if that didn’t deserve another toast, he didn’t know what did.
He finished off his fourth drink and had just reached for his fifth from the open six-pack sitting on the balcony’s black-iron table when the whir of the loft’s private elevator signaled Annabel’s arrival. His gut clenched hard in response.
Using his knife, he pried off the bottle cap and tried not to choke on the memory of what they’d done earlier in her office.
The disk clattered against the patio as the converted freight car stopped on the fourth floor. As he listened, Annabel lifted the elevator’s rolling garagelike door, sliding it overhead on its tracks. He heard her unlock and slide back the accordion-style grate that opened into the dark room behind him. He lifted the beer, drank deeply, waited for the buzz that was way too long in coming.
Annabel was already stepping out onto the balcony and he’d yet to feel a thing.
“What are you doing here?”
He raised his drink. “Toasting my fine taste in women.”
She waited a moment, then reached for the last bottle in the six-pack and tilted it his way. He removed the cap and, as she drank, their gazes met, stinging him with a keenly sharp buzz that he sure as hell wasn’t getting from the alcohol.
He let the sizzle settle, watching her keep the table between them and move to sit in one of the balcony set’s matching chairs. She shivered lightly, he noticed, when the cold metal bit into the backs of her bare legs.
Served her right for wearing the panty hose.
She drank again before glancing in his direction a second time and getting back to business. “You know me well enough by now to understand that I mean what I say.”
“Yes, but here’s to all the things you don’t say.” He tilted his bottle toward her in, what? His tenth toast of the night? Bringing the lip of the glass to his mouth, he swallowed a quarter of the contents, feeling…nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing but the same determination, the same wariness that had brought him here earlier. He wouldn’t be leaving tonight until she was aware of…Hell. He wouldn’t be leaving tonight period. Her awareness of anything wasn’t a factor in the equation.
“What sort of things am I not saying?” she finally asked. “What do I need to say to make myself clear?”
“Give me a reason. Why can’t you, or won’t you, see me anymore?” He hated that his request came out sounding so candy-assed, but he was no good at conversation, and conversation was the only way to get from here to there.
“Having you here is inconvenient.”
He sputtered at that. “Inconvenient? I’d say I’ve been about as convenient as you’re ever going to get in a roommate.”
“I don’t want a roommate, and I’m not talking about the sex.”
She wouldn’t be. She never wanted to talk about the sex, simply engage.
Annabel was one of only two women he’d known who approached life—and sex—like a man. Then again, his experience with the opposite sex consisted of no more than a short list of adventurous coeds before graduation, and two older women intent on wearing him out since.
The thought brought him back to why he was here. Why he couldn’t go. Until he put his dealings with Russell Dega to bed, Patrick would be as big a part of Annabel’s scenery as downtown Houston’s skyline.
Leaving her alone would seem to be her best protection, but if Dega were indeed here, the bastard would’ve picked up on Annabel being Patrick’s Achilles’ heel. He couldn’t chance having her used as a pawn in a game that might end badly.
What little common sense he still listened to insisted that his purpose would be best served if she were the one to suggest he stick around. Which meant she needed him here for a reason that had nothing to do with what he gave her in bed.
He thought a moment while drinking. Then, fingers laced around the bottle, he leaned back against the railing and braced the glass against the top button of his fly. Giving a little shrug, he said, “Guess I’m just surprised you’d give up such a good thing.”
“And I’m surprised you didn’t hear me say I wasn’t going to talk about sex.”
He gave another shrug. “I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about food.”
She crossed one leg, shifted her weight to her hip as he pulled out the second chair and sat. He kept the table between them because he was no stranger to body language and hers was screaming at him to stay the hell away.
He could respect that. Didn’t mean he was going to abandon his plans to convince her she needed him around, though. Who’d’ve thunk Soledad’s obsession with teaching him to cook would’ve come so in handy?
He stretched out his legs and leaned back, playing the part of a man on his way to a full-blown drunk. In reality, his senses were sharply honed. He wasn’t only fighting for his survival—a badge of expertise he claimed proudly—he was fighting for hers. Knowledge he would dispense on a need-to-know basis.
“Who else would feed you grilled salmon with orange scallion salsa? Or puff pastry with shiitake mushrooms and Asiago cheese?” He sensed the smile she fought to hide. “Did I mention chocolate-raspberry pot pie?” He had her with the pie, but twisted the screw one more time. “How can you even think of giving up my cappuccino crème brûlée?”
Holding her bottle beneath her lips, she said, “You’re the only man I know who can talk to me like that and not have me question your sexual orientation.”
He tossed back his head and brayed. “And this from the same woman whose brother paints with watercolors.”
“Happily affianced brother, I’ll have you know.”
“Happily? This the same brother you said was on the outs with his woman not a week ago?”
Tentatively, she returned the bottle to the table, as if distracting him with the slow motion, because in the next second she brought the glass down with a cracking thud. Then she snapped, “I hate how you do that.”
“Do what?”
She growled and turned away, so that the light from the moon fell on her blue-black hair. The severely angled layers swung as she moved, the longest strands brushing her jaw.
The sharp razor cut was her first line of visible defense, a barbed-wire barrier keeping softness at bay. He wasn’t fooled for a second. “How I can tell when you’re not being honest? Or how I know when you’re hiding something?”
“Either. Both.” Her head whipped back, and he sensed her eyes narrow into stabbing pinpoints, felt them nail him to his chair.
He couldn’t help it. Aiming to get a buzz or not, he felt the first stirrings of arousal as his balls shifted between his legs.
She used the neck of the bottle as a pointer and aimed it in his direction. “I am not going to fall for your tricks, Patrick.”
“I’m not peddling any tricks over here.”
“Of course you are. You think in seven weeks I haven’t learned a thing or two about you?”
He forced himself not to stiffen; it didn’t make for a convincing drunk. “Keep it to those two and we’ll be doing okay.”
Her exasperation was obvious as, with a deep sigh, she flopped back into her chair. When she said nothing more, he felt the first pricks of worry. Pissing her off was no way to get back into her good graces. And so he let her stew.
She stewed, but not for long. Her chin came up as she said, “I cut you off without warning. I admit that was hardly fair.”
Her Annabel-ized apology only had him stiffening further. He waited for the “but” sure to follow—but