"You wanna get together?" he asked in a low voice that had her wanting to melt on the floor until she became nothing more than a puddle at his feet.
Managing to swallow past the baseball lump in her throat, she choked out, "To do what?"
He shrugged. She wanted to reach back, carefully unlace the leather strap holding his hair in place, and touch him.
"I don't know. Bake cookies. Read Arabian Nights. Watch old movies."
Maybe it was foolish or childish, but she couldn't help asking, "Are you serious?"
"Why not?" he said on a roguish grin that made her dizzy with her own desire. "I haven't had a good cookie in a long time."
She was reading a double entendre into his words. His tone wasn't downright lewd. Or is it? She was so excited, she was afraid her heart would beat right out of her chest, or she'd do something stupid like throw herself into his arms and scream, "I love you, I love you, I love you!"
"You know how to bake, don't you?"
Wendy laughed slightly. "I make a mean chocolate chip," she told him, breathlessly bold.
"Mhm. My favorite. The whole bag of chips, right?"
His arm slid down, and then his fingers tangled with a strand of her hair.
Oh now! Just take me now. Pick me up in your arms and take me to your cave. I surrender.
"But of course."
He nodded, never once taking his gaze from hers. "I should be done here in about an hour. You know where I live?"
She could have cracked up laughing at that. She'd driven past his apartment building about a thousand times, and occasionally, whenever she'd been able to talk Steve into it, she'd brought her brother there. She'd even gone up with him a time or two, though she hadn't gone inside the apartment.
Nodding, she took a deep breath. His scent filled her like an aphrodisiac.
"Meet me there in an hour. If I'm not home, the key's in the light fixture. Let yourself in."
"You put your key where anyone could find it?" she said in surprise. He lived in the inner city, in one of the rougher neighborhoods.
"I don't have anything worth stealing. Besides, everybody knows me."
"Okay."
Almost reluctantly--she was certainly reluctant--he backed away. She watched him, unable to move just yet, while he unlocked a small closet in the hall. He took out a bar of soap and handed it to her. "Write "Paul" on your back window with this. It'll wash right off."
Wendy glanced down at the soap in confusion. "Why?"
"'Cause you got a cool car, right? You park it in front of my building, when you come back you got a carcass."
"And with this, I'm safe from having my car stripped for parts?"
He nodded seriously. "Me and the boys got an understanding. They don't touch what's mine and I don't turn 'em into thumb tacks."
She might have laughed if she hadn't been stalled by the words what's mine. Sure, she knew what he meant, but she liked the idea of belonging to him too much for comfort.
He left the hall without another word. By the time Wendy drifted out to the parking lot as though on a cloud, she wondered if she was home in bed, dreaming. This couldn't be real.
)
What's a man to do when he's seen too much of life's dark side and suddenly finds himself believing in flesh-and-blood angels who can heal with a single touch? What's a girl to do when she believes in true love but can't trust the eyes of her own heart? Fall in love...reluctantly?
