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“What’s up?”
“I think you should go.” Her gaze was on his face but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Then her gaze traveled down, stopping at his chest before going lower. Red appeared out of nowhere, staining her neck and cheeks, making her glow as she struggled to raise her eyes. “Look, about last night. It was...”
He took a step closer and touched the red in her cheek. “Pretty frickin’ amazing.”
She let him touch her for a split second before stepping out of range. Shaking her head she said, “It was nothing.”
“Nothing?” He dropped his hand.
“It was just sex.” She bit her lip. “I probably had too much champagne.”
He fell against the wall, his shoulder making a thud. Studying her close, he asked, “You telling me you regret last night?”
With narrowed eyes she said, “I’m not sure regret completely sums up the entirety of my remorse over last night.”
Holy shit. What the hell? “So when you were crying out, coming all around me, you didn’t like that?”
Her eyes were large, the same way animals looked when they were frightened and searching for an escape route. “I didn’t say the sex wasn’t good.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I just...” Her lips parted as she breathed audibly through her mouth. “We don’t like each other.”
“Uh-huh?”
“At all.” She waved between them. “This was just a by-product of that line between anger and passion, you know? Because you drive me crazy.”
He nodded. “You did mention that once or twice. Like when I had my tongue in your pussy.”
She fell against the wall, breathing hard. Kind of like last night but different. “Stop.”
“What’s this really about?”
She gazed up at him, pleading. “It was a mistake. Okay?” She gulped air as if it was in short supply. “So, let’s just forget it happened and...” She took a long deep breath in and exhaled audibly. “Move on.”
Holy hell. She was ditching him. Just like that.
“It’s not like there’s anything between us.”
He moved away from the wall, taking a step toward her. Then another. “Really?”
“Really.” The word, breathy and soft, told him otherwise, as did her wide-eyed gaze as he closed the distance between them.
With a hand on the wall above her head, he leaned right down. Her lids fluttered and she tilted her face up, as if she wanted him to kiss her. “This sure as hell feels like something,” he whispered.
“It’s not,” she panted back.
“Felt like more than something last night.” He wanted to touch her face because there was that blush, spreading like a wildfire up from her chest into her cheeks and he needed to know how it felt.
“It wasn’t.” She licked her lips in between ragged breaths.
He leaned down and for a second—maybe not even—their lips touched. Then she ducked beneath his arm and scurried to the other side of the small room. “This will not happen again.”
“Why?”
“I already told you.”
“None of that made sense.”
She closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them, it was as though she was a different woman. Her back straightened, her eyes narrowed and pretty lips thinned. “You don’t even live in Chicago. Where do you live? Wyoming?”
“Montana.”
“Right.” She made a hand gesture that said, You see? “You’re what? A rancher? Farmer? What?”
“A professional bull rider.”
She pointed. “Exactly!” She motioned to herself. “And I’m an interior decorator and professional stager.” She forced a smile. “I bet you don’t even know what that means.”
“You make houses ready to sell.” He said that last bit with no inflection because the tiny woman was being condescending and he didn’t particularly care for it.
“Okay. So you know what I do. Doesn’t matter. We have nothing in common.”
He arched a single eyebrow, thinking about their amazing compatibility in the sack.
Her eyebrows drew together and a little crinkle deepened between them. “Life isn’t all about sex, Dillon.”
No. But good sex was a good indicator that life could be pretty damn good with someone...
Wait a second. What was he thinking? He raked a hand through his hair. She was doing him a favor right now. He didn’t want forever, especially not with a bossy little fireball from Chicago. He just wanted to share some passion with someone of equal passion. After last night? He thought he’d found it. Clearly she was looking for more. That should be a red flag right there.
The woman bent down in front of him—a spectacular sight—gathering up his belongings: his shoes, his shirt, his tie, his jacket. Once she was satisfied she’d got it all, she shoved the bundle at him. “Here.”
He took the clothes. “You gonna help me dress like you helped me take my clothes off last night?” God, he felt like being shitty right now.
Tilting her head to the side, she said, “I’m pretty sure you can manage.”
He dropped the bundle except for his shirt. “You gonna watch?”
“Nope.” She stalked past him to the door. Before opening it, she called over her shoulder. “Be gone in five minutes. No more.”
“Oh, I will be.”
“Good.” She stood there for a second and then called, “Bye, Dillon.”
“See ya around, Red.” Dillon curled his fingers into fists at the sound of the door slamming. A part of him wanted to still be there when she got back, just to be an ass. He wanted to remind her of the fun they’d had last night, do it all over again, make her beg him to stay longer. Another part was glad she’d been so clear. He did not need to get involved with a mercurial redhead who probably didn’t even think he knew what the word mercurial meant.
