It wasn’t funny, but damn if her catapulting nerves and his ridiculously random scenarios didn’t make her want to explode with laughter. “No, worse.” Fighting the smile tipping her lips, she raised sheepish eyes to his.
“Worse than ruining my cactus collection?”
“I rifled your nightstand looking for tissues.”
His expression didn’t waver. “Okaaaaay? Did you fill that with crackers?”
A little laugh did escape her despite her best efforts to bottle it up. “No, but I didn’t find any tissues. I found other stuff.”
He grabbed her hand and tugged her up the stairs. “Show me.”
“Show you?” she yelped to his back, horrified.
“Yeah, show me what you found that’s bothering you.”
“Nothing’s bother—” She entered the bedroom just as he opened the drawer.
He slapped his palm against his forehead. “Aw, shit! I’ve been meaning to get rid of these forever, but I keep forgetting until I add the next one, and by then I’m in bed and too tired to deal.”
Into the bathroom he marched, and when he reappeared, he held a trash can that he placed on the floor. He slid the drawer out, dumped the contents into the can, and reset the now-empty drawer back in its slot.
His fists went to his hips. “Damning, but only circumstantial. I swear. Any other mysteries we need to clear up?”
A ration of relief, along with a pinch of guilt, lifted her. “Not today, Professor.” The brunette was none of her business, and Lily was content to let her stay hidden from the light.
It’s not like we’re, well, anything to each other anyway.
“Okay,” Gage puffed. “Glad to hear that’s all that’s hanging out there.”
Damn it! That’s what he got for slacking on the decluttering, but it hadn’t been an issue because he’d never had any dates over. Hadn’t wanted any here before the one who now stood in front of him—not that Lily was exactly a date. Or was she? Irrelevant. Whether she was or wasn’t, he hadn’t planned on her being here, although he’d certainly fantasized about it enough. And now that she was here? He wasn’t sure what to do about it. She wasn’t giving clear cues. The way her leggings and sweater clung to her curves, however, gave him a few awesome ideas, cues or not. But he didn’t want to scare her away.
She chewed her thumbnail. “Are you mad I went through your drawer?”
“Hell no.” And surprisingly, he wasn’t. Maybe he was in the grip of lunacy, but the notion that she might have been jealous gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling. He also liked the intimacy, the familiarity of having her look through his drawer. Maybe someday she’d have some of her stuff in there.
The final thought had come out of nowhere, though he couldn’t say it was unwelcome. In fact, it sounded nice.
“I don’t have anything to hide from you,” he tossed out.
When her only response was a nod, he continued. “I hate that you’ve got the wrong idea about me.”
She stepped close to him. So close he could smell her shampoo, the scent of flowers rising from her skin. His body tensed, on high alert. He thought she might rise up on tiptoe and kiss him, and fuck, did he want her to. More than anything in the world.
In a voice soft and husky, she said, “I don’t know that I’ve got the wrong idea.”
He dove into her deep blue pools. “Do you ever think we went about everything the wrong way, Lily? That we got things backward?”
Her brows furrowed in question, and her eyes flicked over him. The space between them seemed to shrink. So did his lung capacity.
“I’m not sure I understand. There’s no … We’re not a we to get things backward,” she replied.
True, but we could be a we. Something told him this wasn’t the time.
Acutely aware they stood a mere five feet from his bed, he tugged on her chain to distract himself. “Is this what I think it is?”
She glanced down. “It was my wedding band. It seemed weird to wear it, but weird to take it off, so this was the compromise I came up with.”
Ah. Late husband’s hanging around her neck. That was distraction enough. With an inner sigh, hegave her a shoulder nudge to guide her out of the bedroom. She grasped his bicep, and electrical current surged through his bloodstream.
Before he knew what happened, before he knew who started it, their lips were touching, and his hands were on her back, running over her dips and flares while his tongue pushed into her sweet, soft mouth. Whether it was her or her lip stuff, she tasted like cherries. Her small hands slid around his waist, under his shirt, sweeping over his skin, shooting chills to every part of his body. One part in particular woke right the hell up.
She pulled back abruptly, seeming to steady herself by hanging onto his arms. He was a little unsteady himself.
“Lily?”
“I’m sweaty. The yoga was intense … um …”
“I don’t care.” He held her gaze. “To me, you smell like a field full of flowers.”
She stepped back, out of his reach, and waved her hand between their bodies. “Okay. Wow. Apparently, there’s still some crazy chemistry happening here.”
He didn’t need a glimpse at himself to know he looked as if he hid Pinocchio’s nose in his gym shorts. But he didn’t care about that either. “Is crazy chemistry between us such a bad thing?”
Her hand flew to her forehead. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m working for you now, and there’s Daisy and … I shouldn’t be … There’s so much at stake!”
Despite all the blood rushing below his waistband, the switches in his brain miraculously began flipping on. And damn if the dizzying endorphin rush that had been coursing through his veins didn’t fizzle under the weight of her statement.
He stepped toward her and ran his hands up and down her
