8
THERE WASN’TENOUGH fuel in Luke’s body to power both his brain and his groin. Since he was a man with his priorities straight, all the blood rushed to his cock as he stared at her candlelit flesh, which looked pink and gold in the dancinglight.
Sadly, the rush of blood to his groin caused immediate energy-rationing elsewhere. Even as he took a step toward her luscious, naked body, spots danced in front of his eyes, then started connecting until his vision faded like a computer screen once the off button waspushed.
“Luke,” Shari called as his face paled and he staggered. “Luke!”
His eyes rolled up and he dropped to the ground like felledtimber.
Luke woke with nausea in his belly and a blinding pain in his head. It took a few moments for his vision to clear, so he simply lay very still on Shari’sfloor.
“Are you okay?” she asked, dropping to her knees beside him. His eyeballs hurt, but he moved them, anyway, only to discover she’d donned a bathrobe while he wasunconscious.
He didn’t know which of them was the more embarrassed. “I’d be just as happy if I’d fallen right through the floor into my next-door neighbor’ssuite.”
She smiledand her blush receded a little. “It was my fault. I guess I gave you a shock.” She pulled the belt of the robetighter.
He couldn’t lie there on the floor any longer staring up at her. Hoping he wouldn’t humiliate himself again, he struggled to his elbow and sat up. “Whew. Sorry. No sleep last night. I haven’t eaten all day. Only coffee and then I went running and…well,sorry.”
She’d called him for a reason, and even as muddled and thick as his head felt, he didn’t have to be a genius to realize the lady had had seduction in mind. A quick glance showed that was now off the agenda. Goodbye forever had most likely replacedit.
Still, she looked sympathetic, and vaguely guilty as though she’d behaved inappropriately. “Of the men who’ve seen me naked, you’re the first one who ever fainted. Do you faintoften?”
“Faint? I didn’t faint! I…passed out. First time. I’m going to crawl back to my apartment now, eat, then think about throwing myself out thewindow.”
“You’re only on the secondfloor.”
“Good thing. I could kill myself if it was higher. I’m going for the grand gesture here, not theafterlife.”
She smiled, and seemed to struggle with herself. “You really look pale. I’ve got some pasta I could feed you. Would thathelp?”
Gratitude filled him. She wasn’t going to throw him out on his sorry ass. He’d embarrassed her, made a fool of himself, and she was going to feedhim.
He rose shakily to his feet. “You are a rare and wonderful woman,” he said, lifting her left hand and kissing theknuckles.
Shari had no idea what had possessed her to offer the man on her floor dinner. Maybe it was the mortified expression on his face as he stared up at her, and some feeling of guilt for staging a blatant seduction act before he’d graduated from chapter two of the sex manual. Talk about information overload. No wonder the poor man had thrown abreaker.
If it weren’t so damned humiliating, it would be sort of funny. Well, if it happened to someone else, it would be prettyfunny.
Knowing she couldn’t possibly spend any more time in her bathrobe when both of them must be keenly aware she had nothing on beneath it, she put the lasagna she’d assembled earlier in the oven and then, with a barely coherent excuse, dashed to her bedroom to dress. She hoped Luke would never suspect that she’d intended him to eat lasagna all along, only when she’d prepared it, she’d imagined them eating it after making love, not after she’d scraped him off herbroadloom.
She threw on jeans and a loose cotton sweater and emerged only to realize her apartment was still lit by candlelight. Trying to act casual, she flipped on lights, noticing that Luke still didn’t look all thathot.
“You’re not sick, are you?” She contemplated placing her hand on his forehead to check for fever, but the way their evening was going that might throw him into anaphylacticshock.
“No.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m just tired. I told you I didn’t sleep lastnight.”
“Right.” She strode into the kitchen, hoping at least that what she was doing was striding and not flouncing. “You mentioned thatalready.”
And just what—or who—had kept poor Luke up all night when he’d summarily rejected her advances halfway up a mountainside? Instead of feeding him lasagna she should probably be dumping it on hishead.
Some of her thoughts must have communicated themselves to him for he followed her into the kitchen and said, “I wasworking.”
She’d read his articles in the local paper. He wasn’t meeting secret sources at midnight and bringing down governments; he wrote about local politics, and soft news features. She recalled him telling her that he also wrote speeches and penned annual reports. She couldn’t imagine any of his subjects keeping him up all night. None of her business. She’d stupidly said she’d feed him, so she’d feed him. Then she’d send him back downstairs with a full belly and a suddenly free Friday night this week because there was no way she’d see him after this. “Right.”
He drummed his fingers on her countertop, then reached out and placed a hand over hers. “Look. If I tell you something, will you keep it toyourself?”
She taught teenagers for a living. Did he think she was that gullible? “That would depend on the bigsecret.”