2 (#u012b6bbd-a460-5f27-a28c-e5b35d483fe5)
FAITH, GLORIA’S ASSISTANT stager and a student of Black Sect Tantric Buddhist Feng Shui—most people called it BTB, but Faith liked to say the whole damn name at least once a day—walked into the bedroom of the house they were contracted to stage, and handed her the phone. “There’s a Mr. Cross on the line for you.”
“Cross?” Why did that name sound familiar? She took the phone. “Hello?”
“Heya, Red. How you doing?”
Dillon Cross.
No. Just no.
She hung up and handed the phone back to her assistant.
“Who was that?”
“Some stupid cowboy from Wyoming.” She pretended to go back to surveying the room when really all she could think was, why was Dillon Cross calling her? It had been three months. Not that she’d been keeping track, or that she’d wanted him to call. She hadn’t.
At all.
The fact that he hadn’t tried to get in touch with her just supported her opinion of him as a macho jerk, which was the only reason she’d kept track.
Faith arched a brow. “And why is a stupid cowboy from Wyoming calling you?”
“No reason.” She made a dismissive gesture. “Now, can you help me with this bed? It needs to face the door.”
But Faith was not easily distracted. Of course she wasn’t. “And if it’s, no reason, why did you just hang up on him?”
Gloria glared at Faith, the kind of expression that should tell an employee to drop a subject. But Faith was not a typical employee. “Why’d you hang up?”
“Because I didn’t want to speak to him.”
“Why?”
“I think I’ve covered that point already. He’s a cowboy. From Wyoming.”
“You have a very interesting aura going on right now.” Faith came closer, inspecting.
The only way to distract her was to change the subject to feng shui. “It’s this room. It’s all wrong.” Gloria indicated the cluttered placement of the furniture. “The bed’s facing the wrong way, the Chi’s interrupted by the big bureau. The mirror is reflecting outside. It’s a disaster.” She crouched down and started tugging on the bed frame. “Give me a hand. This thing is heavy.”
“You slept with him.”
Dammit!
She stood, wiping her palms on the front of her pants. “Maybe. So what?”
Faith tapped something into the phone, held it to her ear and then said, “Oh, hi. Sorry. We got disconnected. Was there something I can help you with?”
“Faith,” Gloria whisper-yelled.
“Gloria? Sure. She’s right here.” Faith handed her the phone again. “Speak to him. It’s the only way to clear this up.” She made a fuzzy gesture at Gloria’s torso. “You’re all...muddy.”
Rolling her eyes, Gloria took the phone but placed it next to her chest, covering the mic because Faith stood exactly where she was, waiting to listen in. She waved her off, mouthing the words, “Go away.”
Saluting, Faith left and Gloria raised the phone to her ear. She took a deep breath and then huffed it out. “Dillon. What can I do for you?”
“Are you asking for real? Because the list is long.” His voice was deep and suggestive. He also sounded strangely out of breath, reminding her of a very vigorous, very intimate moment she’d spent a good portion of the past three months trying to forget. So far she’d been unsuccessful.
“Why are you calling?” She bit her thumbnail, realized what she was doing and stopped.
“I’m in town, doing some business, visiting my cousins. Thought I’d give you a call. See if you wanted to get together.”
“Really.” She chewed the inside of her lip, realized what she was doing and stopped.
“Uh-huh. Coffee. Dinner. Or...somethin’.”
“I’m not a hook-up girl, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Never said you were. Just, we had some fun last time I was here,” he drawled. Slow and easy. Reminding her of the movement of his tongue against her lips and in her mouth.
Mmm.
Ugh!
“Kind of hoped we could recapture it. You know?”
“No, thanks.”
“Why?”
“Do you want an honest answer?”
“Yes.”
“What happened between us was desperation.” She gnawed her lower lip.
He chuckled. That was not the response she was going for.
“I’m not interested in whatever it is you have in mind,” she hurried on.
“You don’t even know what I have in mind. Aren’t you curious? Even a little?”
She shut her eyes, sucking her whole top lip into her mouth while erratic visions of nakedness popped into her head.
She was not curious. Not one little bit. Honest she wasn’t.
His voice began, soft and low, reminding her of the naughty whispers from that night. “I’m going to take your clothes off, nice and slow, kissing you as I go. Tasting every inch of you...”
No.
“Goodbye, Dillon. Don’t call me again. You want a booty call, try someone else.” She hung up, dropped the phone on the bed—the one that was positioned all wrong—and expelled the big breath she’d been holding.
