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“I haven’t made any decisions yet, and I’m kind of busy right now.”
My lips tipped up at the edge. Caught. “Busy?”
Her gaze hardened as she looked me up and down. “Yes. Busy.”
“Doing what, exactly?” I pressed, taking a step toward the door. She backed up, making a move to shut it, but I slid my foot between the door and the frame, stopping that action dead in its tracks.
“Dr. Brady,” she hissed.
“It sure seemed like you weren’t busy when you came to the door,” I continued, leaning one hand on the handle. “I didn’t even knock, Sophie. Were you watching me? Again?”
The blush that spread across her cheeks was obvious even in the low light. Her mouth parted, her breath caught, and fuck, why did she have to do that? Why did it twist something in my chest, turning me more neanderthal than modern man? All I could think of was her under me, over me, those perfect lips parted so perfectly?—
“That would be incredibly inappropriate,” she breathed, taking another step back, relinquishing her hold on the door. The warm glow of the room lit her features, increasing the desire I felt for her.
I stepped through, letting myself into her living room, the door opened wide behind me. “Probably about as inappropriate as me showing up at your house unannounced,” I said, my voice dropping an octave without me even trying, “or stripping off my clothes when I knew someone was watching.”
Another step back, and she collided with the back of the couch, her hand grabbing onto the plush fabric to hold herself steady. “Dr. Brady.”
“Hudson,” I corrected again.
“I haven’t made a decision yet about Jamey.”
Do I make you nervous?
I slid my lower lip between my teeth, nodding my acceptance. “And the fake engagement?”
She breathed in, slow and steady, and I wondered if it was to calm herself or just to feign confidence. “I don’t know yet,” she whispered. “Give me a day or two.”
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her as she crossed one leg over the other, holding her thighs together. She was wearing shorts, the same ones she’d worn when she’d picked up the mail last week. Her legs, long and lean and dotted with the occasional freckle, swam around in my mind. What would they look like wrapped around my hips?
“Do you have a piece of paper?” I asked, my voice much lighter than I expected considering the images running through my head. “And a pen?”
She blinked at me, her brows furrowing, but nodded. I watched her body as she padded across the floor on bare feet toward her massive work table, covered in strips of fabric, two different sewing machines, and a roll of brown paper. She plucked a pen from a desk organizer and tore off a small sheet of paper from the roll, laying both out on the desk. She motioned for me to come closer to her, to use the pen and paper, and all my cock wanted to do was take that in a way I knew she didn’t mean.
Pen clutched in my shaking hand, I scribbled out my phone number in my neatest handwriting and my name below it.
“Call me when you decide, Sophia.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I had to get out of there before I did something I knew I’d regret later.
Chapter 8
Sophie
Thursday
I’d spent yet another night tossing and turning in my bed, hardly getting an ounce of sleep. I stared at the time on my phone, watching it tick by, minute by minute, and then hour by hour. By the time it had reached seven a.m., I knew I wasn’t going to get anything more than maybe a nap later on.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Hudson all night. He’d called me out last night—I had been watching, since the moment his car pulled into his driveway, and even before that. I glanced out my window far too many times between the hours of five and six p.m.
Rolling out of bed, I slid my robe over my shoulders and tightened the strap, not wanting to give Hudson anything to look at if he decided to spy on me, too. I made my way down the stairs, eyes bleary and puffy from my lack of sleep, and started on a cup of coffee.
I could feel the slip of paper taunting me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see it, sitting right where he’d left it before he’d walked out without even saying goodbye. His shockingly neat handwriting for a doctor was angled toward the door, and it was almost as if I could feel him through it, waiting desperately for me to call him.
A part of me wanted to help him. To call him, to tell him I would watch Jamey, that I could handle the extra workload on top of my business. I could, and I knew that because I’d spent at least an hour doing the math in my head while I was trying to sleep.
