scent of pine drew his attention to the corner where her little tree twinkled. Because he’d pegged her as an orderly person, he wasn’t surprised that the strings of lights and ornaments were hung in perfect symmetry. He pictured her squinting at the finished product to make sure that there were no bald spots or color clashes.
“I like your tree.” He gave her another smile.
“Thanks.” This time she smiled back, but she still looked very nervous.
He was impressed that she had a tree at all, though, considering that last Christmas she’d been part of a couple and this year she was alone. Apparently she wasn’t about to let that stop her from celebrating, and he was glad to discover that. Her perky little evergreen shone like a badge of courage in the corner of her living room.
He’d expected the place to be immaculate, and it was. The red pillow sitting in the middle of her white sofa was fascinating, though. From the psychology texts he’d read, that pillow in the middle of all the virginal white said something about her sexuality. An erotic nature might be hiding under the sensible surface.
But he wasn’t here to uncover her erotic nature. First he’d tighten the pipe connection that she probably loosened on purpose, and then he’d listen to her complain about her ex-boyfriend. Maybe he’d suggest ordering up some Chinese food. He’d be a shoulder for her to cry on—figuratively in this case—reassuring her that she was too good for the chump who’d left her.
Still, her appearance threw him. She didn’t look like a woman about to let her hair down.
“The pipe’s been leaking for three days.” She led the way toward the bathroom. “This is the first chance I’ve had to call you.”
Another unexpected comment. She didn’t strike him as the type to make up a story about a pipe that had been leaking for three days. That was carrying the charade a little too far. But maybe she had more imagination than the other women he’d dealt with. Or maybe she loosened the pipe, lost her nerve and then had to spend three days working up to the call.
If so, then he’d enjoy helping her rebuild her confidence. Platonically, of course. Always platonically.
In order to get to the bathroom, he had to walk through her bedroom. It was very girly, with rose-printed fabric covering the quilt, armchair and curtains in shades of red and pink. But there, nestled against the pillows, was the devil himself.
He was a cute little doll dressed in bright red velvet, with a mischievous grin on his face and The Devil Made Me Do It written across his chest. Uh-huh. As he’d suspected from his first glimpse of Suzanne, still waters ran deep.
Her bedroom held the subtle scent of roses, but her bathroom was drenched in it. When he walked in, he was bombarded with an image of Suzanne, naked, spritzing the perfume in strategic places. The Devil Made Me Do It. The devil was having a field day with him right now, thumbing his nose at all those platonic vows Greg had taken.
Trying to calm his libido, he crouched in front of the cabinet under the sink and opened the oak doors. A steady drip had made a round spot on the pink towel she’d laid under the pipe. There was nothing erotic about that spot, and yet his mind leaped from damp towels to the image of Suzanne stepping out of a steamy shower, glistening and wet.
He could assume that Suzanne had called him because she needed a shoulder to cry on. He’d known she was shy, so meeting him in full career-dress mode made sense, now that he thought about it. Suzanne wouldn’t be the sort to let down her guard easily, but he had a knack for helping women open up and confide in him.
Assuming he used that talent with Suzanne, he wondered how well he’d be able to control himself once she opened up to him and became soft and vulnerable. He wondered if he’d be able to ignore the implications of that red pillow and that suggestive doll in the middle of her bed. He wondered how much trouble he could get into if he ignored the implications, if he broke all his rules, followed his instincts and took this fascinating woman to bed.
A lot of trouble, no doubt. But this time it might be worth the risk.
“Is it a bigger problem than I thought?” Suzanne asked from the bathroom doorway.
“No.” He cleared the huskiness from his throat. “Minor stuff, it looks like.” He got to his knees and fumbled with the latch on his toolbox. After getting it open with far more awkwardness than usual, he took out a small flashlight and beamed it up toward the source of the leak. That’s when he found the rust that was causing it.
Suzanne certainly hadn’t rusted the pipe. Much as he hated to admit it, she hadn’t booby-trapped her sink in order to lure him into her apartment. Her call had been legitimate.
Damn.
THE MINUTE GREG STEPPED into her apartment, Suzanne realized she should have announced that she had an urgent appointment and vamoosed. She thought about asking him to fix the sink while she was gone, but she was…curious. Besides, her apartment was too private a place to let somebody she barely knew walk around by himself, especially someone with a reputation like Greg’s.
For one thing, he might find her stash of sexy novels. Jared had made great fun of those. He’d insisted that reading them meant she’d rather get her kicks vicariously than with a living, breathing man. He’d also claimed that no real guy ever acted the way the men did in those books. He was probably right about that, because she hadn’t found any so far.
But she should have risked having Greg poke around by himself, because being here with him was a colossal mistake. He smelled too good, too masculine, a combination of lime-scented shaving cream and Old Spice. Nothing fancy for this guy. Much as she didn’t want him to, he was turning her on.
She could still leave, of course. She could, but she was already entranced, a deer in the headlights. When he leaned in to turn off the water valve under the sink, his biceps rippled. She’d seen plenty of rippling biceps at the gym both nights she’d dragged herself there with Terri this week, but the guys at the gym were flexing on purpose. A casual, unconscious ripple was so much sexier.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked. “Water, coffee, a soft drink?” A condom?
“No, thanks.” He sat on the floor and chose a wrench from his toolbox.
The authoritative way he grasped the wrench caused little jolts of excitement to dance in her stomach. Her ideal lover would have sure hands like Greg’s, a firm yet gentle touch. She admired his long, tapered fingers and the fine sprinkling of dark hair on the backs of his hands.
He wore a utilitarian watch, the kind you could buy at the drugstore, and no rings. The lack of rings came as no surprise after what Terri had said. He was a Don Juan of the big city, a man who wanted no entanglements.
There would be a certain freedom in making love to someone with that attitude. She wouldn’t have to worry about whether he would make a good husband or a good father, or even a good impression on her mother. Most of all she wouldn’t have to worry about whether he would leave her, because no commitment would exist in the first place. The sex would be about mutual pleasure and nothing else.
It was a whole new concept for her. Up to now she’d scrutinized every man in her life for warning signs that they would eventually treat her the way her father had treated her mother. No wonder she hadn’t ever fully relaxed sexually with a man. So much had been at stake. With Greg, nothing at all would be at stake, and she might finally have the kind of experience she’d read about
