Chapter 14
Her heart skipped a beat and she smiled. It’d been nice to go to sleep with him in her bed last night, and she hoped to do so again. Purely because she enjoyed the sex, no other reason at all. There was no way she was falling for him—that was against her rules, and it just wouldn’t do.
The back door was open and she hurried in, putting her shopping bag on the floor. Tinker Bell sat in the kitchen, quietly watching something down the hallway. Sassie ran a hand down the cat’s back and looked toward the muted sounds of a man humming a bad tune. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Curious, she slipped her shoes off and tiptoed down the hallway, peeking into each room to see where he was. At the last bedroom on the right of the hallway, she saw him stretching, his T-shirt lifted to show more than a hint of skin as he measured the height from the ceiling to the floor.
She let out a wolf whistle, piercing the quiet mood of the house.
“What the…” He dropped the measuring tape and whipped around, ready to take on the world. When he saw her standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, he shook his head and laughed.
“You could take years off a bloke doing that, you know.” He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “You left the door unlocked.”
“I always leave the door unlocked. Locks only keep out honest people. Anyway, everyone keeps telling me this is a nice place to live, so I don’t want to be jinxing it by locking everything up tighter than a battleship now, do I?”
“You are the funniest thing, Sassie.” He cupped the back of her head, tangling his fingers in her curls, and kissed her senseless.
When he removed his lips from hers, she needed the doorjamb to hold her up. Her head spun and the muscles in her legs had turned to jelly at first point of contact. R.P. Cooper had the ability to send her emotions into a tailspin that had scared her at first. Now she looked forward to the feeling with more heart than she wanted to acknowledge.
But this wasn’t part of the no-men-in-my-life plan she had set for herself before leaving LA. Time to batten down the defenses and keep herself on track.
* * *
Riley saw the desire in her eyes and smiled to himself. Damned if he didn’t want to walk her backward down the hallway to the bedroom and find out once again how comfortable that bed was, but he had work to do first.
“I was thinking something plain and simple for your bathrooms. We can butt them up to the bathroom in the room next door to keep the plumbing to a minimum, too. You’ll have to get a plumber for that job and put in for a permit for that, but I can’t see it being a problem. The walls won’t be load-bearing, so you can get away with not applying for building permission there.” He pointed to the wall. “And since you already have plenty of windows, it will all work out fine. You’ll just have to do something to make them a little bit more private than the plain glass in them now.”
“Right.” Sassie stood where he’d left her, a hand around her waist and one on her throat. She looked so out of sorts, he almost felt sorry for her. Almost. But he was on a mission to make her change her mind about this arrangement they had, and he couldn’t afford to weaken when she looked so vulnerable, no matter what his body was telling him.
“Just so you know, you’re going to need to replace the veranda timbers, add a wheelchair ramp, and make sure at least one of these bathrooms is wheelchair friendly. You okay with that?”
She swallowed before answering him. “Of course. Whatever it takes. How long until you can let me know how much it’s going to cost?” She caught the bow of her top lip with her teeth and Riley almost groaned.
“I’ll go home and work it out shortly. I might have the quote done for you by tomorrow. How does that sound?”
“Fine, but…um…don’t you want to stay here tonight and have dinner and then we can…?”
“Nope, sorry, I can’t tonight, as much as I’d like to. I have a heap of paperwork that needs to be taken care of and I really can’t leave it any longer.” May I burn in hell for being such a rotten liar.
“Oh, right. I bought steak for dinner. I was going to cook for you.” She looked so sad Riley almost gave in, but a plan was a plan and it was in his best interests to stick to it.
“Sorry, Sassie. Maybe another night when I’m not so busy. Excuse me.” He brushed past her and walked out the front door. He had to measure the veranda; it was the only way to resist her and it was one of the repair jobs he would be insisting on anyway with the board.
She walked out with him, watching as he measured up and wrote down figures in his notebook. When he was done, he slipped it in his front pocket and looked around. “When you get me or someone else to do this job, what’s the chance of me getting my hands on the old boards?”
“Sorry. What was that?” She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she still looked dazed, which gave him a warm sensation in his gut.
“You all right? Doesn’t look as though you’re really with me here. Something wrong?”
“No, no, not at all.” She blinked at him, her gaze clearer now. “What was that you were saying?”
“Can I have the old timber from the veranda when it gets
