Basic Attraction (4 page)

Angel said, “Oh, yeah, it is. I mean, it’s small, but it’s enough for us and so much better than Rick’s garage apartment. I’m glad that horrible carpet will be gone by the time I get back though.”

Wrapping the basil in a wet paper towel, she said as casually as she could, “Yeah, I ran into your brother at the house. I didn’t know he was going to be there.”

She hadn’t totally prevented an accusing tone from sneaking into her voice, but Angel either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Sorry,” she said cheerfully. “I needed someone to stay and let the carpet installers in, then the movers on Friday, so Luke’s doing it. He’s such a good guy that way.”

“Hmmm,” she said noncommittally.

Angel added, “I just got off the phone with him, as a matter of fact.”

She nearly dropped her phone in the sink, and her heart pounded as she said, “He did? What did he have to say?”

Her friend’s voice turned sly. “He mostly talked about you, in fact.”

Did Angel know about the cat? She couldn’t tell. She sounded too cheerful, but Lord only knew what Luke was capable of saying. “What did he say about me?” She clapped her mouth shut. That had sounded altogether too eager and middle school.

The laugh Angel gave indicated that she thought so too. “This reminds me of high school. My friends and I used to ask each other that all the time. ‘Did he say anything about me?’” She paused. “Good thing it’s nothing like that. I’ll tell you if you’re really interested though. It was very complimentary, I promise.”

It was a trap, plain and simple. Sheri retreated quickly. “Well, no, I’m not interested. I mean, why should I care? I was just curious. That’s all, since I don’t even know him at all. Not one little bit.” The image of him bent over her, brushing his lips over hers, her hands pressing into his warm chest, rose in her mind. That didn’t count. “It seems bizarre that I would be his topic of conversation.”

“Actually, he just talked about running into you and that you startled him with just a towel on.” Angel sounded gleeful. “Then, when I asked him what he thought of you, he said something really odd.”

Her heart dropped down to her bare feet. Odd. That didn’t sound promising. “What?” She dried her hands off on her tan shorts and waited impatiently.

“He said you’re…flexible. Does that make any sense to you?”

“Flexible?” She made a choking sound. The pervert. The scruffy, tattooed jerk. The very sexy, tattooed jerk. The sexy, tattooed jerk who made yoga sound erotic. And made her curious to try whatever was flitting around in his naughty little mind.

But the fact that he would say that to Angel made her wonder if Luke was doing exactly what she feared the most—poking fun at her. What if he wasn’t even remotely interested in her but was just teasing her? That would be mortifying, especially if she did her usual aggressive, total-lack-of-finesse come-on.

“Oh, God, Angel, can I call you back?” She felt the need to lie down. That had to be what it was. Luke wasn’t attracted to her. He was just playing, toying with her. “I forgot I have an appointment.”

The green tea she drank after hanging up the phone didn’t help, so she took a deep breath and drove over to Angel’s house, parking in the drive and pausing nervously.

When she leaned over to shift the gear into park, her hair fell across her cheek, reminding her that it was still damp. She nervously patted it down. Why hadn’t she ever learned the art of putting makeup on either? Not the sensual smoky-eye-and-red-lipstick look, but just the basics. A glance in her rearview mirror showed that her cheeks were splotchy and her nose oily. And why, oh, why had she ever started chewing on her bottom lip? It reflected back at her, chapped and dry.

Not that she cared what Luke thought of her if he was just going to be a douchebag and mock her with names like Chicken Little. But on the off chance that he might catch her totally off guard and kiss her again, she didn’t want the man to encounter sandpaper lips. She wanted him to think he was missing something genuinely amazing by not taking her seriously. She quickly dug a lip balm out of her glove compartment and swished it over her lips.

They felt better. She glanced in the mirror. Unfortunately it looked like she had dipped her mouth in olive oil. Scrubbing it off with the back of her hand, she had the sudden horrifying thought that Luke could be watching her out of the living room window.

