Love Your Entity(4)

She shook her head.

“I heard it,” Ruby said. “It’s trouble.”

Sierra couldn’t ask what kind of trouble for two reasons. The first being that Ronan had his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t say anything. Then there was the fact that she couldn’t speak to the ghost while Ronan was present.

Ronan sniffed the air and then frowned. “I smell cigar smoke.”

His attention was focused elsewhere yet his hand remained on her, which meant her attention was focused on him. Okay, also focused on herself and the feelings he aroused with his touch.

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist to yank his hand away. Or that was her intention. Instead, the feel of his pulse and the warmth of his skin distracted her.

Finally peeling his hand away, she said, “I don’t smoke.”

Right. She didn’t smoke. But he was smoking hot and she’d seen him naked. Both those facts were really starting to hit her now.

“I didn’t say you smelled.”

She was supposed to be grateful for that?

“You don’t smell cigar smoke?” he asked.

“No.”

Ruby was standing a few feet away, waving her hands to get Sierra’s attention. “I need you to focus on me.”

“What are you looking at?” Ronan demanded.

“Not you,” she assured him.

“Then what?”

“I was, umm … just noticing the vintage wallpaper on the walls here in the foyer.”

“It’s peeling. You’d be better off elsewhere,” he said.

“Is that a threat?” she said.

He shrugged.

Her dwindling patience snapped. “Listen, you, I’ve had a long day and I don’t need you making trouble.”

She didn’t realize she’d been jabbing him in his still bare chest until he took hold of her hand and cupped it in his. “You’re different,” he noted.

Uh-oh. Was he picking up on her ghost-whispering thing somehow? She sure was picking up on his sexy half-dressed-guy thing. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He dropped her hand. “How about a compromise? We could share the house until your lawyer gets back.”

Sierra was silent for a few moments as she considered her options here. If Damon was right and she didn’t own the land the house sat on, then she might be forced to leave the property, and if she did that then she’d lose it. She had to stay thirty consecutive days and nights from the moment she first set foot inside. The terms of her great-uncle’s will had been very clear on that point.

Which meant that her best bet was probably to work out a temporary compromise with Ronan. “You mean like a written temporary-lease agreement?”

“I’m not sure we need anything in writing.”

“I am positive we need it in writing. That way there won’t be any misunderstandings. And if I do agree to this temporary arrangement then rule number one is no nudity.”

“I don’t mind if you’re nude,” Ronan said.

“Well, I mind if you’re nude, so don’t do it,” she said tartly.

“If you insist.”

“I do.” She reached into her purse for one of her small notebooks. She found an empty page near the end. “The house has two floors with one bedroom and bath on the main floor and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs.”

“Correct.”

She moved past him to head upstairs.

“Where are you going?” Ronan demanded.

“I’m checking out the upstairs to see which floor I’d like to claim as mine during this temporary arrangement.”

The stairs creaked as she climbed them. Ronan was right behind her, which made her very aware of the fact that she was a well-rounded size-fourteen woman with a butt that she considered to be curvaceous on her good days and too big on her bad ones.

Telling herself that she didn’t care what Ronan thought, she quickly stepped into the bedroom to the right of the stairs.

“Did you hear that?” Ronan said.

She shook her head. All she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears. Geez, if climbing one set of stairs did that to her, she definitely needed a workout routine.

“It sounded like someone closed a door up here,” Ronan said.

“Have you heard strange noises while you’ve been here?” she asked.

“Not until you got here.”

Stung, she said, “Well, clearly I didn’t close a door since I’m standing right in front of you in the middle of the room.”

He looked around suspiciously.

“Maybe the place is haunted,” she said.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he scoffed.

“You sure about that?”

“Why? Do you believe in them?”