of her shoulders to prevent further flight. Now he drew his palms in a caress down her arms to her wrists. “I want you here, Lauren. With me.”
Her chin went up a notch. Her eyes glistened.
He refused to be swayed by her tears. “You’re beautiful, creative, intelligent. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I want to learn everything there is to learn about you. I want you to know me in the same way.”
She looked away, found her composure, then met his waiting gaze. “Isn’t that why I’m here? Because we wanted time together? Time we didn’t have living apart?”
Anton closed his eyes briefly. He wanted to say things to Lauren he knew she wouldn’t want to hear. It had always been his way to push. Both himself and those around him. His put-up-or-shut-up method produced results.
But this was Lauren, he reminded himself. And toned down the words he wanted to say. “I want you here. But you have to want to be here and to believe in us for this to work. You have to be as honest with yourself as you are with me.”
“Why would you think I’m not honest with myself?”
“I don’t know that you’re not. I hope you are.” He paused, took a breath. “What I don’t want, Lauren, is for you to…settle. For me. For anything. Not if you can do better.”
Lauren waited through several long seconds, then pulled free of his hold. She gave a disgusted shake of her head. “This is about gIRL-gEAR, isn’t it? You still think I’m wasting my time there.”
“I never said you were wasting your time. Or your talent,” he added, before she cut him off.
“Maybe not in so many words.” Lauren began to pace. Her sandals slapped lightly over the espresso-colored Italian marble of the room’s flooring. “Why would I want to leave gIRL-gEAR?”
“I didn’t say you should leave gIRL-gEAR.”
“I love what I do. I’m good at what I do. I love the people I work with. It’s a dream job. I’m making tons of money.” She stopped, pressed fingertips to both temples. “I can’t even believe this has come up. Again.”
He leaned back against her desk and crossed his arms. “I don’t want you to leave gIRL-gEAR. I only want you to recognize that you can do anything you want.”
“I am doing what I want. I know you’re not crazy about me working in an industry dependent on fads and styles. But you know what? You’re doing the exact same thing. Turning your talents to supply the demand for the—” she rolled her eyes, made air quotations with her fingers “—oh-so-fashionable lofts and warehouses. So don’t give me crap about not knowing myself.”
She returned to her desk then, closed out the file she’d been working on.
“Macy’s new logo?” he asked after the screen went blank.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. And I’m very happy with the design, thank you.”
Anton had to admit it was time to back off. All he wanted was for Lauren to live up to her potential. But he’d yet to figure out how to make his point without ruffling her feathers. Her defensiveness had a source he still hadn’t discovered.
And that was why she was here, wasn’t it?
“Look,” she said, finally. “If we’re going to do this housewarming, I’ve got to get busy. And I could use some help.”
“I’m all yours,” he said. His truest statement of the day.
“I HAVE AN IDEA.” Cradling her first coffee of the morning, Macy barely gave Leo time to set foot in the kitchen before she pounced. “Coffee’s hot. Get a cup and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He lifted one brow in answer. A small fan of laugh lines spread toward his temple, but nothing resembling a wrinkle or a droopy, under-eye bag marred a face well-suited for an eight-by-ten glossy. The man could at least have the decency to look half-asleep first thing in the morning. But no. He’d been here three days now and he still had no decency whatsoever, looking as if he’d stepped from the pages of a sleepwear fashion shoot.
He wore black, pin-striped pajama bottoms and a matching calf-length robe. The bottoms served to emphasize the length of his legs, the robe the breadth of his shoulders. His only faux pas was the pajama top he’d skipped, wearing, instead, a form-fitting white T-shirt. Macy approved of the gaffe.
Each of his movements—reaching up into the cupboard for a coffee mug, lifting the brimming carafe to pour, bringing the white stoneware to his mouth to blow across the steaming surface and sip—teased her with glimpses of his lean waist, his muscled chest, the bulge of a shoulder rising just above his collarbone.
Discreet glimpses, of course. Modest glimpses. Totally innocent, acceptable glimpses. No bare skin or—
“Macy?”
“Hmm?”
“You have an idea?”
“Idea? Oh, yeah.” She shook off her lust and set her mug on the countertop, scouring the pantry shelves for the box of Cocoa Krispies she’d hidden from Lauren. “Let’s play a game.”
He lifted his stoneware mug. “It’s seven o’clock in the morning, I haven’t even finished my first cup of coffee and you want to play a game. Not to mention that I need a shower. Or that I haven’t had breakfast.”
She wiggled both brows, shaking the box of Cocoa Krispies.
Rolling his eyes, Leo started to leave the kitchen. “I have to be in court at ten. Chocolate isn’t going to cut it.”
Macy reached out and, grabbing the belt of his robe, gave a quick yank. “I’ll make you a deal. An omelette. Cheese. Ham. All the protein your brain can handle.”
