Finally, Bree gave an exasperated sigh. "Would you get into the house? We're letting out all the heat while you come on strong."
Ian stepped forward. "Too strong?"
Bree shut the door behind him. "I haven't decided yet if I'm appalled or if I like it. I'll let you know."
Ian laughed. "Well, that's honest."
She didn't laugh with him, just stared searchingly at him. "Why did you ask me out? I'm not your type at all."
"You're not like women I usually date, that's true. But that doesn't mean I can't look at you and think you're beautiful . . . it doesn't mean I can't look at you and be intrigued as to who you are." And maybe there was logic to his attraction after all. It was the fascination of someone who lived so differently from him, who embraced her different perspective of the universe and didn't apologize for it. He wanted to learn more about her, maybe even craved the sense of "realness" that she offered.
"I have no idea what to say to that," she said. "I want to say something witty and flirtatious, but that's not really me."
"What are you then?"
"Brutally honest. I say whatever the hell I'm thinking."
"Nothing wrong with that." Ian watched Bree standing in the hallway with her cat still tightly held in her arms. "What are you thinking now?" This was uncharted territory for him. It was 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, and he barely knew Bree at all. He had no idea where to go from there, and he didn't think she would appreciate it if he did what he really wanted to do, which was kiss her.
She shrugged. "I'm actually desperately wishing I had brushed my teeth after I ate a cottage-cheese snack because I have a feeling you're going to kiss me at some point before you leave."
Ian laughed. "I'd certainly like to. And a little cottage cheese won't stop me." He put his hand on the small of her back, wanting to be closer to her. "But why don't you give me a tour of the house? I'd really love to see the whole place, and you can make a quick pit stop for your toothbrush if it will make you feel better."
Bree glanced up at him over her shoulder, her eyes dark and mysterious under her long lashes. "This is a very strange and random date."
"Is it freaking you out?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, it is me," he told her truthfully. "This isn't the way I usually initiate a relationship."
"Then why are you doing it?" she asked.
Bree had put the cat down finally, and she was facing him. Her hair was sliding across her cheek and sticking to her moist, crimson lips. Ian reached out and pulled the hair free and tucked it behind her ear, reveling in the satin slide across his fingertips. It had been a while since he had touched a woman, and there was a paradoxical quality to Bree that he loved. She was strong and bold, yet wonderfully feminine and vulnerable at the same time.
"Because I can't stop myself." And he ignored the fact that he had just told her she could sneak off and brush her teeth before a kiss, and he went for one anyway. A hand on the back of her neck, Ian leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, lightly. They fit together well, comfortably, and he felt her acquiescence, felt her lean toward him to meet his mouth.
Ian forced himself to keep it short, to just linger for a fleeting moment, then pull back. He didn't want to go any faster than he already was and have her balk on him. Bree gave a delicious sigh when he stepped away from her, her eyes dark and mysterious, her lips shiny. Wiping away the lip gloss that had transferred from her lips to his, Ian said, "I'm ready for my tour of the house. Starting with . . ."
Her eyebrows rose in censure as if she clearly expected him to say the bedroom.
"The living room. I'd like to see the fireplace." He smiled broadly.
They'd get to the bedroom eventually.
Bree watched Ian carefully. She wasn't used to men like him at all. Her ex-boyfriends had all been profuse in their attentions and loud about their neediness. None had been smooth or charming. Ian was both, and she was having trouble seeing what was coming around the corner with him. He kept startling her, and it was starting to annoy her that she constantly felt off-kilter, out of control. The advantage to the men in her past had been that she had always been the strong one, not vice versa. Ian and she were more evenly matched, and she didn't know quite what to do with it.
So she sucked in a breath, gathered her resolve—because she was now determined to have sex with Ian Carrington on her own terms—and said, "Sure. I assumed the fireplace was the first thing you'd want to see."
He laughed as he followed her, Akasha trotting along beside him.
So much for feline loyalty. It obviously didn't exist because Akasha, who to that point had never tolerated a man in her house, was clearly smitten with Ian.
Bree stopped just inside the main living area on the first floor, the room her grandmother had always referred to as the parlor. It was a large room, with two stained-glass windows and a fireplace with a very ornate carved mantel from which Abby had hung three sprigs of mistletoe. Bree said, "The house was built in 1888. All the woodwork is original, and so is the fireplace, though we can't burn wood in it. It's not up to code."
Though she had to admit she burned her Yule log there every Winter Solstice and so far no one had seemed to notice, and she hadn't burned the house down. But she wasn't really willing to take a chance on a roaring fire.
Ian had wandered into the middle of the room and stopped, turning a full 360 slowly. He looked puzzled, and Bree waited for a response, content just to look at him. He was so freaking good-looking, oozing confidence and success. His hair was very short yet somehow still managed to convey a sense of style, the front sticking up slightly. He was dressed more casually than the day before, his jeans distressed in all the right places, his shoes well-worn leather. He still had his coat on, but she could see his wine-colored button-up shirt with a subtle stripe, untucked, casual, but not the slightest bit sloppy. Bree had never been to Chicago, but she could picture him there, living in a high-rise apartment, walking down busy streets at a fast clip, talking on his cell phone.