And officially she sucked at being a girl. With a sigh, she gathered her courage and went to the front door, reminding herself not to slouch. She was proud of who she was. She was tall. She was strong. She was a confident, well-adjusted woman.

She was staring into Luke’s gloriously sky blue eyes as he swung open the front door.

“Hey.”

He was so cute. Sexy. Charming. Before she could stop herself, she sighed. Just a little. A tiny exhalation of air he hopefully didn’t notice. “Hey.” Damn her mouth for turning up in a perky little smile. He didn’t deserve it.

Her eyes darted down to his chest, grateful that he was wearing a shirt. It advised her to ‘Bite Me.’ Sadly, she wished she could.

“Aren’t you a little old to wear a shirt like that?” She curled her lip.

He glanced down in surprise. “Huh?” He grinned as he read his shirt. “Maybe it was wishful thinking.”

“You’re a pig.” The criticism was a halfhearted attempt at self-preservation. She would not let any sort of images of biting in any way enter her overtaxed brain.

Too late. It was there. She was imagining what it would feel like to sink her teeth into his bottom lip while she stroked him to arousal.

“I thought I was disgusting.”

“That too.” Crossing her arms, she added, “Did Mookie turn up?”

“No.”

Somehow she’d thought that’s what he would say. “Darn it!”

“Don’t hold back your rage there, Sheri.” He mocked her sedate curse.

She ignored him. “Step aside. I’m going to look around the house again.”

He raised a brow. “Reality check here, babe. There’s nowhere for the little furball to hide. The house is
empty
.”

Whether he was right or not, he was still infuriating. “Don’t you care? Maybe not about the cat, but about your sister? Angel’s going to be heartbroken.”

“Of course I care.” He shrugged. “But that won’t bring the cat back.” His eyes raked over her. “Why do you always wear such loose shirts?”

“What?” She glanced down at her oversized T-shirt, which was draped over her tan shorts. “I don’t know. Comfort?”

“You’re hiding a really nice asset there, gorgeous. Actually a couple of assets.”

She was speechless, a flush rising up on her neck as she gaped at him. No one in her twenty-eight years had ever seen fit to refer to her large chest as an asset. In fact, in running and swimming, it had been such a serious detriment that she had ruthlessly contained it in a hardcore jogging bra and a tight swimsuit. That Luke had noticed her chest in appreciation pleased her. Assuming he wasn’t just tweaking her for her own amusement.

That thought soured her pleasure.

“Thanks for the fashion advice. From the man who probably considers dressing up wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt,” she said through gritted teeth.

He grinned. “Are you coming in, or are you going to stand on the front step all night?”

“I’m leaving.” She turned around on her gym shoes and took a step down onto the walkway that ran alongside the house.

“Have dinner with me.”

She froze. He was crazy if he thought she was going to sit down over food with him. No way. No how.

It was not good for her mental health to have him flirting and her spend the entire time he was flirting wondering why. She didn’t know how to respond to him, and it was unnerving and frustrating and only served to remind her of the all the ways she had failed as a female.

Nope. She wasn’t doing it.

Sheri was having dinner with him whether she liked it or not. Luke didn’t know why exactly he found himself so attracted to this woman, but he did. Maybe it was her odd mix of confidence and innocence. Her nervous discomfort with him paired with her phenomenal body.

Every inch of her was toned and strong, sleek muscles flexing when she moved, walked, bent over. Her long cheekbones marched boldly down to those full pink lips, and those startling green eyes were surrounded by strand after strand of lustrous chestnut hair.

Then there was that cute little habit of hers of talking in childlike sayings. He had yet to recover from her “me to know, you to find out” comment.

All in all, he had it bad, and he wasn’t going back to Chicago until he had gotten Sheri to admit she felt it too. Desire. It hugged the air around them when they were together.

“Why should I?” she asked.

Though her tone was frigid, he noticed that she made no move to actually leave. “Because you’re hungry?” He smiled.

She turned back to him. “I doubt we’d agree on what to eat.” Again, her hesitant action spoke louder than her words.

“Steak?” he suggested hopefully, though something told him that Sheri was more of a bean sprouts kind of girl.

