He rumbled a laugh. “Not like a date. A realdate.”
“Uh …”
“Seriously? I’ve thrown up in your bathroom. We’ve shared apillow, and we’ve been lying in bed half-naked the last few hours. Don’t youthink it’s time we tried dating?”
“What about Kevin?”
Tension buzzed in the quiet, and she cursed herself.
Fortunately, he recovered. “I don’t want to date Kevin.”
Relieved at his playfulness, she smacked his very hardchest. “I meant shouldn’t one of us tell him, smartass.”
“I thought you were the smartass in thisrelationship.” He tweaked her hair. She loved that. “So? Dinner tonight?”
Bubbles began fizzing in her stomach. “Okay.”
Thank God the light was muted because her face was on fire.
.~* * * ~.
T.J. opened a towering nine-footdoor and held it for her, and she stepped inside his lair. His home. Even atfirst glance, the space was small, though it felt huge and empty. Stark. Cold.She curbed an urge to hug herself.
“You live here, or do you just stop by for showers andchanges of clothes?” she teased, anticipating an echo from bare walls.
His eyes bounced from concrete ceiling to hardwood floor toa wall of glass that faced the mountains. “It works for now.” He toed off hisshoes and tossed his jacket and bowtie over the back of an office chair tuckedunder a built-in desk in the hallway. At the kitchen counter, he unloaded hispockets into a pewter bowl. “I’ve never had any complaints about thedecorating. Then again, only my buddies have been here—and Paige apparently,though I wasn’t living here then.”
His hands went to his belt, and he began unbuckling—andstopped. “Oh shit. Sorry. Forgot. I’ll just …” He pointed vaguely toward anopen doorway around a corner.
By the time the shower began running, she’d surveyedeverything in the living area. She sidled to the doorway he’d disappearedthrough and took in a rumpled bed, two vacant nightstands, and a utilitarianlamp. On the wall opposite was a closed barn-style frosted glass door. Bathroom?
The room smelled strongly of him—cedarwood,man, and musk—and she stepped farther inside, her nose plucking his scent fromthe air. Gingerly, she lowered herself onto the foot of his bed and ran herhand over a dark gray comforter. Not much to look at here either—no hockeymemorabilia, not even a poster—except one good-sized framed painting swirledwith golds and browns that faced the bed.
She rose to examine it. An ethereal imageof a woman’s face with little but her eyes showing. It looked originaland expensive—the gold frame alone must’ve cost a small fortune. Though it wasonly the woman’s eyes, they radiated liveliness, femininity, and strength.Whoever had painted it had captured a mischievous, seductive spark in hergolden irises, and as Natalie leaned in, she realized those irises resembledstar clouds filled with dozens and dozens of pinpoints of color. It wasstunning. The artist had obviously been under the woman’s spell.
Her eyes scanned the bottom and corners for a signature butfound nothing until they caught on a wave of brown hair that resembled ascroll. Embedded were three words in ocher, and she began reading to herself.“Natal—”
“Like it?” T.J.’s deep voice nearly shot her out of hershoes.
She’d been so focused she hadn’t heard him come into theroom. Now she felt like that employee who’d been caught playing solitaire onher computer.
“I just, um, yes. I hope you don’t mind. It’s beautiful, andI wondered who the artist was.”
Scrubbing a towel over his damp curls, he filled the nowopen doorway, bare-chested, tattooed, and wearing jeans that rode low on hiships. In his other hand, he held a shirt.
Oh mama! She suppressed an urge to bite the heel ofher hand.
T.J. flung the towel on the bed and snapped the shirt. Thenhe trailed a tender gaze from her eyes to her hair and landed on her mouth.
When they’d left her house, he’d had a green-gray cast andlooked pathetic. Now all trace of pathetic was gone. In itsplace, robust. And genuine. Heartfelt. Handsome and genuine. And broad. Hulking, handsome, andheartfelt.
Damn it.
“I am.” He yanked an ivory long-sleeved Henley over hishead, stretching it down his torso. The shirt would’ve been boring but for whatit molded to and showcased.
“You are what?” Mouthwateringly chiseled? A perfect sculpture? My fantasy cometrue?
“I’m the artist.”
“Oh.” Confusion dissipated into disappointment. “Oh! Youpainted … Is this Melissa?”
He shook his head, jouncing a few curls, and tilted his headat the painting. “She had blue eyes. I only know one woman with gorgeous eyeslike that.” His hazel gaze intensified and caught hers.
As realization dawned, breath spiraled from her lungs. Shehad to remind herself to breathe. “And she would be …”
A grin split his face. “Having breakfast with me. C’mon,Natalie Amber Eyes. My body craves grease.”
Natalie Amber Eyes! He freakin’painted my … Omigod! He painted me! That’s so… so heart meltingly wonderful. Is this guy for real?
No one, ever, had done anything like that. The picture wasbeautiful beyond words. And he’d painted her eyes through his own. Ameek voice reminded her of his duplicity, but she shrugged it away. It vaguelyoccurred to her that somewhere along the way, he’d become T.J., supplantingTyler in her mind.
Overwhelmed, giddy, and suddenly shy, she nodded dumbly andfollowed him out of his condo, her impression of himcanted another degree on its axis. He was one delightful surprise atop another,and she struggled to remember why she’d been angry with him.
.~* * * ~.
T.J. stood on the opposite side ofthe elevator from Natalie, scrolling through his phone, pretending she wasn’t amere five feet away and overloading his senses.
Nelson got Kendra home. I owe him big-time. Maybe a bottle of—fuck no. No booze. Nelson alsoapologized—with a winky emoji—fornot understanding where Ford was last night when he took T.J. to Natalie’s, andfor not coming back for him. Yeah, T.J. owed him big-time.
He stole a glance at Natalie, who seemed transfixed by theonly button glowing in the elevator. Yeah, she’s gonna ditch my ass. First I stalk her, then I lie toher, then I show up dead-drunk and throw up all over her bathroom—becausereally, the other two weren’t bad enough—then she sees the painting. Openkimono? Yeah, it’s all hanging out there. Just kill me