“Charlie? Are we going inside, or are we just going to stand out here all night?”
“Oh. Sorry.” She came back to reality, opened the door, and led him inside. The house was nothing like her home back in Boston, but she liked it anyway. She felt more at ease, relaxed in the small house than she’d ever felt in her spacious Boston apartment. Part of it was that her mother’s decorator had taken over furnishing the huge apartment and none of the items he’d bought had really fit her taste. But she hadn’t cared. She’d never thought of her apartment as a home but as a place where she put her things and laid her head after a grueling ten-hour workday.
“Um, the kitchen isn’t much.”
He forged ahead of her into the tiny galley-style kitchen. “As long as you have a range, I’ll be fine.”
She tried to see the kitchen through his eyes. Although tiny, it still had all the necessary items like an oven, range top and refrigerator along with a counter microwave. Since she’d eaten mostly sandwiches and frozen dinners off paper plates, she hadn’t cared that the kitchen didn’t have a dishwasher.
She slid onto one of the two barstools and watched him pull the ingredients out of the bag and set them on the countertop. He busied himself, searching through drawers and cabinets for the tools he needed to cook with, then placed a big pot on top of the stove.
“I’m totally clueless when it comes to cooking, but I feel like I should still offer to help.”
He bent over to retrieve a colander from under the stove. She leaned to the side, her mouth puckering into a soundless whistle. If she was an artist, she’d make a bronze tribute to the man’s butt. He filled the jeans as though they were made for him, showing just enough ass to tease her libido. His incredible butt led the way up to a lean waist and a back that made her bite her lower lip to keep from sighing. Broad wasn’t the right word to describe the expanse covered by a simple white T-shirt.
She jumped, jerked her gaze upward, and plastered on an I’m not doing anything wrong smile as he turned to face her. Had he said something? His smile made her believe he’d known she was checking out his butt. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said not to worry about helping. I prefer to do it myself. But you can, if you want, find your corkscrew and open a bottle of wine.”
“Sure.” She eased off the stool as he dropped his attention to the food on the counter and started opening the carton of pasta. Did she have a wine corkscrew? She pushed by him, grazing her breasts against his back. A flash of heat radiated off him and into her. She drew in a quick breath as he went still. Holding her breath, she waited for him to spin around and crush his mouth to hers as Reese had done. Disappointment twisted her gut when he didn’t.
Did that mean he didn’t want her? Had she gotten her signals mixed up? She frowned and opened a drawer on the far side of the kitchen. Rummaging around, she found a corkscrew and held it up. “Voilà. I found it.”
Damn, how she liked his smile. A woman could get lost in the brightness.
“Great. I don’t suppose you have a couple of wine goblets? And a couple of plates? I found the utensils.”
“I don’t remember seeing any goblets, but I’ll look. I know there are a couple of plates, although I’ve been using paper plates for just me.”
She checked the cabinets and found two glasses. One was the Scooby-Doo glass she’d been using, and the other was the same type of tall children’s glass but with the image of Wolverine on the side. “Will these do?”
“Only if I get Wolverine. Wolverine and I are simpatico.”
Simpatico how? But she kept her question to herself. “That works for me.”
She pushed by him again, prepared for the sizzle, and again was mystified when he acted like he hadn’t felt anything. Taking one of the bottles out of the bag, she lifted it up and had to laugh. “Red Blooded? That’s an odd name for a wine.”
He kept working, his back turned to her as he stirred the spaghetti. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. If I’d had more time, I would’ve hit my neighbor Aiden Carr up for a quick trip through his wine cellar. He brings in really fine wine and will let a few people sponge off him for a special occasion. But most people around here run over to Shatland to pick up a decent bottle of wine. They have a connection to a winery in California that’s run by a cousin of one of their residents.”
“But the name is so…dark. Almost ominous sounding.” She frowned and squinted at the bottle’s label. “It says the winery’s name is Villa Diablo. Home of the Devil?”