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I yanked my orange terry cloth robe from the door hook. It was a nice robe, cozy and warm and utterly unsexy. I replaced the robe and selected the one that had been hanging beneath it. Short, light-pink, and satin, it wasn’t my favorite loungewear. I’d bought it on a whim last year at a post-Christmas Victoria’s Secret sale and kept it hanging on the hook ever since because there’d been no excuse to do anything more exciting with it.
Before I left the bathroom, I wiped the mirror clear of steam and scrutinized my reflection. The thick black hair I’d inherited from my father had the slightest hint of red and it was damp, so I hurriedly secured it with a clip, pulling a few wavy tendrils down to frame my face in what I hoped was semiexotic fashion. The blue eyes that peered back at me were a gift from my mother’s side of the family, the Irish side. Despite my olive complexion, I had always managed to blush easily—and I was blushing now. My phone buzzed again with an impatient message from Dominic.
You coming?
Now I was vaguely annoyed. Who did he think he was? What the hell did he want anyway?
I tossed my phone aside and took my sweet time walking to the door in my sexy robe. My hand was still on the knob of the closed door when I blurted out the question.
“What do you want?”
Then I flung the door open dramatically. Dominic stood there on the other side. He stared at me.
“What was that?” he asked.
“What was what?” I answered.
He cocked his head. “You said something before you opened the door.”
“Did I?” I stammered, standing on the threshold with my arms crossed, wondering why my IQ tended to dissolve at inconvenient times.
Dominic wasn’t even slightly discreet, looking me up and down as I stood there in my skimpy robe. Then he put a hand to the back of his neck and gave me a rather sheepish grin. “You’re probably wondering what I want, coming here so late.”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“No. I wasn’t wondering that. I wasn’t wondering anything. I wasn’t thinking about you at all, Dominic.”
He stared at me. Then he laughed. It was a nice sound. Often I’d thought that Dominic laughed too infrequently. “Melanie,” he said with a chuckle as he shook his head. “You are one of a kind.”
Why did he have to go and say something like that mere hours after he told me he wasn’t ever going to touch me again?
“Well?” he said.
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to let me in?” he asked gently. I wavered and took a step back so he could fit through the door.
Dominic entered my apartment, and immediately the place felt smaller. Whenever we were in the same room, I was always so aware of him; the width of his shoulders, the minty pine scent of his aftershave. As he casually stood in the middle of my living room, his presence seemed overpowering.
“Nice place you’ve got,” he said, looking around with the frank curiosity of a visitor to a foreign land.
I shut the door so the cats couldn’t escape. “How did you know where I live?”
He flashed one of his knowing, sexy smiles. “Rocket science.”
“You mean you raided my HR file?”
“Precisely.” He took a knee in front of the cats and made a friendly clicking noise in his throat as he held his right hand out. They went right to him, and he petted them affectionately. Lucky cats. They purred and rubbed against his legs when he stood up again. “What are their names?”
“That’s Luke on the left and Lando on the right,” I informed him.
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “Star Wars fan, huh?”
“Along with half the planet.”
“Then you’re in good company.”
