to where Serena had stepped out onto the porch. She was so damn beautiful. Ever since the first moment he’d met her, he’d been having fantasies about her long, thick hair—about tangling his fingers in it, about...
His mind went blank as his gaze focused on her. It was so hot that he shouldn’t have been surprised she was wearing shorts. But he hadn’t pictured her as the type to wear cutoff Daisy Dukes, and he’d pictured her in a lot of different things—and nothing at all—since he’d met her. Her legs were long and tanned or maybe that was just the natural hue of her honey-toned skin. With the cutoffs, she wore a pale pink tank top, probably in deference to the heat. Her hair was down, reaching nearly to her narrow waist.
“Annie can stay?” Stanley asked hopefully.
Cody was surprised the kid had enough wits about him to pose a question. His tongue was tied. But she had that effect on him. She was the first woman he’d met that he hadn’t been able to flirt with.
“She can stay outside and in the enclosed porches,” Serena allowed. “I don’t want her peeing in my house. Or chewing up any of my great-grandmother’s antiques.”
Stanley nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Ma’am? Cody winced. He was twenty-seven and didn’t like to be called “sir” yet. Serena had to be a few years younger than he was—way too young to be called “ma’am.”
“You should get her some water now,” Serena told Stanley. “With all that hair, she must be overheated.” As she said it, she lifted her own hair from the back of her neck. Her face was flushed; she was hot, too.
So hot...
And sexy...
Nearly tripping over his feet in his anxiousness to obey her—or maybe to please her—Stanley hurried into the house.
Cody could understand wanting to please her. He’d like to try himself. As all the naked images popped into his head, his throat thickened with desire. He cleared it to say, “Thank you.”
Serena nodded.
“What about me?” he asked, even though he knew it was a bad idea. “Can I stay, too?”
Her dark eyes widened in surprise.
He should have asked her for a room weeks ago instead of crashing at the firehouse. But with the arsonist on the loose, he’d thought it was smart to stay close—and there wasn’t any place closer than the house itself. When those hot spots had flared up again with the arsonist’s help, he’d been the first one ready to go.
But the guys wanted him to have a softer bed so he could get more rest. When they were on the job—sometimes for weeks at a time—they got very little sleep.
Another reason he’d decided to crash at the firehouse instead of getting a room here was because of Serena, though. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he would actually get with her so temptingly close.
Her lips parted, but she said nothing—her hesitation obvious. She didn’t seem to want him in her house any more than she wanted the dog.
So he promised her, “I won’t pee in your house or chew up your great-grandmother’s antiques.”
She hesitated another long moment before replying, “Then I guess you can stay.”
* * *
WHAT THE HELL had she been thinking?
Sure, she needed more tenants to be able to show the bank that the boardinghouse could be a profitable business. She’d even hoped that Cody was bringing her another boarder. She hadn’t thought he would be that boarder, though.
Grandma would’ve said it was like letting a fox into the hen house. Of course, she and Mrs. Gulliver were the only hens. And Mrs. Gulliver was eighty-six.
And despite all the things Serena had heard about Cody Mallehan being a shameless womanizer, he hadn’t really even flirted with her. Of course she wasn’t his type. Guys like him loved fun-loving, lighthearted women. She was too serious for him, too stressed thanks to that damn lawsuit. She also didn’t care about makeup and clothes, about dressing to attract men.
Not that she didn’t want a man. But she didn’t want just any man; she wanted one who was as serious as she was—who would stay and help her raise a family someday in this house. That was why she couldn’t lose it.
She had too many hopes and dreams for it—for someday filling it with family, like Grandma had.
No, she definitely wasn’t Cody’s type any more than he was hers. But as she climbed the staircase ahead of him, his gaze was on her ass. She doubted she was just imagining it because it was so palpable she could almost feel it. The elaborate polished oak staircase was extra wide; he could have walked beside her, like a gentleman, but he was taking the opportunity to ogle her instead.
Settling in a boarder was her job, not another tenant’s, or she would have had Stanley show Cody to his room. They would both be on the second floor. Fortunately, her room was not; she lived in the attic, which had been converted to a studio apartment long ago.
As she reached the second-floor landing, she expelled a shaky breath of relief. She was almost there. But a strong hand closed around her wrist, stopping her. Her skin tingled beneath his touch.
“What’s up there?” Cody gestured toward the narrower flight of stairs that led to the third floor.
“My private quarters,” she said. She had no intention of ever letting him up to the small space dominated by her great-grandmother’s old brass bed.
She tugged free of his grasp and headed down the hall toward the room at the end. As Cody followed, she hurried past all the six panel mahogany doors. As she passed an open one, she pointed. “There’s the bathroom. There are two on this floor. One on this side of the stairwell and one on the other side.”
He nodded but he didn’t even glance inside the room—which was good since she still needed to clean it. His gaze remained on her; it was so intense that her hand shook as she reached for the doorknob for his room.
“And this is where you’ll be staying.”
She had put him in the biggest second-floor room, which was also the most masculine with its mahogany trim, dark stained wood floor, and navy blue walls. She stepped back to let him pass her. But he brushed against her anyway, his chest and hip bumping into hers.
Something flared in his green eyes. Or maybe it had already been there—an intensity that unnerved her. As she held out the room key to him, her hand shook so much that she dropped it. He leaned down to pick it up, and his soft hair whispered across her bare legs.
Despite the heat, she shivered. “I should have opened the window,” she murmured and hurried over to it. She needed the air. More than that, she needed the distance from him. But even though it was the biggest bedroom, it wasn’t big enough for her to escape his presence.
She threw up the sash, but no breeze blew in through the window. Not a tree limb or leaf moved in the woods that surrounded the house. She drew in a deep breath and turned back toward Cody.
Now he was leaning over the duffel bag he’d dropped onto the
