“Women make you stupid,” Frank warned him as he climbed into his truck.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Luke muttered under his breath as he threw the truck in reverse. Now where the hell was he supposed to go? There was no way he was going to go into the office. One look at her with her those soft curves and sweet lips and he was going to bend her over his desk and—
“God damn it.” He punched the steering wheel. Frank was right. Harper was making him stupid. He never should have let her stay. He should have helped her find a nice little apartment on the other side of town where he’d never see her dancing naked on the kitchen counter.
What if Frank hadn’t interrupted this morning? What if he had just shredded her underwear and slammed into her tight, hot—
His hands tightened on the wheel as his cock got even harder. His brain was full of reasons why it was a bad idea. But his body wasn’t interested in listening to a single one of them.
What if he just stopped thinking about it? Let it happen? The attraction was obviously mutual. He remembered the heat in those deep gray eyes as he touched her. The girl couldn’t hide anything if she wanted to. Those eyes would always give her away.
If he gave in, he knew it would be fucking crazy. Just the way she responded to his touch, like she craved it more than oxygen. Could Harper handle it if it were just sex? Would it be just sex?
He shook his head. She deserved better than a quick, casual fuck.
And he knew with a dark certainty that when he was inside her it would be anything but just sex. It would be a fucking religious experience and he wasn’t ready for that.
Even if it was just temporary. He was leaving and soon. That should be reason enough to keep his dick in his pants. So why in the hell did it feel like a better reason to do it?
He wasn’t even stupid enough to pretend that he didn’t want it more than he wanted his next breath. If she lived in that house with him, slept in the bed next to him, it was only a matter of time before he lost control.
But for now he needed distance. And the longest, coldest fucking shower in the history of man.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Harper had her suspicions that Sophie was psychic. The woman called her within seconds of her walking into the office to offer up a lunch invitation. “I just wanted to catch up and see how things are going with you ... and Luke.”
She was new to family dynamics, but was fairly certain that Luke would be pissed off if she were to share the details of their morning with Sophie. She felt her nipples go hard again at the thought of Luke’s mouth on her, his hands roaming her skin.
She let out a slow breath. If she didn’t distract herself from the images of this morning that were permanently etched in her brain, she was going to have to skip lunch and go home and change into a new pair of underwear.
The office door opened. Harper bit her lip and sent up a quick prayer that it wasn’t Luke. She wasn’t ready to see that perfect face, yet.
“You must be Harper,” a cheerful voice called out.
Harper swiveled in her chair. A curvy redhead with a tiny stud in her nose breezed in holding a giant bundle of flowers.
“Beth?”
“That’s me!” She set the vase on Harper’s desk and stuck out her hand. “I want to hug you, but I didn’t want my gratitude to come on too strong and scare you off.”
Harper laughed as she took Beth’s purple-manicured hand. “That bad, huh?”
Beth shook her mass of auburn curls and rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. I’ve been on Luke’s case for a solid year about hiring a full-time manager. He just keeps saying, ‘I’ll get to it.’ And then never does.’”
“Let me guess, he’s been —”
“Busy,” Beth finished for her. “Yeah, that’s Luke. I’m just so glad you’re here, and I can already tell that you’re a nice, normal human being, so I’m not even going to worry about how it will be working with you.”
“Were you expecting someone with two heads?”
“I wasn’t sure what to expect from the woman who finally landed Luke Garrison,” Beth dropped her giant purse on the floor next to her desk and flopped down in the chair. “With these long-term bachelors, you can never tell if they’ll be bowled over by beautiful and normal like yourself, or if they’ll just finally go insane from loneliness and grab the first crazy that comes their way.”
“I could totally be crazy and just be hiding it to lure you in to a sense of complacency,” Harper warned.
“That’s true,” Beth said, booting up her computer. “Maybe I should take those flowers back until you’ve truly earned them.”