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Amber flipped over to stare at the other side of the bed and instantly wished she hadn’t.
It was empty.
She flopped back against the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to recover her dreams.
They’d been so real. Cole was lying next to her, kissing her, touching her…
No.
It had been a dream.
Of course it had been a dream. She wasn’t about to sleep with Cole. No matter how many beers she’d had and how sexy he was and how much she’d flirted with him the night before. And...shehadflirted.
Her face grew hot with the memory of her tipsy flirting. There was a reason she never behaved that way. She pulled the quilt over her head and groaned.
That was it. She was never drinking again.
Thankfully, it was just her pride that was aching and she didn’t have to deal with any kind of hangover, only a small headache. Nothing a shower couldn’t fix. As quietly as she could, so as not to draw any attention to herself, Amber slipped out of bed and cracked the bedroom door. She peeked down the hallway, but the coast was clear. It was an old house, and she sent up a silent prayer that the floor wouldn’t creek as she tiptoed to the bathroom down the hall. It was bad enough having Cole in the house with her; he didn’t need to see her in what could only be described as a morning mess, fresh off averysexy dream about—
“Good morning.”
Amber jumped back as the bathroom door opened. A cloud of steam with a half-naked, still dripping Cole emerged as if she were standing in the middle of a Hollywood romantic comedy. Amber forgot about her own current state of half dress as she stared at him.
If she thought he was sexy fully dressed—and she did—she was absolutely not prepared for the raw sex appeal of Cole Price with only a towel hung low on his hips, inches from her, smelling like soap and…man.
“Amber?”
She nodded, closed her mouth and tried—fairly unsuccessfully—to pull herself together. “Hi,” she managed to say. “I mean…good morning… I mean…I didn’t think you’d be…I smelled the coffee and…I was just going to…”
“You were going to shower?”
She nodded again and tried hard not to look at the dip on his hips where the towel hung oh so low. “I didn’t think you’d be up here.”
His eyes traveled up and down her, no doubt taking in her flannel pajamas and her tossed hair. His lips twitched up into a grin as his eyes finally landed on hers. “I can tell.”
Her skin exploded in a full body flush, not that he’d be able to tell—she was fully and properly covered up. Still, Amber tugged at her pajama top and crossed her arms over her chest. Very aware that as covered as she was, she wasn’t wearing a bra. “Right. Well, I think I should just…” Amber moved to walk past him into the bathroom and put an end to the awkward moment. But when he didn’t make any motion to get out of the way, she stopped and started again. “Excuse me, Cole.”
“Right.” His smile was wicked and just a little too dangerous. “I’ll be downstairs.” He finally stepped forward a little bit, but not enough to let her pass without having to turn to the side and shimmy past him. “We have a busy day ahead of us,” Cole added just before she closed the door. “I’ll make us some breakfast. I have a feeling we’re going to need the energy.”
As promised,Cole whipped up a huge breakfast, doing the best he could with the little he found in his sister’s cupboards. He was thankful for the distraction, although try as he might, he couldn’t get the perfect image of a sleep-tousled Amber out of his head. Even in her perfectly proper, completely typical flannel pajamas, she sparked something deep inside him. Something he would love to explore a little bit more. Just the way he’d love to explore exactly what she was hiding under those pajamas.
Damn that woman.
Cole forced himself to focus on the breakfast preparations. Amber was the exact opposite of everything he’d ever been attracted to. He preferred his women to be outgoing party animal types, wearing skimpy clothes, throwing themselves at him…always up for a good time. But definitely not a long time.
Maybe it’s time for a change?
He shook his head and laughed at himself before he flipped the pancakes. Even if it was time for a change, Amber was definitelynotgoing to be that change. She wasn’t the type of girl who did flings. And time for something different or not, he wasn’t looking for that kind of different. Not one that tied him somewhere, to someone. That wasn’t his style. Besides, Josie would kill him if he messed with Amber. And the last thing he needed to do was piss off the only family member he actually cared about.
No.A little flirting would be fine, but nothing more. He was smart enough to know when to draw the line. Except, when it came to Amber, the line should have been drawn from the moment he laid eyes on her again. Because it was starting to get a little blurry.
“It smells fantastic in here.”
Cole flipped the pancakes onto the plate and turned around to see Amber in the doorway. She was dressed simply in jeans and a T-shirt, with her signature tight blonde braid down her back. It had been nice to see her hair tossed and dissolved from the bed earlier. Something about it made him think instantly about what her hair would look like after spending a night in bedwith him.The image filled his brain and sent an electric shot straight to his dick.Damn.
So much for drawing that line.
Somehow Cole managed to recover his senses enough to speak. “It’s just a little something I whipped up.” He put the plate on the table and retrieved the other dishes from the oven, where he was keeping them warm. “I hope you like your eggs scrambled. I found some bacon in the freezer, too.”
