Abigail jumped, bumping her knee on the stool at the bar. “Ouch! Sean, what are you doing here?”
His body filled the doorway. Apparently, she’d left her apartment door unlocked too. “Sorry, you all right? I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What?” The fuzziness stifled her thoughts. Why was he here? Hadn’t he called her a loser this morning?
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“No. I mean…no. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She pushed the box over the edge of the breakfast bar into the sink. The key chain was out of reach on the floor.
“Oh.” He clutched two handfuls of plastic bags. She would’ve been huffing to carry that much up the stairs, but he hadn’t broken a sweat. “I promise I’ll behave. I swear.”
“What did you bring?” Her shoe found the edge of the glittery heart, and she tugged. The metal slid back toward the bar.
“Steaks,” he said. “Can I set this stuff down?”
“Okay.” She opened the door a little wider to let him through. “You can come in, but I really don’t understand why you’d want to.”
He unloaded the grocery bags on the dining table. “Where’s your dog?”
“She’s by the couch.” Her feelings were jumbled into a mess of confusion and doubt. Hope still lingered at the edges, but was it too late? He knew her secret about the DVDs. By the way he’d stung her this morning, he really didn’t care about the rest. “Why are you here, Sean?”
When he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants, it made his chest muscles bunch together. She remembered the firmness under her fingers, how the flesh wouldn’t give, even when she pushed. He was built so hard.
“When I went to the bookstore, I found the book you had on your coffee table, and I got it.”
“You did?” she asked, wondering why he’d do that.
“I want to know what you like, what interests you have, what you do on Sunday afternoons. Then I thought maybe you were wondering the same things about me. So that’s why you ordered those videos of me. You were too scared to just ask me.”
Abigail looked down at the counter. God, he knew her too well. The emotions were too much, sending her senses into overload. He was everything she wanted yet always seemed just out of her reach.
“You went to the store,” he said. It wasn’t a question but a disappointment. He started unloading her groceries. The idea of hiding sounded even better now. Sean, Mr. Fit-and-Buff, was going to find the tub of chocolate caramel crunch. The last thing she wanted was for him to think he’d gotten to her. She wanted the damn ice cream because it tasted good, not because he’d been an asshole to her. “Oh damn, I love this stuff!”
Okay, so Mr. Fit-and-Buff loves chocolate caramel crunch. That does not make him absolutely adorable. And hot. And incredibly edible.
“Why do you have dead flowers in your sink?” he asked as he opened the refrigerator door.
Abigail’s heart stopped. “Um, I was pruning my rose bushes and wanted to throw them away.” It was a lame excuse, she knew, but didn’t want to tell him the truth. He’d run.
“Can I throw them out? I need a deep pan, like to boil water in. Where would I find one?”
She didn’t know why he asked when he was already being so nosy, opening and closing cabinets. When he reached up to look in the cabinet above the fridge, the tank top straps stretched to accommodate the muscles on top of his shoulders. Damn, he was gorgeous. And ugly when he was mean. “Sean, why are you here?”
The cabinet snapped closed. “Because I’m hungry, and you wanted me to look at your books. Is it down here?”
He had no intention of giving up so easily. She admired that about him, but at the moment, it was starting make her uncomfortable. “I have a pot in the cabinet under the bar. I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore.”
He passed by her again, sending the same zing between her thighs. If he’d just step a bit closer, she could sniff him like a damn dog. He started unpacking the groceries he’d bought. White paper packages, huge potatoes, and ears of corn on the cob covered the bar.
“Do you have gas for the grill out there?”
“Sean, please.” The soft fabric of her T-shirt felt comforting between her fingertips. Her choices were to either fiddle with it or chew on her already too short nails. “This morning, you said—”
“I found it.” He came up with the pot in his hand. “The day after my tenth birthday, I learned that not every kid had as many uncles as I did.” Water splashed into the bottom of the metal pot. “I figured when the police came to the house and took me away, I’d just go stay with one of my uncles. That’s when I learned what an uncle was. My mom didn’t have any brothers.”