Chapter Six
Chap-ter Six
H ours later, Adam re-turned home from aim-less driv-ing, bleary eyed. Ev-ery mus-cle in his body ached from the tight con-trol he’d main-tained, and hadn’t been able to re-lease. Park-ing in the un-der-ground garage, he stum-bled his way up to his apart-ment. When the el-e-va-tor doors opened into the gold-car-peted lobby, he stopped short.
Dina was curled up in one of the red leather chairs. What the hell?
Bend-ing down, he smelled co-conuts in her hair. He in-haled, clos-ing his eyes and imag-in-ing her wrapped naked around him, ly-ing on a beach with the waves lap-ping at their toes. But they weren’t at the beach and she wasn’t naked. She also wasn’t sup-posed to be here.
Anger, em-bar-rass-ment, and de-sire com-bined as he looked at her, try-ing to fig-ure out what the hell he was sup-posed to do with her. He couldn’t leave her here—it was two in the morn-ing. He wasn’t an ass, even if oth-ers might think so. It was rude. She’d be em-bar-rassed. He wasn’t that guy.
He knelt down and gen-tly shook her shoul-der. She was warm be-neath his hand. “Dina?”
Her eyes opened. She blinked, her eyes al-most egg-plant in the dim light of the lobby. They were slightly un-fo-cused. Ex-tend-ing her legs out from their curled-in-a-ball po-si-tion, he heard the faintest of squeals as she stretched. His heart thumped. She re-minded him of a cat stretch-ing in the sun. His imag-i-na-tion went into over-drive as he pic-tured her naked in his bed, wak-ing up af-ter a night of mak-ing love. He fought the urge to pull her against his chest and nuz-zle her hair. As if slammed by recog-ni-tion, she started and sat up straight.
“Adam! What are you do-ing here?”
He raised an eye-brow. “I live here. The ques-tion is, what are you do-ing here?”
She looked around. The color of her creamy skin deep-ened like an over-ripe peach. “I must have fallen asleep.”
Hold-ing out a hand to her, he helped her up. “Come on up-stairs.”
“No, I need to go home.”
“You haven’t told me why you’re here.” He steered her to-ward the el-e-va-tor.
“I came to apol-o-gize. But you weren’t home, so I waited. Now you’re back. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
Adam pressed the but-ton on the el-e-va-tor and held the door while wav-ing her in-side. “I’m not sure ex-actly what you’re sorry for. If any-one should apol-o-gize, it’s me.”
She leaned against the wall and an-gled her head un-til she could make eye con-tact with him. “You were up-set. I should have tried to help you.”
He froze, key poised to un-lock his door. How the hell did this woman read him so clearly? And more im-por-tantly, how could he stop it? “It was no big deal.”
“Yes it was.”
He folded his arms across his chest and turned to her, nos-trils flar-ing as all of his pre-vi-ous fears came rush-ing back. “How the hell would you know?”
“Any-one who knows you could tell.”
What the hell was she talk-ing about?
“I can tell you’re still up-set, even now.”
“No, I’m just an-noyed by a woman who was camp-ing out in my lobby.” He should have left her there.
“Right.” She didn’t look con-vinced. Af-ter a few mo-ments of si-lence, she sighed and stayed in the el-e-va-tor. “It’s late, I need to go. Good-night.”
It was two o’clock in the morn-ing. She was barely awake. “Please,” he said. He ush-ered her to his door. “Come in-side.”
“Your apart-ment?”
“Yeah.”
“Now?”
He looked around. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
He rubbed a hand down his face. “Be-cause it’s too late for you to go home alone and I’m in no shape to drive you.” Not wait-ing for her to ar-gue, he put an arm around her shoul-ders and steered her in-side. She fit well in the crook of his arm, all soft and warm. He searched his brain for a rea-son to keep his arm there. But ap-par-ently his brain was even more tired than usual, be-cause he couldn’t come up with a sin-gle one. And he called him-self a red-blooded male. “Sit down,” he said and pointed to the black leather sofa in his liv-ing room.
She sat, back straight, perched on the edge, as if she were afraid of…he didn’t know what. Not him, right? She didn’t know about the ha-rass-ment claims, so there was no rea-son for her to be afraid of him. But she looked un-com-fort-able.
He left her sit-ting in his liv-ing room and went to the linen closet. Grab-bing an ex-tra blan-ket and pil-low, he re-turned to her and pointed to-ward the hall-way.
