“I have to go.”
“Go quickly—or don’t go at all.”
Kissing her lips, he whispered, “I have to go,” and rolled off her and to his feet. She had to console herself with the fact that he was aroused, something that even a fig leaf couldn’t have hidden just then.
Crossing to a closet, he opened the louver doors and pushed several hangers around until he found what he wanted. He returned to where she was sitting now on the bed and draped a hunter green flannel shirt around her shoulders. “You’ll look fetching,” he said, but he was quickly searching the room.
Savannah watched while he located and pulled on the navy briefs he’d taken off such a short time before. She watched him go back to the closet, take out a pair of jeans, and step into them. She watched him pull his sweater over his head and jam his feet into his worn deck shoes.
By the time he came to her, she was hugging the shirt tightly around her, wondering what a man with Jared’s sex appeal saw in a woman who had bought an extraordinarily sexy teddy and didn’t dare put it on.
Setting a fist on either side of her, Jared brought his face close to hers. “Coming down?” he asked in the soft, sandy voice that sent tingles along her spine.
She gave a quick nod. “In a minute.” She touched her hair, which was a mess of escaped tendrils around a spindly knot. “I want to fix myself up.”
“Don’t fix too much. I like you this way.”
She made a face in disbelief.
“I like you this way,” he insisted, with greater feeling this time. He kissed her gently. “Gotta run. Don’t be long.”
Still hugging the edges of the shirt together, she smiled and shook her head. He strode to the door and looked back at her a final time before heading downstairs.
It was during that last look when her heart warmed and her senses seemed to reach out that Savannah first suspected she was in love.
CHAPTER15
On Friday morning, Sam took Susan and the Jag to see Matty Stavanovich.
“You never did say whether this Matty was an authorized repairman,” Susan murmured as Sam helped her from the car. While she didn’t want him to laugh at her again, she did want an answer. The Jag was one of her prized possessions. She felt elegant driving it. When she sat behind its wheel, she was on top of the world. Heads turned. She was in command.
She didn’t want just anyone fiddling with her car.
Taking her arm, Sam guided her toward the repair shop’s office. “Matty’s authorized, all right. He also happens to do a damned good job, which is more than I can say for some authorized repairmen.”
“Does he work on your car?”
Sam smirked. “The Mazda’s a little too plebeian for his skills. He’s very selective.”
The office was far neater than she had expected it to be. It was also filled with Beethoven’s Fifth, playing a little too loud for comfort.
Matty Stavanovich was nowhere in sight. That didn’t seem to bother Sam, who proceeded to walk around the small room, scrutinizing everything in sight.
“Where is he?” Susan demanded above the music. She expected service.
Sam turned a desk calendar toward him, flipped back several pages to scan what had been written there for the preceding few weeks, turned the calendar right again. Then he went to the elaborate stereo setup against the wall and lowered the volume. “Give him a minute. He’ll be here.”
Susan watched him nonchalantly thumb through a cluster of papers on the desk. “Are you looking for something?”
“Hmmm?”
“You’re being very nosy. Either you’re looking for something, or you have terrible manners.”
He flashed her a broad smile. Then his gaze slipped beyond her. “Here he comes. The man, himself.”
Susan turned to confront a man who was several inches shorter than she, several pounds lighter, several years older. While his features were average, his skin was sallow, contrasting sharply with dark hair that was thinning on top. He wore overalls that barely camouflaged his slenderness. As grease monkeys went, he was immaculate.
“Well, hello,” he said, eying her with interest. He held out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Mattias. You are…?”
