doing.”
“You made that abundantly clear earlier.”
“That’s not what I meant. I like working with plants. Digging in the dirt is good therapy.” She smiled spontaneously.
“Probably cheaper than stretching out on a therapist’s couch.” Andrew returned her smile. Not the polite gesture he’d offered before but a heart-stopping, genuine smile.
Kat’s breath lodged somewhere in her chest. She swallowed hard.
How had a discussion on plants suddenly turned so intimate? One minute it was purple fountain grass and red salvia, the next she could hardly breathe.
“Uh-huh,” she managed to say.
Andrew rubbed his flat belly. “I’m starving. What do you say to Chinese? I know a great place that delivers.”
Food. Now they were on safe ground.
“Mmm. How fast can they get it here?”
“Come on in and let’s order.”
Kat toed off her ratty gardening sneakers and followed him into the house. She stood inside the front door, awed once again by the initial impact of the eight-foot aquarium. Would she get used to this before she left?
Andrew stopped and scrutinized the flowers she’d arranged in the den. The unusual tropicals complemented the exotic fish. Along with the aquarium, they offered a splash of vibrancy amidst the room’s neutrals.
“I put flowers in every room. What can I say? You like fish. I like plants.”
Andrew resumed his course to the kitchen. “It’s a nice touch.”
Kat wanted to believe him, but a small frown drew his brows together. He opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out a worn menu, then laid it on top of the island.
He gestured toward the purple iris gracing a crystal vase. “Mrs. Fitzwillie will love these.”
For once, an issue took precedence over sustenance. Her new husband’s approval was suddenly important. She’d lived with disapproval for a long time. She couldn’t remember a time her father hadn’t disapproved of her. Jackson clearly doubted the wisdom of her marriage to Andrew. She’d decided after the fiasco with Nick, the only approval that mattered was that of the school board because it affected her career. Otherwise she wouldn’t be here now.
Kat left the menu where it lay and scrubbed the potting soil off her hands and forearms. She grabbed a hand towel and assured herself it was only because it was his home that his approval mattered. “What about you? Do you love them?”
Cynicism shaped his mouth into a semblance of a smile as he unbuttoned his shirt cuffs. “They’re fine, but cut flowers don’t last long. Even if I do like them, they won’t be around long, right?”
She traced the gleaming white tile on the island with a ragged nail and shrugged. “Well, then I can just replace them.”
He rolled up one sleeve, baring a tanned forearm. “Do whatever you need to do to feel comfortable for as long as you’re here.” He dealt with the other sleeve with equal efficiency.
No quip tripped off her tongue. He was right. The flowers would die, and she’d keep replacing them until she left. But once she was gone, there’d be no more flowers. He
And she refused to need anything from him other than what they’d laid out in their contract. Certainly not his approval.
Her rumbling stomach beckoned her to deal with more mundane matters, such as take-out Chinese. She shrugged off the momentary melancholy and scanned the menu for her favorite. “Yu Shian shredded pork. Extra peppers, please.”
A grimace of distaste marred the aristocratic lines of Andrew’s face.
She laughed at his expression. “Does that mean we’re not sharing our Chinese tonight?”
“You can rest assured.”
Predictable. How could she have doubted herself? She had Andrew Martin Winthrop III’s number. Her smile smacked of smugness. “Too hot for you?”
He shook his head slowly, his eyes alight with uncustomary merriment, as if he was about to deliver the punch line to a joke. “Actually, no. I’m a vegetarian.”
Visions of a tofu Thanksgiving danced in her head, dropping her jaw.
How many more surprises was she in for with this man?
ANDREW GRINNED AS HE PLACED the cardboard containers of Chinese on the countertop. He’d thoroughly enjoyed displacing Kat’s smugness by announcing his vegetarianism. She’d stood across from him thinking she had him pegged. And those thoughts had been clearly reflected in her sweat-stained, dirt-streaked, impudent face.
Staid. Predictable.
Not that being a vegetarian rendered him a wild man, but it had rendered Kat speechless.
Tantalizing aromas wafted from the closed cartons, reminding him he hadn’t eaten all day. He checked his wristwatch.
How much time did one petite woman need to shower? There wasn’t that much of her to clean. His stomach growled a warning. Five more minutes and he wouldn’t be held accountable.
Andrew pressed the intercom buzzer and was met with dead silence. He dropped his hand in disgust. The thing was still on the blink. He’d have Mrs. Fitzwillie call the repairman. Again.
He started to the bedroom but paused in the den, Kat’s flower arrangement catching his eye. In less than a day she’d stamped his house with more of herself than he had in a decade. Standing in his own kitchen with her earlier, he’d felt the outsider, the observer. She’d been dirty and sweaty because she’d put something of herself into the place. He’d felt the odd man out in his button-down shirt and cuffed trousers.
A slight whimper interrupted his reverie. Stretched out on the rug, Toto twitched in his sleep. Doggie dreams, Andrew surmised as he quickly slipped out of the room. He might feel slightly overdressed in his own home, but he wasn’t eager for another showering of Toto’s affection.
The closed bedroom door brought him up short. Living with someone else-sharing a bedroom with someone- meant adjustments. He rapped the wood panel and called out, “Dinner’s here.”
Her reply reached him, undecipherable and muffled. She was obviously still in the bathroom. He threw open the door and stepped inside, announcing once again, “Dinner’s-”
He stopped in mid-sentence and mid-stride, every semblance of coherent thought fleeing as Kat threw open the bathroom door at the same time and froze, naked, before him.
Hunger of a different kind consumed him. Another woman might have covered herself or gasped her shocked outrage. Kat stood before him proudly.
Looking away wasn’t an option.
Feasting his eyes on her, he attempted to appease his appetite by taking in the sight of her glorious nudity. Her hair clung to her head in damp, subdued ringlets. No hint of merriment lightened the depths of her dark blue eyes. She slightly parted her full lips. He recalled their sweetness and ached with need.
His gaze slid from her freckled shoulders to the pale, succulent fullness of her breasts. Her nipples peaked and pouted beneath his devouring gaze.
Desire and need pooled hot and heavy in his sex.
He visually caressed the womanly, slight rounding of her belly. He drank in the tight red curls cradled between her rounded hips and the sleek line of her thighs.
He stood, rigid with the need to partake of the feast before him. He longed to test the texture of her skin against his. To taste her.
Her glittering, sapphire-dark eyes engaged him, radiating a heat that mirrored his own. She slowly reached up to brush her fingertips against a swollen nipple. A soft moan escaped her.
Watching her touch herself, desire roared through him like a fire out of control. It threatened to consume him, destroy him.
He tightened his grip on the doorknob. The need to make love to her nearly dropped him to his knees. It was that
