"I couldn't. That would be totally inappropriate."
"I'm just offering you a shirt and a pair of jeans, Miss Lowe, not askin' your hand in marriage."
Another pause. Another squeeze-out into the sink.
"I don't want to put you out."
"You wouldn't be putting me out." The thought runs through his head and out his mouth, while the alcohol runs interference on his better senses. "Easier for me than having to look at a pretty woman in a wet shirt like that."
Another squeeze, this one quieter. Smaller.
"If it wouldn't be any trouble, then—"
Philip doesn't answer. He's already going to grab something from his dresser. The place isn't fit for guests, but now that she's here… well, it could be worse.
It got a lot worse, the first year. It wasn't until a year ago now that he had figured out that he can't just keep wallowing. It had been a big project getting this far. It would be a big project getting any further.
But you either do it, or you quit. What's the point of going halfway?
"Got your shirt," he says, finally. He's standing in the doorway. The second she starts moving, he's already wondering whether or not she's thought it through, but she turns anyways.
Her bra is hanging over a chair. She must have been thinking about what she was doing, right? And yet… she keeps turning. Her breasts are the first thing that strike him, and with the buzz from the alcohol, the voices telling him to stay are a hell of a lot louder than the voices telling him to walk away.
She walks up. If she hadn't realized her state of dress when she turned at his voice—well, that might have been instinct. A reflexive action. But the look on her face now shows that she knows exactly what she's wearing, and she's not happy about having just made an idiot out of herself.
She should be giving herself more credit. She might have made an idiot out of herself, but she made for a very attractive idiot.
"Thanks," she says. She takes the shirt and swings it around her shoulders. It sticks a little where her skin is still damp.
"Not a problem."
This close up, he can practically smell her. Can practically smell everything about her. The shampoo she uses, the smell of the damp air outside, mixed in.
She smells like a pretty woman. Like everything he'd imagine a pretty woman to smell like. And she's standing in front of him. She's closer to him than he'd realized. Her breasts are almost touching his chest. Her face is filling his vision.
And then, before he even realizes that he's the one moving, her lips are pressed against his, and he's pulling his arms around her, and it may be a moment of weakness but it's a moment of weakness that he's not looking to end.
She's kissing him back, and now her hands are on his hips, pulling him in closer, too. It doesn't take long for buttons to start being undone. For skin to press against skin as they hold each other.
Her body is cold from the wet and the rain, little goose-bumps raised all across her body. She shivers, though Philip can't say whether it's from the cold or from something else entirely.
His hands dance across her skin, now, pushing the boundaries that they've set for themselves once again.
He should've stayed outside the kitchen. He should never have seen what he saw. Then he shouldn't have kissed her. But he did.
And now, he shouldn't be letting his hands dance underneath that unbuttoned shirt, testing the soft skin of her sides, finding the feel of the curve by her ribs. Feeling the way that her back arches under his dancing fingers.
But he is, and he's not going to stop. His breath catches in his throat. He's not going to stop for anything or anyone, not unless she makes him. And from the way her teeth bite into his lip, pulling on it softly…
He doesn't think she's going to be stopping anything.
Chapter Twelve
Morgan Lowe knows exactly how much of a mistake she's making. Some small voice in the back of her head is telling her how it's all going to be fine. How this is building up a relationship with him.
Not a business relationship, of course. That part of her is lying its ass off. This isn't going to turn into anything. If it does, then whatever it turns into isn't going to be what she came here for.
She'd been wanting a sense of camaraderie. A sense that she was friendly, that she wasn't just a blood-sucking harpy who was out to steal his land. After all, that was what men thought of her, right? Just some kind of bitch.