Secret Desire

He sipped the coffee without taking his gaze from her eyes. “I’m not in the habit of doing what I don’t want to do.”

Uh-oh. Here it comes, she thought. “I don’t understand,” she said, though she knew he hadn’t wanted to enter her apartment.

“I think you do. I had my reasons for speaking with you at your door. For both our sakes, don’t test my attraction to you. You may catch me when it’s at fever pitch, and the temptation to howl outweighs everything else.” He set the cup on the kitchen counter. “I’ll be in touch.”

She caught herself twisting her hands and stuck them behind her, praying he hadn’t noticed. Best to brazen it out. She laid back her shoulders, tossed her head and smiled.

“As far as I’m concerned, Luke, you’d have to do a lot to unravel your character. Besides, you can’t turn a Town Car into a Jeep.”

She couldn’t figure out the message in those fiery gray eyes, but his words settled it. “No, but you can trash it. Thanks for the coffee. I’ll find my way out.”

He strode toward the short hallway, stopped and turned. “Where’s Randy?”

She stood straighter, intent on his knowing that nothing and no one got the better of her. “Randy’s painting. It’s one thing I don’t have to urge him to do.”

“Take care.” He walked swiftly, almost as though he scented a prize.

She hated seeing women stand akimbo with their hands on their hips, but she did it then, frustration gripping every muscle of her body. Disgusted with herself, she threw up her hands and headed out back to her garden.

She paused on the porch. Why was she so riled up? She didn’t want to become involved with him or any other man, did she? Her knees nearly buckled as the truth pierced her thoughts. She wanted him. She’d made a play for him because she’d recognized the vulnerability in him. He saw what she’d done, and let her know he didn’t like it. Maybe she was reaching for a thin reed, but she was thirty-eight years old, already past her prime, and had never been in the arms of a man who put her interests, her fulfillment and her well-being above his own. Luke Hickson would do that, and she wanted him. Deflated and saddened when she recalled his disinterested behavior minutes earlier, she reminded herself of the times when he’d behaved otherwise.

“Why can’t I have him, if he wants me?” she asked. She looked at herself in the hall mirror, at the tiny lines at the edges of her still beautiful eyes and the slight creases across her forehead. I’ll take the consequences.