“Oh.” Was he leading up to asking her out to dinner? “Who said I like pizza at all?” she hedged, her mind working feverishly. Did she want to go out with him? When she was so desperately fighting for distance?
“It’s un--American not to like pizza. Of course you do.” He crouched to dry her front fender without even looking up at her. Her breath caught as she watched the way the back of his T--shirt hugged his flexing shoulders and back.
“I like everything on my pizza,” she admitted. “The works.”
He straightened. “Good. Me, too.” He stepped back and surveyed the car, making sure it was dry before looking at her again. “Think it’s all dry now.”
She spared a cursory glance for the car, nodding. “Yeah. Thanks for the help.”
“So how about that pizza?” Knox scanned her, his eyes stopping on her breasts. Her nipples reacted, hardening beneath his perusal. She pulled at her damp shirt self--consciously and pressed her legs together against the sudden clenching ache. “Maybe we should order in,” he suggested.
As in order pizza at her place? Where they would be alone? This had BAD IDEA written all over it. Would they actually eat? They only ever seemed to do one thing when they were alone together, and for the life of her she couldn’t think very clearly on why that wasn’t what she wanted.
She cleared her throat. “Uh—-”
“Have you eaten yet?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well, you gotta eat. Let’s go.” Decision made, he turned and strode to a motorcycle parked a few yards away that she hadn’t noticed before. He straddled the big machine. His big body on top of that beast of shiny chrome and metal made her girl parts melt and quiver. She watched him for a moment, her resistance dissolving to dust.
Nodding dumbly, she climbed into the driver’s seat of her car. Her gaze flicked several times to the rearview mirror, watching as he followed her to her condo and doing her best to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. She sucked in a calming breath, convincing herself that this was just pizza. If that’s all she wanted, then that’s all it would be. It didn’t have to be like last time. No one had to get naked.
She parked and got out as he pulled in beside her, shutting off the bike’s loud engine and swinging off his bike. They walked up the steps to her condo, his steps a heavy thud that matched her pulse. This was just dinner. This was just dinner. Maybe she should establish that once they got inside.
Unlocking the door to her apartment, she stepped into the welcoming blast of air--conditioning and dropped her keys on the counter. She moved into the kitchen, plucked her favorite pizza place menu off the refrigerator and called in, staring conveniently at the menu in her hand, not looking up at the man who seemed to make everything inside the apartment smaller. The air felt thicker as she ordered. When she hung up, she turned and gasped to find him right in front of her. She inhaled and smelled the damp heat of his skin. “They said thirty minutes.”
He nodded, still staring at her in that devouring way of his. She swallowed and stepped around him, escaping the narrow space of her kitchen. Walking backward, he still followed, looking all at once leisurely and predatory.
She gestured toward her bedroom. “I—-I’m going to take a quick shower before the food gets here.”
She’d backed away as much as she could, finally stopping when she came in contact with the wall and could go no farther. He stopped a few inches in front of her and her hand shot out, flattening against his chest. She resisted the instinct to curl her fingers against the shirt perfectly molded to him. To feel his skin. The thud of his heart.
He glanced down at her hand and back up to her face, one dark eyebrow arched.
“We can’t,” she breathed.
“We already have,” he countered, his tone even and reasonable and so deeply tempting it sent a shiver down her spine. “Several times.”
“It doesn’t mean we should. Again.” Was that strangled voice her own? It sounded pathetic even to her ears. Hardly convincing.
He angled his head, something glinting in his eyes. He stepped forward until his chest pushed against her breasts and all the air left her in a rush.
“And why shouldn’t we? Again?”
His question rattled around in her mind like a marble flying through a pinball machine. Why? Why? She was having trouble coming up with a coherent answer. She’d possessed reasons enough earlier, but she just couldn’t think of a single one anymore. And that’s pretty much how it was around him. Briar ceased to think.
“It just complicates things, blurs l--lines . . . boundaries.” Sweet Jesus. She was rambling.
A dark shutter fell over the blue of his eyes. “Suddenly so concerned with slumming it? No one has to know, Nurse Davis. I promise I’ll keep your dirty little secret between us.”
“It’s not like that at all,” she hotly denied.
“Isn’t it?” He shrugged. “I’m okay with that. It’s actually not complicated. It’s called fucking. That’s what we’re doing here.”