Completely Smitten

by Susan Mallery

  Rolling slightly to the side, he leaned close, framing her face with his hands, pushing back slightly damp strands of hair. “That was incredible.”

  Instead of giving her a chance to find her voice, he kissed her. Perhaps that was for the best, because the only thing she could think of to say right now was “I love you.”

  So say it, she told herself later, when they both lay on their sides and Josh had his arm around her. She snuggled against him, enjoying the way he idly traced one hand up and down her back. But not even the closeness of the moment gave her quite enough courage to bluntly state her feelings. It was such an irrevocable admission, and not knowing how he would respond ate at the edges of her perfect contentment.

  Josh’s breathing eventually deepened, and she realized he’d fallen asleep. She envied his relaxed slumber. Moments ago, she’d felt weightless and carefree. Now she worried that even after knowing him for two years, and the intimacy they’d just shared, she still couldn’t guess what his reaction to her feelings would be. No question that he saw her as more than a platonic friend…but how much more? Perhaps she should have thought to ask these questions earlier, but thinking had been the last thing she’d wanted to do.

  As her intoxicating afterglow faded, Piper realized there was a lot she didn’t know. Such as what they were going to do about their relationship once they got back to Houston and a shared office where they weren’t supposed to have a relationship? And would Josh even consider this a relationship?

  She grimaced at the tension slowly knotting her muscles. She would have thought her sated body would stay relaxed and boneless a little longer. After all, she’d just had the best sex of her life.

  She only hoped great sex wasn’t all it had been.

  Chapter Twelve

  Josh stifled a yawn, the conversation around the Jamiesons’ dining room table momentarily receding to a dull buzz. After breakfast, he and Piper were headed back to Houston, and for once he wouldn’t mind if she wanted to drive. Considering all his missed sleep last night, he’d be happy to doze in the passenger seat on the return trip.

  Around two in the morning, he’d awakened from a dream about Piper to the reality of Piper. The naked, warm satiny reality. He’d brushed aside her citrus-scented hair and kissed the back of her neck, still drowsy enough that his intentions weren’t truly carnal. But then she’d stirred, moving her softly curved bottom against the one part of him that was fully awake. They’d ended up making love a second time, teasing and exploring each other almost in slow motion, with the kind of delicious languor that made the interlude seem more fantasy than reality once morning broke.

  Except that fantasies didn’t rob him of his sleep. Or leave a tiny bruised love bite above Piper’s collarbone that had forced her to change shirts twice this morning so her family wouldn’t see it. Though the mark had been unintentional, Josh couldn’t help taking a small amount of satisfaction in the physical proof that Piper was…

  What? His? Piper would never belong to any man, so the most a guy could hope for was to make her see that she belonged with him. Josh frowned inwardly, absently pouring syrup into a thick, sticky puddle over a homemade Belgian waffle, wondering how Piper viewed last night. This morning, they’d overslept and had rushed through getting ready so they could check out of the hotel and be on time for breakfast. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back, but they hadn’t talked. He supposed they could have in the car on the way to her parents, but neither of them had mentioned it.

  Just as well. Josh didn’t know what to say.

  Last night had certainly shown him the rewards for letting someone into his life. He couldn’t remember ever being as happy as he’d been. But he did remember the last two times he’d dared hope for true happiness—the day the Wakefields had told him they’d be adopting him and the day he’d told Dana he loved her.

  “Josh?” Mrs. Jamieson’s worried voice seemed to be coming from far away, and he blinked to bring her into focus. “You okay? You seem exhausted this morning.”

  His gaze slid involuntarily to Piper, who guiltily stifled a yawn of her own as her mother spoke.

  He grinned, his mood improved by Piper’s sleepy expression. “I’m fine, ma’am. Just thinking that the weekend went by too fast.”

  “You can come back soon for the wedding, though,” Blaine said. “I’m tired of being the only guy for Piper and Daphne to abuse verbally. This way, we’re evenly matched.”

  “Two women pitting wits against two guys isn’t an even match,” Josh said with a chuckle. “We’ll get slaughtered.” But his joking was forced. Would he see any of Piper’s family again?

  An hour later, breakfast was finished, the dishes were in the kitchen and the Jamiesons had trooped outside to bid Piper and Josh farewell.

  Piper hugged Daphne goodbye, and Josh couldn’t help noticing a new easiness between the two sisters, an affection that was more relaxed than it had been when he and Piper arrived. The weekend in Rebecca seemed to have helped her work a few things out.

  “I wish I could be here when the twins are born,” Piper said.

  “Me, too,” Daphne agreed. “But a due date is as far from a sure thing as a lottery ticket. You could always drive down when I go into labor, but I don’t really want you trying to make the trip between Houston and Rebecca at three in the morning.”

  Piper laughed. “Well, maybe you’ll be one of those women no one ever hears about, one who goes into labor at a respectable hour, like 9:00 a.m., instead of the middle of the night. And if not…I’ll just have to come home for Christmas and spend time with you and my new nephews then.”

  For a moment, silence reigned, then her family all began talking at once.

  “You make sure to bring Josh with you,” Nana instructed, so commanding that he wondered how he or Piper ever could have believed she was frail. “I’m so glad you finally found a good man to take care of you.”

