by Cari Quinn
Alexa almost called him back, then decided maybe it was better to deal with her handyman one-on-one.
Dillon’s eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to decide what he’d seen. “Friend of yours?” he asked, sauntering farther into her store.
He seemed so huge among the glass and chrome tables of flowers. Capable of destroying delicate blooms with a gust of breath. But when he gingerly cupped a lilac tulip bulb in one of his large palms and directed a raised eyebrow her way, she realized his tender touch made up for his size. And how.
“Employee.” She kept her tone cool. “Travis is my web designer.”
“Redoing your site?”
“Doing it for the first time, period.” She resisted fiddling with her cup of maroon pens, emblazoned with the store’s signature script logo. “Divine’s previous owner wasn’t eager to embrace the digital age.”
“Me neither. Always did prefer a pen and paper to e-mail. It’s so impersonal.”
He strode around the perimeter of the shop, looking at everything. Occasionally he stopped to touch an arrangement or to consider a display of Chilean jasmine or frangipani, but he remained silent.
She watched him survey her store and bit off a slew of impatient questions. It didn’t seem natural for Dillon to remain so quiet. Okay, so she didn’t know him well enough to gauge that, but she considered herself a good judge of character. He was acting weird. Where were his flirtatious comments, his hot looks? Even when she caught him examining a spot of chipped paint in one corner that probably no one else had ever even noticed—except her—his face remained impassive.
His spooky silence felt disapproving, though that was probably just her nerves. Still, would it kill him to say something? “Nice plant” would suffice.
She slipped off one of her pumps and scratched the back of her right calf with her left foot. Then she did the same with the other. Still nothing from Dillon.
Finally he completed his loop of the premises. “I like your place,” he said simply.
She let out a relieved breath. He was probably just being pleasant. A workman-type guy like him most likely didn’t care about flowers, though he did seem to take an active role in caring for the roof garden. But he smiled while he praised her store, and that was enough for her.
“Thank you.”
“You seem to stock a lot of high-end product.” He touched the yellow petals of a Hypericum, then moved on to study a pineapple lily crowned with its usual tuft of leaves. “Not many carnations or gerbera daisies in here,” he said thoughtfully. “You know, like the painted ones?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t carry painted flowers. Divine has always sought to stock a wide variety of blooms, from all over the world. Carnations can be bought at any gas station.” No need to mention the ones she’d ordered just that morning for her fall designs.
He moved on to study something she called a Zen garden, with river canes of bamboo, purple mokara orchids, and sword fern. Drawing a fingertip over the highly polished bamboo box, he cocked his head. “How much is this?”
“Seventy-three fifty,” she said, fighting not to say more. When she was nervous, anything was liable to come out of her mouth. Most of it wasn’t pleasant.
Dillon whistled. “Steep. The bamboo’s nice, though. You carry ornamentals here?”
She couldn’t figure out if she was pissed he thought her prices were high, amazed he recognized bamboo, or dazed that he seemed interested in the first place. “A few. They’re grouped together in front of the window.”
“Everything’s in its place. All very organized.”
“Shouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes mixing it up can be more fun. Add to the sense that a person could find anything here, if they searched enough.” He crouched to study the ornamentals, making the occasional “tsk” and “hmm.” “I’ll take this one,” he said, picking up a small lemon tree in a heavy, ornate pot she’d shoved into the corner by the door. He didn’t struggle under its weight at all, and even managed to pick up a rabbit’s tail ornamental grass in a long, narrow box. “This too. Do you take special orders?”
His ease with the heavy plants robbed her of her breath, and made her blink at him as if he’d just crash-landed in her shop from Mars. “Yes. What do you need?”
“Sedum, in particular.” He set the plants on the counter. “Do you have a catalog?”
His brisk tone snapped her back into business mode. “I have this,” she said, reaching for a brochure. “I’ll also have an online catalog as part of the site. There will be a section devoted to a wide range of plants, and their uses in home decorating in particular.” Was he decorating his home? How did he know about sedum?
