Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) by Amy Jo Cousins Page A

pulled over in a loading zone and parked, leaving the engine running.
    When he got out of the car and walked around to her side, she didn’t wait for him. She stepped out onto the sidewalk and shut the door behind her, just in time to be pushed by Spencer up to the edge of a temporary construction fence surrounding the building they’d parked in front of. Scaffolding and blue tarp hid most of the three-story gray-stone building from sight.
    A building like that would go for two million in this neighborhood, she knew, easy.
    His body was a brick wall behind her. He clamped one hand on her shoulder, fingers tight through her winter coat, and with the other forced her chin up until she stared at the building in front on her. His voice vibrated with tension like a tightly twisted rope, two seconds from snapping.
    “I own this building. My office will be on the ground floor, my home on the top two. I’ll have a copy of the deed sent to your office by messenger tomorrow morning.”
    If you’re going to screw up, do it in a big way, she’d always said. Or at least, she’d be saying it from now on.
    When he didn’t continue, only dropped his hand from her chin to rest it on her other shoulder, more gently now, she opened her mouth.
    “My turn to speak?” She tried but couldn’t keep a touch of asperity from her words.
    Unbelievably, she thought he laughed behind her. “I’ve not noticed you waiting for turns so far.”
    She twisted in his grasp until she faced him. Tilting her head back to look him in the eye, she was excruciatingly aware of how close their mouths were. Time to act like a grown-up.
    “I’m sorry. What I said was rude and uncalled for and I knew it wasn’t true when I said it.” Being a grown-up sucked.
    Their faces were close enough that his breath warmed hercheek when he spoke. He’d kept his hands on her as she’d turned, and she found that her own hands rested on his forearms as she looked steadily at him.
    “Then why did you?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. Somehow you just bring out the West Side Story in me.”
    This time he did laugh. His smile revealed a dimple in one sharply planed cheek.
    “Ready to rumble at a moment’s notice?”
    “Something like that.” She looked away. This was crazy. The occasional car hissed past through the slush-covered street, and she was about two seconds from kissing this man she’d only just apologized to for calling a con artist. She looked back. “I really am sorry, Reed.”
    “One of these times, you’re going to call me by my first name,” he said, and then his mouth was on hers and she was glad he hadn’t made her kiss him first. Without a thought, her hands slid up his arms until her gloved fingers pressed fiercely on the back of his neck as her mouth opened to him. She breathed his breath and nipped at his lip and her need poured from her into his kiss.
    The fence swayed a little behind her as they stumbled up against it and a passing car honked at them, but every sensation outside of the kiss came to her as if from miles away. The taste of his mouth, still sweet from dessert. The pressure of his hand locked onto her hip. The storm of this kiss, raging between them, was all she could feel.
    His other hand fisted in her hair, tugging her head deliciously back until her bare throat was exposed to the cold night air and the heat of his lips and tongue skating down the column of her neck. Even with her eyes closed, she could see the stars in the black night above her.
    The shock of ice in her pants had her jerking away from the embrace with a sudden start.
    “Hey, now!”
    Spencer had managed to unbutton her coat and snake hishands inside and up under her shirt, something she hadn’t minded at all at the time. But now, with snow from his gloves and the fence and the world in general sliding south of her waistline, she was considerably less enthusiastic.
    “Ice. Ice in pants,” she said, hopping in a circle and trying to scoop out the