and business partner, Holly Kendrick.”
“I apologize for interrupting,” Holly said to him. “I just got a message that my brother’s coming into town so I have to pick him up from the airport, but I feel terrible about abandoning Rachel with two tickets to a Wolfpack game on a Saturday afternoon.”
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to the airport now?” Rachel suggested.
“You’re right,” Holly agreed. “It was nice meeting you, Andrew. See you tomorrow, Rachel.” Then she disappeared into the back again and—hopefully—out the back door.
“Was that your friend’s not-so-subtle way of letting me know that you don’t have any plans today?” Andrew asked when Holly had gone.
“Actually that was subtle, at least for Holly. And I do have plans.”
“The basketball game.”
She nodded.
“I like basketball,” he said. “If you wanted to sell the extra ticket to me, I’d go with you.”
“I’m not selling the ticket to you,” she told him. “But I will let you buy the popcorn.”
He smiled. “Sounds fair. What time’s the game?”
“Four o’clock.”
“I’ll pick you up at two-thirty.”
* * *
Andrew pressed the code to buzz Rachel’s apartment at precisely two-thirty. After he identified himself over the intercom, she told him “apartment 704” and released the lock.
He stepped into the lobby and took a moment to look around while he waited for the elevator. He’d never lived in an apartment and wasn’t sure he could do so without feeling claustrophobic, but he had to admit that this building had ambience. There were watercolors on the walls, fresh flowers strategically placed around the room and leather seating around a gas fireplace.
A quiet ding indicated the elevator’s arrival and, a minute later, he was at Rachel’s door. She responded promptly to his knock.
“I just need to grab my purse,” she said, and stepped back so that he could enter.
He didn’t glance around her apartment because his gaze was riveted on her. She’d changed from her work clothes into a pair of black jeans that molded to her narrow hips and a soft pink sweater that hugged her curves and somehow made her eyes seem even bluer. She’d brushed her hair out, so that it spilled over her shoulders in a silky cloud. On her feet she wore black boots with heels that looked more fashionable than practical.
He felt a distinctive tug low in his groin and couldn’t deny it was attraction. And his body’s instinctive response to Rachel Ellis worried him, because he sensed that there was something more going on here than basic chemistry. Lust was simple enough, but what he felt for Rachel wasn’t simple. There was something more mixed with the desire he felt, and he was concerned that he could—maybe already did—actually like her.
She picked up her purse off the console, double-checked that she had the tickets, then grabbed her coat from the closet. “Okay,” she told him.
When he didn’t shift from his position in front of the door, she looked up at him. He watched her eyes darken as puzzlement changed to awareness, and the pulse at the base of her throat quickened as awareness gave way to desire. It had been a long time since he’d had to read a woman’s signals, but he was confident that the attraction he felt was reciprocated.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Are you, uh, ready?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “There’s just one thing I think we should get out of the way before we go.”
And then he kissed her.
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