She was a dusty mess. Had been for the last six days. And it hadn’t seemed to matter at all. In dirty jogging pants or sequins, she was still pergola worthy. Had he busted his hump simply because he liked her and not just how she looked? The possibility that he’d shown up to see her, help her, without anything in return, made her comfortable in her own skin—ironically, without any of her usual beautifying trappings.
At the last second, he moved so she could slide through the doorway, and it took all of her self-control not to run her hands up Muscle Mountain. Or lean in and take a hearty drag of real, actual male exertion. God, with every passing day, she was growing less and less enamored of the groomed and coiffed men of her acquaintance. She’d like to see them try to operate a table saw.
Piper stepped outside and looked up, startled pleasure leaving her mouth in the form of a halting laugh. “What? You . . . Brendan, you just built this?” Face tipped back, she turned in a slow circle. “This is beautiful. Amazing. This patio was a jungle on Sunday. Now look at it.” She clutched her hands together between her breasts. “Thank you.”
Brendan cleaned the dirt off his hands with a rag, but he watched her steadily from beneath the dark band of his beanie. “Glad you like it.”
“No. I love it.”
He grunted. “You ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“For me to ask you to dinner yet.”
Her pulse tripped all over itself. Got up. Tripped again. “Did you think you needed to build a pergola to convince me?”
“No. I, uh . . .” He tossed down the rag, shoved his hands into his pockets. “I needed something to keep me busy while I worked up the nerve to ask.”
Oh.
Oh no. That worrisome little flurry in her belly went wild, flying in a dozen directions and careening into important inside parts. She needed to do something about this before . . . what? She didn’t know what happened with serious men. Men who courted her and didn’t just go putting their arms around women all willy-nilly. “Wow. I—I don’t know what to say. Except . . . I will absolutely have dinner with you, Brendan. I’d love to.”
He averted his gaze, nodded firmly, a smile teasing one corner of his mouth. “All right.”
“But . . .” She swallowed hard when those intense green eyes zipped back in her direction. “Well. I like you, Brendan. But I just want to be up front and say, you know . . . that I’m going back to LA. Part of the reason we’re fixing up the bar is to impress Daniel, our stepfather. We’re hoping the display of ingenuity will be a ticket home early.” She smiled. “So we both know this dinner is casual. Friendly, even. Right? We both know that.” She laughed nervously, tucking some hair into her ponytail. “I’m just stating the obvious.”
His cheek ticced. “Sure.”
Piper pursed her lips. “So . . . we’re agreeing on that.”
A beat passed as he considered her. “Look, we both know I like to put things into neat little boxes, but I . . . haven’t been able to do that with you. Let’s just see what happens.”
Panic tickled her throat. “But . . .”
He just went along packing up his tools. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night. Seven.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked into the bar, toward the exit.
She took a moment to internally sputter, then trotted along after him. “But, Brendan—”
One second he was holding the toolbox, the next it was on the ground and he was turning. Piper’s momentum brought her up against Brendan’s body, hard, and his boat captain forearm wrapped around her lower back, lifting her just enough that her toes brushed the concrete. And then he bowed her backward on that steel arm, stamping his mouth down onto hers in an epic kiss. It was like a movie poster, with the male lead curling his big, hunky body over the swooning, feminine lady and taking his fill.
What?
What was she thinking? Her brain was clearly compromised—and it was no wonder. The mouth that found hers was tender and hungry, all at once. Worshipful, but restraining an appetite like she’d never encountered. As soon as their lips connected and held, her fingers curled into the neck of his T-shirt, and that arm at the small of her back levered her upright, flattening the fronts of their bodies, and oh God, he just devoured her. His lips pushed hers wide, his workingman’s fingers plowed into her hair, and his tongue snuck in deep, invading and setting off flares in her erogenous zones.
And he moaned.
This huge, gritty badass of a man moaned like he’d never tasted anything so good in all his life and he needed to get more. He brought them up for a simultaneous gasp of air, then he went right back to work, his tongue stroking over hers relentlessly until she was using her grip on his collar to climb him, her mouth just as eager, just as needy.