She grimaced. “Dead cow? No thanks. How about udon noodles and tofu?”

He hated being right. “Real men don’t eat tofu.”

Frowning, she said, “That’s so ridiculous. Do you really think world-class male athletics run around eating big juicy steaks, sour-cream-laden potatoes, and dinner rolls? I don’t think so.”

“I don’t care what they eat. I’m not eating squishy bean curd.” He had to draw the line somewhere. Even a night in Sheri’s company wasn’t worth that. “How about a compromise? Pizza?”

Biting her bottom lip, which had him severely jealous of her teeth, Sheri thought over his proposition. “Okay,” she finally said. “But you have to change your shirt.”

What was he? Six? He said firmly, “No way, gorgeous.”

“Then I’m not going.”

Had he just said that the childlike manner about her was cute? It had its shortcomings. “Why not?”

She shook her head in exasperation. “Because it’s rude. I’m not going into a restaurant while you’re wearing a shirt that says ‘bite me.’”

It took him five seconds to decide what to do. With a wicked grin, he said, “Okay, Sheri. For you, I’ll change. I wouldn’t do this for any other woman, but for you, I’ll make the sacrifice.”

Surprise then suspicion flitted across her face. “Just like that?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks, Luke.” She tentatively smiled back.

“Hold on a sec.” He sauntered back into the house and changed into a shirt that was far more offensive than the one she had protested.

Even though it was hot outside, he grabbed his old olive-green Army shirt with the sleeves cut off and pulled it on over the T-shirt, buttoning it up. Timing was everything. He’d wait until they were in a very public place before casually taking the outer shirt off. Childish? Totally. But no woman was going to dictate what he wore. His own mother had given up by the time he had reached third grade. Not that his mother had been in a position to talk. She had spent most of his childhood teetering around on high heels, her skirts giving new meaning to the word ‘mini.’

God love her, Joycie Burton was a unique woman, and she was his mother. She was fun, loving, and oftentimes hopelessly naïve. Which is how she’d found herself thirty years ago pregnant with a married man’s baby. True to nature, she’d always insisted that it had turned out all right. While Luke’s father, Buddy Weiss, hadn’t been her knight in shining armor, she’d been blessed with a son and had met her best friend, Jessie, Angel’s mom, through the fiasco.

Jessie was the woman Buddy had been married to at the time, and she had promptly left him. By the time Luke had been born, three months after Angel, the two women were sharing an apartment and raising their babies together.

No one had seemed to find it odd that their Christmas portrait that year was Jessie, Joycie, Angel, and Luke in matching red rompers and Buddy hovering in the background with a carefree grin. Luke suspected that, as a result, his view of the world was permanently skewed.

But what he did know for certain was that he wanted a lover, not another mother.

Sheri was twirling her keys around her finger when he got back. She eyed his faded, ripped shirt with tight lips but said nothing.

“You driving?” he asked her.

“Sure.”

The ride was quick. Too quick to even try and lean over at a red light and caress her knee. They were sitting at a table with a red-checkered tablecloth in minutes.

He wanted a meat lover’s pizza. Sheri wanted a veggie pizza. They split a pizza in half, much to her consternation.

“Why don’t you just try mine?”

“Why don’t you try mine?” he countered.

She snorted. “Because yours is full of fat and grease.”

He sensed that he was in trouble when a woman’s snorting could be seen by him as sexy. “That’s redundant. Besides, maybe I like fat and grease. Lots of flavor.”

“You’ll be dead at fifty,” she predicted.

“Will you miss me?” he teased, smiling slowly at her.

She didn’t answer. “I’m serious. You have a self-destructive lifestyle. I bet you don’t even exercise. Do you run?”

“Not unless someone’s chasing me.” He was a touch offended by her statement. It meant she hadn’t even noticed his well-developed chest and arm muscles, even though she’d seen him without a shirt for a good half an hour that morning. He hadn’t gotten those muscles by lifting a fork to his mouth. He’d been lifting weights for years. He just didn’t like to jog.