Marjorie made a face and removed the real estate inserts from both papers. “Have you found Derek McCabe a house yet?”
Grateful for the change of subject, Eve gave her the details.
Her mom blinked. “I thought he was in the market for an eight-million-dollar home!”
Eve knew a transaction of that magnitude would have likely given them a solid lead in the annual sales race. Refusing to feel guilty for doing what was right for her client, however, she explained, “He decided he wanted something much smaller in scope and more baby-friendly. The good news is he’s very happy.”
Or at least he had been the night before. Eve still had the feeling it was all happening a little too fast for comfort.
Her sense of foreboding increased the next day.
She had been given permission to get contractors in to look at the property in advance of the closing, and she went to the house to let them in. By the time they’d finished, Derek had arrived. The kitchen and bath designer, plumber, electrician, flooring rep and painters all conferred with him, and promised to have formal estimates for him the following morning.
Bad news relayed, they filed out, one by one.
Leaving Derek and Eve alone.
“So what do you think?” she asked, looking around at the empty house. The heating and ventilation system was out of commission, so the interior was chilly and dank. A light rain was falling, and on this gloomy December day the house seemed even more in need of tender loving care. “Feel overwhelmed yet?”
Derek shook his head. “Excited.”
Glad to see he hadn’t changed his mind about his spur-of-the-moment decision, because deep down she sensed that this was indeed the perfect home for him, she allowed herself to tease, “And here you thought you weren’t the fixer-upper type.”
He gave her a leisurely once-over. “Sometimes it’s necessary to get business out of the way. So you can move on to more important things.”
Puzzled, Eve tilted her head. “Like what?”
The look he gave her was direct, uncompromising, confident. “Asking you out.”
For a second, she was certain she hadn’t heard right. The sparkle in his eyes told her that she had. Her pulse pounding, Eve worked to get air into her lungs. “On a date?” she asked hoarsely.
His sexy smile widening, he inched closer. “That was the general idea,” he said.
Eve pressed her palm to her chest, trying to tamp down the immediate spark of excitement she felt. “I’m flattered.”
Derek sobered. “I don’t want you to be flattered,” he told her huskily. He took her in his arms and pulled her flush against him. “I want you to say yes.”
Chapter Four
Yes was what Eve wanted, too. Even if she would have preferred not to admit it. Before she could stop herself, before she could think of all the reasons why not, she let Derek pull her closer still. His head dipped. Her breath caught, and her eyes closed. And then all was lost in the first luscious feeling of his lips lightly pressed against hers.
It was a cautious kiss. A gentle kiss that didn’t stay gallant for long. At her first quiver of sensation, he flattened his hands over her spine and deepened the kiss, seducing her with the heat of his mouth and the sheer masculinity of his tall, strong body. Yearning swept through her in great enervating waves. Unable to help herself, Eve went up on tiptoe, leaning into his embrace. Throwing caution to the wind, she wreathed her arms about his neck and kissed him back. Not tentatively, not sweetly, but with all the hunger and need she felt. And to her wonder and delight, he kissed her back in kind, again and again and again.
Derek had only meant to show Eve they had chemistry. Amazing chemistry that would convince her to go out with him, at least once. He hadn’t expected to feel tenderness well inside him, even as his body went hard with desire. He hadn’t expected to want to make love to her here and now, in this empty house. But sensing that total surrender would be a mistake, he tamped down his own desire and let the kiss come to a slow, gradual end.
Eve stepped backward, too, a mixture of surprise and pleasure on her face. Her breasts were rising and falling quickly, and her lips were moist. Amazement at the potency of their attraction, and something else a lot more cautious, appeared in her eyes. Eve drew a breath, and then anger flashed. “That was a mistake.”
Derek understood her need to play down what had just happened, even as he saw no reason to pretend they hadn’t enjoyed themselves immensely. “Not in my book,” he murmured, still feeling a little off balance himself. In fact, he was ready for a whole lot more.
She held up a finger and shook it. Composed again, she stalked away from him, her high heels echoing on the wood floor. When she swung around to face him, he could tell her every defense was in place. “What you’re feeling right now is all related to the roller-coaster emotions of buying a new home. One minute you’re up, the next you’re down. The euphoria you just felt is going to be very short-lived.”
Like hell it was! He was adult enough to know the difference between being excited about purchasing a home, and wanting to make a woman his. And so was she. He rocked back on his heels, braced his hands on his waist and sent her an impudent grin. “You’re telling me you’ve been kissed by clients at the end of a deal before?”
“Yes,” Eve said. She looked him in the eye, long and hard. “I have.”
* * *
HER MATTER-OF-FACT confession had served its purpose. First, Derek looked shell-shocked, then skeptical, and finally, as she had hoped, blatantly unhappy. He stepped closer, as if that would change anything. “You’re kidding,” he exclaimed in a low, raspy voice that practically oozed testosterone.
Eve struggled not to get swept up in the moment or the man, as embarrassment warmed her cheeks. “I wish.”
He shifted forward, invading her space. “How many times?”
With effort, she kept her gaze locked with his. Determined to handle a situation that was fast escalating out of control, she replied, “Including you?”
He nodded.
“Twice.”
Derek looked at her as if he already knew what it would be like to make love to her. “There must be more to the story,” he said.
Since the last thing she needed to be doing was thinking about kissing him again, or worse, imagining what it would be like to make love with him, Eve lifted her chin and drew a deep, calming breath. Refusing to fixate on the fact that everywhere he was hard, she would be soft, or that everywhere he was male, she’d be female, she challenged, “Really. What makes you think that?”
Regarding her with a devil-may-care glint in his eyes, he pointed out, “You’re not the kind of woman who lets her guard down easily.”
That was certainly true. Although she wished he had not intuited the fact.
“So what happened, the other time?” Derek continued, a tad impatiently.
Eve shrugged and kept her voice matter-of-fact. “I was fresh out of real estate school. Ryan was a classmate of mine, from Southern Methodist University. He had just come into his trust fund and wanted to buy a bachelor pad in Deep Elum. It wasn’t my area of expertise, but the commission was going to be great if I could find what he wanted. Ryan, of course, had no idea what that was, so we had to do quite a lot of looking together.” Eve paused, recalling how naive and hopelessly romantic she had been at the time.
Working to keep the disillusionment out of her tone, she admitted, “One thing led to another, and by the time Ryan closed on his new