Page 373 of Summer Heat
A wobbly laugh escaped her. “I meant is it really okay with you that our one month is going to be different than what you’re used to?”
“It’ll be worth it,” he assured her.
She stared at him for a weighty moment before getting up and scurrying onto the couch, leaving him on the floor, a good two feet away.
That was probably wise.
Didn’t mean he had to like it. He picked up his beer and downed half the bottle. The liquid was already lukewarm but considering how unbelievably hot he was feeling, it was practically ice cold going down his throat.
“So what kind of case are you working on right now?”
He choked and almost sent the beer down the wrong tube.
She wanted to do small talk? Now?
One look at her was confirmation enough that she was serious. Sitting there with her forearms wrapped around her legs, knees tucked under her chin, and eyes still slightly glazed with arousal, she was seriously asking him about work.
“It’s just that I figured you must be working on some big case since your phone has been going off nonstop in your pocket all night.” Her eyes widened then as she turned her focus quickly down at her toes.
He grinned...because they both knew his phone had been on vibrate during all those missed calls.
And she’d been sitting on it for a good five minutes.
“Actually, I have been working on a big case,” he eventually replied, letting her off from the teasing he was dying to give.
Just this once.
He turned and draped his arm on the seat cushion beside her, grinning outright when the accidental brush of his fingers against her calf had her eyes dilating sharply. “It’s my most important one this year—a corporate acquisition tied to a multi-layered merger that I’ve spent months trying to close.”
She frowned and sat up. “Why didn’t you say something? You didn’t have to waste the last hour eating here with me. And why the heck have you been ignoring all your calls?”
“I’d hardly call the last hour a waste of time. In fact, it’s the most fun I’ve had in a while.”
Clearly, she was unconvinced.
“As for my phone,” he hesitated, and then went with the truth. “My work phone isn’t on vibrate. The phone calls that I’ve been ignoring are from my, uh, personal cell.”
“But what if it’s Brian calling or… Ohhh.” She looked away. “That kind of personal cell.”
He felt like the world’s biggest creep.
But he didn’t want Abby to have any illusions about him. “The last woman I dated isn’t taking the end of our one month well. But it is completely over, I assure you. I’m not dating her or anyone else right now, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t. Wondering, that is. I know you wouldn’t be asking me for a month if you were.”
He was utterly curious as to why, how she was so sure of such a thing.
At his questioning look, she shrugged. “You strike me as a monogamish kind of guy. Plus, I don’t believe you’d go through the hassle of enforcing a rule if you weren’t going to be man enough to honor it yourself.”
There was a good chance he was going to start needing this woman as a valium for his soul.
She saw a glimmer of good in even his worst qualities, and didn’t hesitate to call him on the rest. But in a matter-of-fact way, free of judgment.
If it was possible, she seemed to just like him for being him.
“Hey,” she said, concern latent in her voice. “You okay? You looked a little worried there for a second. Is it your case? Did you want to talk about it?”
She had to stop.
