“Well, I was standing there in the hallway yelling for you, and beginning to freak out when you didn’t answer, when he offered to break in since I didn’t have my keys on me. He’s not only an excellent architect, he’s quite the handyman.”
“Let me guess,” Nicole said dryly, watching Ty smile at her from behind Taylor’s back. “He got in with a credit card?”
“Why, yes. A handy little trick, don’t you think?”
“Hmm.” Nicole narrowed her eyes at the ease he displayed standing there in her bedroom. As if he belonged.
But no one, especially a man, belonged in her bedroom, no matter how good he looked in a light-blue chambray shirt shoved up past his forearms, and a pair of jeans that made her hormones stand up and quiver. “Is the credit card trick something you picked up in Ireland?” she asked.
“Why ever would you think that?” he asked innocently.
As if he’d ever been innocent. “Because I hear it in your voice.”
“That’s the English, luv,” he said, pushing lazily away from the wall, coming close enough to peruse the tray from Suzanne. Then, picking up a piece of toast, his gaze tracked over Nicole from head to toe, and back again, making every single atom in her body leap to attention. Sinking his teeth into the bread, he chewed a moment, then licked the butter off his finger with a sucking sound that caused an answering tug in Nicole’s nipples for some annoying reason. “Went there for a while,” he said.
“Thought it was Scotland.”
Leaning in, he put the toast to her lips, pressing until she had no choice but to open and take a bite. “There, too,” he said lightly, making her take yet another bite, his thumb stroking across her bottom lip at a dab of misplaced butter. “And also Australia, if you’re interested in keeping track.”
She felt the touch all the way to her toes and back up, and at all sorts of other interesting spots along the way. It didn’t help that her eyes were level with a most erotic spot on his body-the juncture between his thighs-and the intriguing bulge there.
“I had to make sure you were okay,” Taylor said, picking up a piece of peach from the tray. “I’m sorry for the invasion, but you’ve done nothing but work since you moved in here, and you sleep like the dead.”
Ty let out another innocent smile. “And you talk to yourself while doing it.”
Nicole opened her mouth, but Taylor stuffed the peach into it. At the explosion of sweet nectar in her mouth, she sputtered.
“That was a piece of fruit,” Taylor said. “I realize you might not recognize it, given that it’s actually one of the important food groups and not purchased from a drive-through.”
“Taylor-”
“You’re going to kill yourself this way,” Taylor said softly, her eyes showing their worry. “It’s not right. Promise me you’ll eat all of this mountain of food. The eggs, the sausage, the toast, the fruit, everything.”
Nicole sighed. “I never had a landlord care what I put inside my body before.”
Taylor went still, then brushed the crumbs off her hands. “Is that all I am?”
Nicole looked into Taylor’s eyes, saw the hurt added to the worry, and flopped back to stare up at the ceiling. “
Taylor stood a little stiffly, when the elegant Taylor was never stiff. “I’m sorry. I’ll go. Just make sure Suzanne gets her tray back-”
Nicole reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Look…I’m the sorry one.”
“No need.”
Nicole sighed at the cool hurt lingering in Taylor’s face and tugged on her wrist until she sat back at her side. “I’m an idiot, all right? An idiot who doesn’t know how to…have friends.”
“So we
“You know we are. Unless you shove any more fruit down my throat.”
“In that case…” Taylor spread her silk skirt carefully and made herself comfortable on the bed before reaching for a piece of toast. “There’s enough here to feed an army. Ty, some sausage? Don’t be shy, hon, Suzanne is so nervous about her upcoming nuptials that she’s overcooking to compensate.”
“Taylor,” Nicole said in a warning voice that turned into a squeak when Ty suddenly joined them.
On the bed.
His long denim-covered legs brushed hers. There were the covers between them, but given the electric zap she felt at the brush of his warm, hard body, and given the way the current continued to run through her, there weren’t enough covers in all of South Village to keep between them.
And then there was how her heart gave a little leap when he turned his head and pierced her with those amazing eyes of his.
Instant lust. She’d heard about it but had never experienced the phenomenon firsthand.
She didn’t like it.
Gripping the sheet to her chest for all it was worth, Nicole watched as her two uninvited houseguests helped themselves to the tray of food balancing on her knees.
It was an unreal feeling having Ty’s long fingers hover over the plate only inches from her very naked body as he decided on a slice of apple.
It crunched between his white teeth as he looked at her.
Unreal, she decided, and definitely…arousing, if the way her body tingled was any indication. “I…need to get up.”
Taylor used the fork to bite into the homemade hash browns, then moaned. “Oh, these.
Leaning in, he opened his mouth to the forkful Taylor was offering him.
“Fabulous, right?” Taylor said as he chewed.
He licked his lips, and for an instant, as he looked at Nicole, something hot and dangerous flashed in his eyes. “Oh yeah.”
“More?” Taylor asked. “A man your size, who works as hard as you do, needs to keep up his strength.”
Still gripping the sheet, Nicole grated her teeth. “I really need to-
His electric-blue eyes never left hers. She would have opened her mouth and blistered him if she hadn’t had it so full of the food. And oh man, the food. Heaven.
Not that she was going to admit it. “I don’t eat breakfast,” she said, trying not to moan in pleasure as the food started to hit her stomach. “Just-”
“Coffee,” Ty finished for her, bending so close his lips almost brushed hers. “We’ve heard. It’s here.” She could feel his body heat, the warm breath that caused goose bumps to skitter down her side. “You’re going to give yourself ulcers the way you eat.” He tsked. “And you claim to be a doctor.”
“Oh, I definitely like you,” Taylor said to Ty, who grinned at her. “We can tag-team her. I know you like to move around a lot, but I don’t suppose after this job you’d stay on and reprogram my friend here?”
“I
“Go ahead.” Ty’s eyes were lit with the dare. “Get up.”
Nicole thought about how very naked she was under her sheet and gripped it tighter to her chest. She’d never been shy, had never felt anything but comfortable in her own skin. This came from years of no privacy in a tiny house with too many family members, then college dorms, and more recently, the locker area at work, which wasn’t much bigger or more private than her bedroom happened to be at the moment. But in front of this man, she suddenly felt…inadequate. He was red-blooded, through and through. She figured she knew his type; big boobs and breeding hips, with lots of hair to drape over his chest, that’s what he’d want.
Her virtual opposite.
Not that she cared. She just didn’t plan to flaunt her small boobs and small hips anywhere near him.
Then, from across the small bedroom, under a mountain of clothes and more medical journals on a chair, came the unmistakable sound of her beeper going off.
Taylor held out her hand to keep Nicole in bed. “It’s your day off.”