“Big plans. A hot date.”
“I wish. No just me and whatever movies I recorded on my DVR.”
“What about the disposal?”
She scowled at the water in the sink. At this rate, the water would drain by the next millennium. “Hopefully maintenance will call back tonight.”
“I’ve got one better. How about I help you out?”
She gripped the phone. Giddiness did a fairy dance across her skin. Right now she didn’t care what Ryan, Renee, or Philip Caldwell thought. She wanted to see Andre.
“You can help me from Greenville?”
Again he laughed. Again heat took over her insides. “I’m actually on my way to Columbia.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ve got some things to do at the state house next week. I’ll be in town all week. Maybe we can get together for lunch…or something.”
Her body nearly seized from the invitation in his smooth baritone. She could enjoy his company without getting wrapped up in the situation.
Yeah right.
“Lunch sounds good.”
“Only lunch?”
“Maybe some smoking cessation classes.” She laughed. Funny she hadn’t thought about smoking since getting on the phone with him.
He joined in. “I’ll stop by tonight and take a look at the garbage disposal for you.”
“I’m supposed to believe you know something about plumbing? You don’t have to pretend to work on my sink to visit.”
“For the record, I don’t need an excuse to see you. I planned to come by tonight anyway.”
His declaration froze her flirty comeback. “Why?”
There was a short pause before he answered. “I miss you.” Surprise wrapped around his voice. She missed him too.
“I’ll see you soon,” she answered, then rushed to end the call before changing her mind.
CHAPTER 13
Mikayla checked her reflection in the mirror for the third time in the hour since Andre called. She changed out of her work suit into her usual Friday night attire, pajama pants and a t-shirt. Then changed again into a pair of jeans and a long sleeve yellow V-neck shirt. Renee’s advice to always look cute had her considering changing into a flirty cream top. Her plan was to appear casual. Difficult to do when nothing about Andre coming to her apartment induced casual feelings. Instead, anticipation coursed through her body like electricity through a power line.
She checked her reflection in the mirror for the umpteenth time, and someone banged on her door. She jumped and dropped the cream top. Who in the hell would hit the door like that? Andre didn’t come across as the door pounding type.
The banging came again. Frowning, Mikayla crept from her bedroom. She grabbed the baseball bat she kept next to the door before looking through the peephole. With a sigh of relief, she unlocked and opened the door.
“What are you doing?” She asked with a laugh.
Andre grinned back. He must have come straight from the office. Beneath his dark overcoat, he wore a light blue button up shirt with white cuffs and dark blue slacks. Gold cufflinks gleamed in the cuffs of his shirt and his tie was perfectly knotted around his neck. He balanced a pizza box with DVDs on top in one hand, and several grocery bags and a small toolbox in the other.
“Sorry for banging on the door. My foot is the only thing free.” He lifted the pizza box. “I stopped for food. You said you’d come home to a broken disposal, so I assumed you didn’t have time to eat.”
She forgot how delicious his voice sounded in person, or how quickly the sound heated her blood.
Friends, just friends.
“I haven’t eaten yet.” Mikayla stepped back and let him in. “But I’m more curious if you plan to fix my disposal wearing that.”
“Kitchen?” he asked. She led the way down the hall to her kitchen where he dropped the pizza and bags on the island in the middle. “You don’t like my outfit.”
“It’s a little fancy for a plumber.”
“I left my overnight bag in the car.”
Her hand froze in the act of lifting the top of the pizza box. She turned wide eyes on him as her insides quivered. “Really?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. He pulled off his coat and hung it on the back of one of the chairs at her dining table. “I’m spending the next few days in Columbia. If I mess up this shirt, I have more.” He turned to the sink. “So what’s the issue?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Um…it’s clogged. The disposal is jammed.”
He nodded before flipping the switch. They both frowned at the humming noise. Without hesitating, he removed cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves. She watched the play of muscles. The man had fantastic arms, strong, lean, and with just enough dark hair to be sexy.
“You don’t have to do this. I’ve already called the maintenance guy. He’ll be here if not tonight then tomorrow.”
Andre turned dark eyes toward her. “You don’t think I can.”
“No…I mean…I’m sure you can. But you’re in a suit.”
“I don’t mind getting dirty. They’re only clothes. Besides, unclogging a disposal is relatively easy.”
He kneeled to look under the sink. Her mouth fell open. She’d assumed his offer to come was just an excuse to see her again. His actions were definitely not what she’d expect from the callous jerk Renee described. She dropped to her knees beside him and peered over his shoulder.
“Do you really know how to fix this?”
He unplugged the disposal. “I hear doubt in your voice.”
“I’ve never seen a corporate executive play plumber.”
Warm dark eyes turned to her, and a sexy smile spread across his full lips. “I’m not playing plumber.”
She giggled and almost rolled her eyes at her silliness. “If you permanently break my disposal I won’t balk at asking you for the money to replace it.”
“When I finish, you’ll be calling me every weekend to fix broken things around your apartment.” He stood and stuck his hand into the drain.
And that’s not all she’d be calling for. Don’t go there, Mikayla.