  “Honey, you’re welcome here anytime,” Mrs. Jamieson assured her daughter. “Whether you have a boyfriend with you or not. We don’t care.”

  Piper did a double take. “You don’t?”

  “No.” Her mother shot Josh an apologetic look. “Not that we wouldn’t be thrilled to have you over for Christmas, of course.”

  “What about all those lectures?” Piper demanded. “The ones about how I wasn’t getting any younger? The pressure to marry Charlie?”

  Mrs. Jamieson winced. “I’ve realized this weekend how much I love having you visit…and how much I’ve driven you away. I didn’t mean to put so much pressure on you, it’s just that marrying your father and having you and Daphne made me so happy. I wanted you to be that happy.”

  “Even if what makes me happy is work and friends, not a relationship?”

  Mrs. Jamieson glanced from Piper to Josh. “Well, sure, honey. But you have found a great relationship.”

  “Right,” Piper agreed quickly. “It was more a hypothetical question.”

  “A moot point is what it is, “ Nana said. “You and Josh will be here in December. I’ll get started on his Christmas quilt.”

  “Quilt?” Josh parroted.

  Piper glanced over her shoulder. “Jamieson tradition.”

  And Nana wanted to include him in the family custom? The dangerous longing he’d been suppressing since he was sixteen welled within him—the desire to belong.

  They aren’t your family. They include you because of Piper, and you don’t even know if the two of you have a future. The dark voice in his head was one he knew well, the same one that had talked him out of hope before. Not a cheerful voice, granted, but it had saved him from further pain and disappointment.

  Today the voice seemed darker than ever, and Josh was torn. He wanted to change, he really did. He wanted to be sure of his feelings for Piper and hers for him, wanted to hope for the best. Despite parents being killed, foster families getting transferred to Europe, girlfriends walking out because of his inability to connect, happy endings did happen sometimes, right?
It worked out for some people.

  For some people, maybe, the voice conceded. But for you?

  By the time Piper looked through the windshield and saw the Houston City Limits sign, she’d reached an unpleasant but inescapable realization: she was a big fat coward. Okay, given the strict gym schedule she subjected herself to, maybe the fat part wasn’t necessary. But she’d definitely shown a lack of courage during their drive from Rebecca back to the city. Why hadn’t she said anything to Josh about last night?

  Because it was difficult to express what last night meant to her when she had no idea what it might have meant to him. She supposed she could ask about his innermost feelings and thoughts. Yeah, because that strategy had always worked really well for women in his past.

  “We’re almost there.” She didn’t even want to think about how inane she sounded—pointing out that he was about five minutes from his own home in case he’d somehow missed that—but she’d needed something, anything, to temporarily slice through the silence of everything they weren’t saying.

  Josh nodded, but didn’t pry his gaze from the window he’d been staring out of for the past few hours. First, he’d shown an inexplicable fascination with watching miles of pastureland and the occasional cow. The bucolic landscape had given way to the slithering freeways and overpasses of Houston. Now he stared unblinkingly at the coppery reflection of the setting sun across the buildings of the city skyline.

  Despite the awkward way time was dragging inside the car, Piper still felt that they were nearing their apartment complex much too soon. One more street to go, then their weekend would officially be over. Surely they weren’t just going to have sex after two years of platonic friendship, then ignore it. Was she supposed to pretend that nothing had happened, hop out of the car, hand Josh his luggage and tell him goodbye?

  Don’t be melodramatic. The man works with you and lives one story above you. It’s hardly goodbye.

  So what was it, then?

  “Josh—” We need to talk. She stopped herself just in time from uttering the dreaded phrase. Gee, maybe if she thought really hard she could come up with something even more trite to say that would send him hurling himself from a moving vehicle even faster.

  Something in her tone must have penetrated the invisible wall of self-isolation he’d been projecting all day, because he turned to briefly meet her gaze. “Is this about last night?”

  She tried not to ponder how many times he may have had about-last-night conversations with other women—or how those conversations had ended. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Piper.”

  The pit of her stomach began sinking like the post-iceberg Titanic. “You’re sorry we made love?”

  “No! I’m not sorry we— I was apologizing for the awkwardness today, not what happened last night. I didn’t know what to say, so I thought I’d take the easy way out and just take my cue from you.”

  Her laugh bordered more on a nervous giggle. “Figures. The one time I decide to follow a man’s lead.” She steered her car into the parking garage.

  “Can I help you carry in your stuff,” Josh offered, “or would that offend your feminist sensibilities?”

  “Maybe I can make an exception just this once.”

  After she parked the car, they divided the bags and rode the elevator up together. She unlocked her front door, and Josh followed her inside, setting down her stuff and shifting his own luggage from one hand to the other.

  “I hate to not eat and run, but I should get upstairs,” he said. “Unpack, check messages, get my laundry done before work tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I should do all that, too.” Doing everyday tasks seemed surreal—how could she just go about her normal, mundane tasks when so much had changed for her this weekend? “Well…thanks for everything.”