He slowed, since she wasn’t giving him a choice, and, sipping from his mug, considered her offer. “What’s the game?”
Macy grinned. Men were so easy. “Twenty questions. Sort of.”
Leo breathed deeply. “Your sort of’s worry me.”
“C’mon,” she pleaded, telling herself she really wanted that sailing vacation. “For the scavenger hunt. How hard can it be?”
“Can’t.” He drained his coffee and made to leave the kitchen. “I’ve got to get in the shower or I’ll be late.”
He hardly needed three hours to get to court. She knew that. After the past few days of his off-and-on company, she’d learned things
about him she never thought she’d know.
He wasn’t as uptight as she’d accused him of being. He had a sense of humor, a real sense of humor, not just the sarcastic wit he wielded so well. No doubt he hid other redeeming qualities. The one thing he didn’t hide was his impatience with her playful nature, or with her tendency to open mouth, insert foot.
She winced and tried again. “C’mon, Leo. How long can it take?”
“Considering the way your tricky little mind works? Fifteen minutes, give or take a week.” He set his empty mug on the counter and headed for the back of the loft.
Grr. She took it back. Men weren’t so easy, after all. “Hey. What do you mean, my tricky little mind?”
She followed, enjoying the light slap of his bare feet on the hardwood floor. Hmm. What was Mr. Designer Pajamas doing with bare feet, anyway? What happened to his coordinating designer house shoes? “Leo. Answer me.”
“I’m taking a shower, Macy.”
She stopped when he stopped in the hallway, waiting while he grabbed a towel and a washcloth from the loft’s single linen closet. “I can’t believe you’re saying no to an omelette.”
“I’m not saying no to an omelette.” He closed the closet door and looked down into her face. “I’m saying no to a game of twenty questions that will end up being twenty-two thousand after you get through.”
“Ha.”
He continued toward the bath and she continued to stalk, er, to follow. He turned into Lauren’s rooms, looked over his shoulder only when he reached the bathroom door. “Macy. I’m going to take a shower.”
She crossed her arms and stood her ground. “No one here is stopping you.”
He took her up on the dare with only one arch look before he walked into the room tiled in red and black. Macy didn’t let him get too far ahead. It was her gauntlet he was walking away with, after all.
She moved into the doorway and swore she caught a hint of a smile on the mouth of the beast. That did it. He couldn’t pay her to leave. She’d stand here until night fell if she had to. She would not be the first to back down.
Apparently Leo was of the same mind-set. He’d draped his towel on the rack, his washcloth on the shower head. His glasses he set on the shelf above the pedestal sink. And then he turned and shrugged off his robe.
His eyes never left Macy’s as he reached behind the door for the clothes hook, and she wasn’t about to be the first to look away. His T-shirt came first, off and over his head. The devil on her shoulder went pitchfork crazy, but Macy refused to move her gaze from Leo’s face.
Temptation had never been so hard to resist. With her eyes only marginally popping out of her head, she took total advantage of her peripheral vision and sucked in the picture of Leo’s hard body.
His pecs were well defined, his abs sported a six-pack. The body of a man who worked out for stress relief instead of competition. His chest was free of all but a feathering of dark hair, soft hair, hair she wanted to feel against her bare skin.
She wanted to melt into a girl puddle at his feet, but managed to do nothing more than wet her lips, clear her throat and say, “I could easily stand out here and ask my questions while you shower.”
“You could just as easily fix that omelette instead.” He hooked both thumbs in the elastic waistband of his pajamas.
“No questions, no omelette.”
“No omelette, no pajamas.”
He wouldn’t. No way. She snorted her disbelief. “Oh, this I gotta see.”
“If you insist.” And he showed her. Though she didn’t see a thing because at the first sign of male belly and the stripe of hair spreading out over Leo’s lower abs and lower other things, Macy shut her eyes tight.
She ignored both his laugh and the prurient urge to peek, listening for the snap of the shower stall’s door latch catching, finally. Listening, too, for the first blast of water from the shower head.
When the spray at last hit the tiled stall wall and the drain took its first gurgling drink, she peeled open one eyelid, still expecting to come face to crotch—er, face to face—with a naked Leo Redding. But she found herself alone.
Disappointed, Macy debated her next move. Whipping up an omelette bribe? Standing her ground and demanding answers? Taking off her clothes and sliding her bare soapy skin over Leo’s, getting a closer look at that spread of belly hair, an eye-level look at the wash of soap and water slicking that hair to his skin, an up-close-and-personal look at everything bold and male between his legs?
She took a deep breath to dispel the image of the last option, which held so much appeal. What was it about a wet naked man? A wet, soapy naked man? So much clean skin in which to bury her nose and breathe, in which to dart the tip of her tongue and taste.
