“I think what you mean is that I have a listening problem.”
She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “If I say I’ve got it from here, and it’s been a long day and I’m tired, is there any way I’m going to stop you from coming in?”
He considered that for several seconds then shook his head. “Probably not. I’ll just make up some lame excuse like needing to use the bathroom and we both know that you’re too polite to say no.”
He was right. Damn those pesky Southern manners her parents had drilled into her. She couldn’t decide if it was more disturbing or pathetic that she had little to no ability to deny him anything. Like the tornado, he’d blown into her life and had the potential to make a huge mess of things.
“You could have the decency to look a little less smug,” she said, pushing the door open and letting him inside.
“Kidding aside, I really would like to discuss Janey’s case,” he said, stepping into the foyer, which led into the open-concept great room and kitchen. “We didn’t get a chance at dinner.”
As if she would say no to that. Besides, this time he sounded sincere, and less like he was trying to get into her pants.
She wondered what he would do if she invited him up to her bedroom. There was no point pondering the possibility, as it would never happen. Not in this lifetime anyway. But it was the kind of thing that she liked to think about. When she was alone. Usually in bed. If he was as good as her fantasies...
No man was as good as the fantasy. She had pretty high standards when it came to casual sex. Her philosophy was simple. Why did she need a man around when she could do it better herself?
“I have to make an early start in the morning, so you’ve got thirty minutes,” she said, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it on the coat tree by the door. He did the same, looking even more rumpled than he had at dinner. Since it would be rude not to offer him a beverage—there were those pesky manners again—she said, “I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Would you like one?”
“I’d love one,” he said.
She gestured to the couch, probably the safest place to confine him. “Make yourself comfortable.”
She stepped into the kitchen and filled the kettle, then set the burner on high. The stove, like the rest of the kitchen, was a chef’s dream. Major overkill considering neither she nor her aunt liked to cook, but her aunt only bought top-of-the line appliances. She bought top-of-the-line everything.
Clare grabbed two cups from the cupboard and set them by the stove, then pulled out a box of chamomile tea. “Do you take sugar or honey?” she asked him, bracing herself for some sort of suggestive innuendo, but he didn’t say a word. She turned to him, and realized that he hadn’t answered because he was gone.
“Where the heck did you go?” she called, and heard him answer from the second floor.
“Up here.”
She was fairly sure that his voice was coming from her bedroom. So much for having to actually invite him to her bedroom. He’d found it all on his own.
Did the man have no boundaries? No shame?
She should have known. She never should have turned her back on him. Hell, she never should have let him into her house.
She charged up the stairs to her bedroom. She found him sitting at the foot of her bed, looking around the room. It had been a really long time since she’d had a man under, or even on top of, her covers and he looked damn good there.
“What the hell, Parker?” she said, realizing, as his name rolled off her tongue, that as long as she had known him she had referred to him as Dr. Reese. This was her first time addressing him by his first name. It felt a little odd, but also kind of natural.
He flashed her a toothy smile. “Hey there, short stuff.”
At five-five she was hardly short, but she let it slide. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You said to make myself comfortable.”
“I meant on the couch.”
“But you didn’t say the couch.”
“I pointed to it!”
“Clearly I don’t take direction well. You’re going to have to be a little more specific next time.”
Next time? After this did he seriously think she would let him back in?
Who was she kidding? Of course she would.
She folded her arms. “Get off my bed.”
He grinned. “You didn’t say please.”
“Please get off my bed,” she said, feeling a little desperate. The urge to jump in there with him was almost too strong to fight. She felt a little winded and tingly all over, as if her libido had just awakened from a long hibernation.
“No need to shout,” he said, pulling himself to his feet and walking to the door.
“I don’t like having people in my bedroom. I like my privacy.” She straightened the covers where he’d been sitting. They were still warm from his body heat, and the slightest hint of his aftershave lingered in the air.
She turned to him to say that it was time for him to go, but he wasn’t there!
“Are you kidding me?” she mumbled. “Parker!”
She found him in her craft room next door. He’d switched the light on and was examining the quilt samplers she had sewn and tacked to the wall. “Oh, my God, are you for real? Did I not just say that I like my privacy. You have the attention span of a three-year-old!”
“You said you don’t like having people in your bedroom. This isn’t your bedroom, is it?”
She didn’t justify that one with a response. And her thin-lipped glare only seemed to amuse him further. “The truth is, I just wanted to hear you say my name again. Or shriek it, as the case may be.”
She ignored the warm shiver that whispered across the surface of her skin and raised the fine hairs on her arms. Or tried to at least. He wasn’t making it easy. “I’ll say it a thousand times if it will make you go downstairs.”
“These are fantastic,” he said, gesturing to the wall. She wasn’t buying it. He was the kind of guy who knew quality when he saw it and this was definitely not quality sewing.
“Compliments won’t get you anywhere,” she told him.
“I’m actually serious,” he said, leaning in closer. “Where did you get them?”
“I made them, and for the record, they suck. The fabric is puckered and the rows are crooked. My stitching is totally uneven. Which is why I keep them in here. Where no one will see them.”
“But the colors are striking,” he said, and she realized that he really wasn’t bullshitting her. He was genuinely impressed.
Weird.
