“No, I really enjoyed the…everything.” Bella shyly crossed the room to stand in front of him. “It was special to me and I’m glad it was to you too.”
“Well, yeah. It was.” It looked like he was blushing, but Bella couldn’t be sure. “But can we talk about business now? I’m feeling unmanly talking about all the feelings.”
“Feelings aren’t unmanly.” Bella wanted to kiss him even more than she had before.
“Yes they are. Besides, if you want me out of your hair before morning we’d better get to it. The last train leaves at midnight and it took me an hour to get here from the station. I know you like to keep it rustic out here in Deepweeds but the no cars thing is really weird.”
“Oh no, I didn’t even think.” Bella bit her lip.
It was getting late…
Did she want him to stay? Did she want to take what they’d started even further? What would it feel like to be naked with him again, knowing this time that there was nothing to stop him from—
“Bella, could you put some clothes on?” He interrupted her thoughts with a tight laugh.
She looked up to see his brow furrowed, as if he were fighting a headache, before her gaze slid down to see his cock straining the front of his boxer shorts all over again. “Oh. Right.”
“I mean, it would be better,” he said. “If we’re going to talk business, which I think we should. Don’t you?”
“Right, we should.” She gave a solemn nod, despite the fact that her whole body hummed with excitement.
She was capable of making him want her without even trying!
Maybe this vixen business wasn’t as beyond her as she’d thought.
Enjoying the feel of his eyes on her as she moved, she retrieved her skirt and camisole. Once she was a bit more decent, she wiggled under the bed to fish out his khakis, grateful for the uncomfortable feeling of her knees on the hardwood floor. Anything to keep her mind off other kinds of wiggling she’d like to be doing.
Heath was right—business first and maybe business-only for tonight. She’d already flirted with disaster and emerged safe and intact, did she really want to risk it again? Why waste all her years of sacrifice now that she was so close? The curse could be broken. She believed that. If she could hold on for another month, she’d reach her thirty-first birthday and be free.
Then maybe she and Heath could pick up where they’d left off…
After all, she didn’t want to be a single mother or raise her child without a father figure around to teach her what it felt like to be loved by a member of the opposite sex. She believed it was important for a little girl to know that she could trust a man with her heart, and that her daddy would always be there for her.
Bella knew firsthand what it felt like to be raised by a single mother who was the daughter of a single mother who was the daughter of a single mother and so on into infinity—or at least the last three hundred years. No matter how much she’d loved her mom and Grams, it wasn’t what she wanted for her own daughter. She wanted her to have two parents from the beginning, and hopefully for the rest of her childhood.
“Here’s your sweater,” Heath said, pulling her back to the present.
“Thanks.” Bella tugged the heavy green cotton over her head. It was getting cold in the cottage now that the sun had gone down, and from the look in Heath’s eyes every time he glanced at her chest, she was too naked with only her camisole on for him to keep his mind on business.
The knowledge made her grin.
“You really do have the most beautiful tits in the world.” He watched with heat in his eyes as she finished arranging her sweater.
She lifted a critical brow. “Tits?”
“Breasts, I mean breasts, beautiful bouncy breasts.” He smiled and plopped into a chair at the kitchen table.
Bella laughed, surprised at how at ease she felt with this man—when he wasn’t driving her half out of her mind with lust, of course.
“Hungry?” she asked as she pulled down bread and homemade peanut butter and jelly from the cabinet. Not the fanciest of meals, but they wouldn’t starve. Besides, she had a feeling he wouldn’t care.
“Ravenous,” he answered.
Thirty minutes and two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches later, they still hadn’t started talking business, both of them seeming to want to draw out their time together as much as possible.
“Heath,” Bella finally said, wiping crumbs from the table onto her plate. “I feel bad about keeping you here any longer without telling you that I haven’t changed my mind.”
“I know you haven’t, but I think you will,” he said with a smile. “I can be very persuasive.”