Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [21]
“The Elks Lodge.”
“Ahh. Right. Then we’ll spend the night together, and return to Chicago the next afternoon.”
Spend the night together. Oh, Lord. There went the heart rate again. Not to mention the puckered nipples and the flood of moisture in her panties.
If the man was going to seduce her, she wished to heaven he’d just get on with it so she could decide whether she was easy enough to say yes after knowing him for only one day.
The little go-getter in her brain, who’d pushed her out the door despite her family’s protests, gave a big mental thumbs-up.
She sat up straighter, striving to keep her tone cool and noncommittal. “We’ll be spending the night together only inasmuch as we’ll be sleeping under the same roof. I’ll be much closer to that roof than you, because I’ll be in my old bedroom on the third floor under the rafters and you’ll undoubtedly be stuck in the spare room on the main floor, as far away from me as my father can possibly put you to make sure no hanky-panky goes on.”
He laughed, that sexy, genuinely amused chuckle that sounded so natural when accompanied by the broad, good-humored smile. “Hanky-panky. You mean sex?”
So much for euphemisms. “Right.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to have sex with me?”
Geez, what was the guy, a sadist? Bringing it right out in the open like that and throwing responsibility for what would happen next entirely in her lap?
Most guys would do one of two things—tell her he wanted her right now, so they could make this whole lovers façade look a whole lot more realistic, or else avoid that question like the plague, hoping to work her around to the idea over their weekend then suggest a quick game of hide-in-the-haystack.
She didn’t give serious consideration to a third option—that, despite what he said, Sean wasn’t really interested in her that way. She knew he was. If physical attraction was a tangible thing, then the two of them would be buried in it up to their elbows.
“Annie? Cat got your tongue?”
Sean was watching her, speculation rolling off him. Expectation, too. Serious expectation.
He was not playing games, merely telling it like it was—wanting her to do the same. Despite feeling put on the spot, she had to admit she liked that about him. A lot. Considering what a liar Blake had been, getting hit with the truth and nothing but the truth from this man was refreshing.
“I won’t deny the attraction,” she finally murmured, staring into his violet-blue eyes, amazed at how they shone almost purple in the low light of the bar.
He continued to watch her, saying nothing, merely running the tip of his finger around the rim of his glass. The man had elegant hands—strong but not the rugged, brown outdoorsman hands of the men she knew from home. The idea of him using them on her made her quiver in her seat.
It would be easy—so easy—to tell him she wanted to have sex with him. They could be out of here and back at her place within forty minutes and in her bed three minutes later. Annie had no doubt that the night would be an incredible one. Just watching the slow, deliberate strokes of his fingertip on the glass reiterated that.
Part of her said she should go for it, that she deserved it after the Blake nightmare. Why on earth shouldn’t she grab a sexy fling while she could get it? But another part of her, the bigger part that couldn’t get over the guilt and humiliation, would never allow her to do something so reckless. Again.
At least he’s not married. The whole promise of the bachelor auction proved that. But otherwise, she knew almost nothing about him, not even where he really lived. And getting involved with someone she didn’t know, going even further this time by having wild sex with a near-stranger, was simply out of the question.
Knowing he was still waiting for a real answer to his question, she decided to be