He didn’t hesitate, even when the tension between them as palpable.
He followed her through the living room. “I don’t want to put you to work.“
“It’s not work to me. I’ll cook us something easy. I hate eating alone and miss Molly terribly,” she said.
But was that really why she’d asked him to dinner? Or was it because she knew that as soon as she left San Antonio, she would never be able to enjoy his company like this again?
“I’m sorry, Kate.”
For a moment, she didn’t know what he was sorry about. He’s sorry about you missing Molly, Kate. Get your head in the game. “But she’s so happy,” she finally answered. She smiled as she eased into the adjoining kitchen, quietly slipping on an apron.
“Aren’t you a cute one,” Garrett murmured.
His gaze was so openly admiring that Kate’s stomach squeezed. She grabbed a knife and gestured dramatically with it. “Flattery will get you equal portions, so don’t waste your breath.”
“I’m not wasting it. I’m holding it.”
Ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, Kate rummaged through the fridge and pulled out her almond flour, eggs, milk and a bunch of vegetables. She set the veggies on a cutting board and transferred them to the kitchen island. “Help me with these while I work on the dough?”
“Of course. Just tell me what to do.”
“Cut the mushrooms, red peppers, onions and zucchini into small but pretty slices.”
“I can do small, but I don’t guarantee pretty.” His lips curled upward as he grasped the knife that she offered and his fingers closed warmly over hers.
Shivers of delight shot from the place he touched, and she couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran down her limbs. “They’re not going to a beauty pageant. Just small will do,” she whispered, impulsively pressing in behind him and leaning to watch as she showed him how. She shifted her hands so that he held the knife, and she held him, and then she slowly guided him to cut in the size she wanted.
Garrett stood utterly still and compliant, letting her guide him, and suddenly her nipples pressed painfully into his hard back as she realized how intimately her arms were going around his narrow waist.
“What are we making?”
She swallowed when he turned slightly and glanced directly at her. His voice was smooth and calm, but when she spoke, Kate’s wasn’t. “Vegetable goat-cheese pizza.”
He turned back to watch her cut a slice of pepper. “Kate, you’re going to kill me.”
“Why? I thought you liked it?”
“Exactly. My mouth is watering.”
Her cheeks flamed up as she thought of his mouth, and she instantly released him and went back to her spot to prepare the dough. Moments later, she lifted her head when the rhythmical sounds of Garrett’s chopping stopped. He was watching her massage the dough. A lock of his dark hair fell over one eye. Her legs weakened at the sexy look, and her heart grew wings in her chest. Garrett looked incredibly beautiful in her kitchen. As beautiful as he did in bed with her.
She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it when her cheeks burned at the memory. She really shouldn’t have slept with him. Now she couldn’t even look at him without becoming hyperaware of the electricity between them.
A smile slowly formed on his lips as if he could read her thoughts. Then he turned his attention back to his chopping, his profile hard and square, but the expression on his face also thoughtful. Kate swallowed and mixed her dough, then slammed her fists into it and rolled it a couple of more times.
“Bring the veggies once they’re cut so you can help me arrange them.”
He didn’t answer, but soon, he brought over the cutting board. He set it on the counter, and as Kate began to arrange all the little pieces on the flattened pizza crust, his hands gripped her waist from behind. Her breath was knocked out of her when his fingers squeezed her and his lips brushed against her ear.
“Why’d you sleep with me, Kate?” he murmured.
Heat arrowed from her ear straight to her toes, and she stiffened against the dissolving sensation in her bones.
He didn’t sound angry. He sounded confused, but patient, much as he did when he wanted to get to the bottom of something.
He surprised her by pressing into her body, trapping her between the counter and himself. Kate had nowhere to go, her spine arching up against his chest as she closed her eyes and tried to still her racing heartbeat.
His voice sounded in her ear as his fingers started a trail up her rib cage. “Did you feel pity for me because I was sick—?”
“No.” She could barely utter the word.
“Then why?”
His breath was warm, and damp, and it made her shiver. “It was a mistake. We weren’t thinking clearly.” Trying to gather her wits, she nervously turned in the cage of his arms, gripped the tray and slid the pizza into the oven, forcing him to step back as she bent forward.
When she shut the door and turned, Garrett had stepped back and merely stood watching her. His snowy-white dress shirt was still parted at the middle, and her saliva glands went crazy at the sight of his bare chest, his flat, hard abs and his belly button.
“Maybe it was a mistake, Kate, one I’ve spent all my life avoiding. But what if it isn’t a mistake?”
Her blood started heating in her veins as she remembered the delicious way he’d moved in her. Kissed her. Gripped her.
She knew they had to talk about this, no matter how much she wished they would pretend nothing had gone on that day. And now that he’d brought up the topic, she could barely think straight. The look in his eyes was beyond intimate. It was downright proprietary, and she almost drowned in the darkness of those eyes that haunted her dreams. With an inhuman effort, she made her way around the kitchen island, putting some distance between them.
His voice stopped her as he followed her around.
“Kate. Answer me. What if it wasn’t a mistake?”
Her breath caught in disbelief, and suddenly, she did a one-eighty to face him. “You just want to keep me here, Garrett. You’d do anything to win—that’s how you are. And you want to keep me from going to Florida.”
“You know me better than that, Freckles.”
“I know you’re the most stubborn man I know.”
He lifted one lone eyebrow. “And you aren’t stubborn? You’re stubborn and proud, Katie. The combo makes for a very difficult lady.”
She shook her head but couldn’t help smiling. Then she signaled at his damp shirt; it was still driving her crazy how it stuck damply to his beautiful brown nipples. It was about as sexy as him being naked or, strangely, even more so. “Are you taking that shirt off? I can still dry it for you.”
He whipped it off, and it gave her something to do as she hooked it on a high kitchen cabinet close to the oven heat. “So that’s how you get men naked,” he roughly teased.
“Of course. I make it rain, then I strip them.” She smoothed her hands down the sleeves to unwrinkle them.
“What do you do after you strip them?”
She stopped fussing over his shirt and realized he was coming closer. His smile was overtly sexual, his dark eyes glimmering in liquid mischief. “Do you kiss them?”
“Maybe,” she said and slid past him to go back around the kitchen island. There was something very predatory in his eyes, and she began backing away more quickly as her heart kicked wildly in her rib cage.
“Do