“My bed-room is down there. You can sleep in my bed.”
She frowned. His fin-ger itched to trace the crease in be-tween her eye-brows. Hell, his whole body itched to touch any of her. In-stead, he squeezed the linens in his arms.
“With you?”
God he wished he could say yes. “No, I’ll sleep here.”
“Why?”
“So you can get some sleep.”
She jumped up. “You want me to sleep in your bed?”
Heat flooded his groin at the men-tal pic-ture his mind painted. He grit-ted his teeth. “Yes.”
“I can’t do that. I have to go home.”
He threw his head back and with-held a scream. “It’s late. You’re tired. Stay here.”
“But I’ll have to leave in the morn-ing.”
“That’s usu-ally what’s re-quired to get to work.”
She shook her head. “No, in the morn-ing it will be light. Peo-ple will see me.”
Oh my God, she’s talk-ing about the walk of shame. She thinks peo-ple will see her and as-sume… de-sire mixed with sym-pa-thy. He doubted any-one would think any-thing of it. But the thought of wak-ing up in the same apart-ment as her made him hard, and he wasn’t even plan-ning on touch-ing her.
“It will be fine,” he said, when he could get the words past his stran-gled throat.
“Then give me those and I’ll sleep out here.” Be-fore he could protest, she pulled the blan-ket and pil-low from him.
He hadn’t meant for her to sleep on the couch. He hadn’t meant for her to use…His arm froze as he reached out for the blan-ket, but she pulled it onto her lap, sat cross-legged on the couch, and turned to him. “If you’re go-ing to make me stay, then you have to talk to me.”
He liked talk-ing to her. So this wasn’t a prob-lem. As long as he didn’t re-veal too much. And as long as she didn’t no-tice the pat-tern on the blan-ket. “Let me just get changed.” And maybe find some-thing else for her to cover up in. When he re-turned to the liv-ing room in sweats, he car-ried an-other blan-ket. But she was al-ready wrapped up in the first one, and he would draw too much at-ten-tion if he made her change blan-kets. In-stead, he held onto it and eased onto the re-cliner next to the sofa.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t know he’d been so ob-vi-ous. “Mus-cles are sore.”
She nod-ded. “What’s mak-ing them sore?”
He shrugged and then winced. “No idea.” She didn’t need to know why he was tense.
“What hap-pened to-day to make you so up-set?”
This is what she wanted to talk about? He would much rather talk about other things. Like her. “So tell me about the guy you were see-ing tonight.”
“There’s noth-ing to tell,” she said. “You showed up and I can-celled my plans.”
His hands clenched at the thought of her go-ing out on a date. “Must not have been a great guy if you were so ea-ger to can-cel on him.”
“He’s nice.”
“That’s it? Nice?”
“And isn’t em-bar-rassed to be seen with me in pub-lic.”
What the hell was she talk-ing about? Oh. Right. Dammit. “I…” What was he sup-posed to say to her? That he was so con-cerned about what oth-ers thought of him that he raced to es-tab-lish his rep-u-ta-tion, for-get-ting about who he might al-ready be with and how they would feel? “I’m sorry. My be-hav-ior was in-ex-cus-able, but you don’t em-bar-rass me.”
She picked at the blan-ket. “Cute,” she said.
Damn. She no-ticed. His stom-ach knot-ted. She was wrapped in his Star Wars blan-ket. The one Kim’s kids had given him as a thank you for spend-ing time with them. “Ex-cept when you make fun of my blan-ket.”
She wrapped it tighter around her-self. His em-bar-rass-ment dis-ap-peared, re-placed once again by de-sire. Even tired, he couldn’t stop look-ing at her. Her face was clear, open, and she had such warmth em-a-nat-ing from her. He wanted to soak some of it up for him-self.
“So why are your mus-cles sore?”
She was also stub-born. He shrugged.
“Okay, what was freak-ing you out at my apart-ment ear-lier?”
He needed to change the sub-ject, fast. He thought back to his brief time in her apart-ment. He hadn’t had time to no-tice much of it from the door-way, ex-cept that it was homey and sweet, like her. There’d been a big fancy en-ve-lope on the ta-ble by the front door.
“What was that fancy in-vi-ta-tion for back at your place?”