Inhaling the steamy, soapy-skin-scented air was no less arousing, she decided as, eyes closed, she inhaled all she could of Leo.
“Macy? Are you cooking yet?”
If he only knew, she mused, surfacing from her wet dream to find her fingers fiddling with the tiny white buttons running from V-neck to waist on her pajama top of hot-pink flannel covered with hot-orange flames.
“I was thinking of bringing a couple of eggs in here and poaching them in this steam.” She waved her hand in front of her face to clear the air that was fogging her view of the shower stall’s door.
Leo blew out a gusty huff. “If that’s your idea of cooking, I think I’ll take my chances with the courthouse cafeteria.”
Macy frowned. “I know perfectly well how to cook.”
“I haven’t seen much evidence so far.”
“You’ve had my fajitas. My fruit salad.”
“Fast food.”
“Fast food? I don’t think so. And what’s wrong with fast food, anyway?”
“Nothing.” He paused, moving beneath the water, shooting droplets over the top of the door that hit Macy in the face. “If you’re into instant gratification.”
She lifted her face for more. “And you’re not?”
The shower stall opened a crack; Leo’s dark wet head appeared in the opening. His grin was white and wicked and extra appealing for its rarity. His eyes flashed beneath spiky clumps of wet lashes.
“If you tell me you are, I’m going to be more than a little disappointed in you, Macy Webb,” he said, then disappeared behind the closed door.
Well, she couldn’t have that, now, could she? “I suppose you’re right. But you can’t tell me that a quick…bite now and then doesn’t have its advantages.”
All movement in the shower stilled, as if Leo’s mind was traveling the path of Macy’s last remark. Following her mental meanderings into a territory made more dangerous by the fact that he was wearing no clothes and she could be out of hers at the snap of his fingers.
She ran the palm of her hand over the mirror to check her reflection, just in case he started snapping. “I mean, sure. It’s nice to linger over a meal. But, really. Who has the time?”
“You don’t think it’s worth it to make the time?”
“I suppose I’m more the spontaneous type.” Putting her body in motion always helped her think, so she paced the small room. “I don’t tend to plan many of my…meals in advance.”
“And here I thought you were a connoisseur of fun.”
She stopped and frowned. “Obviously we disagree on what makes a good time. My appetite is hardly being short-changed just because I carpe diem.”
“Does your mouth water?”
Macy’s heart skipped a beat. “Excuse me?”
“In anticipation. While looking forward. At the prospect of what’s to come.”
“Sure. Why not? The same way it waters when I’m not even aware of being hungry until I come across what I want.”
It took him a minute to respond, and his voice verged on husky when he asked, “How do you feel about appetizers?”
Foreplay? Was that what he’d said? “Uh, appetizers?”
He opened the door, poked his sopping head out and repeated, “Appetize
rs.”
And then he was gone, leaving her scrambling for an answer and reaching for his towel to dry her arms. “I wish you’d quit doing that. You’re making everything out here wet.”
Again Leo’s movements stilled. Macy replaced the towel and moved closer, into the direct path of Leo’s steam. She leaned one shoulder against the warm black-and-red tile that abutted the shower stall’s door.
“This is a bathroom,” Leo said. “The word itself implying water and the probability things will be getting wet.”
“Sure. In the bath. Or, in this case, the shower. Where the water belongs.”
“Then maybe we should be having this conversation in here.”
Macy’s heart kicked a hard beat against the knot of breath caught in her throat. The stall door’s silver handle drew her gaze. Her fingers flexed; her nails scraped her palms.
Was he serious? Or only tossing out the challenge as a tease? Did he expect her to make the first move? To pull open the door and boldly step inside?
“Macy?”
His voice had dropped to a level made even more suggestive by the fact that it was her name he had spoken while he was naked and they shared the same steam.
“What’s the matter? Afraid of how wet you might get in here?”
She closed her eyes at his dare, took a deep breath and promised a quick murder-suicide if she screwed this up. Her hand was halfway to the stall’s metal handle when the magnetic latch clicked and the door eased open.
It was then she got her first unintentional look at Leo’s body. A quick flash of skin and dark body hair only, before she jerked her gaze away and to his face.
The devil’s face. The face of an arrogant beast, wearing a grin that wasn’t a smile but an expression of ego and conceit. The brief look she’d caught was enough to confirm he had good reason.
Besides, at the moment, she was willing to forgive him just about anything. Water streamed down his face, dripping from spiky lashes, matting his hair to his head with a boyish charm.
The complete picture destroyed her resolve and she stepped into the shower, pajamas and all. He went straight for her buttons, the pressure of his knuckles pinning her to the warm tile as he opened her top, top to bottom.