“Maybe. I’ve never lived in any one place for more than a few months since I left New York. I don’t know if this will stick. Maybe,” she said again, “because it feels rightright now. But in any case, you live here and you’re friends with Kevin and Jennylong-term, serious friends. We start somethingand I’m also not looking to start somethingand it gets messed up, your friend and my contractor’s in the middle of it.”
“That’s weak,” Xander said, and went back to the pasta.
“Not from where I’m sitting, in the heart of a construction zone. Plus you’re the only local garage and mechanic, and I might need a mechanic.”
Thoughtfully, he crunched into the bread. “Probably get the work done faster if we’re having sex.”
She laughed, shook her head. “Not if we stop having it, and you’re pissed at me. There’s work, of which I have to do a lot to pay for this house, and everything that goes into it. I don’t have time for sex.”
“There’s always time for sex. Next time, I’ll bring pizza and we can have sex in the time you spent making dinner.”
And thoughtfully, Naomi ate pasta. “That doesn’t speak well of your . . . stamina.”
“Just trying to work on your schedule.”
“Considerate, but unnecessary as dinner tonight is a one-off. I don’t know you.”
“That’s the only thing you’ve said so far that makes sense. But we can go back up your list and I can remind you I’m friendsserious, long-termwith Kev and Jenny. They’d warn you if I was a psychopath.”
She kept her eye on the view. “People don’t always know people close to them the way they think they do.”
There was a story, Xander thought. He could hear it murmuring under her words. Instead of pressing on that, he tried something else.
He leaned over and took her face in his hand. Her mouth with his. Strong and hot and edging onto the fierce.
He knew when a woman wantedand she did. He knew it by the way her mouth responded, heard it in her throaty hum, felt it in the quick, sexy quiver.
Another woman? All this heat, the mesh of needs would lead them straight up and into that excellent new bed.
But she drew back. Still, she kept her eyes, that deep, fascinating green, on his.
“You make an excellent point,” she said. “And I can’t argue it, but . . .” She looked directly into his eyes. “Like I told the dog, that’s how it goes.”
“Tonight.”
For the moment he contented himself with the food, the view, the mysteries of the woman beside him. Somebody handed him a puzzle, he thought, he just had to solve it. He’d figure her out, sooner or later.
Ten
She went back to work. Since work ranked high on her list of reasons not to sleep with Xander, she had to make her own point.
When she went out to shoot in the morning, the dog tagged along. For a few days, if she headed into woods or along shorelines, she rigged the leash to her belt. They both disliked the solution intensely.
After those few days, she realized the dog wasn’t going anywhere and usually left him off the leash. He explored nearby, chased squirrels, barked at birds, sniffed at deer tracksand scatwhile she composed studies of wildflowers, trees, long channels of water in sunlight and in shadow.
And she ended up with an entire series of dog shots.
He snoozed by the fireplacegas logs installed and fabulous for cool, gloomy dayswhile she worked at her computer. Now and again, he’d go down, hang with the crew or with Molly if she’d come to visit, but he always came back in, gave her a long look as if checking if she’d finished. If she hadn’t, he curled up again, usually with something in his mouth.
Sometimes the something was a stray work glove, and once it was a hammer.
Steady, focused work paid off. She received a satisfying check from the gallery in New York, and watched her PayPal account blossom.
People, it seemed, really liked pictures of dogs.
Jenny stopped by, as promised, and took the tour. When they got to the master suite, Jenny sighed.
“I don’t know which is more impressive, the view or the bed.”
“I like having the view from the bed.”
“It must be wonderful, waking up to that every morning. Xander said your uncles shipped the bed all the way across the country.”
“They did. And if I don’t find some pieces to go in here, they’ll start finding them, and shipping them.”
“Come shopping with me!” Bouncing on her toes, Jenny slapped her hands together. “Let’s go.”
“What? Now?”
“It’s my day off, kids in school. I’ve got . . .” She pulled out her phone to check the time. “Five hours before I have to pick up Maddy, then Ty. I know it’s a workday for you, but you have to have more furniture, and I know a couple of placesespecially if you’re not afraid of refinishing or having something refinishedthat should have pieces that will really suit that bed.”