Page 34

Anna drew the duvet farther around her, the embarrassment from last night still burning through her this morning. She didn’t want to leave her room.

I want to kiss you.

Okay, she’d not said it directly, but the implication had been clear. And he’d turned her down. Then brought her consolation pie.

Now she had to brazen out the next few weeks and pretend it had been a mistake. That actually, she had no interest in finding out what it would be like to be kissed by him. Really kissed, rather than the ghosting glance of his lips against hers.

A glance that had sent a fever of want through her. And that was before he’d pressed his hips against her, giving her a tantalizing taste of what he’d feel like; gentle kisses and confident thrusts. God, she’d dreamt of him last night, and woken up flushed, hot and needy.

She groaned and buried her head farther under the duvet. Damn the man and his large, hunky body, his quiet green eyes, his achingly poignant stories about his mom.

A knock sounded against her bedroom door and she shot up in bed.

“We’re painting today.” Luke’s voice resonated through the woodwork. “I presume Colin chose it for you, so get your cute backside out of bed.”

Her heart performed an athletic somersault. “Cute?”

A sigh so heavy, the sound couldn’t be contained by the door. “Apparently that’s what I said. Now move. There’s a coffee outside your door.”

He called your butt cute! She shook away her excitable inner schoolgirl. “Where are we painting?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course. I need to know if I’m rolling out of bed and slopping paint onto a canvas here, or—”

“I’ve booked the place Colin wrote on the back of the window. They provide everything, we just turn up. You can wear pajamas if you like, your call.”

Okay, maybe she could do this. If he could act like everything was normal, like he hadn’t stood in the kitchen with a monster erection, she could pretend she hadn’t basically asked him to kiss her.

Feeling better, she showered, threw on her one pair of jeans—she couldn’t pretend he hadn’t just admitted her liked her big butt—and teamed them with a sweatshirt she didn’t mind getting paint on. After manhandling her hair into a Santa scrunchie, she called herself done and headed to the door. Then circled back and added some cherry lip gloss.

Let him look at her mouth and wish he’d kissed it.

She found him sitting on the sofa in the living room, left ankle crossed over his right thigh, scrolling on his phone.

He did a double-take when she walked in.

“What’s wrong?” She looked down to check she hadn’t left the zipper open on her jeans.

“Nothing.” His eyes skimmed her up and down in a way that made her body hum, her skin tingle. “The pj’s are a good look,” he said finally. “But the jeans are . . . better.”

The appreciation in his eyes said far more than his words had.

He rose to his feet and she made sure to follow behind him because, when it came to rocking a pair of jeans, he won, hands down.

The wind whipped around their faces as they stepped onto the sidewalk. No snow, but it felt cold enough for it. She shivered, wishing she’d put on her big coat.

“Cold?”

“A bit.”

He looked at her for a beat and her pulse skipped. Was he going to put his arm around her? Hold her hand?

A moment later he produced a pair of huge black gloves from the depths of the pocket of his jacket. “Here.”

“Thanks.” She told herself the gloves were better. She wanted a man to reach for her hand because he needed the connection, not because she was cold.

To be hugged because a man wanted to feel close to her. Not because he was looking out for his best friend’s sister.