Page 357 of Summer Heat
“Right after I maim your brother for giving you my address,” she promised sweetly, with just the hint of a smile.
He dropped the ridiculously heavy flowers onto the ground. “He didn’t. I asked one of my investigators at the firm to dig up your info. Brian doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“Afraid to tell him?” she prodded with little sympathy.
“Shouldn’t I be?”
Leaning against the doorframe, she took her sweet time answering, “Nah, Brian will probably just laugh his ass off.”
That’s what he was afraid of.
And clearly, the grinning imp darn well knew it, too.
Seeing her amusement at his expense ripen even more, he saw a brief opening and took a shot, “So are you going to put me out of my misery already and forgive me?”
“I don’t know. Did you apologize?” she countered.
Damn, she wasn’t going to make this easy for him.
“I’m…sorry, Abby. Truly.” The words were rusty and foreign in his mouth; they weren’t ones he used ve
ry often.
Suddenly, her smile dissolved into a look of remembered irritation. “Sorry for calling me a gold digging whore or for saying I was too fat to be in a trashy wet t-shirt contest?”
He reeled back as if bitch-slapped. “I didn’t call you fat! Good lord, you don’t really think that about yourself, do you?”
“Of course not,” she snapped.
“Good.” He wasn’t a fan of women who were constantly putting themselves down. “If you did, I’d tell you to go get some new glasses. Your body’s gorgeous.”
She bristled in disbelief. “I’m not some self-conscious girl in need of your validation, you big twerp. I laugh when my dress size stays in the double digits during holiday months; it means my friends and family put that much more love into their dishes that year. I don’t need false compliments from a guy who dates size zero models to feel good about myself.”
He shot his hands in the air like a good little gunfire target. “It wasn’t a false compliment. What I said back at my house was the lie—if any of it had been even remotely true, I wouldn’t have said it. I’m not a cruel person. The fact that I did say it meant it was the furthest thing from the truth, which made it a safe insult.”
Doing his damndest to keep his eyes from drifting down to said gorgeous body, he admitted in complete honesty, “Truth is, you were so unbelievably sexy in that wet t-shirt earlier, I could hardly bear it.”
Even now, the lingering memory of how she’d looked with the soaked fabric plastered to her smoking hot body was more than he—and the fit of slacks—could bear.
She paused long enough for him to see about five different emotions flit across her face before she eventually landed on one…and exploded.
“You are SO annoying! Are you really trying to turn an insulting, objectifying, insanely illogical comment like that into a half-baked compliment?!”
He grinned. “Is it working?”
“No!” But she couldn’t completely tamp down the smile that was obviously trying to escape.
She really did have a great smile.
Danger, Connor Sullivan, danger. He was getting sucked in by her all over again. “So, where should I put these?” he asked levelly, picking up the flowers again to avoid looking at her. “Over on that table by the window?”
“And have it block all the light in my living room?” she laughed, opening the door all the way to let him in, seemingly unaffected by the electricity he felt buzzing between them. “I guess you can put it on the kitchen table; I’m pretty sure it’s sturdy enough to handle the weight.”
She gazed admiringly at the colorful assortment as he set it down. “Thank you, Connor. They’re beautiful. Unnecessary, but appreciated all the same.”
“They’re entirely necessary,” he said gruffly, rejoining her in the living room, “I was way out of line.”
She lifted a shoulder. “You thought you were protecting Brian; I understand the compulsion, trust me.”