He pulled pieces of the apple cores she’d shoved down the disposal that morning. Her previous thought flew out of her brain. The man couldn’t possibly think about sex as he pulled her junk from the sink. He lowered back to the floor and pulled the toolbox onto his lap.
“How did you learn to work on plumbing? Ryan never…” she let the sentence drop.
When his eyes met hers, she dropped her gaze. Not here ten minutes and out came the comparisons to Ryan.
“I’ve always been interested in how things work. When repairmen came to our house, I usually tagged along.” He removed an L shaped piece of metal, she recognized it as an Allen wrench and slid under the sink. “Some of them consider you an annoyance, but most are willing to show you what they’re doing. I picked up what I could. In college, my friend Jonathan taught me other stuff.”
He used the Allen wrench to screw something on the bottom of the disposal.
“What are you doing?”
“The blades are jammed.”
He talked about what was going on, but she didn’t hear a word he said. Instead, she focused on the way he spread one leg out, bent and swung the other back and forth while he worked. Her gaze locked on that simple movement; the muscles of Andre’s thigh bunched and flexed beneath the material of his pants. Desire slowly spread through her limbs like hot chocolate on a cold night. Seeing Andre in her kitchen, working, had her long neglected libido revving up.
She startled out of the trance when he popped up and once again stuck his hand into the sink. He pulled a few more pieces of apple from the sink before plugging up the disposal. This time when he tried the switch, the familiar whirling of the blades filled the kitchen.
Mikayla grinned from ear to ear. “You fixed it.”
He laughed. “It was simple.”
“That’s fantastic.” She flipped the switch off, then on again. “Thank you.”<
br />
She spun around and nearly collided with him. He stood close enough for the subtle scent of his cologne to reach her. Dark eyes took her breath away. The pride in his gaze from her words was evident, but something more…something hotter also flared in the obsidian depths. The air thickened with the awareness between them. Her body ached with the memory of the one kiss.
“I’ve got to do this.” His baritone hit her and knocked away all of that just friends nonsense.
“Do what?”
His dry hand lifted and cupped the side of her face. “Kiss you.” Slowly, too slowly, he brought her face to his.
Her body shuddered and his firm lips connected with hers. He didn’t hesitate to slide his tongue across her lower lip, and she swiftly let him deepen the kiss. The spark and eruption happened again. The feeling of plunging off a cliff that was both scary and exhilarating. Their tongues danced against each other, increasing her need. Mikayla clutched the front of his shirt and pressed her hips forward. He pulled her closer but not close enough. The softness of her breasts flattened against the hard surface of his chest. Her nipples, stiff and aching for attention, tingled. One of Andre’s hands plunged into her hair, the other gripped her waist.
He pulled away too quickly. His lips pressed firmly together, his nostrils flared. Andre’s short heavy breaths echoed in the room. Her fingers slowly loosened their grip on his shirt but didn’t let go. Not when she wanted to jerk him back down. She held her breath. Each pound of her heart vibrated through her body, and her sex, slick with need, pulsed in tandem.
“We should watch the movie.” He said between rough breaths.
“Yes…we should.”
“But what we should do, and what I want to do, are two different things.”
She licked her lips, took a steadying breath. “I can relate.”
Heat flared in his eyes. Her fingers tightened on his shirt. He closed his eyes, took a breath then met her eye again. The passion was still there, but not as intense. “But we’re friends. And friends don’t make love when the other friend just had his hand down a sink.”
Her shaky laugh was half-hearted at best. “I guess you’re right.”
The perfect white teeth of his grin sent her heart into overdrive again. “I’ll freshen up. Then we’ll watch the movies. Catch up on what happened over the week.”
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
Untangling his fingers from her hair, Andre dropped his other hand from her waist. Reluctantly she released her grip on his shirt. The cool air in the room replaced the warmth of him. Slowly, as if she were backing away from a coiled snake, she stepped away. Her eyes sunk to the prominent lump in his pants, definitely like backing off a snake. An anaconda.
She turned to the cabinet and pulled out two burgundy ceramic plates—her idea of fine china. “Are you ready for pizza?” Desire thickened her voice.
“Do you mind if I bring up my bag and change into something less confining.”
She imagined him changing clothes, naked, in her room. One plate slipped out of her hand onto the counter and spun in fast circles. She slapped a hand down to stop the spinning and cleared her throat. “Not at all.”
He eyed the plate then her before the corner of his lips twitched. “I’ll be right back.”
After twenty minutes he’d gone to the car, washed up in her guest bathroom and was back in the kitchen dressed casually in dark jeans and a white t-shirt which clung to his back and shoulders better than paint on a wall.
She opened the pizza boxes and frowned. “There’s no meat on the pizza?”
He walked over and stood close to her. The smell of his body wash cloaked her and sent her senses careening out of control. “I like cheese. It’s hard to go wrong when you don’t know what your companion likes.”
“Cheese is fine. I just never met a man who didn’t want pepperoni or sausage on his pizza.” She pulled out two large slices and placed them on the plates. “I’ve got beer if you want one.”
He twisted his head and gave her a surprised look. “Beer, no wine?”
