“Only Spike.”
That explained it. She was beginning to understand the origin of some of his more annoying habits. He was severely lacking in female guidance. He didn’t know any of the niceties of life. Dollars to doughnuts he left the toilet seat up.
She put her dishes in the dishwasher and stacked the files in the cardboard box. “I’m off to the
“Be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Mean dogs, dirty old men, drunk drivers…” He sighed with disgust at his own foolishness, grabbed hold of the front of her baggy University of Maryland sweatshirt, pulled her to him, and kissed her.
She tasted like dessert. Life didn’t get much better, Pete thought. This was the filet of existence. He opened his eyes and realized she was staring at him.
“Something wrong?”
Her face had turned scarlet. She looked down at the sweatshirt still bunched in his hand. “You’ve accidentally unhooked the front closure to my bra.”
His grin was lazy, his eyes soft with a mixture of sensuality and amusement. It had been no accident. He had one of the most talented thumbs in the country…maybe in the world.
“Sorry,” he said, releasing the shirt. “Guess I got carried away.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He was finally in love. No doubt about it.
Louisa buttoned her navy pea coat up to her throat as she left the
Still, it had surprised her. She’d been mentally prepared for a different sort of kiss…a much more aggressive sort. She’d been ready to firmly reject his advances, and it hadn’t been necessary. She reluctantly admitted she was experiencing an emotion that felt a lot like disappointment.
She took the escalator to the underground lobby, bought a fare card, and passed through an electronic gate, telling herself there was no reason to be depressed just because she didn’t inspire flaming passion in the man. After all, she’d told him on several occasions how much she disliked him. And she’d warned him against groping. It was just that she didn’t know what to make of the kiss, she told herself. It had been so…happy.
She was still thinking about the kiss when she knocked on his front door a half hour later.
“Reporting in on the newspaper assignment, sir,” she said when he opened the door, the theory being when discombobulated over a sexual attraction, resort to juvenile behavior.
He closed his front door behind her, unbuttoned her jacket, pulled her to him by her lapels, and lowered his mouth to hers. It was a hello, welcome-home kiss. It was an I-like-you kiss. It was pretty damn happy. It was grossly disappointing. All lips and no tongue and much too short. Louisa swayed a little when he stepped away from her. “Darn,” she said.
“Something wrong?”
“You unhooked my bra again.”
“Must be a faulty clasp.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t trust you.”
“Boy, Lou, that really hurts. Here I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all day, making a nutritious home-cooked meal for you, and I get nothing but insults.”
Louisa sniffed the air. It smelled wonderful-like spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. She trudged up the stairs and crossed to the kitchen area. The table was set for two with a white linen tablecloth, wineglasses, and lavender candles. There was a daisy on her plate. It only had one petal left. Without thinking, she automatically played the game and plucked the remaining petal, silently chanting “He loves me.”
“It’s true,” he said.
She rolled her eyes.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Not for an instant.”
Smart woman, he thought. He could hardly believe it himself. He dropped spaghetti into a pot of boiling water, took two salads from the refrigerator and garlic bread from the oven. He filled the wineglasses with sparkling water. “Did you find anything interesting in any of the papers?”
She hung her coat on the coatrack and took a seat at the table. “No. There was just that one little article about the pig. Nothing about Maislin. Nothing I could pick up about any of his related interests.”
She watched him work at the stove, and thought it was nice that he’d gone to some trouble for her. He’d bought a daisy and set the table with linen and crystal. She wasn’t sure of his motives, but she appreciated the effort all the same. And she had to admit, she enjoyed the companionship.
Her gaze drifted the length of him, and desire rushed through her in a scalding wave. She shook her head and muttered a warning to herself.
The intensity of the attraction was inappropriate. She didn’t take sex lightly, and he wasn’t a man she’d choose for a serious relationship. It was a waste of perfectly good hormones, she thought. She’d waited all these years for her body to respond to a man, and wouldn’t you know it would be to a wrong number like Pete Streeter. There was no justice in the world.
Pete noticed she was muttering again. He brought the hot food to the table and watched for a few seconds while she conversed with herself. She was a little crazy, he decided. A jillion women in the world, and he had to fall in love with one who was crazy. It figured.
She smacked herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. “Unh!”
“Now what?”
“And another thing,” she said. “I’m not going to sleep with you, so you can just forget it.”
He grinned and passed her the spaghetti. She was crazy all right, but it was kind of cute. “Of course you’ll sleep with me.”
A look of astonishment appeared on her face, and her mouth fell open.
He sighed and forked spaghetti onto her plate. Probably he shouldn’t have said that, he thought. Sometimes it didn’t pay to be entirely honest with women. He helped himself to the spaghetti and realized she was still sitting there in dumbfounded apoplexy so he spooned sauce over both their plates and added grated cheese.
He didn’t know why she looked so disconcerted. It was obvious they were going to be lovers. It was just a matter of time. True, she didn’t think he was all that great right now, but he was sure she’d come around.
Louisa snapped her mouth closed and stabbed her fork into her spaghetti. Of all the nerve! If she wasn’t so hungry, she’d get up and walk right out of there, she told herself, but no sense turning her back on a good meal. She tapped her fork against her plate and narrowed her eyes. “How can you be so sure we’ll end up in bed?”
How could he be sure? Every instinct he possessed told him so. Being next to her was like getting trapped in a force field of carnal electricity. Every molecule in his body hummed with desire. And when he kissed her, he could feel her need for him. It was there. He was sure of it. Did she want to hear any of that? Probably not. He shrugged and took a piece of warm bread. “I like to think positive.”
Another whack on her forehead. “Unh!”
“I guess that means I said the wrong thing again.”
“You have much success with women?”
“Well, I don’t like to brag…”
Louisa held her hand up. “Stop. Forget I asked.”
It was a dumb question, anyway, she thought. Women probably threw themselves in front of his car for five minutes of attention. Probably, he had so many women following him around that he had to beat them off with a stick. Of course, that was because they didn’t know about his laundry habits.
“Maybe we should change the subject. Maybe we should get back to the pig problem.”
“I’d like to take a look at the guy who delivered the pig. His name’s Bucky Dunowski. He works at the pig farm as a security guard, and he lives a few miles south of the facility, just over the state line.”
“You think he became attached to Miss Piggy and took her home?”