Her face blanched. For a mo-ment he thought she was go-ing to faint. Who fainted these days? Maybe the same women who were con-cerned about the walk of shame? She didn’t seem like the faint-ing type. But her cheeks re-gained their color, and more. She looked down at her lap. Mis-sion ac-com-plished, al-though his dis-trac-tion came at her ex-pense.
“It’s noth-ing, just my high school re-union.”
“Which one?”
“Tenth.”
“Are you go-ing?”
She shook her head. “Ab-so-lutely not.”
“Why?”
“Be-cause I don’t feel like ei-ther be-ing ig-nored or talked about. High school was not a fun time for me.”
High school re-unions were the time to show up all the peo-ple who thought lit-tle of you. “Of course you’re go-ing. We’ll go to-gether.”
“What?”
Yeah, what? Had he re-ally just of-fered to take her? “You and me. Your high school re-union.” Ap-par-ently he had.
She shook her head. Her pony-tail whipped back and forth like some over-zeal-ous spec-ta-tor at a ten-nis match. “That’s crazy.”
“You need a lit-tle crazy in your life. It’ll be fun.”
“You have no idea what it will be like. Pop-u-lar girls who looked at me like I wasn’t fit to wipe gum off their shoe. Peo-ple who only talked to me to beg me to give them my home-work to copy. Peo-ple who hid their in-tel-li-gence in or-der to have friends, and ig-nored me. Trust me, there’s no one I want to see.”
Adam stretched his shoul-ders at her de-scrip-tion of peo-ple who sounded a lot like him.
Dina stared him down, as if dar-ing him to do his worst. Ha, she ob-vi-ously didn’t know him. His worst had chased his mother away. His worst was turn-ing his fa-ther into a slave driver. He couldn’t al-low him-self to give her his worst. So he’d give her his best.
“I’m sure they’ve changed. Or at least grown older and fat-ter. You shouldn’t miss it, es-pe-cially if it scares you.”
She yawned. “You’re crazy, but I’m too tired to ar-gue right now.”
She snug-gled down into the blan-ket. Adam had an over-pow-er-ing de-sire to join her. He reached his hand out to hover over her leg. When she moved it as she got set-tled, his hand skimmed the blan-ket. A jolt of elec-tric-ity zinged up his arm. He frowned. How was he at-tracted to her? She wasn’t the sex-i-est woman he’d seen, she wasn’t the pret-ti-est even. But she had a qual-ity about her that made all his other dates seem shal-low. Some-how, he couldn’t get enough of her. That scared the hell out of him.
Dina woke a cou-ple hours later, the room still dark, her mind whirling, her body com-pletely still. She didn’t want to take the chance he’d come out and see her wide awake. She didn’t want him to come out here at all, wear-ing what-ever he wore to sleep—did he even wear clothes when he slept? Pos-si-bil-i-ties danced through her head, but un-like sheep, count-ing them would not help her sleep.
She turned care-fully onto her side, brought her knee up to-ward her chest. She rested her hand on her an-kle, the same an-kle Adam had touched ear-lier. Even now, she felt shoot-ing streaks of warmth up and down her calf from his touch. She won-dered what it would feel like for him to touch her in other places. She buried her head in her pil-low.
No, this couldn’t hap-pen. He wasn’t at-tracted to her—she didn’t fit his pro-file. She wasn’t tall enough, skinny enough, or sexy enough to claim him for her-self. She def-i-nitely wasn’t ex-pe-ri-enced enough. Oh, how he’d laugh at her if he knew how a sim-ple touch on her an-kle through a blan-ket had af-fected her. The men she was used to, the even fewer she’d slept with, had never wo-ken her out of a deep sleep—achy and twitchy, want-ing more of…some-thing. She was com-pletely out of her depth with Adam.
She needed to fall back asleep in or-der to han-dle to-mor-row. Be-cause to-mor-row, she had to leave here with her dig-nity in-tact.
The aroma of ground cof-fee and the whistling of steam brought her to the sur-face of con-scious-ness. She blinked at the dark-ness that con-fronted her. As her sight ad-justed to the lack of light, out-lines of mas-cu-line geo-met-ric fur-ni-ture in the room ap-peared. She glanced to-ward the large win-dow on the op-po-site wall. Street-lights glowed from out-side. How early was it?
