Basic Attraction (6 page)

Sheri looked at him doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

Why did no one think he was capable of taking care of one little furry animal? “Of course I’m sure.”

The woman watched them carefully. “Would you like to look at anything else while you’re here?”

He heard himself say, “Do you have any Irish Setters?”

“Luke!” Sheri was tugging on his arm.

It was an out-of-body experience. He couldn’t begin to say what had made him blurt that out.

The woman said, “As a matter of fact, we do. They usually go quick, but this one’s five years old.”

Sheri shook her head firmly. “We don’t want to see it.”

“Just a little look? Where’s the harm in that?” he pleaded, all rational thought apparently having left his body. My God, he started breathing country air and relaxing and suddenly he was a fucking animal tamer?

“No.” She pulled him by the elbow. “Pick up your box and let’s go.”

When they got outside and stood in the parking lot for a minute, he took a deep breath to clear his lungs. The hot sun beat down on him.

“What was that all about?”

“I don’t know. It was like gambling or something. Just one more roll. Just one more pet.” He wiped his forehead. “I got out in the nick of time.”

Sheri giggled. “So what are you going to do with this cat?”

He eyed the box dubiously. “Take him home with me, I guess.”

She smiled shyly. “You know, Luke, sometimes you’re disgusting…”

“Yeah?”

“And sometimes you’re really sweet.”

The earth tilted. Or maybe it just felt that way. Most likely it was just all of his blood rushing south to his jock. “So are you going to help me figure out what to do with my furball?”

She snickered. “First thing you need to do is buy a litter box. And cat food.”

Staring down at the unblinking brown eyes of his new roommate, he said, “Oh, great. You’re going to cost me.”

To the tune of a hundred and thirty-nine bucks,
he thought ruefully as he emerged from Pet World an hour later with enough cat junk to fill half the bed of Sheri’s truck.

As he tossed bag after bag into the truck, the cat meowed. Luke figured that he was laughing at him. He was meowing the cat cadence for ‘sucker’ from his shiny new plastic and metal carrier.

Pet World allowed animals to shop with their owners, and he thought it was a dynamite marketing strategy. Neither he nor Sheri had been able to resist buying everything available on the market when faced with the little soft face and innocent eyes staring back at them. So he couldn’t beg with words, but Luke knew. He was considering naming him Greedy.

Listening to Sheri make cooing sounds into the cat carrier, he suspected that the cat was worth the money. He was warming Sheri up for him. He listened to Greedy purring and wondered exactly where he would have to touch Sheri to create a similar sound from her.

He shifted in the passenger’s seat as his body reacted to the thought. As she started the truck, she said, “So what are you going to call him?”

“Greedy.”

“That’s terrible! I was thinking Frankie or Salsa.”

He rolled his eyes. Who was he, Ricky Martin? “I don’t know any guy who would be caught dead with a cat named Salsa.” Sticking his fingers in the cage for Greedy to smell their
masculine
scent, he added, “Think macho. Think street cat. Think Butch, Scar, Destroyer.”

“Oh please.” She shifted gears then darted him a glance. “What’s your all-time favorite movie?”

He didn’t hesitate despite the quick topic change. “The Terminator.”

“It figures.”

“What’s yours?” He couldn’t imagine anything being better than The Terminator, but he was open to discussing it.

“Steel Magnolias.”

He had one word to say to that. “Boring.”

“You’re not exactly an enlightened guy, are you, Luke?”

He liked to think he was. As long as enlightened didn’t mean he had to watch chick flicks where woman spent half of them in the hair salon. “I’m enlightened. I firmly believe women and men should have equal rights and all that, but that doesn’t mean Meryl Streep will ever make me cry. Nor do I want to eat anything with the word puff in its title, wear a pink shirt, or have a pet poodle.”

Sheri was silently laughing and opened her mouth to speak. He stared at her. “I’m not finished.”

“Sorry,” she managed to blurt out between laughs. “Go on.”

If she was going to call him unenlightened, then she damn well was going to have to listen to his rebuttal. “When I’m in a relationship with a woman, it’s a partnership, and someday, when I get married, I’ll pull equal weight just like she will. We’ll share doing the yard work, the housework, and taking care of the kids. In fact, I think I’d like staying home with the kids and letting her go off to work. I’d be a damn good dad.”