Crap! Sophisticated women would offer a guy wine. “Is that a problem?”
He grinned, and her heart did a quick thump. “I never met a woman who liked beer. I’ve been hanging around the wrong type of women.”
A butterfly flutter vibrated through her belly. “I agree.” She opened the fridge and pulled out two bottles. “Although Renee would say I’m hanging around the wrong man.”
Arms crossed, Andre leaned on the island. “I think my friend Jonathan would like you. He’s a good judge of character, but the fact that you like beer, pizza, and horror movies would put you on his approval list.”
She popped the top on the bottles and handed one to him.
He raised an eyebrow when he looked at the label. “Abita, strawberry lager?”
“Lager is beer,” she said.
“Strawberry lager is not beer.”
“Well, it’s all I’ve got so drink up.”
“I may have to take back what I said about Jonathan liking you.” He took a sip then licked his lips. A sensual reminder that he’d just licked her bottom lip. Mikayla automatically licked hers. He tipped the bottle toward her. “It’s alright.”
What were they discussing? Oh right, his friend’s approval. “You mentioned Jonathan in the mountains. Does his opinion matter that much?” She picked up her plate and motioned with her head for him to follow her out of the kitchen.
“Outside of my brother, Jonathan is the only person I know who tells me the truth. Especially when I don’t want to hear it. He warned me about Angelica. I should have listened.”
“You two met in college.” She took a bite of pizza then licked some extra sauce from her lower lip.
“Yeah, freshman year. I took one look at him and thought he was a pretty boy. He took one look at me and saw me for the stuck up know it all I was. Instant dislike.”
She took a swallow of the sweet lager. “So how did you two become friends?”
“We fought over a petri dish.”
“Excuse me?”
“We were in biology lab and reached for the same petri dish to plate some bacteria. Before you knew it, we were wrestling around on the floor. We broke thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment. Nearly got expelled from school.”
“What happened?”
“My dad bailed me out,” bitterness crept into his tone. “I insisted he do the same for Jonathan.”
“Did Jonathan appreciate that?”
“No. He was mad as hell that we were the ones to save his ass, even though his father was working to do the same thing. Long story short, our ensuing argument ended with us both agreeing on what a hassle it is to have overbearing parents. From then on we were cool.”
“Parents,” she sipped her lager and thought of her dad. “I haven’t told my dad about what happened with Ryan.”
“Why not?”
“Because he never liked my relationship with the Caldwell family. I mean, he likes Renee alright, but even so he’s not happy about the changes I’ve made since meeting them.”
“What type of changes?”
“Nothing drastic, but my dad sees my interest in being successful and fashionable as losing his little buddy. Before I met Renee, I didn’t know what to do with my hair, couldn’t match clothes, and the thought of accessorizing made me hyperventilate.”
He considered her words and nodded. “I can see that.”
Her hand holding the plate collapsed onto her lap. “Is it that obvious I’m out of my league?”
“I don’t mean it like that. You’re stylish, but I think you’d be more comfortable as you are now, and the way we were in the mountains. Jeans, t-shirts, chilling on the couch watching television.”
“Well, I’m working to change that.”
“Why? It’s what I like about you.”
Her head slowly tilted to the side. She watched him for signs of teasing or any indication that he may be saying that just to be nice
. Most men she came across liked a girlie girl. Women like her…correction women like she used to be, were delegated to the friend zone or called when a man didn’t know how to change his own tire. Something one of the men Renee set Mikayla up with actually had her do.
“In my experience, guys like the polish and glamour. Even you said that a woman like Angelica fitting into your world made her good enough to marry.”
“I was never comfortable around Angelica. Our relationship was always about the show, how we looked together. Last weekend, I was able to relax.” She cocked a brow and he grinned. “After I realized you weren’t what I expected. But even before that, I’d noticed you. Why would you want to change what makes you stand out?”
She picked off a section of cheese on her pizza. “I wasn’t considered cute when I was younger. My dad did the best he could, but he raised me like a son. My hair was a knotty mess, he hated pink and frills so my clothes were usually the least girly thing he could find, and we spent the weekends working on his cars or camping. To say I was a tomboy is an understatement. The guys ignored me and the girls teased me. It’s one of the reasons I hate to be humiliated. I suffered enough of that growing up.”
“What changed?”
She met his eyes and smiled. “In college, away from dad, I picked more feminine clothing. Though I lacked style, anything was better than overalls and Power Rangers t-shirts. After college, I started working for the Caldwells. Renee took one look at me and made me her personal makeover project. Now I can at least pretend to know what I’m doing fashion wise.”
“I bet your dad didn’t like that.”
She laughed. “Not at all. He thought I was changing too much to fit in with their lifestyle. Basically, selling my soul just to jump into a higher class.”
“And Ryan?”
She turned away, took a gulp of the beer. “I got too comfortable and started to believe me and Ryan together made sense.”
“You still care about him?”
She shook her head but didn’t meet his gaze. She had cared for Ryan. How could she not care for him just like she had for Renee and Phillip? But those feelings for him withered up in the span of a few seconds.
Show Me How to Love Page 10
