It took all day to buy the stuff and haul it up the stairs. By eleven o’clock that evening, Matt had managed to put together the basic rectangular dining room table and straight-back chairs, but everything else sat stacked in boxes, and his living room had become a sea of discarded cardboard—a veritable playground for Dr. Doom and Ra’s al Ghul. To be precise, Doom hid, and Ghul stalked and pounced. The cat formerly known as Aramis had attitude, ex-Porthos did not. Doom was destined to become a fat, lazy lap cat.
Matt pulled a Coke from his mostly empty fridge and watched the cats for a long moment. He ought to take Doom across the hall as a peace offering. Doom and Ghul looked a lot alike. Maybe Courtney wouldn’t notice the switch. All in all, Doom would make a much better chick’s cat. Ghul was the sort of cat that didn’t give a damn what his human did, so long as food arrived on a regular basis. A perfect guy cat.
He let go of a long sigh and rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and thinking about Courtney wasn’t much better than thinking about the tenants of Dogwood Estates. His mind flashed back to that moment in the gazebo when he’d first tasted her. Sweet. Salty. Hot. Like fudge and nuts on creamy ice cream. She was delicious, and he had a craving.
He checked his watch. It was too late. Maybe tomorrow.
He finished his soft drink and tossed the can into the recycling bin. He was too tired to clean up. Too tired to finish the job. “Come on, you guys, it’s bedtime.” He chased after the kittens, snagging Doom without much trouble. Ghul tried to hide behind the unopened boxes, but Matt managed to corral that kitten too.
He was about to take them back to the bedroom when someone knocked on his door. He didn’t have to guess who it might be, not at this hour.
Well, damn. When he’d kissed Courtney and walked away, it was with the hope that she might make the next move. But he hadn’t expected her to come knocking. She’d built a big wall around herself and then dug a moat. A single kiss seemed unlikely to breach those barriers. But maybe he’d underestimated her.
He tucked the kittens under his arm and opened the door. Courtney stood in the buttery glow of the hall lights with her big, slightly asymmetrical eyes wide. She wore a little black dress that did nothing for her curves, and she’d pulled her hair back into a tight granny bun. Her shoes were flat, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept well last night.
The last detail gave him reason to smile. “If you’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar, I’m afraid I don’t have any.”
Her gaze traveled down and then up, stalling at the kittens cuddled in his left arm. “Cute,” she said. “I have a question.”
“The answer is yes.”
“I haven’t even asked my question yet.”
“The answer is still yes.”
She sighed, the sound conveying her exasperation. Man, he loved pushing her buttons. “Okay, wiseass,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “if you want to play Jeopardy that’s fine with me. What’s the question?”
“What is, can I have my cat back?”
She shook her head and made a sound that resembled an obnoxious buzzer. “Wrong.”
“Wrong? You don’t want your cat? Really?”
She shrugged. “I’m willing to negotiate on that point, but that’s not why I knocked on your door.”
His heart slammed against his ribs. Holy crap, was this his lucky night? No, wait, stop. Even if she had come to ask that question, maybe he wanted to play hard to get. Maybe he should make her work for it.
No. Bad idea. Besides, if she’d knocked on his door looking for sex, he’d be an idiot to turn her away. He wanted her in the worst way. He wanted to touch those incredible breasts. He wanted to feel the silk of her skin beneath his hands. He wanted to bury himself in her. And not just because it had been a couple of months since he’d hooked up with anyone. This want wasn’t a general longing. It was quite specific. He wanted her because she was Courtney.
“You want to come in?” he asked.
She bit her lip, and even though she wasn’t wearing lipstick, the sight of that plump lower lip caught against her teeth made him hard. She had no idea how she drove him to distraction.
“So,” he asked into her hesitation, “are you coming in or not?”
She straightened her shoulders as if girding herself for battle and then nodded without a word. He stepped aside and let her pass into the cardboard chaos that was his living room.
“You went shopping.”
“Yeah, I’ve always lived with roommates. So I needed a few things.”
“This is a bad idea,” Courtney said under her breath, and turned back toward the door.
He blocked her path and then bent down and gently turned the kittens loose. They scampered away into their cardboard playground. “What’s a bad idea?”
“I don’t know, really. I was at the Jaybird, having a conversation with Juni about Cat Guys, and somehow I came to the conclusion that it would be okay for me to knock on your door tonight. Because I’ve never met a Cat Guy before, and there’s all this stuff on the Internet about how great Cat Guys are. You know, how they’re comfortable with their masculinity, aren’t very needy, and clean up after themselves…” She scanned the mess in his living room. “Obviously I was wrong.”
“Cat guys?”
“Single men with cats. As opposed to single men who are Hook-up Artists. The truth is you’re sort of interesting.”
“Well, that’s nice to know.” He took a step
