“Landon.Landon.I’m asking you this as a professional.” Oh, God. I wanted to lick him. “We can do a quick shot at the apartment in the morning, and I’ll film you working here now. And then tomorrow here at the mansion we’ll do the interview. Twenty minutes, OK?”
“You’re not answering my question.” His voice was deep and low and sent a sizzle through my veins. “If I have to answer your questions, you have to answer mine.”
I looked up into those eyes. “Y-y-yes?”
He hit me with the Fireworks. “Yes what?”
“You’re cute?”
“Is that a question?”
“No. I mean, I’m answering your question. So you agree?”
“That I’m cute? I prefer dashing, sexy…”
“Landon!” Hell, yes, he was all those things.
“Have you considered getting an investor? Then you won’t have to do ridiculous video jobs.”
“I’m still thinking about it.” I huffed in frustration. “Will you do it? Fifteen minutes tomorrow. Just fifteen minutes on camera, and then we’re back to the grind.”
“Grind.” He took another step closer, letting his hands fall to his sides so his chest almost touched mine. “Interesting choice of words.”
I blinked up at him like a vole who’d been pulled from its hole. “Are you fucking with me?”
He whispered back, “Only if you want me to.”
I stepped back and took a deep breath, shaking off his spell. “Forget it. I’ll find someone else. Penelope probably knows some—”
“I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“I’ll do it,” he said, his voice retreating from Ludicrous Sexy and returning to Everyday Hot. “Ten minutes?”
“Fifteen, max. Please?”
He smiled, showing the dimples.Holy shit.“OK.” He started back up the ladder, then called back down to me. “Can you clean up around the kitchen sink so the plumbers can get in there? And make sure they can get to the bathroom plumbing, too?”
“I can do that,” I said. But first I got my camera out of its case — I’d grabbed it when I went home to change into my grubby clothes — and got a few shots of him swabbing the crystals in the chandelier. Gently, he washed away the grime on each crystal to reveal their almost liquid shimmer under the bright work light.
I probably filmed him longer than I should have. With the camera as a shield, it was one way of staring at him without actually gawking. Watching him touching each prism, his fingers deft, his attention focused.
Remembering how his hands felt as they slid along my skin.
* * *
You’d thinktwo people who ended up at the same work site each day would go in the same car, but we never did. Landon had his errands to run, and I had mine. Plus, we had another, unstated reason for not car-pooling. If anything, the tension between us had grown to excruciating levels as he’d transformed from annoying roommate to skilled helper to project partner to the object of my drooling lust.
Mostly, I hid the drooling.
In the morning, we met for the interview out by the concrete bench we’d excavated during the garden cleanup.
“So where were you last night?” Landon asked as I set up my tripod, camera and a battery-powered fill light under one of the oak trees with the mansion in the background.
Interesting. Landon wondered whereIwas for a change.
“I had to meet with Cali and Thea about the website, so I got in late. It has to be ready by Friday.”
