Rushing the Goal
Page 35

He was rambling, and his hands were shaking. Probably because she was standing on his porch. Looking at him. She was on his turf, and he should have the advantage. But he didn’t feel as though he did. “Aren’t you supposed to come in?”
She didn’t move, her eyes looking away as she pulled in a breath. “Are you sure?”
He looked at her, confused. “Um, well, yeah. It’s chilly out and I think your legs could get cold, so maybe you should come in. Just so you don’t get hypothermia and die.”
Her lips quirked into a grin as she looked up at him. “Was this a ploy to get me to go out with you?”
“I mean, that’s actually a wonderful idea. And if I had that kind of game, I might have set up a dinner for you. But sadly, I didn’t, and I really do need someone to decorate my house,” he said with a grin and she smiled back. “So will you come in?”
“Okay,” she said simply as she walked past him, her perfume making him dizzy. Jesus, what was that scent and could he bathe in it? “I really don’t think you can un-adult this house. I mean, it’s gorgeous.”
“Right?” he said, shutting the door behind her. “I thought so too, but then I moved in, and, yeah…”
As she walked into the living room where a gamer chair and a mini-table for his drinks sat, he looked at her as her eyes widened. “I take back my previous statement. This is a bachelor pad. My brothers would kill for a TV like that.”
Benji nodded as he closed the distance between him and his TV. “Most guys do. It’s my pride and joy,” he said, gently caressing his eighty-inch, LG baby.
“Wow,” she said, looking around. “This place is bare.”
“Yeah. My stuff’s all still in boxes in the shed, but before I unpack any of it, I need help.”
“I’d say so,” she said, setting down her bag and getting her notepad.
“How’d Angie’s recital go this morning?”
She looked up and smiled. “The girl is as graceful as a herd of buffalo.”
He laughed. “Yeah, she skates hard. I couldn’t see her as a dancer.”
“Exactly,” she said, exhaling a breath. “She wants to quit, which is gonna be hell when I tell her dad.”
That made him pause. He wanted to offer to be there. He also wanted to offer to smash the dude’s face in, but it wasn’t his place, so he just nodded. Unsure what to say next.
Thankfully, she beat him to it. “Well, show me the rest of the house.”
So he did. They walked through the kitchen, and she made little sounds of pleasure that shot straight to his groin. “This kitchen is immaculate,” she gasped, running her fingers first along the marble countertops and then the white cabinets. “It’s naked in here.”
It would be nice if she were naked in there, but he couldn’t say that. “Yeah, I don’t know what to put in here.”
“Oh, wow, it has a reading nook,” she said, going into the little den that had a fireplace. “You could sit here and read while the fire burned.”
“Good idea.”
She looked up at him. “You read?”
“Yeah, I do,” he admitted and she smiled. “I even have geeky reading glasses.”
Her lips parted a bit and she looked dazed, but then she looked away quickly, taking a deep breath. “Onward, Paxton.”
He took her upstairs, and as they walked around, he decided he loved having her in his house. It was easy to say she loved design, and while they walked from room to room, she was drawing and taking pictures. Her eyes widened when she saw something she liked. And when her brows touched, a little wrinkle appeared between them. It was sexy as shit.
Being in his bedroom with her was probably the hardest thing he had ever done. She walked around his bed three times, yes, he counted. And each time, he wanted to tackle her into it and kiss her until they both were breathless. When she bent down to measure something, all he could do was stand there, staring at her ass like a sixteen-year-old checking out his hot teacher. She was just so gorgeous.
“Do you have any ideas for what you want in here?” she asked, standing up and looking back at him. He cleared his throat, covering his groin with his hands to hide his massive hard-on. This girl was going to be the death of him.
“Nope, no clue. I don’t know what looks good. I just want to seem like an adult, you know? I don’t want a bachelor pad. I want a home.”
She nodded slowly. “So I can get rid of the gamer chair?”
He scoffed. “Whoa, now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Grinning, she wrote something down and then shrugged. “Okay, isn’t there one more room?”
He nodded and headed for the last room. He saved it for last because he wasn’t sure how she would react to it. If she thought it was a bachelor pad before, she wasn’t ready for what he was about to show her. Opening the door, he looked back at her as she entered, her eyes bigger than quarters. “I kind of want, like, a way to display them. I can’t decide between cases or shelves. I don’t know. What do you think?”
But she was speechless, her eyes wide as she took in all his action figures, Lego sets, and Star Wars collectibles. Like his prized lightsaber that he had gotten signed by Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movies.
“I think you have more toys than Angie does,” she said, cutting him a look.