really all about you.” Tanisha looked amused.
Erica squirmed in her chair. “So I’m selfish. What’s so bad about that?” She’d been called worse in her life. And it could be said her impulsiveness stemmed from a desire for immediate gratification. “But it’s about Adam, too. He’s not happy.” Watching him go through the motions of doing the show after his big confession at dinner, she’d wanted more than anything to throw her arms around him and tell him everything was all right. She could see him putting up walls, determined to be so damned strong. It hurt to think he didn’t feel he could be himself, even around her.
“And you think you could make him happy?” Tanisha asked.
Erica nodded. “We could make each other happy.”
Tanisha scrolled through a list of records, and clicked on Adam’s name. “So what are you going to do—go out to his house and demand he sleep with you?”
“I’m going to demand he talk to me. Really talk.” Of course, the only time Adam let down his guard was in bed. “If that leads to other things…that would be fine with me.”
“Okay, here’s the addy. Twenty-one forty-three Clarkson. That’s in Morrison.”
Erica snatched a sheet of paper from the printer and scribbled the address. “Thanks.”
“Sure. Buy me a drink later.”
“We could get together tomorrow night.”
“Uh-uh. I’ve got plans.” A knowing smile tugged at her lips.
“What kind of plans?”
“I’m going to take your advice, and try that little harem girl outfit out on my new guy.”
Erica laughed. “Then you will be busy. Have fun.”
“You, too.”
Erica debated going home to change clothes, but decided to head straight to Adam’s, before she lost her nerve. After consulting a map and making a couple of wrong turns, she found his home on a quiet street tucked beneath a red rock cliff. She pulled into the driveway behind his Jeep and cut the engine.
She hoped she was doing the right thing. After tonight, Adam would either accept the fact that there was a connection between them worth exploring, or he would shut her out of his life altogether.
She checked her hair in the rearview mirror, then got out of the car and made her way up the front walk. She rang the bell and waited. And waited. Frowning, she rang again, and tried to peer in the window beside the door. His Jeep was in the driveway, so he had to be home, right? Unless he’d gone out with a friend. A date, even…
The thought made her feel queasy. Maybe she was making a mistake coming here. What if she’d misread him? What if their so-called “connection” was entirely one-sided? What if this was all about her and there was no them?
She almost fell as the door was jerked open and Adam stood there, dripping wet, clad only in a towel around his waist. “Erica? What are you doing here?”
She tried to ignore the way water droplets sparkled in his chest hair, or the wet sheen of his muscular shoulders. Her gaze involuntarily dropped to the towel. A rather small towel. Not really large enough to cover much…
“Erica? Is something wrong?”
Only lust jamming all my brain cells. She managed a weak smile. “You and I need to talk.”
His mouth tightened, but after a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. “You’d better come in.”
She followed him into a dimly lit living room. A pair of black leather sofas faced each other across an oriental rug. An entertainment center, complete with a big-screen TV, filled one wall, while a rock fireplace sat between floor to ceiling windows on the opposite wall. “Nice place,” she said.
“Make yourself at home. I’ll go get dressed.” He headed toward a doorway leading to the rest of the house, his bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor.
“Don’t go to any trouble on my account,” she called after him. “What you have on looks fine to me.”
While he was gone, she looked around the room. It was comfortable, classy even. She trailed her finger through the dust on the mantel. Definitely a bachelor pad. A bookcase in one corner held a collection of popular novels, rock history books and a few outdoor guides. The magazines on the coffee table ranged from Rolling Stone to Backpacker. But there were no photographs anywhere. In fact, the walls were mostly bare, except for a single watercolor over one sofa, the kind of thing you might buy at any furniture store, a last-minute accessory purchased without much thought.
She was seated on one of the sofas, flipping