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“You’re sick.”
So much for heat. She was ice-frigging-cold.Good, he told himself. She wasn’t meeting the challenge. That was exactly what he’d wanted.
But a wicked, wolfish part inside him wondered what might have been.
“My God, do you have stock in a basement studio?” she asked, staring wide-eyed at the stack of X-rated movies in his video cabinet. “Who needsthatmany dirty movies? Can’t you have the decency to hide them in the garage or attic? Or how about putting them inside another case no one would ever look at, like an exercise video. That’s what a normal person does!” She stepped back, shaking her head, but not removing her eyes from the cabinet.
She didn’t stare too closely. If she had, she would probably have noticed that ninety-five percent of the films were still wrapped in plastic. Unopened.
He could have explained. He could have told her that his friends had always given him crap about how he had missed his true calling and he should have just had sex for a living because women were always after him. So, every time they came over for a poker night, they all brought him movies. The cheesier, nastier and ranker the better.
“I take it you’re not up for it?” he asked, raising an innocent brow.
“No, I certainly am not.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug as he stood, video still in hand.
He didn’t even turn around. He didn’t have to. He heard every one of her angry steps as she exited the room and marched up the stairs. The slam of her bedroom door probably knocked a few pictures off the wall, and it rang in his ears in the silent room for several moments after she’d left.
That was the right thing to do.The last thing he needed was another warm and cozy evening with Caroline Lamb—in his home, the one she might have shared if she hadn’t run away back in college.
Christ, it was going to be hard enough watching her walk right back out of his life in a few weeks. He didn’t have to make it any harder on himself by letting them get too close in the meantime. They could be cordial, and he’d wave goodbye when she shimmied on out of Derryville.
But my oh my, what a shimmy.He went all shaky just thinking about the way Caroline’s hips had probably swayed as she’d stormed out of the room. Hell, he’d been going all shaky thinking about her for weeks.
No one else had come close to getting his attention for ages—even before Caroline had come to town. His last relationship, if you could call it that, had been almost a year ago with a doctor who’d been in town for a few days. They’d kept in touch briefly, but long-distance things usually didn’t work out. That one hadn’t either.
Somehow, after that, he’d gotten distracted by other things—his house, his business, his family—until months had gone by and he hadn’t so much as kissed a woman.
“Get laid,” he told himself. That’s all he needed to get over this stupid mental thing he had going on with Caroline.Find someone else and take care of the urge.
Even as he said it, he knew it wouldn’t work. He liked sex, liked it alot. But in spite of what others might think, Mick knew he couldn’t just take what he needed from any warm, willing body. He was totally, one hundred percent focused on Caroline. No one else interested him right now. No one else challenged him, aroused him, made him hot and hard every time he thought about her.
“So sleep with her and get it out of your system, jackass,” he muttered.
The idea had merit. Then again, the idea of pushing theTitanica little faster had had merit, too. And look how that had ended up.
He couldn’t sleep with Caroline and then watch her walk away. First of all, because sex had never been just sex between them. Second, because if he seduced her—which he knew he could—she’d never forgive him. And third because damned if he’d be used as a distraction while she killed time here in Derryville.
Mick liked distractions. But he didn’t want tobeone.
He was still wondering over the whole matter when he fell asleep in front of the TV.
Watching a basketball game.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAROLINE TRIED TO read but could only fume. She then tried to relax in the bath but instead only fumed some more. She fumed as she brushed out her hair, fumed as she brushed her teeth, fumed as she put on her pj’s and got into bed.
Then she realized something. She wasn’t only fuming. She was also fantasizing. “No,” she whispered as she lay in her bed. “He’s a jerk.”
A jerk she wanted to sleep with.
That about summed it up. She’d been pushing the thought aside for weeks. Okay,years. But it wouldn’t die. She wanted Mick like the devil wanted sinners. Like a broken-hearted woman wanted potato chips. And ice cream. And potato chips crushed over ice cream.
Like a woman who’d had sex with Mick Winchester wanted him again.
Uhh, yeah. That’d be her. She wanted him in every way she could think of.
