“Hungry?”
She turned around, her lips quirking as she lowered her towel to show her fire-kissed shoulders.
I cleared my throat. “For food.”
“I could eat.” Her gaze flicked down my chest to my waist.
I gripped my towel at my hip and glanced down. Was she checking me out?
No.
That was crazy. I moved to my large armoire and pulled out clothes. I turned and swallowed hard. She was right next to me. I handed her one of my Henleys.
“I don’t need my clothes?”
“Oh, you’re not going home.”
She took the shirt and let her towel drop to the floor. “Is that right?”
Dear God, she was going to kill me.
She pulled the shirt on, then sat on the edge of my bed and tugged back on her unicorn socks.
I stepped into a pair of sweats, trying my damnedest to ignore the fact that she was nude. I needed to feed her and as much as I wanted to keep her naked, I needed to get my head on straight.
I was already so far gone over this woman. She was going to see it and run back to town on foot.
Play it cool, man.
I took her hand. “I’m not done with you yet. Chaise and fireplace, remember?”
She clasped my wrist with her other hand and trotted after me. “I do. But if you feed me, I’m going to snuggle into that king-sized bed and sleep.”
I paused before we got to the door. “I’m willing to take a chance.”
“So, you don’t just want me for sex?”
“Do you?”
She tipped her head in that ridiculously cute, inquisitive manner that pretty much did me in the first day I met her. Everyone else called me Moose and she tipped her head and asked for my real name. Never called me Moose. Ever.
Was it any wonder I’d been interested? Even though it had been my name since high school, hell…junior high, to be honest. She didn’t seem to see me as the big, clumsy, shy guy. And around her, I wasn’t. Well, I was shy, but I’d managed to grow out of the clumsiness, even if the name had already stuck.
“We both know I have plans, Murphy. But no, sex and your swimmers are not the only thing I’m interested in.”
“Good.” I drew her down the hall into the wide open plan of my house. “Why don’t you serve up some of that stew and I’ll stoke the fire?”
She sighed. “The fact that you have more than one fireplace is unfair.”
I checked on Latte and found him snuggled down in his blanket, dreaming puppy dreams. “Well, when I built this place—“
“Wait, you really built it?” She opened cabinets and found the large bowls and ladled out a hearty portion for each of us.
“Yep. I mean, not only me. But I worked with an architect and designed it with him. I knew what I wanted. After I sold my third game to a pretty large company, I had enough to do what I wanted.” I tossed a few logs on the embers of the fire from before she came and got it moving with a few well-placed newspapers.
“Wow. What kind of games?” She set the bowls on the table and went back for the bread. “Butter?”
“Fridge.”