She didn’t see room for a distraction named Wyatt. She understood the attraction—she’d have to be dead and buried not to be attracted to him, but he was a damn big deviance from her Plan.
Too big.
One beer loosened her tongue, two beers separated it from her brain. So naturally she had two. “Your mom’s interesting.”
“She’s something,” he said.
“What does she do?”
“She and my dad are foreign diplomats.”
“Wow. Impressive.” From what she’d heard, it sounded like he and his sisters had been on their own for a long time. And on top of that, his mom had seemed downright disinterested in his life.
Her own mom had been the opposite. She’d been snoopy, nosy, bossy, and . . . amazingly wonderful.
It had been several years since her death but Emily still got a lump in her throat just thinking about her. “You must’ve had a very interesting childhood,” she said.
“Sure,” he said. “If you call moving twenty something times between the ages of five and seventeen interesting.”
“So I guess you’re good on a plane,” she said.
“Planes. Trains. Mules . . .” He smiled at her laugh. “Ah. You’ve never been to Morocco.”
“No. I’m a shaky traveler,” she said. “I can’t even sleep through a flight, I have to be awake for the crash.”
Now it was his turn to laugh.
He had a great laugh. And did he know that when he laughed, his eyes laughed, too? Or that his hair curled over his ears in a really sexy way? She forced herself to stop noticing and blamed beer number two. She pushed it away from her.
“Travel enough and it gets easier,” he said.
“We used to vote on our family vacations. Land or sea.” She smiled at the memory. “Land meant driving to the desert and camping out. Sea meant driving twenty minutes to the Los Angeles reservoir. We’d sit on the concrete shore in our drug store beach chairs and pretend we were on a deserted South Pacific island.”
“Hey, at least you got a vote,” he said.
“You didn’t, I take it.”
He shook his head. “I’d come home from school and say, ‘Hey, Mom, just joined the Bolivia soccer team,’ and she’d say, ‘Sorry, Son, we’re going to be in Greenland by this time next week.’”
She couldn’t even imagine. “Did it screw you up?” she asked.
“Nah.” He let out a low rueful laugh and scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Well, maybe a little.”
“Don’t worry, you hide it well,” she teased, trying very hard not to notice that the sound of his hand on his stubbled jaw made her nipples hard.
This wasn’t good. This was the opposite of good. He was open and fun and charming, but he was also being very professional—as she’d requested—and she needed to be, too. Which meant absolutely no more noticing that he smelled good. Or that she wanted to hug him again . . . and climb into his lap. Dammit. “We’re all screwed up by our parents. What are your sisters like? Are they like you?”
“Like me how?”
She bit her lower lip, and he gave her that sexy laugh again. “Oh, don’t hold back now,” he said. “Here’s your chance to tell me what you think of me.”
She thought he was sexy as hell, but she wasn’t about to share that. The truth was, he was wonderful. He came off as laid-back, deceptively carefree, even playful.
But he was much more. At work, he was intuitive, sharp, and also incredibly demanding, expecting the best for his patients, expecting the best out of the staff.
He’d been all those things in bed, too, and at the memory, her body quivered. If she closed her eyes, she could still remember what his hands had felt like on her, guiding her where he wanted, his mouth at her ear, his words turning her on every bit as much as the rest of him.
“No words?” he asked. “Nothing?”
“Maybe a little annoying,” she said primly, and he flashed that knowing smile again.
He knew her way better than was comfortable.
“Your sisters,” she said. “You were going to tell me about your sisters.”
“They’re crazy,” he said. But his tone was affectionate, and there was laughter in his voice. “Zoe’s only eleven months older than me, but she’s been playing mom since she could walk. Darcy’s the baby, and managed to party her way across the planet. They’re both colossal pains in my ass, but for the most part we make it work.”
“You live with them.”
“For now. They needed me.” He shrugged. “Family.”
At the simple statement, and the deep loyalty in it, she nodded. She got that. Learning about his family, how he’d grown up, how he took care of his sisters, it was yet another layer to him that she hadn’t expected.
As for their little experiment of getting to know each other in order to derail their attraction . . . if the low-level hum of arousal buzzing through her system accounted for anything, they hadn’t derailed a single thing. And now, instead of liking him less, she liked him more.
Epic fail.
“I really wanted you to be a jerk,” she admitted softly.
“You wanted to work with a jerk?”
“No, I wanted to not be attracted to you anymore.” She reached for her beer, needing the liquid courage. “Is it just me?” she asked softly into his silence, knowing she shouldn’t. “I’m the only one struggling here?”
He looked at her for a long moment, but didn’t respond to that, either. Instead, he dropped some cash on the table, stood up, and pulled her with him.
Mr. Professional.
She should appreciate the effort. She should replicate his effort. “Where are we going now?”
“Home,” he said, taking her back to his truck, opening the passenger’s door for her. “To bed.”
She went still and assessed her feelings. Her girlie parts were on board. Standing so close to him between the truck and his big, warm, strong body, she gave in. “Okay, good. Maybe just one more time—”
“In our own beds,” he said.
“Oh.” She blew out a breath. Nodded. “I knew that.”
Nine
They didn’t speak much on the drive back to Belle Haven. The lot was dark and empty when they pulled in. Emily grabbed her purse and slid from the truck almost before Wyatt even stopped, needing to get out of his sexy air space ASAP.
But as chill as he was, the guy could move like lightning when he wanted. And apparently he wanted, because he caught up with her in the blink of an eye.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes,” he said firmly, setting a big hand on the small of her back, vigilantly taking in their surroundings as they moved. “I do. There’s been some break-ins this year. Not here, but at other animal centers, addicts looking for drugs. I’m not taking chances with you.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.” At her car door, she hesitated. If this had been a real date, she’d be wondering if there was going to be a good-night kiss. But this wasn’t a real date. “And thanks for dinner,” she said.
He dipped down a little to see into her eyes. “We good?”
Oh, great, and now he felt sorry for her. “Yep.” She added a super enthusiastic nod. “We’re good. We’re great. We’re super-duper.” She bit her tongue to shut herself up, but he was already frowning.