What A Girl Wants

He shrugged. “It’s convenient. I get my clients almost exclusively by referrals, and I come to them—they don’t usually come to me.”

“Except when they’re being run off the road by minivans.”

“Exactly.” He smiled and pulled her to him, wrapping her in his arms. She felt him place a kiss on her head, and she wanted to melt.

But she couldn’t. There was still the little matter of her needing to resist his charms at all costs to retain her sanity.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“You have coffee?”

“I’ll have some made in a few minutes. Have a seat and relax.”

Jane sank into the impossibly comfortable sofa. When Luke disappeared into the kitchen, she took the opportunity to peer under the couch for dust bunnies. There were none. She tried to picture him dust-mopping the floors and couldn’t. Okay, so he must have hired a cleaning service, too. That, she could picture.

She kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the sofa, suddenly so weary she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Finally, she was someplace that felt safe.

LUKE PLACED the two coffee cups on the table and was about to ask Jane if she wanted a sandwich, when he noticed her asleep on his couch. He sat down in a chair across from her and studied the way the worry lines had disappeared from her face in sleep. She was beautiful in a whole different way when she looked so peaceful. Peacefulness—not a quality she possessed when awake. Alive, passionate and vibrant, yes. But Jane was about as peaceful as a thunderstorm, and he suspected that a large part of her keyed-up manner had to do with being harassed and stalked. Now he could see a certain innocence in her face, something that was disguised behind attitude and sarcasm when she was awake, and he found himself falling for her for a whole new set of reasons.

Falling for her. He was getting used to the idea, but he had no way of presenting it to Jane. She’d run away as fast as she could, and he couldn’t have that. He needed her nearby to keep her safe, and so to keep her safe, he had to keep his feelings to himself.

Luke went to the closet to get a blanket, then returned and spread it over Jane as gently as he could. But when the blanket touched her, she was startled awake, and she sat bolt upright, blinking into the lamplight.

“What happened?”

“You dozed off for a few minutes—that’s all.”

“Where…” She frowned, surveying her surroundings, and after a moment she seemed to remember she was at his house. The tension drained from her brow, and she sat back.

“You’re welcome to use my bed, if you want to go to sleep.”

The offer sounded loaded with implications, even to his ear. He hadn’t meant anything by it, but when it came to Jane, there was no such thing as an innocent invitation to his bed.

She eyed him warily. “Will you be sleeping there, too?”

“I’m not sleeping on the floor.” He would have happily slept on the couch, but the opportunity to bait her was irresistible.

“I’ll just sleep on the couch then, if you don’t mind.”

Luke stood up from his chair and went to the couch, where he sat down beside her. He was tired of the sexual tug-of-war, and they were going to settle this matter once and for all. She tried to scoot away, but he wrapped one arm around her waist and held her beside him.

“You want to sleep with me, and you know we’re great together, so why do you keep fighting it?”

“I’m not fighting anything. I just came to my senses.”

“And realized you hate having great sex?”

She fought to keep a straight face. “That’s not it at all. I was doing exactly what I advise other women not to do—letting my sexual urges control me, sacrificing emotional intimacy for sexual intimacy, generally behaving like an idiot.”

“Basically, it pissed you off that I proved you wrong.”

“No!” Jane expelled an exasperated breath. “I mean, no, you didn’t prove me wrong, so I had nothing to be upset about. On the contrary—you proved my theories correct.”

“How do you figure?”

“Our relationship was based totally on sex. There was no emotional development.”

“Speak for yourself. You didn’t give us a chance.”

“No, we didn’t give us a chance, by hopping into bed nearly the moment we met.”

Luke wasn’t sure whether he wanted to shake her or kiss her senseless. If they kept going like this, they’d just argue in circles all night. He turned her face toward him and dipped his head down, covering her mouth with his. It didn’t take a relationship expert to figure out that this was the most pleasant way to stop an argument.