Page 6 of Loving You

“Absolutely, except I thought you might want a tour first?”

Goodgod, what was I doing? Did I really want April Carrigan snooping around my house?

I internally cringed at both the invitation and my asshole response to issuing it. She’d been nothing but nice—if off—since arriving, and here I was, assuming the worst of her like I’d accused her of doing to me.

“Uh, sure. Yeah. Give me the grand tour.” Her smile was as fake as I’d ever seen, but I nodded and started talking.

I glazed over the living room and kitchen, briefly mentioning the security cameras out front, and was about to move on when she asked, “So, is that how you opened the door before I ever knocked?”

“Yes. I saw you coming the minute you drove onto my property.”

“You’ve got cameras all down the driveway?”

I nodded. “It’s a long driveway and when I first moved in, I think kids thought it was some big challenge to come doorbell ditch the house or something. I got sick of it and decided to add surveillance down there so I could set off a little alarm before they got up to the house. It’s saved me a lot of smashed pumpkins.”

She squinted at me, brow furrowing.

“What? I like nice things. If I’m going to have security, it’s going to be top-of-the-line. I get messages to my phone, and I have sensors— What?”

She’s pressed her lips together, looking more like herself than she had since she walked in.

“I just… I never imagined you having pumpkins on your porch. It’s just so… so domestic. Sohuman.”

That glint in her eye sent my previous reservations fleeing. “That’s the second time you’ve mentionedimaginingme, April. Should I be concerned?”

And then the most beautiful thing happened. April Carrigan, queen of the dirty joke and double entendre, blushed.

But she recovered quickly. “Oh, I wouldn’t be concerned unless you believe people can commit murder in their imaginations.”

I shook my head and turned before she saw my smile, then returned to my narration about the house—original wood floors, one bedroom I used for a gym, one I used as an office, and one designated as the official guest bedroom.

She waltzed into that one, finally acting like the April I was used to, swaggering with her lush hips and damn near hypnotizing me as she did before flopping down on the bed.

I cleared my throat, resisting my body’s response to seeing her on a bed in my home. But the flash hit my mind before I could halt it.April’s cornsilk hair spread out in a halo around her head, those blue eyes glittering at me as I drove into her, her head tipping back and mouth dropping open in ecstasy—

“Eric? Did you hear me?”

I shifted on my feet, busying myself by opening the curtains to let a little more light in. It had to be the dusky, intimate tone of things that had my mind jumping tothat.

Or maybe it was the fact that it’d beenyears,and despite my insistence that April wasn’t my type, just now, my brain and body were conspiring against me to demand she wasexactlymy type.

“Sorry?”

“I was saying this bed feels amazing, and you pamper your guests. I need to get the information and share this with my mom for the B&B.”

Her small, quizzical smile told me I’d been behaving truly oddly. Completely inappropriately, in fact, and if she had any idea I’d been imagining all kinds of ways I’d like topamperher, she’d likely run shrieking from the room.

“Ah, yes. I can get that for you. I redid the room a while back, so it’s all fairly new.” I turned and exited quickly, shaken by the graphic and entirely too appealing images still glowing brightly in my mind’s eye.

She followed soon, and before I showed her my bedroom, which was just not a great idea right now, I turned back toward the kitchen. “Main bedroom’s down there, en suite and such. But let’s get to work before we run out of time.”

Our eyes caught, and my stomach dropped as she nodded. I turned on my heel and led us back to the kitchen. Back to safer territory.

Now that she was joking and chatting away like usual, it was time to get to business. No more playing host to a woman I wasn’t even friends with. No more fantasies of her or us together.

Back to safe, familiar territory.

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