Emergency Engagement (Love Emergency 1)

“Mail delivery was my cover, to further my real goal of getting you to lower your music.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks colored a bit. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was disturbing you. I guess I got caught up in my redecorating.”

“I figured something along those lines. I heard you moving stuff around last night, too.”

“Crap, I’m really sorry. I don’t mean to win the most annoying neighbor award. I’m usually not so loud. Especially at night.”

Not purposely, no, but the echo of her voice through the wall replayed in his mind. Breathless snippets of, That’s good. A little more. Almost…almost…oh, no, not yet…

“You’d be surprised how well sound travels. Especially at night.”

Chapter Four

Exactly what sounds traveled surprisingly well at night? The slightest lift of a dark brow answered her unvoiced question. Savannah smacked her palm to her overheating face and nearly groaned out loud. Dammit, wouldn’t a decent neighbor give a girl a heads-up when that sort of disturbance first became apparent?

Then again, what would one say? Hi. We haven’t met, but I feel like I know you. I definitely know when you and your boyfriend have sex.

Hiding behind both hands now, she asked, “Is it just you, or have I provided the entire complex with a cheap thrill?”

“Just me. I’m the only one with a bed flush against the magic wall, and apart from when I’m lying there with no TV or music going, I don’t hear much.”

Thank God for small favors, but it seemed like a very small favor in the grand scheme of things. Yesterday at this time she’d been anticipating a proposal from Mitch, and a celebration of the big news over Thanksgiving dinner with her family. Today she had a trampled heart and two sets of parents ecstatic about her nonexistent engagement to a man who knew her best as the noisy sex lady next door.

She lowered her hands to her lap and offered him an apologetic smile. “If it’s any interest to you, my side of the wall will be much quieter from here on out.”

“I got the feeling based on today’s music choices. You and One-for-Three call it quits?”

“One-for-Three?”

He shrugged. “By my count. Like I said, sound travels.”

“Oh my God. You heard how often I—”

“I mostly heard how often you didn’t.” Something in his tone suggested he could do better. Much better.

She ought to have been mortified, but the statement, combined with his matter-of-fact expression, coaxed a laugh out of her. She reached out and patted his cheek. “Maybe I’m just a quiet storm kind of girl?”

He crossed his arms and stretched his legs so they extended beyond the footrests of the wheelchair. His dark brow lifted again. “You sing in the shower. You crank your music to eleven.” Slowly, purposefully, he traced the yellow handprint stamped across the thigh of his jeans. “You even like your walls loud. You’re not the quiet storm type.”

Since when was she so easy to peg? Following some defensive instinct to throw him off balance, she lined her hand up with the imprint on his thigh. “You don’t like loud?” Backfire. Of their own accord, her fingers sank into the taut muscles beneath the soft denim.

His eyes darkened, and almost reluctantly, he moved the pad of his thumb along the peaks and valleys of her knuckles, his slow, circling touch light but thorough. Mesmerizingly thorough. She imagined the same gentle massage along other, more personal peaks and valleys. The muscles in her legs dissolved, and she tightened her grip on his thigh in a useless attempt to anchor herself against a sudden wave of longing.

His touch traveled to the crevices between her splayed fingers. “I didn’t say that.” He slipped his thumb between her fingers and raked the edge of his nail lightly across the center of her palm. The faint scrape woke nerve endings there, and in every other area of her body where nerve cells concentrated—her scalp, the soles of her feet, and some frustratingly neglected territory south of her belly button. When his nail grazed her palm again, the tingling between her legs intensified, turning into something sharp and demanding. If her erogenous zones could speak, they’d be saying…

“Mr. Montgomery, we’re ready for you.”

A nurse stood at the door between the waiting area and the imaging suites.

Beau jerked his head around, and then practically sprang to his feet.

She leaped up as well and went after the chair. “Hey. Hold on. They put you in this for a reason.”

He simply kept walking. The nurse stepped forward and waved Savannah back to her seat. “The ones who should know better are always the most stubborn.”

“Says Miss Lettie, the queen of stubborn,” he shot back, but allowed the heavyset woman to take his arm. To Savannah, he said, “Don’t go anywhere,” and disappeared through the door.

Go anywhere? As if her limbs would support her. She dropped back into her chair, crossed her right knee over her left, and rubbed her overstimulated palm along her leg. Note to self. Do not pet the paramedic.