Call him unenlightened. Hah.

She pulled into Angel’s driveway and looked at him, laughter still shining in her green eyes. “Mr. Mom, huh?”

“Damn straight.” He folded his arms across his chest.

“I suppose I could see you pushing a stroller.”

Without warning, an image rose up in his mind of Sheri standing beside him while he pushed that stroller filled with a little chestnut-haired baby. His heart slammed into his gut. Where had that come from? Once imagined, it wouldn’t go away, and he shook his head to clear it.

“Yeah, well, right now I have to figure out how to take care of Greedy before I think about having a baby.”

“Not to mention that obvious question of who to have it with.” She spoke lightly, her face leaned down towards Greedy, rubbing her nose against his.

“I have an idea or two.” She had once accused him of growling, and he was fairly sure he had done so now.

She froze. Her eyes looked up over the carrier, searching his face. He stared at her, his eyes smoldering with desire, with the sudden irrational urge to sweep this woman away and make her his. His lover. His wife. The mother of his children. His lover. And did he mention his lover?

“Luke?” she asked softly.

“Yes?”

“Can you stop doing that?” She spoke breathlessly, still hovering over the cat, looking every inch the woman but definitely vulnerable.

“Doing what?”

“Making me like you.”

That’s when he knew he was gone. There was no going back. It had passed from light flirtation to desperate desire in the space of one day. He was going to make love to her. Hopefully in the next five minutes. He experienced a wave a protectiveness that was usually reserved for his sisters. Only this was different. This wasn’t fierce and snarling the way his need to protect his sisters was. This was tender and deep and passionate.

He felt a weird sort of gratitude that she had just admitted that she liked him.

“Why?”

“Because I can’t tell if you’re serious or you’re just playing with me. Teasing.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. Was she for real? She didn’t think he was flirting with her in earnest? “That’s insane. I am not playing with you. I am teasing you, but only to make you laugh and hopefully to get you as turned on as I am. Why would you even think that I’m screwing with you?”

She bit her lip and studied the steering wheel for a minute. “I’m not good at the whole male-female thing. I come on too strong and I intimidate men.”

“You do not intimidate me.”

“But I’m not feminine. Guys like you like girly girls.”

That just added anger to his astonishment. “Don’t tell me what I like.” He reached over and took her chin in his hand. “Look at me.”

She did when he turned her head towards him, but her green eyes were swimming with insecurity. It punched him in the gut. He wanted to show her just how sexy he found her.

“Why?” she whispered.

“I know you don’t know me very well but understand that I am not in the habit of flirting with women for sport or to mock them. I flirt only when I’m interested, and in your case, I’m very, very interested. I think you’re sexy as hell, and I love that you’re fit and could probably take me in a half nelson and make me cry uncle. That’s
hot
. I think you’re gorgeous and I think it’s absolutely crazy that you don’t realize that.”

Her breathing was nervous little pants, but she gazed at him more openly, like she desperately wanted to believe him.

He felt kicked in the gut. “Let’s go inside and wrestle. Naked.”

So maybe he really did want to have sex with her. Naked wrestling sounded fairly definitive. Sheri gulped. If she went inside, he was going to kiss her and then some. He was going to tear her clothes off her and it was going to be hot and sweaty and pushy. It was clearly what he wanted.

And it was clearly what she wanted.

So why was she hesitating?

Because she was terrified of getting hurt. It was one thing for him to say he was interested in an hour of two of bossy sex, but she knew herself very well. She attached. She was terrible at casual sex. Luke was a guy she might have to see again and it would be awkward if she went all stage-five clinger on him, which she might. Especially if the sex was good and he was as complimentary as he had been so far.

No, Sheri. No sex with Luke.
She told herself that mantra over and over in the longest ten seconds of her life.
No sex.

So why was she leaning towards him, moistening her lips, and sinking into the depths of his blue eyes?

