“And now?”
“I like you and I trust you, but I want to know why you introduced me to your brother as the woman who was fixing this house instead of your friend or since we’d been to bed, as your girlfriend,” she said.
He moved down the sofa and took her hands in his. “It was an awkward situation, Allie. Those women from the bar were in the kitchen. Your granny showed up looking like a half-drowned old madam. Don’t look at me like that. You know I’m tellin’ the truth. And then your mother came to get her. I wanted to tell you that I hadn’t slept with you and then turned around and slept with one of those women, but I couldn’t with all of them standing so close. And I didn’t think you’d want them to know that we’d had sex, and I didn’t know how to introduce you. And I’m battling this idea of us when you live so close.”
“What does my living close have to do with anything?” she asked.
“If things didn’t work out between us and there were hard feelings, well, we are neighbors. It’s complicated.”
Sitting there with her small hands tucked into his big ones felt right as if that’s the way life should be. “I don’t want you to leave the Lucky Penny, so please make it work. I’ve opened my heart to you. That’s why I like you, Blake. I can talk to you. I can argue with you. I can be drunk and shake the hell out of your house and you don’t judge me. You don’t talk down to me or make me feel like less of a woman because of what I do.”
He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. “You’ve had Deke as a best friend, but I’ve never had a best friend who was a woman, so this is all new territory for me. Why do I like you? Let me count the ways.”
She pulled a hand free. “You don’t have to be complimentary. Just knowing that you consider me a best friend is enough reason to like me.”
He captured her hand midair and kissed the knuckles. “What I feel for you goes far above ‘like,’ Allie Logan. I don’t know if it’s love because I’ve never really been in love before. But believe me when I tell you that I admire you for what you do. I think it’s downright sexy the way you can crawl up on a roof or fix a ceiling and honey, those cargo pants turn me on.”
“Kind of like that song ‘She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy’?” she said. “Only in reverse? He thinks my cargos are sexy?”
“You got it. You can do all those things and then when we are in bed, you make me feel like I’m the greatest lover on earth.”
Allie’s smile grew wider. “That’s because you are. And speaking of that, since we’re best friends, does that mean we can’t see if you’re still that great in bed? Like right now?”
“Allie, I want more from you than booty calls. If we weren’t both close to thirty, I’d say this is where I’d ask you to go out with me.” He chuckled.
She pulled both her hands free and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “We haven’t even been dating. You know that commercial that says like comes before love?”
His hands covered hers. “I’ve seen it on television a couple of times.”
Allie leaned forward and kissed him on the tip of the chin. “I’m not so sure I believe that. I think maybe they get mixed up sometimes and sometimes they arrive at the same time, but right now I don’t want to think about any of it. I want to go to bed with you.”
He was a blur as he stood up and then suddenly she was in his arms and they were headed down the hallway. He kicked the bedroom door shut with his bare foot and laid her gently on the mattress.
“I think that can be arranged.” He tugged the belt of the robe and laid the sides back. She shivered, not because of the cold wind howling outside or the rain pouring down on the new roof, but in anticipation of what was to come.
When he removed his pajama pants her eyes went to the rock-hard erection and then upward as the shirt came off. They locked gazes and he started to stretch out beside her but she shook her head.
“You’re saying no?” he asked.
“I’m saying that we’ve had foreplay. I want you.” She pulled him down and wrapped her legs around his waist, wiggling just right so that a good firm thrust took him inside her.