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While I tossed on the clothes Vaughn gave me, he dumped the dirty dishes into the sink. After we jumped into Vaughn’s car—a sweet Maserati—I turned to him and cracked a little joke in a lame attempt to lighten the mood. “You better not have been downplaying your love for Ikea because you’re going to see my place way sooner than I thought.”
Even though he was gripping the steering wheel hard enough for his knuckles to turn white, Vaughn followed my lead and flashed me a grin. “It’s only fair that I get to check out your ready-to-assemble décor since you’re the first of my dates to ever cross the threshold to my house.”
“Wait, what?” My head jerked back in surprise. “Did you really just say I’m the first woman you’ve taken back to your place?”
I felt a thrill over the hint of color that darkened his cheeks as he shrugged his broad shoulders. “I guess foster care taught me to be more than a little territorial with my space.”
It was a well-known fact around Hollywood that Vaughn had grown up in foster care, but the stories I’d heard always implied that he’d been one of the lucky ones who’d landed in a good place. Between his tone and the fact that he felt the need to keep people away from his home, I had to wonder how much spin was added to his childhood stories to whitewash his history.
Not wanting to get into a serious conversation right before getting to my place and dealing with the destruction of Morgan’s car, I let my curiosity slide for the moment. “I guess I have yet another thing to be grateful for from last night.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, you inviting me back to your place without pressuring me for sex was already a big deal. But now? Knowing how special your home is to you?” Leaning my elbow on the console separating us, I propped my chin with my palm and grinned up at him. “You’re doing a damn good job of sweeping me off my feet.”
“Just think of all the sexy heels you can wear, knowing I’m around to carry you when your feet start hurting.” His lips turned up in a smile of pure male satisfaction.
“I guess I’d better add that to the pros column because I’m a bit of a shoe whore.” Bending my knee, I stared down at my Louboutins. I knew I looked ridiculous in the ensemble I was wearing—Vaughn’s white T-shirt and pair of his athletic shorts rolled over and cinched at the waist so they didn’t fall—but I loved the heels. “You’re hitting all my favorites today, and we’ve barely been up for an hour.”
Vaughn pulled up at the stop sign just around the corner from my condo and ran his hand through his hair. “And it’s already been a crazy day, considering what we’re heading into.”
“Too true,” I murmured, pointing toward the open garage door so Vaughn knew where to pull in.
“This shouldn’t be open,” he muttered. “Not when there isn’t a single car in sight. They need to fix the timing on it so it isn’t so easy for someone to sneak in after one of your neighbors leave.”
“Umm. Yeah, about that.” He swung into a parking spot and turned to look at me. I cringed, sensing he wasn’t going to take it well when I explained, “They need to fix the door, period.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“It isn’t so much a timing issue as it is a case of the door not closing all the time issue. Morgan and I have both called about it. So have her parents and a bunch of our neighbors. But it hasn’t done a lick of good yet.”
He swore under his breath as he climbed out of the car and rounded it to open my door. After he helped me out, we headed over to where Cara Lee was standing next to Morgan’s Mini Cooper. “Holy shit,” I breathed when I saw the extent of the damage. “You weren’t downplaying what they did at all.”
Cara Lee looked surprised to see Vaughn at my side, probably because she wasn’t used to seeing me with a guy—let alone dressed in what was obviously his clothes, excluding the heels, and just returning to my place. She gave me big eyes that had nothing to do with the shitshow that was my best friend’s car, but she was cool enough not to ask about Vaughn with him standing right there. “Downplaying it wouldn’t have done any good. You just would’ve been more shocked when you got here.”
“Thanks again for waiting until I could get here.”
“No worries. I didn’t want anyone to be able to do more damage.” Her gaze slid to the wrecked Mini Cooper. “Not that there’s much else they could’ve done.”
