CHAPTER
TEN
Sunday dinner was already weird, and they hadn’t even left the house yet.
Madison was thinking like a girl.
Staring into her closet, she couldn’t decide what to wear. Maybe Kyle had planted the seed yesterday when he’d joked about using wardrobe indecisiveness as their excuse for being late to Sunday dinner.
Stalking back to her bureau, she opened the drawer and studied her jeans again. “Pierre! Come help me find something to wear.”
The black wasn’t the problem. As she looked at her clothes, everything looked too worn. Usually that was a plus with jeans and shirts. They were soft. They held her heat. But she’d peeked at Kyle’s swankyI’m Too Sexy For Coutureoutfit after they’d showered. He was a creature of habit, laying out his clothes on the bed.
It had made her own wardrobe feel inadequate.
He was probably dressed in the swanky outfit now. Maybe he’d even shaved and put on his sexy aftershave.
Oh God, don’t even get her started on his aftershave…
She’d squirted some on herself the other morning onimpulse, wanting his scent all over her. Only she’d nailed herself with way too much again, making her sneeze. She’d scrubbed hard with industrial soap in her bathroom, only the mannish musk scent hadn’t gone away. Panic-stricken that everyone who encountered her would know exactly what had happened, she’d squirted a little on Pierre, saying he should wear cologne. Which had made the parrot preen.
At the restaurant, he’d asked people to smell him, and she’d hoped they bought her cover story.
She was clearly losing her mind. Worse, she still hadn’t found an outfit. “Pierre, I need something nice.”
Her towel was slipping, and she wanted to bang her head against the wall. Normally this process took her ninety seconds tops—the time it took to fry an egg. Today she was going on five minutes, making a stack of pancakes.
Her friend flew from her bed to the open bureau, resting on the shelf. He picked up a black sweater by the sleeve with his beak.“C’est jolie.”
“Pretty, yes, but too warm,” she answered in French.
She would die of heat in that sweater with Axel’s fireplace, which he always had blazing, and the press of people in his living room. Then there was Kyle. Since they’d started hooking up, her inner temperature was like a pot of boiling water.
Golden Boy had her hot and needy. He’d satisfied her in ways she’d never experienced. Yep. Dude had game. But she wanted him constantly. She wasn’t sure how she’d get through the night without touching him.
Pierre nudged a couple more shirts. They weren’t jet black anymore, but a blackish gray.
“Hey!”
She jumped a mile. “Jesus, Kyle. You scared me.”
He only smiled as he buttoned his perfect white cuffs and shrugged on a navy jacket. God, he looked good enough to eat.
Pierre squawked and held up yet another shirt before she could stop him.
“Is Pierre your stylist now?” Kyle asked with a grin. “He does have an incredible look, doesn’t he? Mostlymonochromatic.”
“Sure.”Monochromatic?God help her.
Weirdness was starting to take root between them again. She shifted on her feet, biting her lip, before she marched across the room and pulled out her favorite jeans and pullover. Forget this!
Kyle’s smile slipped from his mouth as she gripped the towel in place and put her legs in her jeans and started to jump as she pulled them into place with a final shimmy.
“I see you have a technique.”
“Yep. Time tested. It’s the pogo stick technique finished with a sultry bachata.”
She flashed him a tight smile and spun around. As she dropped her towel and reached for her shirt, his arms came around her.
