Her insistent tone seemed to totally bemuse him. He regarded her with evident confusion. “Why?”
“Because I cannot be bought.”
Shock registered on his handsome features. “I’m not trying to buy you,” he swore. “I’m trying to...”
Words clearly failed him. Kelly could understand why. There was hardly another interpretation for what he’d been doing. “Buy me,” she supplied.
“No,” he insisted. “I’m trying to court you.”
Her heart skittered wildly. “Oh, Jordan,” she murmured, feeling her insides turn to mush. “Please don’t do this to me.”
His gaze settled on her and a once-familiar warmth spread through her.
“Could I come in so we can discuss this?” he asked.
Kelly did not want him in the house, not with her resolve wavering and his determination solidifying. “It’s the middle of the night. I have fences to mend in the morning.”
“I’ll help,” he promised.
“When was the last time you mended a fence?”
“Not that long ago,” he shot back. “I was raised on a ranch, you know. There’s almost nothing I haven’t done.”
“And hated,” she reminded him. “That’s why you couldn’t leave White Pines fast enough.”
“If you’re going to analyze me, could we do it over coffee? I’m beat.”
“If you’re that tired, go home to White Pines.”
“Is there some reason you don’t want me in the house?” he inquired, studying her with amusement. “You aren’t afraid I’m going to persuade you to say yes, are you?”
That was exactly what she was afraid of, but she refused to admit it. She opened the door wider. “Come on in. You get one cup of coffee and a half hour of my time,” she said firmly. “That’s it.”
He grinned. “Whatever you say.”
He was already stripping off his tie on his way to the kitchen. He unbuttoned his collar, exposing a hint of the dark hair on his chest. He sat down, elbows on the table, and watched as she started the coffee. Kelly could feel his gaze on her. When she was sure she was totally composed, thoroughly immune to his charm, she turned toward him.
The speculative, heated look in his eyes made her breath catch in her throat. Nothing, she decided, could have prepared her for that. He looked as if he wanted her, as if he truly desired her, not just as if she were an acquisition he was considering to complete his life. It was a turn of events she definitely hadn’t considered.
“Can I talk you into opening your present?” he asked in a slow, lazy tone that made her pulse race.
“No,” she said in a rush, her gaze fixed on that lavish box with its fancy wrapping.
“It won’t bite,” he assured her.
“Jordan, I do not want your presents.”
“Not even if giving them to you makes me happy?”
She shook her head. “I should have guessed. We’re talking your needs here, not mine.”
“You have no idea what I need,” he commented, a challenging glint in his eyes. “Want to know?”
Kelly swallowed hard. “I don’t think so.”
“I’ll tell you anyway.”
He pulled the box toward him and slipped the ribbon off. He slid a finger under the wrapping paper and flipped it away. Then with the slow, tantalizing timing of a stripper, he lifted the top of the box. Kelly couldn’t have shifted her gaze away if her life had depended on it.
He folded back the layers of tissue paper and hooked a finger through a narrow strap of red silk. As he lifted his hand, the sexiest, most exquisite teddy she had ever seen emerged from the box. She felt his gaze on her, gauging her reaction. She couldn’t stop looking at that obviously outrageously expensive scrap of lace and silk. She thought of all the plain cotton underthings in her drawers upstairs. She wanted that teddy with every feminine fiber of her being. She stared at it, trying to hide her longing.
That, she thought, swallowing hard, was what he saw when he looked at her? When had he stopped thinking of her as denim and plaid? When had he stopped looking at her as a pal and begun noticing her as a woman?
“It’s...beautiful,” she said in a choked voice, reaching out to skim her fingers over the silk. She jerked her hand back as if that red-as-flame material were just as hot as any blaze, except perhaps the one inside her.
“There are more,” he said, dropping the teddy he held into a pool of red on the table.
Sinful black followed, then a wild, hot shade of pink. The last was a vivid, sapphire blue. Kelly loved them all. Never in her life had she owned anything quite so provocative. Her wardrobe of underwear tended toward practical cotton, with a few scraps of lace and silk for special occasions, but there was nothing, nothing like this. It hadn’t seemed necessary since she and Paul had split. Indulgences were something she couldn’t afford.
“Where on earth would I wear them?” she murmured, even as she clutched them to her.
“Why not here?” he asked. “The thought of one of these under your jeans and an old plaid shirt gives me goose bumps.”
“It’s not very practical,” she said.
“Not everything in life has to be practical,” he reminded her.
“It does when you’re trying to keep a ranch afloat.”
“Then think of me as the impractical side of your life.” He gestured around the kitchen with its faded wallpaper, old appliances and huge oak table. “All of this represents reality. Let me fulfill your dreams.”
Tears sprang to her eyes at the sweet, tempting suggestion. “Jordan, sometimes you say the most incredible things,” she said.
He seemed alarmed that she was crying. His finger shook as he wiped away the dampness on her cheeks. “Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I know,” she said, crying harder, then laughing at herself. “It’s so silly. You’re making it so hard for me to go on saying no.”
“That’s the idea.”
“One of us has to be practical here. Obviously it’s
