Damon didn’t return before I went to bed, which was little-old-lady early, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I hated that about the Vicodin. I was ready to dump it in the toilet and switch to ibuprofen and just grit my teeth.
I got up just after dawn and showered then went to make espresso. Coffee wasn’t going to cut it. I was just settling down with my tablet to check my e-mail when Damon came in. He was dressed in a cashmere sweater over a white shirt and dark jeans that hugged his ass like plastic wrap. In a word, he looked edible. Lord, but I wanted to take a bite of him. I took a big mouthful of espresso instead and burned my mouth and tongue.
“Good morning,” he said. He took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and set it down in front of me. “Drink that.”
“I’ve got espresso, thanks.”
“Drink it. You wouldn’t go to the pool, so a bottle of the pool came to you.”
“That’s where you went last night?”
He shrugged. “Figured you might want to get better faster. Plus, I assume you didn’t want me underfoot with your girlfriends around.”
“Don’t you have your own house? A wife? A family? Pets? Plants?”
His brows rose. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“I’ve been trying to get rid of you since I met you. I’m just curious about who’s missing you. Or really, how you can manage to be here for days on end. Obviously you can work remotely, but then, watching me seems to be your side job, so I guess you can’t be at your office and get your work done.”
Damon propped himself against the stove, crossing his ankles and folding his arms over his chest. “All right. I’m not married. I don’t have children or pets. Plants, yes, but I have someone take care of them when I’m not home. Now do I get a question?”
“Sure.”
“What’s that?” He nudged his chin toward the list of names the girls had left behind.
“Those are the men I will be going on blind dates with,” I said, feeling a lot less excited about the prospect with daylight.
“Oh? Since when?”
He sounded as if he didn’t care. That annoyed me after all his talk and the kisses. Clearly they’d meant nothing. I tried to dredge up some enthusiasm for the get-Beck-laid project so he wouldn’t know his indifference stung.
“The girls think I need to find a boyfriend—actually they said I need to have great sex, and since I don’t do one-night stands, they made a list of men I might be able to have a relationship with.”
“I see. And how do you feel about it?”
“I’ve never really had much of a love life, and they aim to fix it. It should be fun, right? I mean, maybe I’ll meet the love of my life.”
“You believe in that? Love? The forever kind?”
I shrugged. “It happens to some people. Why not me? I mean, sure, I have no idea how to do a relationship thanks to my mother, but I can learn. I take it you don’t believe in happily ever after and true love and all that.”
“I haven’t seen a lot of it.”
“I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, but word is that it exists.”
I emptied my cup and started to get up to get more. Damon took it from me and pointed at the bottle.
“Drink.”
I sighed. “What about giardia?”
“Don’t be a baby.”
I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him and took a drink. It tasted just like water. I don’t know why I expected something different. Something to say it had healing properties. I drank more. Damon watched me finish it and then made coffee and poured me a cup.
“I was drinking espresso.”
“Now you’re drinking coffee.”
“You’re a pain in the ass,” I grumbled.
He reached to take my cup back. “If you don’t want it....”
“Back off, buddy, or I’ll put you on the floor.”
He smiled lazily. “Feel free to try. And speaking of that—”
He reached over and picked up the list. He looked at it then crumpled it up, and a puff of white smoke came out of his fist. He dropped the remaining ashes onto the counter.
“You didn’t really need that, did you?”
“It would help me get my love life off the ground. I’m really bad at it. My future husband could’ve been on there. The father of my children, even.”
“He’s not.”
I doubted it too. Hell, I didn’t think I was destined to ever get married. And children? Completely out of the question. Just a boyfriend would be monumental. Almost unthinkable. All the same, I was hurt.
“Yeah, well. Some guy is bound to think I’m good enough to keep around. At least for a while. Anyhow, the girls aren’t going to be happy about having to write another list.”
“I’ll burn that one too.”
He came to stand over me, pushing my legs apart so he stood between them. He leaned down, one hand on the counter, one hand on the back of the barstool, his face inches from mine.
“If any man thinks you aren’t good enough for him, he’s got shit for brains. I, however, have all my gray matter intact, thank you very much, and the only list you need has one name on it: mine.”
A shiver ran through me along with that kind of excited rush you get when you’re sixteen and your crush notices you’re alive for the first time. Not that I was crushing on Damon. That would be stupid. But all my female hormones purred with gooey gratification at his declaration. In that moment, I felt special. Chosen, like one of those fairy-tale princesses that never existed.
Looking into his stormy eyes, I thought he was going to kiss me again. Instead he straightened and whistled.
“Come on, Ajax. Let’s get you outside.”
The dog had been lying on the floor beneath me and now followed Damon. I watched them go, totally at a loss for words, smartass or otherwise.
“I’m in such deep trouble,” I whispered when the back door closed. “If I don’t get rid of him soon, I might actually fall for him.”