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‘I feel crude.’ Her eyes flashed with a mixture of anger and tears. ‘I feel stupid, too. I thought you asked me here because you wanted to see me again, not to tell me that you couldn’t. You could have done that when you dropped me off this morning.’
She wasn’t making this easy.
Iosef closed his eyes and dragged in air as he corrected himself.
He wasn’tfindingthis easy, though with his track record he should—after all, he was more than used to tears and protests when a relationship inevitably ended, and rather too used to letting a woman down the morning after. Hell, he’d spelt out last night that he wasn’t available—had made himself very clear that a relationship now was out of the question.
Out of the question.
He reinforced those words as he paid the bill and they walked to the car.
Said it over and over to himself as they bristled in silence on the horribly long drive home.
Said it again as he dropped her off at her apartment, trying to stare fixedly ahead as she stumbled to her door, wishing she’d just find her keys and get inside.
What the hell had he been thinking?
Tonight he’d told her things that he hadn’t even thought about let alone discussed with another person. She was so easy to talk to...
Too easy to talk to!
The last thing he needed right now was a dizzy, emotional woman like Annie... As she finally entered the home he gunned the engine and pulled out.
She was far from discreet—she’d be blushing and dropping things and sulking if he tried to ignore her. The whole department could tell her mood from the second she either bounced or slumped in the door at the start of her shift—hell, he’d wager she’d had her period last week.
As the lights conspired against him and he pulled up at the red light, Iosef tapped out a restless silent tune on his leather-covered steering-wheel.
Annie Jameson was... He tried to think of a suitable word, one that he could use like a mantra to warn himself off—gullible, susceptible, dizzy...adorable!
Performing a thoroughly illegal U-turn, Iosef muttered a curse at the car hooting at him but cursed himself more.
What the hell was he doing?
Even as he walked up her path, even as he rang her doorbell, the question raged loudly, but one look at her tear-stained face as the door opened, hearing the sob on her lips at the sight of him, silenced, at least for a little while, the doubts about the foolishness of his ways.
‘We have to keep things quiet.’ He was holding her in his arms, kissing away her tears. ‘No one at work must know—it would just make things incredibly awkward.’
‘I know.’ He could feel her head frantically nodding against his chest.
‘I can’t see you much at the moment—what with my father being so ill and everything, my time is taken up... ’
‘I understand!’
Trusting eyes looked up at him and he felt like the biggest swine in the world.
He even opened his mouth to tell her the truth—but at the last second thought better of it and went instead for the infinitely more pleasurable option.
Losing himself in her kiss.
Chapter 9
‘It mightsting a little bit... ’ Annie tried to be gentle as she cleaned up the teenage boy’s hands, not that he seemed to care particularly. He just stared up at the ceiling as she had when it had been her turn, only, unlike her, he didn’t try to make conversation. ‘Can you tell me what happened, Mark?’
‘Answer the question, Mark!’ Mr Taylor, his father, barked.
‘I’ve already told you—I fell.’
Right. And he’d bounced so hard when he’d hit the ground he’dthenlanded on the other side of his body and managed to catch his knuckles on his teeth in the process.
