“Meg,” he said, clicking his tongue, “you know I care deeply about composting in Harrogate.” Hunter settled the seniors into the comfortable chairs in the sitting room near the front foyer of his house.
“Don’t you have an office?” I asked irritably.
“Let’s not be so formal,” he said, gray eyes leveling at me.
It was too intense. I usually tried to avoid his gaze, but it was look at his eyes or look at—the rest of him, which was on display. I swallowed, my eyes inadvertently flicking down to his bare torso then back up to that gaze that was promising something more exciting than a compost meeting.
“We have a number of maps and studies to go over,” I said, trying to ignore how his broad, muscular shoulders tapered down over the hard pecs that I used to run my nails down, making him shiver, to the washboard abs. My eyes flicked down again.
“Yes, I’ve reviewed those.” He shrugged slightly, and my brain hijacked the moment to sneak another glance. The loose exercise shorts, low on his hips, were barely enough to cover the parts that were revealed by the skintight Under Armour training pants that accentuated every muscle in his thighs.
And those thighs feel rock-hard when wrapped around you…
“Coffee? Tea?” he offered. He gave me one more knowing glance. “Dottie, you take your tea with lemon and sugar?”
“If you’re serving it, I’ll take it any way you want!” she said, practically drooling.
“This is an official city meeting,” I reminded them. “Can we please keep some level of decorum?”
“It’s a small town, Meg,” Hunter said in that deliciously deep voice that never failed to convince me to make a terrible life choice.
He turned to head back to the kitchen and, I hoped, put on a shirt. My sleep-deprived, overworked brain chose to ogle him as he sauntered toward the kitchen. I was so used to seeing him in a formal suit that witnessing him in a state of undress, the way his muscular back tapered to his hips—and remembering those hips against mine—was starting to unravel me…
Terrible decision!I reminded myself.
“Can’t you hurry up?” I snapped, hoping I didn’t sound thirsty and sex starved.
Hunter looked over his shoulder at me.
God, how had I forgotten how sexy his back was, too, with all those plates of muscle?
Hunter smirked. “You know I like to take things slow.”
The seniors erupted in cackles and fanned themselves.
I pursed my lips, sat on the sofa, and shuffled through the papers. I refused to look up as Hunter set down the tray of coffee and tea and an excessive number of fixings, including decorated sugar cubes, pieces of fruit, and flavored creams that people could put in their drinks.
The only problem with not looking up at him was that now I was staring at his crotch as he handed out cups and saucers.
“He’s so refined!” Edith said appreciatively, taking a cup and saucer. “You always hear stories about these hot young billionaires who wear sweatpants and eat ramen and serve you Cheetos and Red Bull if you visit their homes. But this is an honest-to-goodness British tea set.”
“He is wearing improper clothes, though,” I pointed out.
Hunter flexed slightly as he poured Dottie a cup of tea.
“And still no shirt.”
Dottie giggled. “Drinks and a show! This is the most excitement we’ve had at a committee meeting since Art brought that pigeon he’d found and thought was a parrot!”
Hunter picked up his coffee cup then sprawled on the sofa across from me, the washboard abs flexing slightly as he breathed in and out while he flipped through the plan that Dottie had written. Hunter had his legs half-spread casually, one bare foot resting on the edge of the sofa.
“Are you sure you don’t want to put on a shirt?” I asked Hunter for the second time. “Aren’t you cold?”
“I think it’s kind of warm in here,” he said mildly.
“It’s boiling hot in here,” Bettina said, flapping her blouse.
“Know what’s also hot?” I asked as Hunter stared at me over the edge of his cup.