Wrap-ping the Star Wars blan-ket around her shoul-ders, she walked into the gal-ley kitchen. The clock set in the stain-less-steel oven said five-thirty. She should leave, now, be-fore too many peo-ple woke up and saw her. But oh, cof-fee. Dina in-haled. The toe-curl-ing smell filled her nos-trils, wak-ing her up even with-out the ben-e-fits of the caf-feine.
“Smells good, doesn’t it?”
She shrieked, glar-ing at Adam as he let out a low, throaty laugh from the door-way be-hind her. He was wear-ing a white T-shirt and pa-jama pants. She swal-lowed. “You scared me on pur-pose.”
“No, I didn’t. But I will not deny find-ing it amus-ing.”
Shak-ing her head, she drew the blan-ket closer around her shoul-ders. “I should go.”
“And miss my cof-fee? If I say so my-self, you’d be de-priv-ing your-self of some-thing amaz-ing.”
His green eyes glowed in the dim un-der-cab-i-net light-ing. For a mo-ment, Dina wasn’t pos-i-tive he was re-fer-ring to cof-fee. “Okay, I’ll try your cof-fee,” she said, mak-ing sure to be crys-tal clear in her an-swer, re-gard-less of what he was ref-er-enc-ing, “but then I re-ally need to leave.”
Adam walked to-ward her. He reached around her to open the cherry cab-i-net next to her head. This close to him, she was over-whelmed by his near-ness. Warmth ra-di-ated from him, his cot-ton T-shirt brushed her cheek as he stretched his arm be-yond her. His par-tic-u-lar scent—spice and soap and, for the mo-ment, sleep—bat-tled with the smell of the brew-ing cof-fee, mak-ing her dizzy.
He grabbed two mugs and handed her one. Their fin-gers touched. She swal-lowed. “You’re less likely to run into peo-ple if you wait un-til later, af-ter most peo-ple have left for work.”
“Work! Oy, I for-got. I have an eight-o’clock meet-ing.” She took a sip of the cof-fee, moaned as she sa-vored the nutty fla-vor. He was right, it was amaz-ing.
“Good, isn’t it?”
Her eyes flew open. Her cheeks warmed. His smile in-di-cated he’d heard her moan. She won-dered when he was go-ing to call her out.
“Why don’t you skip work and we can have an ad-ven-ture,” he said.
She raised an eye-brow over the rim of her mug. “Your dad would be okay with you play-ing hooky?”
Adam’s face lost all ex-pres-sion. “He prob-a-bly wouldn’t care,” he said.
He leaned against the black gran-ite counter drink-ing his cof-fee, but Dina wasn’t fooled. His shoul-ders were set, and his fin-gers gripped the mug so hard his knuck-les were white. This was the Adam she re-mem-bered from her apart-ment, back be-fore he’d dis-tracted her with other things.
Tak-ing a last sip of her drink, she rested the mug on the counter, walked over to him, and re-moved his mug from his hand. His look of sur-prise quickly shut-tered.
“What are you do-ing?” he asked.
“What’s go-ing on with you and work?”
“Noth-ing.”
“You and your dad?”
“You’re very nosy for some-one so short.”
“Don’t think you’re go-ing to dis-tract me by turn-ing this con-ver-sa-tion to-ward me. Talk to me, Adam. There’s no one else around.”
Stand-ing this close to him, she could see a vein pulse in his throat. His eye-lid twitched. He avoided her gaze. It wasn’t hard, she had to ad-mit. She only came to his shoul-der. But he’d never avoided look-ing at her be-fore.
“Adam.”
He sighed.
She watched his chest swell. Clench-ing her hands at her sides, she re-sisted the urge to run her hands over the mus-cles be-neath his shirt. She needed him to talk to her, but she also needed to get to work. She didn’t think touch-ing him would speed up the process.
“My dad is giv-ing me a hard time about some-thing and lim-it-ing the amount and type of work he’s giv-ing me. He’s mak-ing it harder for me to make ju-nior part-ner.”
She could see by his tor-tured ex-pres-sion it was a big deal. She could also see there was more to it than that.
“It must be re-ally hard work-ing for your fa-ther. Don’t give up though. Talk to him about it. Let him know how you feel.”
He looked at her as if she’d said he could fly. She waited for him to say some-thing, but he re-mained silent. Then, tak-ing her by the shoul-ders, he pushed her gen-tly away, grabbed his cof-fee cup, and walked out of the kitchen. As he left, he called over his shoul-der, “Don’t for-get to text me the in-for-ma-tion about your high school re-union.”
Crap.