“I talked to Tyler. He told me I’ve changed.”
Damn, the foreboding was right. It was driving him so crazy he longed to burst her bubble and wipe away that luminous smile of hers by telling her, no way, the guy’s just being polite. But he wouldn’t lie to her. “You have.”
“He thinks I sizzle.”
“You do.” How much worse could it get?
“He wanted to resume our relationship.”
A hundred-percent worse. “Smart man.” He couldn’t say much more because his gut-clench was making it hard for him to breathe. Then she said the rest of it.
“I told him I didn’t want to sizzle with him. I was saving my sizzle for someone else.”
Matt’s gut happily unclenched. “Poor guy, losing your sizzle.”
Betsy smiled. “Then I told him to go to hell, and I emptied a glass of punch over his head.”
He nodded, wanting to pump his fist victoriously in the air. “Sounds like fun.”
“More fun than I’ve had in a long time…except for…”
“Except for what?”
“Except for my lessons.”
Her eyes focused with laser-hot precision on his mouth and that gut-clench hit again, but this time in the most delightful way. “Your lessons?”
She nodded and continued to advance on him. “The horizontal ones you gave me.”
Matt’s shoulder banged against the wall, and he bumped to an ungainly stop. She had boxed him into a corner, and he couldn’t have cared less. With her body hovering just inches away, it was the only place he wanted to be. “Oh, those lessons.” He couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “I remember them well.”
“I only had a few of them. And I’m sure I need a lot more—at least hundreds, probably more like thousands of them—to be good enough to graduate.”
Matt shrugged. “Uh-huh. Well, things sort of got in the way, as you recall.”
“Dumb things.”
“I thought so.”
“Really dumb things.”
He nodded. “No doubt about it. The dumbest.”
“But I made a big decision at the party.”
“Tell me.” He stuffed his hands deep in his pockets to keep from grabbing her. “I like hearing about big decisions.”
“I’m not into dumb things anymore.”
His hands twitched with the urge to break free and take control. “That’s a really good big decision.”
“From now on I’m into smart things. Smart actions, smart choices, smart men who understand me and accept me for who I am”—she hesitated, and her throat moved up and down in a nervous swallow—“and who forgive me when I do dumb things?”
The last part was a question, her voice soft and tentative, and for the first time she looked uncertain. He didn’t want her to be that way—the old, insecure Betsy, who actually believed she wasn’t sexy as hell. He wanted the bold, ballsy chick who’d just invaded his empty apartment and turned it into a sauna by simply walking through the door.
“No problem.” His hands broke free of their self-imposed constraints and slid eagerly out of his pockets. “Dumb things can always be forgiven.”
She searched his face, her eyes wide and still a little uncertain. “Really?”
Matt smiled, nodded, and reached for her. “Oh, God, yes.”
****
He forgave her. He wanted her. He might even love her, the way Rob claimed he did.
Betsy went willingly…oh, to hell with willingly…eagerly into his arms. “I’m sorry.” She would have said more, but he had her trapped against him and was keeping her mouth deliciously busy with his kisses.
“God, I missed you,” he murmured when he finally released her mouth and began nuzzling kisses along the side of her jaw. “Just before you got here, I was seriously thinking of crashing that damn party of yours and carrying you off.”
“It’s only been ten days.”
“Ten days too many. Don’t ever get mad at me again for being straight, okay?”
“Deal,” she promised. “The only time I’ll ever get angry is if you stop the lessons, because I don’t think it’s time to call Operation Sizzle a success and end it. I think it should go on for longer. Much longer.”
“I think you’re right. There’s still much too much to do to stop it now. Do we have a deal?”
“Definitely.” She held on tight as he slowly drifted one of his hands downward along her back, across her waist and over her butt, where it paused, felt, fondled.
Betsy bucked against him, her body drenched in waves of heat. What she’d come to recognize as his heat—the kind of crazy, searing heat no one else had ever roused in her.
