Desire by Design - By Paula Altenburg Page 0,45

with you in the living room, please?” Matt said. He transmitted a look meant to let her know it wasn’t a request. “Now?”

Eve trailed him down the hall, and when they reached the living room, Matt slid the glass doors closed behind them. Where should he begin?

Just that afternoon, he’d had his hands—and his mouth—all over Eve. He’d spent the last several hours daydreaming about repeating the experience. He didn’t want her parents to be the ones to tell her what they’d just seen. He didn’t want her thinking he’d been touching another woman.

Okay, technically he had. But his intentions were good. Maybe not medal-winning good…

Matt steadied himself. He’d just say it straight out and get it over with, then he’d try and explain how it happened. “When your parents walked in, Lena had her hands on my, uh, backside—and it might have looked like I was trying to kiss her.”

“Wow,” Eve said. “That’s awful.” Her eyes welled, and she put a hand over her mouth.

Although it made him feel kind of good to know she cared enough to be upset, the last thing he wanted was to make her cry. He shifted uneasily. “I can explain.”

“Please.” Her voice was muffled. She waved him off with her free hand. “There’s no need to explain. I can picture it just fine.”

She wasn’t crying… She was laughing.

He felt his lips thin. He’d been caught in her house, with another woman in his arms, and she was laughing at him.

“Then would you mind explaining it to me?” he asked. “So I know we’re both clear on what happened?”

“Lena knows I often work late on Fridays, so she made up an excuse to come over, hoping you’d be alone. She came on to you because that’s what she does, and you tried to put her off without being mean about it. Because that’s what you do.” Eve smiled up at him, swiping her eyes with the heel of one hand. “Face it, Matt. You’re too nice, sometimes.”

Matt deflated like a beach ball with a slow leak. His uncle was right: he was boring. It seemed Eve thought so, too.

“Great. I’m a nice person. Could you tell your parents that?”

“They’re going to believe what they want to believe. Don’t worry about it.” Eve looked ready to burst out laughing again at any moment.

Matt wasn’t sharing the joke. A woman he wanted to be naked with thought he was nice. That was the equivalent of “Let’s be friends,” and Matt didn’t have too many friends he wanted to hear moaning his name—which was another thing he couldn’t understand. Eve was none of the things he’d ever desired in a woman. She wasn’t a leggy blonde. She wasn’t the least bit domestic. She was far more interested in work than she was in him.

To top it off, now she thought he was nice.

Yet all she had to do was look up at him with those big brown eyes that sucked the breath right out of his body, and he’d do just about anything she asked. Ever since he’d gotten to know her, he was like putty in her hands.

Uncle Bob was right when he’d said men did stupid things for beautiful women. Eve was so beautiful it hurt to think all she might ever want from him was to be his friend.

“I’m sorry, Matt, but you deserved it. You’re a bit of a flirt.” Some of the laughter seeped from her lovely face. “I know you don’t find this—”

“You don’t know anything,” he interrupted. He wasn’t a flirt. Not with anyone else. So, she’d had a bad marriage. While she still had some issues regarding that, and her ex-husband didn’t seem ready to let go, Eve had to move on. He’d been patient and understanding. It was time to get serious.

He hooked the front pocket of her hip-hugging jeans with a finger and drew her close until she was tight against him. She felt soft, not skinny as he’d first thought, and curvy in all the right places. His hand skimmed up her back until his fingers tangled in her mass of dark curls. It was time she realized exactly what his intentions were, and his intentions didn’t include anything so dull as friendship.

With one hand cradling her head and an arm twined firmly around her waist, Matt took her lips with his—and he didn’t try to be the least bit friendly about it. Instead, he tasted her with his tongue and his hands. The soft fabric