ongoing business relationship, for one.” Because her fingers were tense again, she busied them by unbuttoning her coat as she walked back to the window. “We’re both trying to accomplish the same thing with this house, so it doesn’t make sense to be at odds. These are nice, aren’t they?” She took the fire irons from the box, stroked a finger over the curved handle of the coal shovel. “They could use some polish.”
“It ought to work better than the crowbar I’ve been using.” Tucking his thumbs in his pockets, he watched her carry the irons to the fire, set them carefully and individually in their stand on the stone hearth.
“Whatever you used, it’s a nice fire.” Torn between courage and doubt, she stared at the flames. “I’m still looking for the right screen. This one doesn’t really suit. It would be better in one of the rooms upstairs. I imagine you’ll have them all working. The fireplaces.”
“Eventually.”
He’d only known her for a few weeks, he realized. How could he be so sure she was arguing with herself? With the firelight flickering over her, her back so straight, that sweep of hair curtaining half her face, she looked relaxed, confident, perfectly at ease. Maybe it was the way she had her fingers linked together, or the way she wasn’t looking at him. But he was certain some small inner war was being waged.
“Why are you here, Regan?”
“I told you.” Dragging her fingers apart, she went back to the box. “I have some other stuff from the auction in my car, but you’re not ready for it. But these…” With care, she unwrapped heavy crystal candlesticks. “I could see them in here, right on this table. You’ll want flowers for this vase. Even in the winter.”
She fussed with the arrangement, placing the candlesticks just so on one side of the Doulton vase she’d already sold him.
“Tulips would be lovely, when you can get them,” she continued, carefully unwrapping the two white tapers she’d brought along. “But mums would do, and roses, of course.” She put a smile on her face again and turned. “There, what do you think?”
Saying nothing, he took a box of wooden matches from the mantel and walked over to light the tapers. And watched her over the delicate twin flames. “They work.”
“I meant the whole effect, the room.” It was a good excuse to move away from him, wandering the space, running a finger along the curved back of the settee.
“It’s perfect. I didn’t expect any less from you.”
“I’m not perfect.” The words burst out of her, unexpected on both sides. “You make me nervous when you say so. I was always expected to be perfect, and I’m just not. I’m not carefully arranged, like this room, with every piece in place, no matter how much I want to be. I’m a mess.” She dragged nervous fingers through her hair. “And I wasn’t, before. I wasn’t. No, stay over there.” She backed up quickly when he stepped forward. “Just stay over there.”
Frustrated, she waved her hands to ward him off, then paced. “You scared me this morning. You made me angry, but more, you scared me.”
It wasn’t easy for Rafe to keep his hands to himself. “How?”
“Because no one’s ever wanted me the way you do. I know you do.” She stopped, rubbing her hands over her arms. “You look at me as though you already know how it’s going to be with us. And I have no control over it.”
“I figured I was giving you control, laying it out for you.”
“No. No,” she repeated, flinging up her arms. “I don’t have any control over the way I’m feeling. You have to know that. You know exactly the way you affect people.”
“We’re not talking about people.”
“You know exactly the way you affect me.” She almost shouted it before she fisted her hands and fought for composure. “You know I want you. Why wouldn’t I? It’s just as you said, we’re adults who know what we want. And the more I backpedal, the more stupid I feel.”
His eyes were shadowed in the shifting light. “You’re going to stand there and say these things to me and expect me to do nothing about it?”
“I expect to be able to make a sane and rational decision. I don’t expect my glands to overwhelm my brain.” She blew out a breath. “Then I look at you and I want to rip your clothes off.”
He had to laugh. It was the safest way to defuse the bomb ticking inside of him. “Don’t expect me to stop you.” When he stepped forward, she jumped back like a spring. “Just the beer,” he muttered, lifting the bottle. “I need it.” He took a long, deep gulp, but it didn’t do much to put out the fire. “So, what have we got here, Regan? Two unattached, healthy adults who want pretty much the same thing from each other.”
“Who barely know each other,” she added. “Who’ve barely scratched the surface of any sort of relationship. Who should have more sense than to jump into sex as if it was a swimming pool.”
“I never bother testing the water.”
“I do. An inch at a time.” Ordering herself to be calm, she linked her hands again. “It’s important to me to know exactly what I’m getting into, exactly where I’m going.”
“No detours?”
“No. When I plan something, I stick to it. That works for me.” She was calmer now, she told herself. Rational now. “I had a lot of time to think, driving to Pennsylvania and back. We need to slow down, take a look at the whole picture.”
If she was calm, why couldn’t she stop fiddling with her blazer, twisting her rings?
“It’s like this house,” she continued quickly. “You’ve finished one room, and it’s beautiful, it’s wonderful. But you didn’t start this project without a complete plan in mind for the rest of it. I think intimacy should certainly be as carefully thought out as the renovation of a house.”
“Makes sense.”
“Good.” She drew in a breath, released it. “So, we’ll take a few steps back, get a clearer view of things.” Her hand was still unsteady when she reached for her coat. “That’s the sensible, the responsible route to take.”
“Yeah.” He set down his beer. “Regan?”
She gripped her coat like a lifeline. “Yes.”
“Stay.”
Her fingers went numb. Her breath came out in a long, shuddering sigh. “I thought you’d never ask.”
With a jittery laugh, she threw herself into his arms.
Chapter 6
“This is crazy.” Already breathless, she curled her fingers into his hair to drag his mouth to hers. Everything in her strained into the kiss, the heat of it, the danger, the promise. “I wasn’t going to do this.”
“That’s okay.” He dragged his lips from hers to race over her face. “I’ll do it.”
“I’d