Later, Sheri would have to admit that she was indebted to Greedy despite the awful name Luke had saddled him with. Just when she found herself falling into a whirlpool of longing and desire, succumbing to the strength of determination in Luke’s eyes, Greedy coughed up a hairball in his carrier. Along with the rest of the contents of his stomach.

“Oh!” She sat up, startled and relieved.

Luke swore colorfully. “Greedy, what the hell?” He peered into the cage. “That’s nasty.”

She swallowed the urge to laugh hysterically. Two more seconds and she would have been falling into Luke’s arms and onto his sleeping bag. Despite all her fears about getting involved with her friend’s brother. Despite all her fears that he was just fooling around.

It was a scene that had played out for her before. A man showed casual interest after she put out feelers, she slept with him, and while she was thinking up pet names for him, he was figuring out how to ditch her. She didn’t want that with Luke, and she was already attaching. She could feel it in the way she felt squishy inside when she glanced over at him.

It was a disease, and she hated it about herself. It was like she’d been born with the desperate need to nest yet had been trapped in the physique of a woman men wanted to jog with, not cuddle.

Luke Weiss was not a cuddler. He was a wrestler. A hot, sexy, bang-her-all-night, and make-her-forget-her-name bad boy, and as appealing as that was, it was a bad choice. She owed Greedy a bag of catnip for having saved her from disaster.

After stepping out of the truck, she grabbed several bags out of the back and followed Luke.

She was actually afraid of herself. Afraid of falling for him. For real falling for him. Annoyed at her thoughts, she nearly slammed into his back when he stopped to unlock the front door. Goddamn attachment syndrome. She needed therapy or a pill. An anti-Luke prescription.

She couldn’t deny any longer that she not only was attracted to him, but actually liked him. He was nice. And funny. And fierce. The picture of him strolling along the sidewalk, scruffy hair, arm muscles flexing in a tight T-shirt, pushing a baby in a stroller was devastating.

To her self-control.

Yep. She was doing it. Falling for him.

Though if she were honest, she would admit that she had been attracted to him since the moment she had met him two months earlier. The dance they had shared at Angel and Rick’s barbeque had kept her from sleeping for two days after.

“Are you hungry?” he asked as he stepped into the living room and set down the cat carrier.

“Huh?” She blinked at him.

“Did you eat dinner? We can go out or order something.” He opened the latch on the carrier and watched Greedy sniff the air suspiciously before setting one paw tentatively out on the carpet.

“Hey, the new carpet is in!” She noticed that the whole room had been redone in a nice neutral beige with a tightly woven thread. It was a big improvement over the dirt brown.

“Yeah. They did in here and the hall today, and tomorrow they’re doing the bedrooms.” He started digging in the bags she’d brought in. “I guess I’d better go get the rest of the stuff. Not to mention hose the carrier out. But I’m thinking Greedy needs to be shown that litter box first thing, right?”

“Yeah.” She jammed her hands in her pockets and suddenly wished she were wearing something a little cuter. Tighter. This work uniform had been designed for function, not fashion.

Knowing she should leave before she found herself caught in another moment like that over the carrier, she still found herself saying, “I could go for some dinner. Takeout’s fine.”

She had been thinking more along the lines of not wanting to go to a restaurant in her rather lackluster outfit, but his raised eyebrows indicated that he thought there were plenty of reasons to stay in. Or was hoping. If she had any sense, she would get the hell out of there, not linger, but apparently her sense was like her self-control—on vacation.

But Luke ordered their food and then sprawled out on the carpet and casually asked her about her job, where she lived, her family. It felt comfortable, friendly. Nothing more.

And of course, she was disappointed.

When their food arrived, Greedy lived up to his name. They were sitting on the floor, surrounded by Chinese takeout boxes, and the cat was walking from box to box, sniffing. Once he went so far as to swipe a noodle off Luke’s paper plate with his claw.

“Hey! You little thief.” Luke shook his chopstick at him.

Greedy sat back and leisurely licked his paw, taking his taste of the noodle then letting it fall on Angel’s new carpet.

Sheri picked it up with her napkin, checked for a stain, and guarded her own plate closely. Greedy gave her a dirty look.

Luke laughed. “Isn’t he cool? I never knew this having-a-pet thing could be fun.”