from him. “Um...”
“You don’t like waffles? All right, pancakes it is.”
“Listen, the first half of that sounds wonderful.” She twisted her hands in front of her, her eyes on her own fingers. “But I’m not looking for anything serious here.”
“If I were making Peking duck, I might consider that serious, but we’re talking breakfast food here. How about Lucky Charms? How serious can a cereal with marshmallows in it be?”
“They’re my favorite,” she admitted with a sheepish sigh.
“Mine, too. I once broke up with a woman who told me she wouldn’t allow a kids’ cereal at her breakfast table.”
“Guess she didn’t want kids.”
“We hadn’t really reached that stage yet. But on behalf of any potential future children she might have, I called her bluff and didn’t see her again.”
“Dumped over a box of cereal. Harsh.”
“Hey, don’t mess with a man’s one weakness.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Tomorrow morning?”
She immediately realized she’d backed herself into a corner. “Uh, wait, no, that’s not what I meant.” She tucked a strand of wildly blowing hair behind her ear, visibly stalling. Taking a deep breath, she admitted, “Breakfast implies an all-nighter.”
“You doubting my manhood again?” he asked, deliberately misunderstanding her. He knew she was skittish and was backing away from the idea of actually spending an entire night in his bed. Hell, if she thought up-against-the-front-door sex was all he was after, she didn’t rate her own appeal very highly. After what they’d already shared, what she’d already made him feel, he wasn’t sure he’d be willing to let her out of his sight for a month.
“Not at all,” she said, her smile tremulous. “It’s just, I’m not thinking long-term here.”
“And tomorrow morning is oh-so-far away?”
“Too far away for my taste.”
Huh. She’d really surprised him. He hadn’t had many one-night-stands, but he felt pretty sure that women got testy if they thought you didn’t want them to actually sleep with you once they’d been invited to, uh, sleep with you.
“I like you,” he admitted with a shrug. “Going to bed with you tonight and waking up with you tomorrow won’t exactly be a hardship.”
“It might if you knew who you’d be waking up with.”
“You mean, the wicked witch?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m a big boy. I’ll take my chances.”
She swallowed, her throat quivering. A gusty wind howled through the night, and she pulled her coat tighter around herself. Chaz stepped closer to block the wind, enjoying the way her hair blew against his face. Not to mention how deliciously soft her skin felt against the tips of his fingers. The memory of sinking just one inch inside that beautiful body made him shake with need, from head to toe.
Yeah. He would definitely take his chances. He’d savor whatever she wanted to give him and then figure out how to make her want to give him more.
He reached for her chin and lifted it, forcing her to look at him. The silly mask remained on her face, and he couldn’t wait to take it off. But he sensed they were doing that dance again, like they’d done in the bar. Forward and back. He didn’t want to do anything to push her away.
“Just come home with me,” he urged, “and let the chips fall where they may.”
She stared up at him, uncertainty awash in those shaded eyes. “With no promises?”
He sensed she needed an out. Hoping she’d change her mind, he nodded. “No promises.” Lightening the mood, he grinned. “And no lampshades.”
She visibly relaxed, her stiff posture loosening, her tight mouth softening. “That’s a deal.”
“Are you going to let your friend know?”
She glanced at her phone, tapped out a brief message, and then turned the device off. “I’m all yours,” she said once she’d dropped it back into her purse. “For the next hour or so, anyway.”
“There you go, doubting my manliness again.”
“Three hours?”
“At a bare minimum.”
However long it lasted, he would never forget it. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, and he was already sure that he was in the middle of something very special. Possibly life-changing. He couldn’t say how he knew it—maybe intuition, maybe wishful thinking. It didn’t matter. He was just certain, on some elemental level, that he would be irrevocably changed after this night.
They started walking again, but hadn’t gone more than a couple of feet before he heard her soft giggle. So maybe she wasn’t thinking about anything on an elemental level.
Which was just one more thing he liked about her. She was damned unpredictable.
“What now?”
“I just had this mental image of somebody at that savings and loan watching the video and wondering what in hell was going on when you stood there for so long with your head thrown back.”
He thrust a hand through his hair, wondering where on earth the two of them had gotten the nerve to be so outrageous. He could practically see the headlines now: Local Reporter Charged With Indecency In A Bank Lobby. Wouldn’t his friends and colleagues have a field day with that one?
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. “I suppose that depends on who was watching.”
“You might want to change where you do your banking.”
He wasn’t worried. “I really don’t think they watch those recordings unless they have a reason to review them for a crime or something.”
“Then let’s hope nobody robs the place tonight. I’m so not ready for my close-up to be seen by an audience.”
“Your close-up was my favorite part of the whole banking experience,” he admitted, unable to deny it. “But even if somebody does watch, that camera didn’t capture anything below waist level.”
And if it had, there’d be nothing to see except a mass of glorious, curly red hair.
Christ, the thought of what she’d done to him—how she’d made him feel—was enough to make him want to throw his head back and howl to the moon like a werewolf on the prowl this Halloween night. Her sexual generosity had stunned him.
“You know, I’ve dated women for months who didn’t do for me what you did back there.”
“Do