“You’re not wearing anything under here, are you?” There was a smile on his face, a mischievous undertone in his voice, and he was still happily exploring.
Betsy shrugged. “I took everything off in the elevator.”
He grinned, chuckled, and gave her rump a gentle slap. “That’s what I like—a woman who comes prepared.”
“Any woman?”
He stopped grinning, stopped chuckling, his expression suddenly serious. “No, not any woman. Only you.”
Only you. It was what she wanted to hear. “You’re sure about that?”
“One-hundred-percent positive.”
“Good. Because I’m positive, too. You’re the only man I want to get naked for. Or with.” She pulled his head down and captured his mouth to show just how positive she was. “Matt,” she murmured when they finally came up for air. She nodded behind her at the room, bare except for a thick blue rug. “Why don’t you have any furniture?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “I have furniture. It just happens to be at the bottom of a giant sinkhole out west. At least that’s what the guy from the moving company said.”
Betsy snuggled closer. “Really? Bummer. You know, I have furniture.” She reached up and traced the outline of his lips with her forefinger. “You could come over and share it with me.”
He gently nipped the tip of her finger. “Won’t Mrs. Lattimer be pissed?”
She shook her head. “Don’t think so. I convinced the tenant leaders not to evict the Donnellys.”
He smiled. “How’d you do that?”
“By following your advice and appealing to their greed and vanity. I also had a nice, firm talk with Mrs. Lattimer. I promised not to have my lovers’ spats in the hall, and she agreed not to keep her ear pressed against the bedroom wall when I have sex.”
“When we have sex,” he corrected, grinning. “Sounds like a fair exchange to me.”
“What about it?” She helpfully turned her head to one side so Matt could hone in for a make-out session with her ear. “Want to share my furniture?” She nodded at the drawings on the windowsills. “We could even combine our Evie Donnelly art collections.”
“For how long?” he whispered, nibbling on her lobe.
“I don’t know. Until you can get furniture of your own, I guess.”
His mouth wandered lower. “How about longer than that?”
Betsy closed her eyes and happily inhaled the scent of him—the wonderful, fresh, woodsy scent that seemed to define him. No tingly nose or scratchy throat, just the certainty that this was where she wanted to be, where she belonged. “Longer is good, too.”
“How about much longer?”
His voice vibrated against her throat, and she shivered. “Much longer is wonderful.”
“How about forever long?”
She sighed as the idea of forever filled her mind, and her heart. “Forever long is just about perfect.”
“You know, I was just thinking. There are some things you don’t need furniture for.”
She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Such as?”
“Such as having an impromptu lesson. We haven’t had one for a long time. Maybe there could even be a little review session first.”
“What kind of review?” she asked innocently. He shrugged, but the bad-boy gleam was in his ey
es, and her heart picked up speed at the sight.
“You know that second lesson you always liked so much? We could review that.”
Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes! She nodded, unable to hide her eagerness, and he pulled her closer, cushioning her body as they sank onto the floor together. Her sexy shoes slid off, and her even sexier dress hiked thigh-high as she stretched out beside him, wincing at the hardness of the floor beneath the softness of the rug. “Oh, I’m going to feel this in the morning.”
“Morning, nothing, sweetheart,” Matt said. “If I have anything to say about it, you’re going to feel it right now.” Smiling, he bent over her and slid his hand under her dress to stroke her bare bottom. “In the best possible way.”
A word about the author…
A writer and researcher who has dealt with subjects as diverse as international organizations, multiple sclerosis, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and the Soviet Union (when there still was a Soviet Union), Darcy Lundeen enjoys taking long walks, visiting the Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Etruscan, and dinosaur exhibits in museums, doing sudoku (but only the easy ones) and concocting stories about everyday people who laugh a lot, cry a little, and ultimately find the happily-ever-after they deserve.
www.darcylundeen.blogspot.com
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Operation Sizzle Page 24
