She glanced around the store, then her brown eyes met his. "My grandfather's office."
"Lead the way;" He moved behind the counter, and his gaze slid down the back of her white shirt to the waistband of her black pants. He'd finally seen her tattoo. It was blue and gold and covered one cheek on her nice, smooth butt. He liked it. He liked all of Kate. Except for one thing.
"Why did you leave last night without telling me?" he asked as soon as they were alone.
She leaned back against the closed door, her dark red hair falling to her shoulders. "You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you."
"Why the hell did you leave at all?" When he'd woken and found her gone, he'd been angry, and not just because he'd wanted another shower with her.
"I couldn't stay. Not after the lecture I got about fornication from my grandfather."
In the past, he'd used women and they'd used him. He didn't want that with Kate. He'd had a bad marriage. He didn't want that either. He wanted something in between. Something he'd never had before. A woman in his life that he actually liked out of bed. He took a step toward her and combed his fingers through the side of her hair as he looked down into her eyes. Eyes that had just the night before gazed back at him, shimmering with the same aching desire he'd felt for her. "If you won't stay the night, at least tell me you're leaving. Even if I'm asleep. That way I won't wander around looking for you, thinking maybe you got lost in my house."
S
he bit her bottom lip. "You did that?"
"Well… yeah." Maybe he shouldn't have admitted that. Before he could confess anything else potentially embarrassing, he kissed her. He meant to give her a quick peck, but he stayed a fraction too long, and the want and need that had not been sated the night before settled low in the belly and twisted into a hard knot. Her lips parted and her tongue touched his, slick and warm and tasting of cocoa and whipped cream and Kate.
When he came up for air, his hands were beneath her shirt on her breasts. Her nipples were hard against his palms and her fingers were wrapped around his wrists. Through the door, he heard Stanley moving around in the storage room.
"Rob, we can't do this here," she said in a shaky voice just above a whisper.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. This is my grandfather's office. He's right outside the door."
She was right. This time. "Sorry," he said as he slid his hands to her waist. "I got sidetracked again."
She licked her lips, moist from his kiss. "That seems to happen to you quite often."
Only with her. She made it hard to breathe. Made him lose his mind. Maybe because he felt safe and comfortable with her enough to lose his mind. Knowing that he made her lose her mind as well was a huge turn-on. He squeezed her waist and forced his hands from her. "Come over tonight."
Her eyes were a little dazed, and she blinked a few times as if she were trying to clear her head.
"We'll have dinner," he added. "Shoot pool. Six-thirty?"
She nodded and tucked her shirt back into her pants.
"If you don't show up," he warned for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, "I'll come looking for you."
"I'll be there." She took a deep breath and opened the door. "I'm going to kick your butt at pool."
"Right," he scoffed, but a few hours later, she'd won four out of six games. Probably because he got distracted by the way she looked leaning over his pool table.
He grilled steaks, and they ate in his dining room again. Then he took her to bed, where he scored big.
Over the next week, they knocked out a few more fantasies, including a quicky in the alley behind Rocky's and-Rob's personal favorite-a hummer in the HUMMER.
She brought over a picnic basket, and they ate in bed while watching the Chinook's Avalanche game on the big-screen television in his bedroom.
She knelt in the center of his blue plaid quilt wearing a T-shirt from his old Red Wings days. It covered her from shoulders to her upper thighs, and he wondered why she bothered with the shirt at all. He'd just spent a pleasant hour getting up close and personal with the parts she covered.
"Ouch." She winced as the camera zoomed in for a close-up of Chinook goalie Luc Martineau thumping Teemu Selanne in the back with his stick. When that didn't seem to faze the Fin, Luc hooked his skates and took him down.
"Yeah," Rob said through a laugh.
She spread Brie on a slice of baguette and handed it to him. "That wasn't very nice." She picked green grapes from the stem and handed those over too. "That number sixty-eight is kinda cute?"