“Not compared to you,” he insisted as the phone continued to ring.
Jeanette reached into his pocket and pulled the phone out. “Answer it.”
He took it from her and shut if off. “Now, what were we discussing?”
“Christmas,” she suggested.
“Seduction,” he corrected.
“Ah, yes,” she said, then sighed. “But I have to go to work.”
Tom looked stunned. “Work? You want to go to work now?”
“I don’t want to, but I really can’t put it off any longer.”
“You could,” Dana Sue said, regarding them with amusement as she stood at the end of the table with a serving of pie in her hand.
Jeanette frowned at her. “How long have you been there?”
Dana Sue grinned and held out the plate of apple pie. “Long enough for the pie to get cold and the ice cream to melt,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I got a little warm myself.” She met Jeanette’s gaze. “I can call Maddie. Tell her you had to go to your apartment to rest. That I ordered you to go home to rest.”
“Do that,” Tom said, his gaze still on Jeanette.
“But—” Jeanette began.
“Do it,” he repeated.
Dana Sue looked at her expectantly. “Up to you.”
Jeanette felt Tom’s hand creep slowly up her thigh under the table. She swallowed hard as heat shot through her. “Do it,” she murmured, sliding out of the booth, dragging her coat behind her. Right now she was so warm, she hardly needed it.
Dana Sue fanned herself with a cloth napkin. “Well, damn,” she said as they walked away.
Jeanette glanced over her shoulder and grinned. “Be sure you make that call before you go looking for Ronnie.”
Dana Sue blushed. “How’d you know?”
“I think it’s something in the air,” Jeanette responded. Whatever it was, it had her feeling downright giddy with anticipation. One of these days she’d have to think about why she was so ready to sleep with a man she’d been refusing for weeks to date. All she knew at the moment was that it felt right, as if it had been inevitable. She’d work out all the rest of her conflicted emotions later.
* * *
Tom kept glancing sideways toward Jeanette as he sped through the streets of Serenity toward her apartment. “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”
She returned his gaze with a solemn expression. “I don’t think so.”
“Be sure,” he suggested. “Otherwise I need to jump in a cold shower, or maybe the lake.”
“You’d catch pneumonia in the lake,” she said. “We can’t have that.”
When he cruised to a stop in the parking lot outside her place, he cut the engine, then faced her. “Jeanette, what’s changed? Every time I’ve asked you to go out with me you’ve had an excuse. Now you’re suddenly ready to skip that step completely.”
She chuckled. “Do you really want to question this?”
“I don’t want to, but I think I have to. Is this because you’re grateful that I stood by you while your dad was in the hospital?”
“I appreciated that,” she agreed. “But not enough to sleep with you.”
He was still bewildered. “Then why? A couple of weeks ago you were still claiming you were not going to get involved with me.”
“I think we both know that plan was doomed,” she said wryly.
“Really? I thought you were pretty determined to keep me at arm’s length.”
“I was,” she conceded. “That never slowed you down, though.” She met his gaze. “You are one fine kisser. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“It’s been mentioned,” he said. He had no idea why he felt this need to discuss this to death, but something told him they were here for all the wrong reasons, that if he took advantage of this mood she was in, it would backfire in the end. “So, that’s what this is about? You like the way I kiss?”
She smiled slowly. “Oh, yeah.”
For some idiotic reason, he found that annoying. “I think I need to drop you off at the spa and get back to the town square.”
She stared at him in confusion. “Why? What did I say? I just paid you a compliment.”
“No, you told me that the prospect of sex with me appeals to you.”
“That’s a compliment,” she insisted.
He frowned at her as he turned the key to start the car. “How would you take it if I told you I was only after you for your body?”
She stared at him, openmouthed with dismay. “That’s not what I said,” she protested.
“Isn’t it?”
She hesitated so long, he could practically see the wheels turning in her mind. “I thought you’d be happy,” she murmured. “You’d be getting what you want.”
His gaze narrowed. “What is it you think I want?”
“Sex, something casual to fill in the time while you’re living in Serenity.”
Her words chilled him. “Dammit, Jeanette, do you really believe I think so little of you? God knows I want to sleep with you. I’ve been wanting that from the first time I set eyes on you, but even then I knew it was going to be about more than that between us.”
She regarded him with bewilderment. “You said... I thought... Tom, you’re not going to stay here. You’ve said so. It took me a while to accept that, but now I have. I can deal with it.”
Her willingness to settle for so little made him even angrier—at her, at himself, he couldn’t be sure which. “You can live with a casual fling?”
She nodded, though she looked miserable.
“Not only do you not know me, you don’t even know yourself, if you honestly believe that,” he said, throwing the car into Reverse. He had to get away from her before his desire started to outweigh his sense of decency.
He didn’t say another word until he pulled up in front of The Corner Spa. Then he turned to her. “This isn’t just about sex for me, Jeanette. God help me, but I’m falling in love with you. Let me know when you get
