shut. Not breaking the incendiary kiss, he let her body slide down to the floor slowly, registering every feminine curve that pressed wantonly against him. It had been so long. So very long …
“You’re making me think naughty thoughts,” she gasped.
“That’s how you like it, isn’t it?” he murmured back. “Naughty.”
Her lips curved in a smile so smoking hot he was vaguely surprised his hair didn’t catch on fire. “I guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself.”
And with that, she stepped back from him. She spun into the room off the left of the tiny foyer. Her full skirt twirled around her and she looked like a fresh, young girl. Where had the edgy, tough goth chick disappeared to? He fought to form a coherent thought and came up with, “What’s with the retro virgin look?”
She laughed gaily. “I gather from the enthusiastic welcome home that you like the look?”
He shrugged. “The neighbors were watching.” He wished the words back as soon as he saw her face fall in disappointment. But then she rushed to the corner, yanking at the edge of a horrible gold shag carpet that looked nearly original to the house.
“Check out the hardwood beneath this hideous stuff. Once we pull up the carpet and buff the floor, it’ll be gorgeous.”
“I’m not doing home improvement projects on our hideout!”
“But that’s our cover. We’re setting up our first home together. If folks see us doing yard work and painting and replacing carpet, they’ll know we’re moving in for good. They’ll open up to us.”
“How long are we supposed to spend playing house and hoping it leads to some information?”
“As long as it takes,” she answered blithely.
“You’re mad.”
She threw him a disingenuously innocent look. “Why, I’m not mad at all. I’m thrilled. Let’s make a list and head out to the home-improvement store right now. Shelly—she’s the Realtor—told me where it is.”
“Seriously, Sam. This is nuts.”
“Seriously, Gray. It’ll work. Trust me.”
“I hardly know you! How am I supposed to be your fiancé full-time and in public, no less?”
She laughed. “That kiss you laid on me was a bit more than a hello-it’s-nice-to-meet-you peck. Just go with that.”
“What the hell does that kiss have to do with anything?” He would have added that the kiss had just been an act for the nosy neighbors, but he didn’t want to make that hurt look pass across her face again. And besides, it would have been a lie.
Damn. It would have been a lie. He’d kissed her because he’d been looking for an excuse to do so. The notion staggered him. He hadn’t kissed a woman in five years. And it felt disloyal of him to do it now.
“C’mon. I’ve already got a shopping list started.”
She dragged him around the house, for all the world acting like an enthusiastic bride with no sense of how much work she was proposing to take on with the various projects she had in mind. They’d be busy for weeks renovating this stupid house at the rate she was going. He didn’t even want to contemplate what it was going to cost him emotionally to get through this. It was a job. Just a job. And somehow he suspected he’d be repeating that to himself more times than he cared to count in the days to come.
“How about we start a little smaller and see how things go?” he finally wedged in between bursts of ideas from her.
“Party pooper,” she announced.
“Who’s paying for all of this, anyway?”
“Jeff Winston. He gave me an expense account.”
“Yes, but let’s not bankrupt the guy.”
She laughed. “In the first place, we could renovate the state of West Virginia and not bankrupt Jeff. And in the second, if we do a great job on the place, our lease includes an option to buy. Jeff can buy it and sell it for a profit.”
“Not in this housing market,” he snorted.
“You’re too practical for your own good,” she declared. “You need to loosen up.”
He’d heard that before. But for the past few years, he hadn’t cared. From her, though, it stung a little.
As they pulled into the parking lot of a home-improvement store a little while later, though, he had to admit her enthusiasm was contagious.
She exclaimed, “This place is so cool! It’s a time warp, I’m tellin’ ya.”
He gazed around the parking lot, populated entirely with vintage cars. Frankly, he found it a little creepy. “Come on, June,” he grumbled.
“Who?”
“June Cleaver.” He wasn’t completely ignorant when it came to American TV.
She flashed him one of those heart-stopping smiles of hers. “Ahh, if only you knew what I’m capable of in the dark. You’d never call me that.”
His heart actually skipped a beat. Her sunglasses today were oversize things with white plastic frames and rhinestones that made him think of Marilyn Monroe. He’d give anything to be able to see past those dark lenses to her eyes right now. Was she just teasing him, or was there an edge of truth to her words? Did he detect a hint of an offer in that flirtatious comment? Did he dare contemplate taking her up on it?
She looped her arm in his as he headed for the store. She murmured offhandedly, “That chaste little peck you laid on me back at the house doesn’t even constitute a warm-up kiss in my world.”
Mentally, his jaw dropped. He swore under his breath at the places his thoughts raced off to and refused to come back from. And that was why she probably got away with buying hundreds of dollars’ worth more of paint and light fixtures and curtain rods than they needed. She even managed to cram a half dozen scrawny rosebushes in the back of the Bronco.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he grumbled, “You took blatant advantage of my distraction to bankrupt Jeff.”
“My mother always told me, ‘Honey, if you’ve got it, use it.’”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t like your mother.”
Her voice dropped into a grim, tense register he’d never heard out of her before. “Neither do I.”
He peered over at her, but she was staring straight ahead and those damned shades gave away nothing. “What’s wrong with her?” he ventured to ask.
“I would have to know where she is to be able to answer that fully.”
Whoa. “Did she leave you?”
“No.” A sigh. “I left her. But by the time I grew up enough to go back and find her, she was gone. Moved
