Not that it mattered if he wanted that or not. Because she didn’t. No way. Absolutely not.
Okay, damn it, she did want that. Desperately. Wanted to feel his body pressed against hers, thrusting into hers. Taste his drugging kiss. Run her hands over all those lovely muscles. Discover if the powerful sparks had been real or just a figment of her imagination.
But giving in to that temptation…definitely not a good idea. Just because he’d been intelligent and amusing didn’t mean he was her type. Still, it wasn’t as if she had to marry the guy. Nothing wrong with just having him put out this damn fire he’d started. No, nothing wrong with that, but she wasn’t convinced it was smart, either.
Drawing a bracing breath, she adopted her best aloof manner and entered the west section of the building, then took the elevator to the fifth floor, where the property management offices were located. After a quick mental pep talk to remain calm, cool and collected, she knocked on the oak door bearing a brass plate engraved with Evan’s name. Several seconds later the door opened, and calm, cool and collected melted into a puddle at her feet.
She’d been prepared to see him wearing his usual prim dress shirt, proper suit, boring tie and perfect hair. But “prim, proper and boring” wasn’t the Evan who answered the door. No, this Evan sported rumpled hair and a stubble-darkened jaw that lent him a dark and slightly dangerous air. The suit and tie had been replaced with a black T-shirt that made her fingers itch to test the breadth of his shoulders, and a pair of jeans that, based on the fascinating set of fade patterns, were old favorites. He looked rumpled and casual and sexy and utterly delicious and, damn it, he wasn’t supposed to!
“We need to talk,” he said, opening the door wider.
His abrupt words jerked her from her stupor. Not even so much as a hello. Arrogant jerk. Had she really wasted three days fantasizing about him? Actually, she was glad for his abruptness as it effectively cooled any flames he’d lit.
She lifted her chin and sailed into the office. After putting a safe distance between them, she turned to face him. Crossing her arms over her chest, she watched him close the door, refusing to acknowledge that the rear view was a good as the front view. And that she knew exactly how great his ass felt beneath her palms. Then he turned and leaned his shoulders against the door and regarded her with an unreadable expression.
When the silence stretched into what she considered the uncomfortable zone, she said, “You wanted to talk? I’m listening.”
He studied her for several more seconds, his eyebrows drawn into a frown, then asked in a very serious voice, “How are you, Lacey?”
She blinked. “Uh, fine. You?”
“I’m…not sure. The past few days have been…strange. I was wondering if you’d experienced anything unusual since we last saw each other.”
Yeah-I can’t stop thinking about you. But then an odd tingle shivered down her spine as she mentally flicked through the weird series of mini-disasters that had occurred over the past three days. “A few things, I guess,” she admitted.
“Like what?”
“A flat tire-”
“Me, too.”
Another odd tingle shivered down her spine. “My dishwasher broke.”
“My refrigerator died.”
“Some kid must have put a red crayon in the dryer at my apartment complex’s laundry room, and I ruined an entire load of clothes.”
“The dry cleaner lost all my suits and dress shirts.”
“Sales have been off at the store.”
“Two clients decided not to renew their leases.”
Lacey slowly set her purse on the floor. “Let’s see…the timer on my stove quit and I burned two batches of cookies. The heel broke off my favorite pair of sandals at the supermarket and I fell into a display of oranges, knocking a bunch of them down on me. I locked myself out of my apartment, dropped my mail in a mud puddle and…” had several highly erotic dreams about you “…had a couple of weird dreams. You?”
“My microwave suffered some sort of hiccup and spewed leftover moo shu pork all over my kitchen. Sasha suddenly decided that she liked the taste of leather and chewed up every pair of shoes that I own. I locked myself out of my house, and my neighbor who has my spare key naturally wasn’t home. Sasha also gnawed a couple holes in my mail.”
Stunned, she stepped back several paces and leaned her hips against his desk. “Okay, that’s bizarre.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed.
She attempted a laugh. “At least you didn’t have any weird dreams.”
“Oh, I had dreams. But I don’t think weird is the right word to describe them.”
“What is?”
His gaze, which had remained steady on hers up until now, cruised slowly down to her feet then back up again. “Erotic.”
She suddenly felt as if she stood in a ring of fire. Before she could think up a reply, he pushed off from the door and walked slowly toward her. “Wanna guess who was prominently featured in my X-rated dreams, Lacey?”
She had to swallow to find her voice. “Carmen Electra?”
He made a sound like a game show buzzer. “Wrong answer.” He didn’t stop walking until less than an arm’s length separated them. Lacey curled her fingers over the edge of his desk to keep from giving in to the overwhelming temptation to touch him.
“You,” he said, his eyes filled with a heat that all but singed her. “You were the woman in my dreams.”
Even though her better judgment told her to shut up, curiosity got the better of her and she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Did any of your dreams involve a nineteenth-century pirate ship?”
He nodded slowly. “I was the captain.”
Her heart began to pound in slow, hard beats. “You kidnapped me from my ancestral home.”
“Because you belonged to me.”
A heated flush engulfed her. “You cut off my gown. With your knife.”
“You liked it.”
“I had nothing else to wear.”
“We both liked that.”
“You made love to me,” she whispered.
“Every chance I could.”
“Every chance you could,” she agreed. Another wave of heat swamped her as images from her dreams flashed through her mind. Of Evan over her, under her, deep inside her, his hands and mouth everywhere…relentless…
His gaze searched hers. “Maybe the other stuff could be explained away by coincidence, but the fact that we had the same dream? That just convinces me that my idea is sound.”
“What idea?” she asked, hoping it had something to do with making that dream come true. Every cell in her body wanted to reach out and grab him, but she was afraid that once she touched him she wouldn’t be able to stop. Was that why he hadn’t touched her? Was he afraid of what would happen if he did? Was he suffering from the same “should I, shouldn’t I?” dilemma as she?
Instead of telling her his idea, he said, “I paid Madame Karma a visit today.”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “You did? Why?”
“I wanted to talk to her about my sudden run of bad luck. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised, and told me it was because I was fighting fate. She predicted that you’d suffered a similar series of unfortunate events. Based on what you’ve told me, she was right.”
“Did she have any suggestions?”
“As a matter of fact she did. She told me the only way to fix my cursed karma was to stop fighting fate. And the only way to do that was to spend time with you-which would also fix your karma problem. So that’s my idea. That we spend some time together. Worst-case scenario is we won’t be any worse off than we are now. Best-case scenario is we’ll undo our karma curse and our lives will return to normal.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in any of that karma or fate stuff. Called it a bunch of nonsense.”