whit that he was dressed in nothing but boxer shorts decorated with chili peppers, and a T-shirt bearing the logo for a notoriously bad brand of beer. But when he pressed his eye to the peephole and saw who stood on the other side, he—
Oh, hell. He still didn’t care how he looked.
He did, however, unlock and open the door to Becca, whose appearance was infinitely more attractive than his own. Her tawny hair hung loose past her shoulders beneath a cuffed knit cap the color of a ripe apple. A matching scarf was wound around her neck what appeared to be two or three times, disappearing into a halfway zipped leather bomber jacket. Her blue jeans, as always, were snug and faded, ending in hiking boots that should have looked incongruous on her, because they were so masculine, but instead just made her seem that much more feminine.
“Hi,” she said, smiling.
Turner tried to smile back, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Hi,” he said quietly.
“We need to talk,” she told him, echoing his words of two days before.
Frankly, Turner was of the opinion that they’d said more than enough on Saturday, and, speaking for himself, he had nothing left to say. Except maybe a few words that weren’t fit to see light anywhere but the men’s room at the bus station.
“So talk,” he told her, hoping his gruff delivery would make her go away.
Instead, she only smiled more. “What a lovely invitation,” she said. “I think I will come in and stay for dinner. Thank you so much for asking me.”
Before Turner could stop her, she was pushing past him, much the same way she had that night she’d spent at his place a month ago, when she’d wanted to make sure he stuck to the terms of their bet, and she’d come out of his room wearing his football jersey and knee socks, and he hadn’t been able to help smoking, and then he’d lost the bet and had to go with her to see a hypnotherapist.
And, hell, look how that had turned out.
“Becca, what are you doing here?” he asked defeatedly as he closed the door behind her.
His gaze dropped to her hand, though, when he saw that she was carrying the same oversize bag she’d been carrying that other night, when she’d had it filled with enough stuff to last the entire weekend.
And, hell, look how that had turned out.
“We need to talk,” she said again. “Or, at least, I need to talk. I need to tell you something very interesting that Dorcas told me about hypnosis.”
Turner held up a hand in a silent plea for her to go no further. “Don’t,” he told her. “I don’t want to hear another word about hypnosis, or hypnotherapy, or barking like a dog, or flapping my arms like a chicken, or Vegas lounge acts, or red crushed velvet. I don’t want to ever hear another word for the rest of my life about any of that stuff.”
“Okay,” Becca said agreeably. “Then I’ll just tell you this. I love you, Turner McCloud. And I have for a long, long time. And if you don’t make love to me soon, I’m going to have to wrestle you to the ground and have my way with you.”
Okay, since that wasn’t exactly what he’d expected Becca to say, then maybe he should let her clarify herself. Even if it meant bringing hypnosis into the conversation.
“Come again?” he said.
She smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She dropped her bag onto the floor, tugged off her cap, unwound her scarf and started to unzip her jacket. But even after she’d tossed the jacket onto a chair, she didn’t stop. Instead, she went to work on the buttons of the flannel shirt she wore beneath it, tugging it free from the waistband of her jeans to finish the job, then tossing it, too, onto the chair. Beneath it, she wore a long-sleeved T-shirt, so Turner figured she just must have been overwarm with the flannel one, too, and now she would sit down.
But she didn’t sit down.
Instead, she pulled the T-shirt free of her jeans, too, crossing her arms over her midsection to grab the hem on each side, then pulled the shirt up over her head to reveal a rather ravishing bit of black lace beneath. It was one of those bras whose cups came to a stop when fully half of a woman’s breasts were still showing, the kind that was worn not for support—about