She blinked a couple of times, then smiled wryly in response to his grave teasing. “Might I remind you who made the final decision? It wasn’t me.”
“Okay, I’ll blame Alice. She threatened to move outside into Waldo’s doghouse if I didn’t hire Jacqui. I half believed she would.”
“She really took to Jacqui.” Meagan was aware again of a fleeting ripple of what felt a bit too much like jealousy. Alice had been so attached to her for the past three and a half weeks, but she was aware of the fickleness of youth. And it was just as well, she assured herself. Once she was back at work, the leisurely afternoons by the pool had to end, anyway. It was good that Alice would have another woman to look after her and serve as a role model for her.
Seth chuckled. When Meagan looked at him questioningly, he explained, “Alice could be surprised when Jacqui starts the job. Yes, Jacqui’s young and pleasant, but I got the impression she’s not going to let Alice get away with much. I told Jacqui I’d expect her to enforce our house rules, and she assured me she would. She said she remembers some of the tricks she pulled as a teenager, so she’ll be ready if Alice tries them.”
Meagan laughed. Thinking of Jacqui’s no-nonsense attitude when it came to inappropriate behavior from employers, she had no doubt Jacqui could handle a teenager, especially one as generally well behaved as Alice.
Seth parked in Meagan’s driveway and walked her to the door. The moment of decision, she thought, fingering the keys in her hand.
She glanced at him through her lashes, and he smiled at her. She had been a pushover for that smile from the first night she’d met him. She let out a breath she’d been holding since she’d climbed out of his car.
“Would you like to come in?”
Seth’s smile deepened. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”
Chapter Seven
Meagan set down her bag and keys and turned to Seth as he closed the front door behind them. “How does decaffeinated green tea sound?”
His hands in his pockets, he studied her face. “Great.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Anything I can do to help?”
Very aware of him standing not far away, she
drew two mugs from the cabinet, feeling a sense of déjà vu from the last time she’d made tea for him. This routine, too, was becoming a little too familiar considering the short time they had known each other. She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t just relax and enjoy the time with him, why she couldn’t simply appreciate the growing intimacy between them. Yet an uneasy feeling nagged at the back of her mind, some qualm she couldn’t quite understand.
“That instant hot water spout is convenient,” Seth commented. His voice was even closer than she’d expected. He must have moved closer to examine her hot-water dispenser as she filled the tea pot in which she had placed a diffuser filled with green tea leaves.
She cleared her throat, telling herself she couldn’t really feel the heat emanating from Seth’s body behind her. He wasn’t standing that close. It was simply her own overheated imagination warming her skin.
“It is handy,” she agreed, hoping her voice didn’t sound as husky to him as it did to her. “I use it all the time.”
He reached around her to push the lever, watching as steaming water streamed from the spout before he cut it off again. “Maybe I should think about getting one.”
His right arm brushed against her left with his actions. Both wore short sleeves, so that skin touched skin. Accidental contact, she assured herself quickly. Fleeting, at that. Which meant there was no reason at all that every nerve ending in her left arm should be tingling now.
When was the last time the brush of a man’s arm had left her tingling? It had been a while, she decided. She’d almost forgotten how nice it felt.
Deciding the tea had steeped long enough, she poured some into a mug and turned to hand it to Seth. He still stood close enough that she barely had to reach out to hand it to him. Their hands met on the mug, and their gazes met and held. Meagan didn’t immediately draw away.
After a momentary hesitation, Seth took the mug from her grasp, then set it on the counter without tasting the hot beverage. Seeing the intent in his eyes, she made no move toward her own tea mug which would have taken her out of his reach in a subtle but very clear way. Instead, she leaned slightly toward him.
The one kiss they had shared before had been light, brief, almost platonic. None of those adjectives fit this one. This was the kiss Meagan had been fantasizing about all evening. The kiss she’d more than half expected—and yet had anticipated with an undercurrent of the tension she couldn’t explain.
Her hands slid up Seth’s chest and around his neck as his arms went around her, nestling her against him. He took his time kissing her. No rush, no pressure for more than a slow exploration of lips and mouths. His hand moved at the small of her back, but only in small, soothing circles, no roaming out of bounds. Seth was clearly leaving it up to her whether this progressed beyond a pleasant kiss in the kitchen.
Maybe it still would before the evening was over…but not yet.
She drew back enough to be able to speak. “Why don’t we take our tea into the living room?”
His mouth quirked and his fingers twitched a little against her back, but he merely nodded and moved away, reaching again for his tea.
They sat side by side on the couch, half turned to face each other, gazes meeting frequently over the tops of their tea mugs. She tried to think of something to say but she seemed to have used up all her small talk for one evening. Seth seemed content to drink tea and smile at her.
The silence wasn’t painfully awkward. And it wasn’t as if there hadn’t been a physical awareness between them earlier. But that kiss had definitely ratcheted up the tension a few degrees.
“I’ve had a great evening,” Seth said, as if following the direction of her thoughts. “It was nice, just the two of us. No social obligations to fulfill, no partners or clients or former patients to make small talk with.”