in that case, ladies,” Leo said, “would you care to join me for a celebratory drink? I have champagne chilling in the minifridge in my room. We can decide on our next move and commemorate the success of this one.”
Wyatt took Jane back to his apartment, which was a mere four blocks away—a sleek, shiny, modern, expensive loft in a high-rise on the edge of town.
Jane taking charge was something to behold. She pushed him down to sit in the middle of the big, cushy sofa the minute they had walked in the door, and told him not to move. He complied.
She got ice from the kitchen, lectured him mildly about the need to take care of himself properly once she found out he didn’t even have an ice pack, explained that one should always be prepared for life’s emergencies, then said they’d make do with a ziplock bag wrapped in a hand towel.
She came to stand behind him, took his head in her hands and eased it back against the sofa cushions. Then she placed the makeshift ice pack on his right eye.
“Keep that there while I search your bathroom. You must have some ointment and bandages somewhere.”
He sprawled on the couch, leaning back as instructed and holding the ice to his eye. He never imagined a woman giving orders to him would be so sexy. Normally, he was a take-charge kind of guy. Not that he ordered women around, either. Just that…well, he couldn’t help but wonder now exactly how Jane would be in bed.
Would all those spitfire tendencies come out? That take-charge attitude, demanding what she wanted from him?
Wyatt had a hard time imagining Jane knowing what she truly wanted in bed, much less demanding it. She was cute, but didn’t seem to have much use for men, and any woman who’d been truly satisfied in bed would have at least one use for a man, he reasoned. He suspected she was very good at pushing men away, at keeping them at arm’s length, and not that good at really letting herself go in any situation.
Not that he thought he’d see her in his bed anytime soon.
There had to be a dozen women he knew who’d be so much less trouble than Jane, although, he thought, once there, Jane would be interesting and definitely a challenge.
And Wyatt would admit to being a man who liked a challenge.
She came back a moment later and he felt the couch cushions give with her weight, as she knelt on the seat beside him, bracing her side on the back of the couch as she leaned over him.
Removing the ice pack, she frowned down at him, her face maybe an inch from his as she inspected his eye.
“It’s all red and puffy now,” she complained, sighing heavily, her warm breath brushing across his cheek, his ear.
He shivered just a bit, wondering what she’d do if he pushed her backward to lay on the couch, stretched out on top of her and started giving a few orders of his own. Would she give him a smile and wind her arms around him? More likely, she’d try to hit him again or really put his eye out this time.
The woman thought she was a champion kickboxer, after all.
Wyatt grinned, laughing a bit, unable to help himself.
“What? There’s nothing funny about this. I feel terrible, Wyatt.”
“Well, I don’t,” he said. “It’s really nothing, Jane. I can hardly feel it anymore. I assure you, I’m fine.” As long as she didn’t figure out where his thoughts were going at the moment.
She put the ice pack aside and came up with some kind of ointment, which she then very carefully spread with her fingertips along his eyelid, his brow and the side of his face. And as she got closer and concentrated harder on getting it in exactly the right place and not his eye, her body leaned into the side of his, one breast pressed against his shoulder.
He felt like someone had installed a giant neon Trouble sign in his apartment when he wasn’t looking, and that it had just flickered on and was blinking in a fire-engine red color.
Trouble, trouble, trouble!
He had real problems to deal with. Leo and his penchant for getting kicked out of retirement complexes had Wyatt worried that there would be no place in all of Maryland that would take his uncle, once Ms. Steele put the word out about him. And the easiest way to fix that problem was for Wyatt and Jane to work together.
If he made her mad, came on to her, offended her, hurt her, he doubted they’d be working together to solve the Leo problem any longer. So Ms. Jane Carlton was definitely off-limits. It would be more trouble in the long run than any short-term fling with her would be worth.
So what if she smelled really good? And had the sweetest, gentlest touch in a little spitfire of a body? Which he suspected no man had ever properly awakened before. Surely he was capable of exercising some kind of discipline where a woman was concerned.
He shifted his weight, thinking to ease away from her, and instead, set her off balance and her whole body fell against his. No question now. Those were her breasts pressed against him, her neck and her sweet, sassy Jane mouth right at the corner of his own.
She gasped in surprise, her eyes suddenly all big and round and so close to his, not blinking. Neither of them breathed for an instant.
He could have her flat on her back in a moment. Or take her by her thighs and pull her across his lap facing him, palm those pretty hips he’d had pressed against him earlier and pull her tight against him. He knew it, and if he knew anything about women, she was thinking the same thing.
Discipline, Wyatt. It’s not just a word.
“Jane,” he whispered, hardly able to believe he was actually doing this, taking her arms in his hands and steadying her, then easing her away from him, to sit on her knees on the cushion beside him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw you off balance like that.”
She just looked at him, sexy and baffled and maybe embarrassed, which was the last thing he wanted.
“And I’m just not sure what you want here,” he confessed. “But I know what I want, and I really don’t want to offend you.”
She seemed a little dazed, innocent. Damn.
“What I want?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I.I was just trying to fix your eye.”
“Okay.” He smiled what he hoped was an I-understand-perfectly smile and not an I-wanted-to-jump-your-bones one. “That’s what I thought you were doing. My mistake.”
“Mistake?”
She looked a little sad then, a little embarrassed. He could feel her withdrawing from him, even though she hadn’t actually moved an inch.
“I’m just. I’m a guy, okay? Some women would say, I’m not a very nice guy. That I…well, when a woman gets this close and is…touching me…I get ideas. Ideas that, I’m afraid, were not the same ideas you were having, and…well, you’re a beautiful woman, Jane.”
She scrambled to get off the couch, to get away from him, hot color blooming in her cheeks as she got all flustered. “You thought…I was coming on to you?”
He nodded, thinking honesty probably wasn’t the best policy here, that he’d offended her, when, he swore to God, he’d been trying to do the exact opposite. To keep from offending her.
Women. They could just be so hard to read, and sometimes it seemed there was no way to win. No way at all.
Come on to her and offend her? Don’t come on to her and still offend her?
What was a guy to do?
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“Jane, it’s no big deal—
She blushed even more furiously. “I would never—”
“Never?” Now that hurt.