No quip tripped off her tongue. He was right. The flowers would die, and she’d keep replacing them until she left. But once she was gone, there’d be no more flowers. He shouldn’t plan on getting used to them. She found the thought curiously dismal.
And she refused to need anything from him other than what they’d laid out in their contract. Certainly not his approval.
Her rumbling stomach beckoned her to deal with more mundane matters, such as take-out Chinese. She shrugged off the momentary melancholy and scanned the menu for her favorite. “Yu Shian shredded pork. Extra peppers, please.”
A grimace of distaste marred the aristocratic lines of Andrew’s face.
She laughed at his expression. “Does that mean we’re not sharing our Chinese tonight?”
“You can rest assured.”
Predictable. How could she have doubted herself? She had Andrew Martin Winthrop III’s number. Her smile smacked of smugness. “Too hot for you?”
He shook his head slowly, his eyes alight with uncustomary merriment, as if he was about to deliver the punch line to a joke. “Actually, no. I’m a vegetarian.”
Visions of a tofu Thanksgiving danced in her head, dropping her jaw.
How many more surprises was she in for with this man?
ANDREW GRINNED AS HE PLACED the cardboard containers of Chinese on the countertop. He’d thoroughly enjoyed displacing Kat’s smugness by announcing his vegetarianism. She’d stood across from him thinking she had him pegged. And those thoughts had been clearly reflected in her sweat-stained, dirt-streaked, impudent face.
Staid. Predictable.
Not that being a vegetarian rendered him a wild man, but it had rendered Kat speechless.
Tantalizing aromas wafted from the closed cartons, reminding him he hadn’t eaten all day. He checked his wristwatch.
How much time did one petite woman need to shower? There wasn’t that much of her to clean. His stomach growled a warning. Five more minutes and he wouldn’t be held accountable.
Andrew pressed the intercom buzzer and was met with dead silence. He dropped his hand in disgust. The thing was still on the blink. He’d have Mrs. Fitzwillie call the repairman. Again.
He started to the bedroom but paused in the den, Kat’s flower arrangement catching his eye. In less than a day she’d stamped his house with more of herself than he had in a decade. Standing in his own kitchen with her earlier, he’d felt the outsider, the observer. She’d been dirty and sweaty because she’d put something of herself into the place. He’d felt the odd man out in his button-down shirt and cuffed trousers.
A slight whimper interrupted his reverie. Stretched out on the rug, Toto twitched in his sleep. Doggie dreams, Andrew surmised as he quickly slipped out of the room. He might feel slightly overdressed in his own home, but he wasn’t eager for another showering of Toto’s affection.
The closed bedroom door brought him up short. Living with someone else-sharing a bedroom with someone-meant adjustments. He rapped the wood panel and called out, “Dinner’s here.”
Her reply reached him, undecipherable and muffled. She was obviously still in the bathroom. He threw open the door and stepped inside, announcing once again, “Dinner’s-”
He stopped in mid-sentence and mid-stride, every semblance of coherent thought fleeing as Kat threw open the bathroom door at the same time and froze, naked, before him.
Hunger of a different kind consumed him. Another woman might have covered herself or gasped her shocked outrage. Kat stood before him proudly.
Looking away wasn’t an option.
Feasting his eyes on her, he attempted to appease his appetite by taking in the sight of her glorious nudity. Her hair clung to her head in damp, subdued ringlets. No hint of merriment lightened the depths of her dark blue eyes. She slightly parted her full lips. He recalled their sweetness and ached with need.
His gaze slid from her freckled shoulders to the pale, succulent fullness of her breasts. Her nipples peaked and pouted beneath his devouring gaze.
Desire and need pooled hot and heavy in his sex.
He visually caressed the womanly, slight rounding of her belly. He drank in the tight red curls cradled between her rounded hips and the sleek line of her thighs.
He stood, rigid with the need to partake of the feast before him. He longed to test the texture of her skin against his. To taste her.
Her glittering, sapphire-dark eyes engaged him, radiating a heat that mirrored his own. She slowly reached up to brush her fingertips against a swollen nipple. A soft moan escaped her.
Watching her touch herself, desire roared through him like a fire out of control. It threatened to consume him, destroy him.
He tightened his grip on the doorknob. The need to make love to her nearly dropped him to his knees. It was that need that formed and stiffened his resolve to walk away. He’d wanted, and had, a number of women, but he’d never needed anyone like he needed Kat now. He fought to regain control.
When he performed his husbandly duties, it’d be just that-a performance, a duty. Not giving in to this alien need.
“Dinner’s here.” Hot want thickened his voice. Frustration edged it with harshness. His announcement broke the erotic spell that bound the two of them.
“Oh.” Kat blinked, her expression dazed, as if she were waking from a dream. She reached behind her for a towel, draping it around herself sarong-wise. As she crossed the bedroom to the closet, she avoided looking at him.
Andrew relinquished the doorknob and moved toward the bathroom. “I need a shower before dinner.” He slammed the door on the silence behind him.
Kat’s lingering scent in the still-steamy room aggravated his unabashed craving. The thought that he’d just cut off his nose to spite his face-it felt like other body parts-occurred to him.
Andrew turned the cold-water tap on full blast, not bothering with the hot.
He was plenty hot.
He stepped into the shower. A seldom used but very appropriate epithet echoed in the stall.
Thoroughly drenched, Andrew stood beneath the icy deluge fully dressed.
KAT, NOT PRONE TO SELF-DOUBT, wondered if she might have made a mistake with this marriage.
Andrew had turned her on more with a two-minute look than Nick had in four years of touching. He’d also threatened her earlier resolve. Who was she kidding? She’d forgotten all about contracts and agreements and partnerships. She’d wanted him like she’d never wanted any other man.
Dangerous territory to tread on a temporary basis. And nothing had changed. Theirs was a temporary arrangement and that’s all it would ever be. She wanted it that way.
She thunked the cartons of Chinese on the wrought iron patio table and paced back to the kitchen.
The refrigerator door stood open. Andrew hunkered down before it. He slanted her a sideways glance. “Want a beer?”
The day had been unbalanced enough and she still had to get through the night with this man. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll stick with water.”
In one lithe movement he rose, elbowed the door shut and turned to face her. A polo shirt hugged the breadth of his shoulders. Khaki shorts showcased muscular, hairy, thoroughly masculine legs. The slow burn she’d sought to control flared within her. But one look at his shuttered expression doused the flame. Those same eyes that had devoured her earlier now chilled her to the core.
She pushed a wild lock of hair off her forehead. “I thought we could eat outside on the patio.”
“That’s fine.” His clipped tone offered just the perspective she needed. Desperately needed. According to her ovulation prediction kit, she was fertile ground, which probably explained her incredible response to his perusal of her earlier.