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All he’d done was ask Rory to step in a little farther, to cross the invisible line that had always existed between them, and the next thing he knew, they’d had a hotter-than-hell kiss, she was moving into his house, and he was getting insanely jealous about her lunch date.
“I’m sorry.” He held up his hands and approached her. “I’ve never seen you on a date. Turns out I didn’t like it, even if you’re my fake girlfriend. I got possessive.”
Faint amusement rose to her eyes. “Territorial.”
“What?”
“That’s what Max said after you left. That you were territorial.” She frowned and crinkled her forehead. “Then he said something like—if the Prescott sisters were planets, we’d inspire a whole new international space race.”
She shook her head and straightened one of the sofa cushions. “Anyway, I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, but clearly he was getting someback offvibes from you.”
“Good.”
Rory looked up sharply, her gaze crashing against his. Tension threaded the air. He flexed his fingers.
“Don’t go out with him again.” The command came out gruff and scratchy.
She blinked. “I wasn’t going to. And not because you ordered me not to,” she added.
Grant ran a hand over the back of his neck. “You don’t like him?”
“Of course Ilikehim.” She spread her arms out in irritation. “Everyone likes Max. Not only does he look like Captain America, he helps animals, for heaven’s sake, and he’s really smart, easy to talk to, friendly, knowledgeable—”
“Point taken.”
“If it hadn’t been for you glowering at us from halfway across the room, I’d have enjoyed lunch with him. I did enjoy it, in fact. But obviously I’m not looking for a relationship, and even if I were, Max isn’t the kind of guy I’d want to be with.”
“What, you want a stupid, unsociable, mean boyfriend who kicks puppies?”
Rory laughed. It was a genuine, full-bellied laugh that rang through the cottage and settled somewhere deep inside Grant. Had he ever heard her laugh like that before? Apparently not, if the sound turned him into a bowl of mush.
“Okay,no.” She shook her head, still smiling. She was pretty with a scowl. She was stunning with a smile. “I meant that, despite what Destiny’s Oracle card reading said, Max and I are not romantically compatible. I hate the wordchemistry, but maybe that’s what it was. I liked talking to him about the integration of veterinary software systems, but I didn’t want to kiss him.”
Grant tried to ignore an upwelling of relief. “If all you talked to him about was software systems, then I’m guessing he probably wasn’t dying to kiss you either.”
He, on the other hand…
“I don’t know about that.” She gave an offhanded shrug. “Tech talk can be pretty sexy, when it’s done right.”
“Yeah?” He narrowed his eyes, certain he shouldn’t go down this path and already knowing he was going to. “Prove it.”
“Well, there’s the obvious.” She ticked the items off on her fingers. “Hard drives. Hot swaps. The pleasure of big pipes and large bandwidths. Joysticks. RAM. Open source. Penetration testing, and probing for exploitable holes…”
“Hmm.” He shook his head and tried not to stare at her lips. “Too easy.”
Her eyes sparked with the intrigue of a challenge. She stepped closer and made a horizontal motion between them.
“This space is our shared boundary.” She lowered her voice to a husky drawl that would have made a phone-sex operator envious. “When two separate parts of a computer system exchange information, they need to cross the boundary and connect…orinterface. In technology, interfacing can refer to the way a person experiences a computer and its hardware, output, and functions. Sometimes you can both send and receive data through an interface, like a touchscreen. People do the same thing. They cross a shared boundary to connect.” She wiggled her fingers. “And they use touch to create and control responses.”
Grant knew he shouldn’t have started this, but damned if he was turning back now. He hated retreating.
“Still not feeling it.” He shrugged. “If I were nice guy Max, I’d have paid the bill and politely thanked you for joining me.”
“Ah, but you’re not nice guy Max.” Stepping closer, she tracked her gaze over his features. Her brown eyes gleamed. “You’re cranky, territorial Grant who thinks a singing fish is a work of art and who turns cooking into a porn show.”
For a second, he wasn’t sure whether her assessment of him was flattering or not, but he didn’t care either way. She was looking at him with such brewing heat, and her lips were so fucking ripe for the taking that his body tensed with both the urge to kiss her and the knowledge that crossing that boundary again was dangerous.
“Touchscreens are input devices.” She brushed her fingers against his jaw, her attention drifting to his mouth. “They react to pressure. Some absorb ultrasonic waves created by a touch. Sometimes a touch generates an electrical charge. Input. Output.”
