Naughty Neighbor - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,19
truly rotten kid. Even his own brothers, who’d been pretty bad in their times, couldn’t touch him.
Louisa finished her sandwich and ate her banana. “You ever been married? You ever live with anyone?”
“Only Spike.”
That explained it. She was beginning to understand the origin of some of his more annoying habits. He was severely lacking in female guidance. He didn’t know any of the niceties of life. Dollars to doughnuts he left the toilet seat up.
She put her dishes in the dishwasher and stacked the files in the cardboard box. “I’m off to the Post.”
“Be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Mean dogs, dirty old men, drunk drivers…” He sighed with disgust at his own foolishness, grabbed hold of the front of her baggy University of Maryland sweatshirt, pulled her to him, and kissed her.
She tasted like dessert. Life didn’t get much better, Pete thought. This was the filet of existence. He opened his eyes and realized she was staring at him.
“Something wrong?”
Her face had turned scarlet. She looked down at the sweatshirt still bunched in his hand. “You’ve accidentally unhooked the front closure to my bra.”
His grin was lazy, his eyes soft with a mixture of sensuality and amusement. It had been no accident. He had one of the most talented thumbs in the country…maybe in the world.
“Sorry,” he said, releasing the shirt. “Guess I got carried away.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He was finally in love. No doubt about it.
Louisa buttoned her navy pea coat up to her throat as she left the Post building and walked west to the Farragut North Metro station. She would have been done with the papers a lot sooner if Pete hadn’t kissed her after lunch, she thought. Her mind had been stuck on it all afternoon. The kiss had been warm and friendly with just a suggestion of passion. In fact, it had been almost playful. Just what you’d expect from a man who ate marshmallow goop for lunch.
Still, it had surprised her. She’d been mentally prepared for a different sort of kiss…a much more aggressive sort. She’d been ready to firmly reject his advances, and it hadn’t been necessary. She reluctantly admitted she was experiencing an emotion that felt a lot like disappointment.
She took the escalator to the underground lobby, bought a fare card, and passed through an electronic gate, telling herself there was no reason to be depressed just because she didn’t inspire flaming passion in the man. After all, she’d told him on several occasions how much she disliked him. And she’d warned him against groping. It was just that she didn’t know what to make of the kiss, she told herself. It had been so…happy.
She was still thinking about the kiss when she knocked on his front door a half hour later.
“Reporting in on the newspaper assignment, sir,” she said when he opened the door, the theory being when discombobulated over a sexual attraction, resort to juvenile behavior.
He closed his front door behind her, unbuttoned her jacket, pulled her to him by her lapels, and lowered his mouth to hers. It was a hello, welcome-home kiss. It was an I-like-you kiss. It was pretty damn happy. It was grossly disappointing. All lips and no tongue and much too short. Louisa swayed a little when he stepped away from her. “Darn,” she said.
“Something wrong?”
“You unhooked my bra again.”
“Must be a faulty clasp.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t trust you.”
“Boy, Lou, that really hurts. Here I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all day, making a nutritious home-cooked meal for you, and I get nothing but insults.”
Louisa sniffed the air. It smelled wonderful—like spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. She trudged up the stairs and crossed to the kitchen area. The table was set for two with a white linen tablecloth, wineglasses, and lavender candles. There was a daisy on her plate. It only had one petal left. Without thinking, she automatically played the game and plucked the remaining petal, silently chanting “He loves me.”
“It’s true,” he said.
She rolled her eyes.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Not for an instant.”
Smart woman, he thought. He could hardly believe it himself. He dropped spaghetti into a pot of boiling water, took two salads from the refrigerator and garlic bread from the oven. He filled the wineglasses with sparkling water. “Did you find anything interesting in any of the papers?”
She hung her coat on the coatrack and took a seat at the table. “No. There was just that one little article