her coat.
“Be my guest.”
She shrugged out of the heavy wool coat and draped it over the back of the same chair that held his jacket. She eyed the bottle on the table.
Gauge watched her closely. He knew she was an attorney and that she worked hard. She drove a convertible Audi that was wasted during Michigan’s harsh winters. He guessed that her boyfriend was similarly ambitious with his late-model Porsche and fancy suits.
He’d thought it odd that he hadn’t seen the jerk’s car for the past week. He’d figured maybe the guy had gone on a business trip. Apparently he’d been wrong.
“You want something to drink?” he asked.
“Sounds good.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Whatever you’re having is fine.”
He wasn’t entirely sure that was a good idea, but hell, it had been a while. And though he was able to resist tempting any women home, having one offer herself up on his doorstep…well, he was but a man, after all. And it was obvious that’s what Lizzie was counting on.
“Boyfriend away?” he asked as he handed her a glass holding a finger of Jack.
Her eyes grew wide and it appeared to take some effort for her to swallow as she drank. “Something like that.” She swiped the back of her hand against her mouth. Her lips, he noticed, seemed bare of lipstick. In fact, she didn’t appear to be wearing any makeup at all, which was curious. Whenever he’d seen her, she’d always been well put together.
Then again, one didn’t require proper attire when slumming it.
And he guessed that’s exactly what one sexy Ms. Lizzie Gilbred, trial attorney, was doing. Slumming it. She’d come knocking on his door in need of a quick ego fix. Probably she’d been dumped by that asshole of a boyfriend and needed reminding that she was still desirable.
Then in the morning she’d regret ever crossing that driveway.
But none of that was his concern. The only question was whether he wanted to take what she was offering.
He watched her cross to sit on the edge of his bed and he raised both of his eyebrows. Most women weren’t quite that obvious with their intentions.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.”
LIZZIE LEANED BACK on the bed, on the mattress she had chosen herself for its durability, if not complete comfort, six months ago when she’d moved into the house and had the apartment furnished so she might rent it out. She was acutely aware of the man picking up his guitar and sitting down on the ottoman in front of the chair across the room. Despite the inclement weather, he wore a T-shirt, a dark brown one bearing the logo of a rock band, the hem not quite tucked into jeans that looked like they’d seen their fair share of wild nights out.
She’d always been a sucker for the tall, dark and handsome type, but Patrick Gauge put a whole new spin on the description with his unruly, longish light brown hair and his lanky, rather than athletic, build.
There was something very enticing about the lost-little-boy look. Even though there was definitely nothing boyish about him.
As he ran his long, callused fingers over the guitar strings, she thought that he was waiting for her to say or do whatever she’d come there for.
Instead she silently sipped her whiskey and took her fill of him while he was otherwise occupied. Watching his biceps flex with his movements. The pull of the denim against his groin. The thickness of his neck above the frayed collar of his T-shirt. God, he was rough.
He kept a neat place, she’d give him that. Not overly so—she couldn’t detect the scent of any cleaning products—but there wasn’t any dirty underwear lying around. Her gaze went back to his groin. Of course, that might be because he didn’t wear underwear.
The idea made her hot.
She leaned back farther on the bed, letting the gold liquid creep through her veins, warming her along with the glass of wine she’d had at her place.
She shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t be tempting fate along with her tenant. But when she’d glimpsed the rest of the night gaping before her like a fathomless pit faced with the choice of checking a cell phone that would never ring or coming over here to see what temporary trouble she could get into, well…this was definitely preferable.
“The quickestway to get over the old guy is to take up with a new guy,” her friend Tabitha was fond of saying.
Of course, Lizzie didn’t really plan to take up with Gauge. She merely wanted to indulge in something she never had before. More specifically, she wanted to experience a one-night stand. Find out for herself why they were so popular. Any risks involved would be offset by her psychological need to escape her thoughts, if only for a few precious hours.
“Are you playing at the pub this weekend?” she asked, conscious of the way his fingers stroked the strings with the finesse of a pro.
He nodded and then leveled that intense musician’s gaze at her. “I’m surprised.”
“By what?”
“I didn’t peg you as a pub kind of woman.”
She smiled. “I take it women don’t surprise you often.”
“No. Not often.”
She watched the way his thick, long fingers manipulated the strings, noticing that the acoustic guitar was old. Two newer guitars—another acoustic, one electric—sat in stands nearby. Scratches marred the front of the one he held, and there even appeared to have been some patchwork down one side.
He played a few more chords, then switched the CD player on.
“Had that long?” Lizzie asked.
He blinked as if seeing the guitar for the first time. He rested the bottom on the floor and moved it so she could see the back. Dozens of words were engraved in the wood. “This guitar shows all the places I’ve traveled, cities, towns.” He turned it back around.
“Wherever my guitar is, my heart is.”
He leaned the instrument against the ottoman and rested his elbows on his knees, making no secret of his interest in her where she half lay on his bed.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, his voice as quiet as his playing.
Direct. She liked that.
“Mmm. I’m absolutely positive.”
3
GAUGE HAD LEARNED A long time ago that the touch of a woman could be as intoxicating as any liquor. And while Lizzie Gilbred might emerge more Chivas Gold to his Jack, she was an intoxicant all the same as she slid farther back onto the bed, stretching out like a supple black cat with blond hair.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” she asked quietly.
His answer was a shake of his head.
“I am. A talker, I mean.”
Gauge reached down and took off his right boot, then followed with his left.
He watched her watch him.
“I guess it goes along with the territory. You know, my being a trial attorney. When you come up against opposing counsel, you had better be a pretty good debater.”
Gauge took off his T-shirt. He wondered how much debating she’d done before she’d crossed the snowcovered driveway from her large house to his small apartment. Had she considered all the angles? Taken in the possible consequences?
For reasons he couldn’t quite name, he had the feeling that she hadn’t. Something, some event, had pushed her to come