  “My pleasure.” The perfect opportunity for an outrageous comment or at least a wicked gleam in his eye to give his words double-entendre emphasis, but Josh simply rocked back on his heels.

  They stood in awkward silence, him like a bellhop waiting for a tip and her like a hotel guest who just realized she didn’t have any cash on her.

  He turned toward the open door, but then paused. “Piper, have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

  Her heart fluttered. “Dinner?”

  “Yeah. A real dinner date, not just a shared pizza at Grazzio’s.”

  Thank God. Piper breathed a sigh of relief. What they’d shared had been more than a weekend fling out of town. She just had to be patient. Even if Josh felt the same way she did, he would probably be more skittish about expressing it. The man’s entire life had been people leaving him. Wouldn’t the best way to encourage him to change be to demonstrate she was willing to modify her ways, too?

  And she did mean modify—a willing compromise that she’d thought of herself, not a complete reinvention to satisfy another person. She’d learned something this weekend, and although her relationship with Charlie had taken an unhealthy turn, doing something for someone you cared about did not make you a spineless throwback to the fifties.

  She wanted to show Josh she was giving this her all, make some sort of gesture. “Dinner sounds great. But instead of going out, what if I cook here?”

  For a moment, he looked stunned, then his gold-green eyes glinted with amusement. “Want me all to yourself?”

  She grinned. “Come over tomorrow and find out. Just let me know what time works for you. I’d planned to stay a little late at the office to catch up, but—” Good grief. The office. How had she forgotten? “What are we going to do about work?”

  The humor in his gaze disappeared, like a light going out, leaving his expression dark and carefully blank. “You mean the no-dating policy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No need to decide that right this second, is there?” He was trying to sound nonchalant, but his tone was as guarded as his features. “We keep everything to ourselves for now, and if this develops into anything, we’ll figure out what to do later.”

  If it develops? Didn’t they at least rate as “something,” already? Nice to see they were both giving this their all.

  “Piper, maybe that didn’t come out right.”

  “No, it’s okay. I know what you meant.” She used her best worldly, unhurt, I’m-a-big-girl tone.

  “Do you? Because you look upset. I didn’t mean that this wasn’t anything, only that…” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Men just aren’t good with words.”

  You are when you’re trying to seduce women. It was only after the seduction had been accomplished that the charmers didn’t know what to say.

  Josh was so happy to see Piper Monday night that it startled him. After all, they’d been in the same office all day. But he hadn’t said two words to her there. He didn’t waste time with words once she opened the door to her apartment, either.

  Instead, he lowered his free hand—the one not holding the bottle of wine—to her waist and pulled her to him for a kiss hello. His greeting apparently took her by surprise, because at first she was simply soft and pliant beneath his mouth. Then she brushed her tongue against his, kissing him back with enough heat that he almost dropped the merlot.

  In what seemed like the far distance, the elevator beeped, signaling that the doors were about to part. Josh realized that he and Piper should probably step into her apartment before they took this any further.

  He pulled away reluctantly, smiling down at her. “You look great.” She’d come to work today dressed as a hybrid of Houston Piper and Rebecca Piper. Neither braiding her hair back nor letting it fall completely free, she’d instead pulled the sides up with delicate barrettes. She’d also skipped the usual pantsuit in favor of a muted-red sweater over a knee-length black skirt. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that all day, but I figured I’d save the hitting on you until after work.”

  She grinned. “Better late than never.”

  Following her inside, he thought to himself that he might have been the only one on the dra
fting floor who hadn’t hit on her today. Even Smith had lingered near her workstation after they’d finished discussing some specs on a new building. Josh had itched to storm over there and stake his claim, but of course he hadn’t.

  Quite the opposite. He’d stayed as far away from Piper as possible. Now more than ever, it was important to keep up a professional appearance. His reward for keeping a businesslike distance was enjoying her company tonight.

  He trailed her into the galley-style kitchen and set the wine on the pale green counter. “I hope red is okay, I wasn’t sure what we were having.”

  “Lasagna sound good?”

  “Sounds great.” Not that he was here for the food. “Anything I can do to help?”

  She picked up a small container of cottage cheese and emptied it into a white plastic bowl, cocking her head toward the refrigerator. “You can make a salad, if you like. I hit the grocery store on the way home, so there are actual vegetables in there that were grown during our lifetime.”

  “If it’s green, grab it and chop it up. If it’s fuzzy and black, pretend I didn’t see it. Got it.”

  She shot a mock glare over her shoulder before turning back to the bowl. She added ricotta and blended the contents with an electric mixer. Josh found the salad ingredients, taking them and a small wooden cutting board over to the corner apartment management generously designated “the breakfast nook.” He sat at the table chopping, but couldn’t help glancing in Piper’s direction every couple of seconds, despite the danger to his fingers.

  God, she’s beautiful. Just looking at her made him ache inside. The fact that he’d pushed for this dinner gave him hope, because the truth was, when they’d arrived back in Houston, he’d wanted to run like hell. Away from her and away from the emotional devastation she’d wreak when she left.

  If. If she left, he tried to tell himself.

  Piper finished layering pasta, meat sauce and cheese in a pan and placed the lasagna in the oven. Then she pulled out two glasses and a corkscrew.