Then she remembered the roof garden and her skin prickled with heat, the brochure she’d grabbed fluttering to the counter.
And not because she was thinking about his lovely collection of stonecrops.
Apparently oblivious to her sexcapade hot flash, he leaned forward and picked up the brochure she’d dropped. “Nice,” he said distantly, his expression hard to read. As usual. “Lots of Japanese flowers and pricey arrangements though. Not very accessible,” he said, glancing around as if deep in thought.
“To whom?” Deliberately, she edged her voice in ice. “This is a specialty floral shop.”
“Yeah, but it’s empty.”
She winced before she could school her response. “Right now, yes, but—“
“And where are your doodads?” he asked, studying her counter and its neat stack of business cards and cup of pens. “And a sign-up sheet for your mailing list?”
“What mailing list? What doodads?” She knew which way she was heading now. Straight into back the heck off, buddy.
“You know how stores place trinket-type crap near the checkouts to get people to impulse buy? You need that here.” He dragged his fingertips over her previously pristine glass counter, ensuring her another session with the Windex before the end of the day. “Something cute and cheap. Like, I don’t know, small arrangements. Or even flower-themed stuff.” He snapped his fingers. “What about those little climbing creatures that go on flower pots? Squirrels and stuff.”
Alexa linked her fingers together on the edge of the counter and took a cleansing breath. He was a potential customer and her building’s handyman to boot, so she couldn’t kill him, no matter the provocation. “I’d ask you to list all these fine ideas and stuff them in the suggestion box, but oops, don’t have one. So let’s move on, okay?”
He didn’t appear to hear her. Now he was studying her ceiling, of all things. “This place is too sterile. How do you feel about chimes? Or those wind spinner things? With the baubles on the end that blow in the breeze?” Then he glanced at her sharply. “And you need an e-mail list at the very least. Get a clipboard out on the counter, start gathering names. I’ll be your first.”
Rarely-acknowledged violent impulses reared up inside her, and only sheer force of will kept her standing still. She plastered a thin smile on her face. “Let me get the website up and running before I tackle newsletter lists, mmkay?”
To her endless annoyance, he didn’t seem to notice her response to his bullheaded suggestions. With a tilt of his head, he regarded the pen-and-ink drawing of a daisy on the wall. “Pretty. Local artist?”
“Yes. My mother.”
“She’s very talented.”
“Thanks.” Idly, she rubbed a vague ache in the pit of her stomach. Nerves. Something about Dillon set her off-kilter. Well, lots of things did, but now that he’d stopped peppering her with ideas about her business, she was referring to his sharp-as-a-tack eyes. Or his killer smile. Or his sizzle-hot body, which she knew way too much about, and wished she could learn more.
He slanted her a glance. “Do you draw? Or paint?”
“God, no. I can barely write legibly, never mind doodle a picture.” She laughed, then fell silent when she noticed how closely he was looking at her. At once, her traitorous body reacte
d at the memory of what they’d shared.
So much for being mad at his high-handedness.
Her nipples tightened, and her panties flashed damp. Any time now he’d leave and she could go back to fantasizing about how he’d felt inside her while she stewed over his obnoxious know-it-all attitude. “What are you doing here, Dillon?” she asked, more softly than she’d intended.
He waved a hand at the items he’d placed on the counter. “Along with these plants, I need some flowers.”
Disappointment came first, swift and humbling. Clearly he hadn’t been magnetized to her store by his need to ravish her beside the ornamentals. “Oh.”
A smile tipped up his mouth. “I bet you thought I was going to bug you about getting in to fix your sink.”
She toyed with her necklace, well aware that his gaze dropped to her breasts every time she did so. “Maybe. You seem like a dutiful type.”
He chuckled, low and deep in his throat. “Still think that after last night?”
