Page 43 of Fierce-Dane

Even though she had some financial security, she just couldn’t be frivolous with money.

Her feet were bare showing off the pretty pedicure she’d gotten from Elle with her baby blue nails and white stripes with a daisy on the big toes.

One more look around her house and she decided to take a seat and wait for Dane to pull in.

Which he did ten minutes later.

She opened the door before he could ring the bell andnoticed he was in shorts and a T-shirt too. Guess he didn’t live that far from her unless he changed at work.

“Hi,” she said. “Come in. I’ve got the grill started and will go throw the potatoes on as they need about a ten minute start, then the steaks. I remembered you liked beef.”

He grinned. “I do,” he said. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Nope. We can sit on the deck and relax and talk if you want. Dinner will take twenty minutes or so. The filets are thick but not big. Even wrapped in bacon.”

“Wow, not just any old steak. You went all out.”

“Why not?” she asked. “I don’t cook like this often because it’s no fun for one person.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.” He seemed to hesitate and then leaned down to kiss her.

“Never worry about kissing me,” she said. “I happen to love kissing.”

“Me too,” he said.

“It seems most men don’t. I like that you feel the same as me.”

Whoever she dated kissed because they felt they had to as part of foreplay, but once they got her there, they stopped. She wanted to keep it up.

It was sexy and arousing to her. Maybe because she always had her hands on people’s bodies but not her lips. No clue, but she knew what she liked.

“I’m glad we have that in common.”

“So am I,” she said. “I’ll throw the potatoes on and then show you around if you’d like.”

“I would,” he said, following her down the hall to the kitchen in the back of the house. They’d passed the doorway to the living room, which moved to the dining room that was to the right of the kitchen.

She grabbed her foil package and opened the sliders to put them on the grill while he waited by the doors.

“My house isn’t that big. Nothing fancy, but the location is what I was going for. It’s on the older end. I think like eighty years old.”

“It’s got a lot of character. The floors and trim are great.”

She looked down at the dark wood floors that went through the whole house. She had some throw rugs but not much. To her it was a crime to cover them.

“This is the biggest place I’ve ever lived in. I’ve done a few things to it. Mainly paint. The kitchen cabinets took forever, but I sanded them down and did it myself.”

She didn’t care for the dark wood there and it’d been weeks of hard labor and several coats of paint to get them to the light gray.

“Impressive,” he said.

“I don’t want to say I’m handy, but I try to figure out as much as I can. My dining room table I got at a garage sale. I have fun doing that and looking for good quality pieces that need some love.”

The table had been a bargain to her but a piece of crap to the owners.

Solid oak, nothing frilly in design but rectangular and made well. The finish was worn off and the wood was stained in spots. She didn’t care. She sanded it all down and painted it black, then bought two benches to put on each side, matched the same paint, and two chairs on the end.

Not that she ever had that many people over to her house, but the benches made it feel more relaxed to her and it was the only place she had to sit and eat.

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