She looked around as he put his motorbike away — it was a nice street. Capitol Hill wasn’t an overly fancy neighborhood, but these townhouses were maybe a dozen years old and beautifully maintained, definitely in the three-million-dollar range. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected his home to be like — perhaps a Playboy mansion or some sort of rock-and-roll frat house — but it wasn’t this quietly elegant place.
“There. Come on,” he said, and took her hand, leading her up a few steps at the side of the driveway to reach the gleaming black front door with its small brass knocker and keyless entry deadbolt. He punched in the code and turned the knob, snickering. She looked at him with a curious lift of her eyebrows. “The code is sixty-nine sixty-nine,” he explained. “Easy to remember.”
“Oh, grow up.” But she laughed. So typical.
As he pushed the door open, revealing an expanse of hardwood floor, a thought seemed to strike him. “Humor me?” he asked, sounding amused. Nell nodded her assent, waiting to see what he wanted. “I’m going to lift you.” And that split second of warning was enough to keep her from going fully into self-defense mode as he scooped her up in his arms to carry her over the threshold.
“Put me down,” she told him. “I don’t like being picked up.” She’d instinctively taken a solid grip on the back of his jacket collar as an anchor point, and actively considered moving into a choke hold instead if he didn’t put her down right away.
“I’m not going to drop you,” he said, laughing.
“I don’t care.” And then she did slide her hand around to grab the front of his collar so she could put some pressure on the side of his neck with her forearm.
“Ow.” He set her on her feet, only a few paces inside the house, with the front door still open. “That was supposed to be fun.”
She gave him a hard look. “Yes. If I thought you were actually trying to hurt me, you’d be incapacitated at this point. But I asked you to put me down.”
“Yes, ma’am.” And he snapped to attention and bowed, just as she’d taught him. Kidding around, but also with a hint of an actual apology behind it, and definite admiration. “Fuck me, your ninja skills are sexy, woman,” he muttered, turning to close the door. “Anyway, welcome to my home. You want a glass of wine? Beer? Or tea, or I’ve got Perrier or lemonade.”
Nell reached instinctively for her pocket, for the phone she no longer had. Can’t even check the time. “It’s probably not four o’clock yet.”
“So? If you want a glass of wine now, you’ve had a hell of a day and more than earned it. Merlot?”
She sighed. “Yes, please.”
He waved toward the furniture around the fireplace in the front room — a pair of green suede loveseats faced each other across a glass coffee table, masculine and solid. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“Thanks.” She chose one of the loveseats and sat down, cross-legged with her feet tucked up, as though she were on a mat rather than a couch.
He cocked his head at her, eyeing the way she sat, all knees and elbows and nothing to snuggle up to. “You’ve still got your prickles out. I’m sorry.” He crossed to a dark wooden cabinet against the far wall and opened it to reveal a fully stocked bar and wine rack.
“Well, what were you thinking?” she asked. “Did you really expect picking me up would end well?”
That made him smile. “I don’t know. I just thought of carrying you inside and right upstairs to bed, all romantic, like Gone with the Wind or something.”
“Apart from the whole movie being problematic, you do realize that when Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs in Gone with the Wind, he’s explicitly intending to force himself on her, right?”
Eamonn handed Nell a glass of wine, looking nonplussed. “Fuck me, no, I thought it was supposed to be all passionate and stuff. I’ve only ever seen a clip. So — totally not romantic. Got it.” He stood there, holding his glass of wine. He looked at it, then at her. “Well, cheers.”
She held up her glass and clinked it against his. “Cheers.” When he sat down on the other loveseat, facing her, she grimaced. “Mood-killer, that’s me.”
“Oh, babe, not at all.” He stretched out his legs and took a sip of his wine, a small smile threatening to break out into full sunshine as he looked at her.
“You’re amused?” she asked, stunned. “Do you like it when I go into self-defense mode on you, or something?”
He nodded slowly, his eyes intense, and she knew before he spoke that his voice would be thick and deep with arousal. “I find it incredibly sexy that you can make me behave if I get out of line. I wouldn’t try to trigger you on purpose, I swear, but it doesn’t turn me off at all.”
An uncomfortable thought struck her. “I have to ask — is it a kink thing? Do you like being hurt, or something?”
He shook his head, not even remotely offended by the question. “I don’t enjoy pain. I can tolerate it, like getting a tattoo or playing a concert injured, but… definitely not my thing. You?”
“I don’t think I could voluntarily let someone hurt me. I’ve got a pretty strong instinct to defend myself.”
That made him chuckle. “I’d noticed. Ninja woman, I’ve found it far too easy to have my way with anyone I wanted, and I hope like hell they were all as willing as they seemed at the time. You make me think; you make me listen. You demand respect, and I don’t know why that’s hot, but it is.”
Eamonn’s words washed over