Don’t blush. She wasn’t one to get red and stammer by nature, but this guy had a way of making her feel like a girl in the throes of her first crush. Or perhaps first sex thrall. “A woman never kisses and tells. But yes,” she worked her chain between her fingers and pulled lightly, “I still think you’re conscious of your responsibilities. Look at all the stuff you’re buying for the roof garden. Your employer will be pleased.”
Something dark flashed through his eyes, moving as quickly as a summer squall. Then it was gone.
He crossed his arms over her counter, bringing her attention to the flex of his forearm muscles. Damn, he was hot. And he made her hot, inspiring an anticipation inside her she hadn’t felt in way too long. She couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next.
“Speaking of pleasure…” She swallowed hard as he trailed off. “I know you’ll get an immense amount of it knowing your sink is fully operational, so I’m going to fix your pipes this afternoon, Alexa.” His sexy voice caressed her name as if she were naked in his arms. “Beyond that, just say the word.”
He was talking pipes for pity’s sake, and she was burning up like a locomotive chugging oil. Her chest hurt from her rapid, suppressed breaths. God, if she didn’t watch herself, she’d toss off her clothes, mount the counter, and beg him to fuck her. And that just wasn’t part of the plan. A quickie sex romp on the roof was bad enough. A repeat would make meetings in her apartment building even more awkward. Not to mention she didn’t have the time or mental space for any sort of relationship right now, even of the screw-and-rue variety. She needed to focus on making Divine a success, and she didn’t need his advice on that score either.
Everything was under control. Her control.
“Fine.” She didn’t elaborate.
He nodded, his disappointment evident in his open blue gaze. “About the flowers. I normally buy from—”
“Don’t say it.” She held up a hand. If he’d come to her for flowers, she’d help him find a small, affordable bouquet even if she had to throw something together on the fly. She glanced at the lemon tree and rabbit’s tail. Though cost didn’t seem to be a huge factor for him. “You have your plants. What type of flowers were you looking for?”
“She likes roses.”
All she heard was she. She who? But her professional smile never faltered. “What sort of relationship is it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Different colors of roses signify different things.” To help distract herself, she strode to the glass-fronted cool case that held an impressive rainbow of roses. She had a fondness for them too, though her preference ran to the rarer—and therefore more expensive—varieties.
“Oh yeah?” His eyebrow ring winked in the sunlight as he gave her his full attention. “Like what?”
“Well, red typically means love.” He better not pick red, unless he wanted to endanger certain vital parts of his manhood. “White stands for purity of intention. Coral can mean desire, and purple…“ She fell silent.
“What about purple?”
She cleared her throat and narrowed her eyes hard on the display so she couldn’t see him out of the corner of her vision. “Purple means love at first sight.”
He didn’t reply for so long that she chanced a glance his way, only to discover he was smiling. “Purple’s your favorite color. You must have a romantic soul.”
The sound she made in her throat embarrassed her, but not as much as the flush creeping across her cheeks yet again. “This was just some poetic type’s idea of how to sell flowers.” She hurriedly stepped behind the counter. “It’s not reality.”
“Who’s to say what is reality?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not one of those types, are you?”
Dillon prowled to the counter and leaned in, just close enough that she could smell the foresty scent of his aftershave. Or his soap.
An unexpected image of him rubbing a mint-green bar over the hard planes of his body formed in her head and her mouth went dry. Damn. It looked as though she’d be spending some quality time with madame butterfly tonight, since her rooftop sex-o-rama hadn’t taken the edge off. Or maybe it had honed a whole new one.
“What sort of type would that be, Lex?”
She jolted from his usage of her nickname. “Call me Alexa.”
“Why? Too personal?” His smile spread as he traveled his gaze down her form. “When we’ve already gotten so personal already…”
“Shh.” She cast a quick look over her shoulder and sent up a prayer that Travis hadn’t abandoned his post in the back office.
“Afraid your friend will hear?”
“Employee.”
“He doesn’t look at you like you’re his boss.” Considering, he scratched his smooth jaw. “Then again, maybe I’d be similarly starry-eyed if any of my bosses had looked like you when I was in college and full of—”
“Let’s just stop right there.” She didn’t want to think of Travis as full of anything. The boy was barely twenty, for God’s sake.
