gone, check up on things, and eat the leftovers.”
“Thanks.” She raised her hand as he walked out the door and shut it behind him.
She felt like a half-ton brick had been lifted from one shoulder. The other half ton was stil in the dining room. “Are you going to help me clean up?”
she asked Conner.
He shook his head. “I gotta draw Dad a picture.” He took off down the hal to his bedroom. Typical. “Tel me when it’s dessert time,” he cal ed out over his shoulder.
Autumn walked into the dining room and stopped in her tracks. Sam stood at the kitchen sink, the spray nozzle in one hand. Autumn’s gaze stuck on the stretch and pul of his thin sweater across his wide shoulders and big arms as he reached for a plate on the counter. He whistled as he rinsed in one side of the sink and bent over to put the cleaned plates in the dishwasher. No man had ever done her dishes. Sam towering over her sink, squirting water al over, then bending over, was about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life.
He rose and looked across his shoulder. “That was fun.”
“That was the dinner from hel ,” she said as she grabbed the basket of croissants and moved into the kitchen, the heels of her red pumps lightly thudding across the vinyl floor. “I wouldn’t have guessed you knew how to load a dishwasher.”
“Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. After my dad died, my mom went to work ful -time, so El a and I had to split up the chores.”
She’d never thought of Sam as a kid, losing his father or stepping into his dad’s shoes. A lot like Vince. Only their father hadn’t died. He’d run off.
“Most of the time I paid El a to do mine.” Sam chuckled. “Which used to make my mom livid because then I’d have to ask her for more lunch money.”
She’d met his mom a few times when she’d come to Seattle to spend time with Sam and Conner. “How’s your mother?” she asked, as she set the basket on the counter.
His blue eyes looked across at hers and slid to her mouth. “Good.” His gaze slowly moved down her body, over her breasts and the curve her waist and hips in the tight skirt, al the way to her red shoes. “She’l probably be here for Christmas.”
“That wil be nice for Conner.” She ignored the tingle in her pulse and opened a drawer by his right hip, pul ing out a rol of tinfoil. “You don’t have to clean up.”
“It’s the least I can do for inviting myself.” He raised his gaze to hers and dried his hands on a dish towel. She’d cleaned as she’d cooked, so there wasn’t much more to do. “I thought Conner invited you.”
“Conner’s five.” One corner of his mouth lifted, and fine lines appeared in the corners of his eyes. “I might have planted the suggestion in his head.”
She paused in the act of tearing some tinfoil. “Why?” Why was he there? Rinsing her dishes, fil ing up her kitchen with his big shoulders and bigger presence. Running his gaze up and down her body and making her stomach take a tumble.
He flipped the dish towel onto her shoulder, then moved into the dining room. Her gaze took a journey of its own, moving down the back of his gray sweater to the back pockets of his black wool pants. There were just some men on the planet who fil ed out a pair of pants to perfection. Sam was one of those guys.
“Curious,” he said as he returned with the turkey.
“No.” She wasn’t curious. She’d seen his butt, and even though it had been a while, she imagined that it was as tight as ever. The kind of tight that came from serious exercise.
“What?”
“What?” She looked up into his eyes and tore off a big chunk of tinfoil.
“You asked why I’d invited myself.”
Oh yeah. She tossed the rol into the drawer and shut it with her hip.
He set the turkey on the counter. “And I said I was curious.”
“About?”
“About what you and Conner do on Thanksgiving.”
That’s right. She’d al owed herself to get distracted, but in her own defense, she was a bit unnerved. “Probably the same thing you do. Only on a different day.” She covered the platter with the tinfoil, scrunching it around the edges.
“I haven’t done the whole Thanksgiving thing in years.” He closed the dishwasher with his foot. “Here or in Canada.”
“That’s sad.”
“Not real y. I’m never sure where I’m going to be on that Monday or Thursday.”
That explained his presence. He had nothing better to do. “You real y don’t have to stay and clean up.”
“The quicker the dishes get done, the sooner I get pie.”
“Seriously?” She’d been so tense, stil was, that she hadn’t eaten much, but Sam hadn’t suffered from nerves. He’d eaten more than anyone. “You want pie?”
“Honey, I always want pie.” He looked into her eyes and reached for the dish towel. Slowly, he pul ed it from her shoulder. “It’s been a while since I’ve had good pie.”
Somehow, she doubted that. “No pie jokes.” She lifted a hand and rubbed the back of her neck.
“I never joke about pie.” He tossed the towel and moved behind her. He pushed her hand aside. “Pie is serious business.”
“What are you doing?”
“You’re al knotted up.” He pressed his thumbs into the base of her neck and pushed inward. “You were so tense during dinner, I thought you were going to shatter.”
She’d thought she might shatter, too, and his hands felt good. So good, she almost moaned out loud. Total y inappropriate, though, and she’d stop him in a minute. “That might have had something to do with you and my brother acting like idiots.” Then he pressed his thumbs into the base of her skul , rubbed in tight circles, and she put her hands on the counter to keep from melting into a puddle by his size-fourteen loafers.
“It could have been worse.”
She dropped her head forward and her hair fel across her cheeks. “Yeah. You two could have jumped across the table and stabbed each other with butter knives.”
He laughed and slid his thumbs beneath the col ar of her blouse. “Unbutton your shirt.”
“Are you high?”
“Not today.” He squeezed her shoulders in his big hot hands. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s probably wise.” He laughed, a soft little chuckle that slid up her skul with his thumbs. “Your col ar is in the way.”
“I’m not taking my shirt off.”
“Not off. Just maybe two buttons to loosen up your col ar.” He pressed his fingers into her knotted shoulder muscles, and her eyes about rol ed back into her head. “I get my kinks worked al the time. I’m pretty much a professional.”
Two buttons. She raised her hands and unbuttoned her shirt to the white bow in the middle of her white bra. His voice got a little deeper, and he said, “Slide your hair to one side.”
With her right hand, she reached behind her and pul ed her hair over her right shoulder.
He pushed the back of her col ar. “One more. I promise I won’t look.”
She unbuttoned one more, and somehow the top of her blouse was halfway down her shoulders.
“Better?” His hands squeezed her bare shoulders.
“Yes.” Definitely not safer, though. But God, his hands were magic, sliding over her skin and pressing into her taut muscles. The tips of his fingers slid across her col arbone, and his thumbs worked the knots where her neck met her shoulders. Her tension eased, and she relaxed. With each magic squeeze of his warm hands, her guard lowered, and her body heated.
His palms worked outward, pausing to squeeze the bal s of her shoulders and slipping down her arms. His hands spanned her ribs on the outside of her blouse, and he pressed his thumbs into her spine. “Are you sure you don’t want to take off your shirt?”
No, she wasn’t sure at al . She wasn’t sure she didn’t want to lean back into him, into his solid chest, and stay
