Or maybe he’d think she was crazy.
“Man, that does suck.” He understood! This almost brought tears to her eyes. Such a simple statement.
“Right?”
“I mean, your face was on that pillow, right?”
“Yes!” Oh, bless his heart.
“And this was the man who should have respected, should have thought about how that would make you feel. It would have meant he was at least a little remorseful.”
“Yes!” Oh, God, she was pathetic. “Sorry to dump all this on you… You probably want to get back to sleep.”
“No.” She could barely make out that little hitch in his smile. “I want to talk to you.”
“Why?” She couldn’t help but ask. She knew she wasn’t a total uggo but, heck, she’d forgotten what it felt like to have a man even pretend to find her attractive. And flirting? What was that?
“Can’t you figure that out?” The quality of his voice had changed. The rumble goaded her.
It sent a thrill down her spine.
“Are you flirting with me?”
Sexy male laughter drifted through her window. “Would you like that?”
How did this work? Was she supposed to admit that she would? That she’d like more than that? “I did mention I’m thirty-six, didn’t I?”
“And I told you age didn’t matter, didn’t I?” he countered.
“Doesn’t matter for what?” she dared to ask.
“All sorts of things. If my touch makes you shiver, does it matter if I’m twenty-five or fifty? If you get butterflies when I kiss you, does it matter what year I was born? If I can make you want me, does anything else really matter at all?”
He shouldn’t say this stuff to her. He should be scared to death that she might jump across the space between the windows and attack him. “Shouldn’t it?” She barely managed to get the words out.
“Life’s short, Penny.” His voice sounded sad and serious and wise… like that look she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes earlier that day.
“Don’t you have a girlfriend somewhere?” Probably a pretty college girl.
“Not right now.” And then, “Is that your bedroom?”
“My office,” she admitted. “My bedroom’s on the other side of the house.”
“What are you wearing?”
Since she’d turned the light off earlier, she was sitting in total darkness. She knew he couldn’t see her. Glancing down at her nearly transparent old T-shirt, the lie rolled from her tongue ironically. “A lacy silk camisole and matching shorts.”
He didn’t have a shirt on. But when he’d entered the room, he’d been wearing low-slung sweats. The man had problems keeping pants above his hip bones. She’d been able to make out that spot where his abs ended and his groin began… almost.
“You’ve got great legs.” At those words, her heart dropped.
Now she knew he was playing with her.
She’d always considered her legs too short. They were white as a ghost and her thighs were softer than she’d like them to be.
Reflecting on the perfection of his own physique, she determined to get this conversation away from her legs.
“Do you work out every day? I mean, when you aren’t laid up.” She’d felt like less than a woman for so long, it just didn’t seem right, that such an amazing-looking guy would find her legs worth looking at.
