Something About Harry(50)
Harry shook his head, loving that she’d finally loosened up a bit. “It’s bullshit. Also, medieval comes to mind. Everyone’s using surrogates nowadays. I don’t get the resistance.”
“They’re not using them the way I used them.”
“I’ll never look at another bottle of vitaminwater the same.”
Her bright eyes fell to the table again. “I’m sorry, Harry.”
He didn’t want her to keep apologizing. It was done. Her apologies only reminded him he lusted for someone he was supposed to be angry with. But she was so cute . . . So he changed the subject. “So you want a baby? Single parenthood and all that stuff?”
Mara’s eyes went to her lap, her tongue, luscious and pink, flitting over her lower lip in nervousness. “I do. I did.”
“So why didn’t you just do this mate thing? The one I vaguely remember you talking about at some point during my freak-out?” Those words sounded so archaic and blatantly sexist. Who mated?
Her chest rose and fell in an enticing lift of soft pink turtleneck. “Someone has to want to mate with you for you to do the mate thing.”
He paused. What? The idea that Mara, gorgeous, curvy, sexy as hell, couldn’t find a mate made his mouth drop open, but he slammed it shut before she lifted her eyes. “I find that almost impossible to believe.”
“Believe.”
She must be as lame about social cues as he was. He could name five guys from his department alone who thought she was hot. It had to be her brains. It scared off the weak. “I think you’re just too much woman for this bunch of slackers. I smell a lot of werewolf in this room. Lots of single, available werewolf. Which, as a by the way, freaked me out when I discovered how many of you there really are today as I sniffed my way through just my department alone. Anyway, you’re just too smart, and they’re all intimidated by you.” Wow, pal. Nice. Smooth, even. Where’d the player in you come from?
Her cheeks tinted an adorable shade of red followed shortly thereafter by the tip of her nose. “I’m sure that’s what the problem is. My oversized brain.”
The back of his neck began to tingle, making him take a covert peek around before refocusing on Mara’s pretty face. “I think we’ve been noticed.”
She shifted in her chair, awkward written all over her features. “It won’t be long now before everyone on lunch break will have to recharge their batteries for the texting they’re doing about us even as we speak.”
Harry didn’t bother to look up again. He couldn’t. Now that he’d moved past the initial shock of his turning and his anger had subsided, he was in the process of coming back down to earth. And earth had this gorgeous creature named Mara. He liked earth. “Screw ’em. That’s what we want. Them talking. Now look at me like you think I’m the only person in the world, and let’s sell this.”
Her eyes were shy, her lips pouty and peachy-colored. “Who are you, Harry Emmerson?”
“I’m your boyfriend, Mara Flaherty.”
“You’re my pretend boyfriend.”
“So let’s pretend,” he goaded with a sly chuckle. Somehow, a new facet to his personality had flared up. It was called The Flirty Harry, and it was doing something he’d sucked ass at in his former totally human life. Huh.
“My pretend boyfriend who’s suddenly very vocal about the issues at hand. I don’t know this Harry Emmerson.”
“Did you know the other one?”
Her eyes skirted his, settling on the table again. “I knew enough to know that he was quiet and easygoing. Not opinionated and pushy.”
Was he quiet? Yeah. Yeah, he probably was. But he didn’t feel like being quiet today. “Well, now you know the werewolf Harry, and it would appear he’s got something to say. So, let’s make googly eyes at each other to announce our budding relationship.”
That demure look was back on her face, in her posture. “You go first.”
Harry pulled her hand to his lips, savoring the feel of her flesh against his mouth, and brushed a kiss on her fingers while he gazed into her eyes. “You look like I’m holding you hostage. It’s just lunch. Not Zero Dark Thirty day,” he joked.
She almost laughed before he saw her realize she was doing it and caught herself, but she didn’t pull her hand away. In fact, she closed it around his.
It was much smaller than his own; smaller yet callused in some spots from the work she’d so proudly announced she’d been doing all by herself to renovate her frilly cottage.
A cottage he felt like a big oaf in for every basket of flowers he’d tripped over, and all the periwinkle blue and moss green pillows he’d all but annihilated by squashing after sitting on them on her ivory couch. “A lunch of lies. So many lies,” she whispered, scanning the crowd of heads dotting the cafeteria.