here,” he confessed. “But I know what I want, and I really don’t want to offend you.”
She seemed a little dazed, innocent. Damn.
“What I want?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I.I was just trying to fix your eye.”
“Okay.” He smiled what he hoped was an I-understand-perfectly smile and not an I-wanted-to-jump-your-bones one. “That’s what I thought you were doing. My mistake.”
“Mistake?”
She looked a little sad then, a little embarrassed. He could feel her withdrawing from him, even though she hadn’t actually moved an inch.
“I’m just. I’m a guy, okay? Some women would say, I’m not a very nice guy. That I…well, when a woman gets this close and is…touching me…I get ideas. Ideas that, I’m afraid, were not the same ideas you were having, and…well, you’re a beautiful woman, Jane.”
She scrambled to get off the couch, to get away from him, hot color blooming in her cheeks as she got all flustered. “You thought…I was coming on to you?”
He nodded, thinking honesty probably wasn’t the best policy here, that he’d offended her, when, he swore to God, he’d been trying to do the exact opposite. To keep from offending her.
Women. They could just be so hard to read, and sometimes it seemed there was no way to win. No way at all.
Come on to her and offend her? Don’t come on to her and still offend her?
What was a guy to do?
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“Jane, it’s no big deal—
She blushed even more furiously. “I would never—”
“Never?” Now that hurt. “Never?”
“I’m not. I mean to say, I don’t—”
“Don’t what?” Now he had to know. Never with anyone? No way. Not in this day and age. Or no way, no how, with him? That seemed like overstating it a bit. “What do you mean, never?”
“I don’t…throw myself at men.”
Okay, that he believed, though in his thoroughly male opinion it was a shame.
The world should be full of women who threw themselves at men. Of course, it was, he’d found, but not many of those women were like Jane.
“I’m sorry. For everything. And I just. I have to go,” she said.
“You really don’t,” he claimed.
“I do.” She turned and fled.
Wyatt swore softly and succinctly, his body humming with desire, still feeling her pressed against him, her soft hands on his face.
He was an idiot. A complete idiot where women like her were concerned.
Chapter Five
Jane Carlton did not come on to men.
At least, she didn’t think she did.
She didn’t mean to.
Her face burned when she remembered being on the couch with Wyatt the day before. He’d thought she was making a pass at him? And he’d been trying to say…he’d welcome that?
Surely not.
“You’re frowning again,” Lainie said, standing in the doorway with a batch of message slips with Jane’s calls on them. “What in the world happened to you yesterday?”
Jane, if puzzling over anyone’s behavior except Wyatt’s, would have normally turned to Gram and Gladdy for advice on men. Between the two of them, she doubted there was any situation Jane might find herself in that they hadn’t already been in themselves. But she couldn’t talk to them about Wyatt. Not when she was trying to keep his uncle away from both of them.
She figured Lainie was her best shot for help here.
“Can I ask you something about men?” Jane blurted out before she lost her nerve.
Lainie giggled.
“Why is that so funny?” Jane asked, finding Lainie’s reaction slightly offensive, maybe more than slightly.
“It’s not funny. I’m just so happy, Jane!” she said, like Jane had announced she was eloping or something.
“It’s just a question.”
“Okay. Go ahead. Please.” Lainie sounded so eager. “Anything I can do to help.”
“You think I need help with men?”
“Oh, definitely.”
No hesitation there. Jane pictured herself as a virtual wrecking yard of relationships, like there might be a sign that said, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
“It’s about…coming on to men,” she said, wishing she’d never started this whole thing.
“Oh!” Lainie clapped her hands together like a kid who’d just received a terrific present. “This is sooooo good! Jane, I’m so proud of you. You actually want to make the first move with a man!”
“No, I didn’t say that. I’m just…trying to find out if I already did.”
“Well, that’s even better! Tell me! Tell me everything,” she begged.
Jane thought about how she might explain, then decided it would probably be better to just show Lainie. There was a love seat in Jane’s office, after all.
“Shut the door,” she instructed, then got up and walked over to the love seat. “I just…sit down and let me show you.”
“Okay.” Lainie sat.
Jane knelt on the love seat, conscious now of how hard it was to keep her balance. “Lean your head back.”
Lainie did, and Jane eased closer.
“Now, you’ve hurt your eye, and I’m…I’m trying to fix it. That’s it. Just trying to fix it. Like this, except you’re a lot taller than me, so I had to reach up higher. If I did that, would you think I was coming on to you?”
She reached up to a point past Lainie’s eye and then looked down and realized her breasts were practically in Lainie’s face when she made that move.
“Oh, no!” Jane cried.
Lainie lifted her head before Jane could move away, and then…sure enough, breasts in her face.
While Lainie giggled,
