The Object of His Protection - Brenda Jackson [32]
She picked up the sandwich, lifted it up close to his mouth and offered it to him. “Go ahead. I don’t mind sharing.”
While she held it he took a bite and she got turned on just by watching him chew. It was the methodical, slow movement of his mouth and the way their eyes stayed connected until he had finished. She swallowed, feeling a mass of heat invade her insides.
“It’s okay,” he said in a husky tone.
She stared at him, feeling her pulse rate increase. “What’s okay?”
“The fact that you want me.”
He was one arrogant ass, she thought. He was also correct. She wondered how he had known. Probably from the sound of her breathing. Instead of denying what he’d said, she looked away out his French doors and saw the ducks were still on the pond. She was then reminded of the phone call he had received earlier.
Placing the rest of her sandwich back on the plate, she grabbed her glass of iced tea and sat down at the table before throwing over her shoulder, “Oh yeah, by the way, Karen called.”
He stared at her, as if not comprehending. “Karen?”
“Yes. Karen. She’s invited you to her house for a sleepover.”
“You answered the phone?”
“No, she left a message.” And then Charlene added, “I imagine you’re sorry that you missed her call.”
“Yeah, I’m all broken up about it.”
Charlene looked at him, not sure if he was serious or not. She tried not to glare at him when he came over to the table and sat down. He was a free man to do whatever he wanted. “You can call her back. She left her number.”
“No need. I know it by heart.”
“Figures,” she said under her breath.
“Did you say something?”
“No.”
He pushed his chair back from the table. “I’ll let you eat in peace while I go over some reports.”
She wondered if he was really going to go over any report or if he was rushing off to return Karen’s call. He glanced at his watch and then asked, “What time do most of the people leave at the coroner’s office?”
“Around seven. Why?”
“No reason. I’ll check you out later.”
She then watched as he quickly walked off toward his office.
As soon as his office door closed behind him, Drey leaned back against it and pulled in a deep breath. Talk about bringing sexy back. Hell, Charlene Anderson took the icing off the cake. What was there about her that made him want to get her naked each and every time he saw her?
When he had walked into his kitchen and seen her standing there at the counter, in the direct path of the sunlight that was streaming in through the window, his heart began beating at a rapid pace. There was something about her standing in his kitchen, as if she had every right to be there, that had actually turned him on big time.
He had never taken a woman on his kitchen counter, but a few minutes ago he had come close to doing so. There was something about Charlene that tempted him to take her on the kitchen counter, the table, the bar stool. She brought out the wild side of him, a side he seldom showed. Maybe the reason was that she seemed to understand absolutely nothing about the opposite sex. For example, for an entire year the two of them had relentlessly bantered back and forth. He had understood why and accepted that the underlying cause was this deep sexual attraction they were trying to fight. For the longest time he felt she hadn’t had a clue. She’d never picked up on the fact that he had been sexually attracted to her at all, nor that each and every time he saw her in that lab coat, he had undressed her with his eyes. Nothing had changed. She was no longer wearing her lab coat, but he was still undressing her with his gaze every chance he got. Wondering what she had on underneath her clothing gave him a boner each and every time, which was something else she never even noticed.
Shaking his head, Drey moved away from the door to his desk thinking that it wasn’t an easy thing to admit that any one woman could blow your mind. Karen had nothing on her…other than experience. There was something about the way Charlene had returned his kiss the last two times they’d kissed that had