Too bad Dean hadn’t told her that he’d also decided no more. No more her. Now she was standing there, probably looking like a coed after a wet T-shirt contest.
Cooper’s gaze lingered on her chest for a beat before lifting to her face. He didn’t say a word, but jaw tight, dropped a duffel bag at her feet. In that oddly graceful and yet utterly masculine way he had, he hunkered down and began to go through it, the long, sleek muscles of his back and shoulders bunching and releasing with his every movement. “I couldn’t see upstairs,” he muttered. “Or I’d have—Here.”
She reached for what he offered, a dark pair of plain sweat bottoms. Elastic around the ankles and the waist. He tossed her another dark item as well, a matching sweatshirt.
Her job in the accounting firm required her to dress up on a daily basis, which was amusing given that in school she’d never met a math class or a dress she’d liked, but years later she’d developed a taste for both.
Sweats hadn’t figured much in her life. But then again, this wasn’t her life, this was some alternate universe she’d stumbled into. So what if the sweats were going to make her look both short and fat; this was about survival, not looking good. Or so she told herself. “These are too long.”
“Roll ’em up.”
Spoken like a man who’d probably never given his appearance a single thought. And why should he—she’d seen him naked. He had nothing to hide, not a damn thing.
“Hurry up,” he said, and for a split beat his gaze dropped, running over her body. Specifically, her nipples, which could surely cut glass. “You’re turning blue.” He straightened and took a step toward her, maybe even to do it for her, and suddenly hurrying seemed like a good idea. She pulled the sweatshirt over her head; then, with her arms still up, she paused. Holy smoke, the inside of his sweatshirt smelled good, like . . . like rough-and-tumble man. She stood there and inhaled some more, thinking they ought to bottle this smell—
“You okay in there?”
She yanked the sweatshirt into place. “Fine. Just got stuck for a minute.”
“Uh-huh.” His expression said he knew exactly what she’d been doing, but he sat on the floor without a word and pulled on socks, then running shoes, making her realize she wasn’t the only one freezing.#p#分页标题#e#
And yet he’d seen to her comfort first. That did something she hadn’t expected—it tugged at her.
Whoa. Stop the lust train. Had she already forgotten? No more men. Not even tall, built, bossy ones with an oddly thoughtful nature. Especially not even tall, built, bossy ones with an oddly thoughtful nature!
His hair, fawnlike with its myriad colors, stuck straight up in spots. Probably because she’d gotten him out of the shower and he hadn’t had time to so much as comb it. His shoulders were still bare, and wide enough to withstand a lot, she’d bet.
He covered them up with a T-shirt he pulled from the bag, and then added a thick black sweater that looked deliriously soft and warm. “Better,” he sighed, then leveled his eyes on her. The firelight gleamed over his chiseled features, reflecting in his eyes. There was so much intensity there. And heat. Looking at her like that, he seemed impossibly handsome, and far too sexy for her own fragile frame of mind.
“Change your pants,” he said, and turning his back, jammed his hands in his pockets. “Hustle.”
His sexiness forgotten, she shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “I’m not going to change right here.”
“You’re going to go somewhere else to do it? Into the dark house and maybe an even darker bathroom? You with your phobia of the dark?”
Damn. Good point. “Okay, but don’t peek.”
“Because you didn’t peek at me?”
Did he always have to be right? “What about Dante?”
With a long-suffering sigh, Cooper moved around the couch to the huge double doors that led to the hallway and foyer. Shutting them, he turned back to face her, waggling his finger in a circle as if to say, Go ahead.
Breanne crossed her arms tighter over herself and shifted her weight from one frozen foot to the other. “Why can’t you be on the other side of the door?”
“So you can lock me out and away from the flames? Don’t think so.”
Another good point.
“You’re stalling, Princess.”
Princess? She’d show him princess! If she could move without trembling like a baby, that is. Since she couldn’t, she just stood there in a rare moment of indecision, feeling oddly close to tears.