“Fair enough,” he agreed with a chuckle. “So about those flowers.”
“In a hurry to get back to work?” she asked pleasantly. In a hurry to buy roses for your anonymous she?
“Not in a hurry, but yeah, I’ve got some stuff going this afternoon beyond your bathroom work. I figured I’d ask since I know you have privacy issues and all.”
“I do not have ‘privacy issues.’ I just wondered if you were as conscientious and all-knowing with everyone.”
“I make it a point to know as much as possible,” he said, tone sober.
“Ass,” she muttered, tossing a pen at him.
He laughed and stuck the pen in the breast pocket of his denim work shirt. A work shirt he’d just rolled up even farther, revealing his sinewy forearms and dusting of light brown hair. Not that she’d noticed. “I’ll be out of your place by the time you get home.”
“Do you know what time that is too?”
His lips quirked. “The sign says you close at five. I took an educated guess.”
“Hmph.” She fiddled with her three-part forms. “You said bathroom work, which sounds like more than fixing the sink. What else do you need to do?”
“Just some patch-up plaster work. I apologize for the state of the apartment. I should’ve been more thorough before it was rented out.”
“Well, it’s not like you own the place.” She laughed off his concern. “You just do what you’re told, right?”
“Most of the time.” He reached out and danced his fingertips over the back of her hand so fast that she didn’t have time to prepare for the move. As if she could. Heat slammed into her and she opened her mouth to draw in air. Or gasp. “I wouldn’t mind taking orders from you,” he added in a placid tone that warred with the suggestiveness of his molten gaze.
“Which roses did you want?” she asked a little breathlessly.
He pursed his bitable mouth while he considered. “Think we’ll go with red.”
Frowning
, she noted the appropriate box. Red. Of course. “A dozen?”
“Let’s go with two. Hell, make it three, with lots of the green stuff.” He jerked his chin at the arrangement of stuffed bears climbing up the potted vine behind her. “Stick in a few balloons and one of those teddy bears, would you?”
Chapter Five
Alexa’s surprised expression clued him in to his mistake.
Shit. Three dozen roses wouldn’t be cheap. It hadn’t occurred to him to worry about price. Why should he? He could’ve bought out the whole shop—hell, bought the store itself—though that would’ve been a little ridiculous considering he already owned half of the building. Technically.
Dillon glanced around the store. A place that meant so much to her belonged partially to him. He couldn’t decide if that made him feel good. Right now it was just weird.
“Three? Are you sure? And the bears are thirty dollars.”
“Maybe we’ll skip the bear,” he said in an undertone, feeling foolish.
Dammit, he’d wanted the bear. His gram would’ve loved it. But a thirty-dollar bear and three dozen roses would be a prime invitation for Alexa to indulge her suspicious nature. Life had gotten so much harder since the invention of the internet.
It was probably a miracle she hadn’t done some checking up on him already, in light of her stalking concerns. Though those probably weren’t too serious if she’d reacted to him the way she had when he’d stroked her hand. The jolt that went through her still thrummed through him, as well.
Touching Alexa was way too enticing. Because if he wasn’t careful, touching would lead to holding, and holding would lead to kissing, then he’d be pulling her back in his arms again. Maybe bending her over this counter and—
“Okay. No bear. Would you like to select a card?” She spun the card carousel. “They’re free,” she added.
“Oh, what a relief.”
Jeez, even pretending to have a strict budget was depressing. His mood had plummeted in the last two minutes and all he’d lost was a bit more of his integrity.
Yet more proof he needed to come clean.
Great sex or not, bottom line, he never should’ve slept with her. Even if she’d said she didn’t care who he was, she hadn’t realized what she was saying. It wasn’t right to not come clean, and he’d also likely screwed up whatever slim chance existed that she might want to see him outside of bed. Or hell, even inside of bed again.
