“Yeah, fine.” I make light of it and gesture toward the cards. “Gram and I played a lot.”
He nods. “Is that how you became so good at it?” he asks.
“It is.” It’s not a lie. I did become good at cards when I was young, but my mathematics background, and my ability to count cards, and solve probability also helps, but I leave that part out.
“You guys keep it down, okay,” Nate says.
“Sure thing, boss,” Jason says.
I place my hand on the old railing, smooth and worn from age. A smile tugs at me. “When I was little, I used to slide down this,” I say.
“That’s how I get downstairs every morning,” Nate says, and I chuckle.
“Now that I’d like to see.” I turn and look him over. A large overhead chandelier lights up his unique green eyes, and I take in his body. The man cleans up nicely. “You’d probably break it.”
“Excuse me?” He feigns hurt. “What are you trying to say, Kira?”
“Oh, nothing,” I tease, and yawn again as I run my fingers over the rail. “You’re just…big.”
Big?
Really Kira?
But I do wonder about other parts of him. As inappropriate thoughts hit, my gaze slides downward, and there isn’t a single thing I can do about it.
Stop checking him out already.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
As soon as those words leave his mouth, I envision me in bed with this man beside me, pinning me to the mattress the same way he pinned me to the ground earlier, touching my body with his hands, his mouth. I shift my focus to the vibrant wallpaper Gram put up along the stairs years ago. Back home, my walls are plain white. Vanilla. Like my life. Sex included.
Not that I have a sex life.
I had one awkward experience in my first year of university, and I’m not in a hurry to repeat that. I’m practically a virgin for God’s sake, but everything about this hot guy begs me to change that. Bring a flash of hot red into the picture. But surely to God, he wouldn’t be interested in a boring girl like me, right? Interested in a bit of a fling while I’m visiting? I glance over my shoulder in time to see his eyes lift from my backside.
I may be out of practice but I’m pretty sure he was checking out my ass.
He scrubs the back of his neck and glances away. “Move it. You’re tired,” he says. “You’re starting to drift off again.”
“You’re kind of bossy.”
“That’s why they call me the boss,” he says, his voice an octave deeper.
I climb the stairs, and the old floorboards creak beneath me. “Sam is going to fix the creaks.”
I shake my head. It’s hard to believe this place runs on the honor system. Only Gram could pull off something like that.
I step into Gram’s room and breathe in as I feel her presence all around me. If I try hard enough, I can almost smell her comforting scent: warm sunshine and freshly baked bread. Someone ought to turn that into a perfume. I breathe in again. No matter how I felt when I was young, Gram’s scent meant home and always filled me with warmth and love.
“I have no idea when Gram installed this.” I run my hands over the front of the propane fireplace. “But I’m glad she did.”
“See this switch here,” Nate says. “This is for the pilot light.” He flicks, but nothing happens, then he flicks it off again. “Once we have the fire going, you can use this switch to turn it on and off. It’s easy. But I don’t think this has been lit for a while.”
I sit on the bed as he drops to the floor and pulls open a grate. He points to a round button on the bottom panel and spends a few minutes showing me how to turn on the fireplace. When flames appear, he gestures to the switch on the wall. “When you want to