Page 369 of Summer Heat
What the hell was wrong with that?
Her smile broadened. “There’s everything wrong with that,” she continued, somehow reading his mind. “One month will take me right up to the third week of teaching, which is generally when my life starts getting busy. That means this month is my only time to really focus on getting a huge chunk of my dissertation written.”
“And if you overindulge on the ice cream…”
“I’d be in a sugar coma, incapable of doing or thinking of anything else. But you.”
Call him a bastard but hearing that felt good. “Fine, I can respect that. How about this? What if I promise to leave you alone all day, every day throughout the week, and only send you into mini ice cream comas at night…as a build-up to one massive, no holds barred weekend to overindulge until we’re both too weak to move? Would that work for you?”
Hot, slick desire exploded in her expression.
His fingers instantly flexed against her hips in response.
“Stand down, counselor. You made your point.”
If she agreed to this arrangement, Connor fully intended to have her bring this legal speak into the bedroom—coming from Abby’s lips it was the equivalent of dirty talk.
“How about we reach a compromise?” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Two weeks.”
Two weeks? She was negotiating?
He didn’t like it. Not one bit. “Half? You’re only willing to give me half?”
Geez, he was doing a remarkable impression of a screech-fest he’d heard in the firm’s conference room the other day.
“What’s the big deal?” Now she looked genuinely mystified. “The one month is your maximum time period, isn’t it? What’s wrong with two weeks?”
Technically, nothing.
In reality, everything.
Though he wasn’t quite sure why. As he mulled it over, he contemplated temporarily agreeing to the two weeks and then appealing midway for an extension…
Why the hell was he strategizing this like it was a court case?
“Will there be a possibility for extension?”
She frowned. “Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of these relationship parameters of yours?”
It would, yes. “I’ll make an exception…unless you disclose a history of flipping out on the guys you date.”
She winged an eyebrow up. “What if I did?”
Hell, he’d probably date her anyway.
What was it about her?
“I’ll worry about that if it happens.” He smiled when she did, and then proceeded to renegotiate—an occupational reflex. “How about we do a month, and lessen it to two weeks if you feel you really want to?”
He could tell she was trying not to grin.
Eventually, she sighed. “Even if I wanted to agree to those terms, I couldn’t. I’m heading out of town the day after tomorrow for two weeks.”
Something unsettling pricked inside of him. Unease? No, it stung deeper than that. Burned, actually.
Whatever it was, he wanted to be rid of it. “You’re going on a trip? I thought you said you were busy.”
“It’s not a trip so much as me going home to stay with my parents for two weeks. My landlords are enclosing that huge patio off the kitchen to make an extra bedroom. They’re slowly making this guest house bigger since I’ll only be living here until next May, and their son is moving in with his wife and two kids after I’m gone.”
