Page 45 of Making Over Maris

Jack stewed in his own juices as they fought the Sunday evening traffic up the 101 into the Valley. Damn it all. Why hadn’t he picked a gallery closer to home?

Aw, hell. He knew why. This one had landscapes. Sara loved landscapes. Too bad he hadn’t paid more attention to the other artists showing today. He’d nearly come in his pants when he’d seen the image of a big burly guy on his knees in front of a stern siren.

He wondered if Sara had noticed. He hoped to God she hadn’t.

It wouldn’t do for her to know how that had affected him. According to all the books she’d given him, women didn’t like wimpy, submissive men. They preferred pushy, dominant, surly men. And the harder to get the better.

It would be difficult playing that game with Sara—it had been. It was.

But he needed to hook her. Really hook her. And hard to get was apparently the way it worked.

They finally—finally—came to his exit. He breathed a sigh of relief as he coasted down the ramp and turned left up into the hills.

“Ooh. You live near Tristan and Shannon,” Sara murmured as they snaked past condos and homes and eventually mansions as they wound up the curving road. “Do they ever come over?”

Jack forced himself to focus on her voice, to respond appropriately. But it was damn hard. Everything was hard.

They were on their third date now.

Everything should be hard.

“Um, sometimes. I have a media room and Shannon likes movies.”

“You have a media room?”

“Yep.”

She glowered at him. “And we always do movie night at my place? With my miniscule TV?”

Yeah. Because he liked being at her place.

But then he realized he liked the idea of having her at his place too.

He liked it a lot.

And now he had the courage to suggest it.

Also, his place was clean. At the moment.

“Next time we’ll do movie night at my house.”

“Damn straight we will.” The way she said it made him shiver.

“What kind of movies do you like? I mean, other than bad sci-fi?”

She shifted closer. Her scent surrounded him in a cloud. He nearly blacked out as all the blood in his head made a beeline for his cock. As if there was any room in there. “I like adult movies.”

His vision went a little blurry. He took his foot off the gas so he wouldn’t crash into his neighbor’s mailbox. “Ah. Oh?” Holy crap. Was that her hand on his thigh? It was. But she wasn’t grabbing for his cock—though that would have been nice—she merely drew tiny circles on his jeans. He bit back a growl and used the very last of his attention to park—crookedly—in his driveway.

He set the brake and switched off the engine and turned to her. To kiss her perhaps. To hold her. To fist his fingers in her hair and pull her head into his lap.

But she was already out of the car and standing in the driveway, staring up at his house with her mouth agape.

“You live here?”

Jack glanced at his humble abode, perched on a hill overlooking the San Fernando Valley. It appeared to be a modest rambler from the street but it was actually two stories, with the bottom floor built into the hill. The entire side of the house facing the Valley was a wall of windows. His view was spectacular.

He hopped out, locked the car and jingled his keys. “Yeah.”