“Sure thing,” Beck said. “We walked her home.”
I nodded. Of course they did.
“What are you up to?” he asked.
I picked up one of the slides. “I wanted to see what was on these, but I can’t read them without a projector.”
He pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room to take the slide out of my hand. He held it up to the light. “Wow, you aren’t kidding. It’s like a hieroglyph. These from the meeting?”
“Yeah.” I looked up at him, still standing over me. “And speaking of the meeting, Dane told me you — all of you — followed me there.”
He grinned again. “So?”
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe for him to be more apologetic than Dane had been about the fact that they’d followed me to the meeting?
But if that was what I was hoping for I was going to be disappointed, because he didn’t look sorry at all.
“Are you going to claim it’s because you were worried about the murderer on the loose?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Main Street is always crowded on town meeting nights. Same for the square. I knew you’d be safe, I just didn’t like the fact that you might be meeting some other guy.”
“But you see how… stalkerish that is right? How inappropriate?”
“It seems perfectly appropriate for the way I feel about you.”
Well damn.
“And how is that?” Why was I asking for trouble? Why wasn’t I running away from the mess I was making with the nice orderly situation Aunt Evelyn had left me?
I took his outstretched hand and he pulled me to my feet. We were standing so close my nipples brushed against his bare chest through the tank top I planned to sleep in.
He looked down at me, his brown eyes liquid with desire. “I like you. A lot. And I want you. Also a lot.” He lowered his gaze to my neck. “And I know I’m not the only one.”
Sugar. I reached up to cover the mark Dane had left on my neck.
Beck chuckled and my nipples got harder, the thin fabric of my tank top no match for his bare chest and the sexy rumble of his laughter.
“No need to hide, cupcake. I don’t blame Dane for wanting you too.”
“It’s just getting… complicated,” I said.
He touched my face and stroked his thumb over my cheek, the same way he had in the bakery my first morning in Blackwell Hollow. It was hypnotizing, and I closed my eyes, already falling victim to his touch.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he murmured. “It can be simple.”
“How…” I swallowed as he lowered his mouth to my neck. “How can it be simple?”
“Easy.” His breath against my neck sent a shiver through my body. “You just do what you want to do, what feels good. Does this feel good?”
He pressed his lips against my throat and I felt the hot dart of his tongue against my skin.
“That feels… pretty good.” I was out of breath, like I’d been running.
And I guess in a way I had been.
He slipped his free hand under my tank top and closed his palm around my bare tit. “How about this?”
I sighed. “That feels… okay.”