“Right, of course. That happens on this street a lot too.” She chortled. Mostly at his expense.
Of all the different facets to Abby’s personality, Connor decided he liked the feisty one the best. “Don’t laugh. You’d be surprised what lengths some women will go to seduce a man they’ve build up in their heads.”
She leaned over and butted his shoulder with her own. “Oh, don’t get all modest on me now. We both know you live up to every expectation these women have of you.”
His smiled faded and he turned to face her fully. “Don’t.”
Startled, she looked up at him. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t go thinking I’m someone I’m not.”
Studying him carefully, she replied as if she were teaching something so obvious to a five year old, “I won’t if you won’t. Sounds to me like you think a lot less of yourself than you should.”
It was a compliment wrapped in a slap upside his head, and it had him actually wanting to be that man she seemed to see. Of course, figuring out how such a man would respond to her shut-up-and-accept-it admiration of him, however, had him stumped. Normally, this type of situation would call for a reply in the pulling off her clothes variety.
She cleared her throat, probably to bring his eyes back up from her bare shoulder. How the woman managed to look so sexy in a huge beat-up men’s shirt was beyond him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you just said.”
Her look told him she
knew
he was anything but sorry. “I asked why you were so convinced I was a gold-digger. You’re a handsome guy, couldn’t a half-naked woman on your porch step just be after you for sex? The uniform would suggest so.”
He shrugged. “Most of the ones who’ve shown up have been. But if I were broke off my ass, they wouldn’t have been standing at my door to begin with.”
“Point taken.” She chewed thoughtfully. “So you’re saying the only women who you deign to let in your home are the ones who aren’t interested in your money at all?”
“If I did, I’d have to take a vow of celibacy,” he replied honestly. “It’s a catch-22. Typically, the women not interested in my money are also not interested in a one-month arrangement.”
“Ah yes, the infamous one-month Connor Sullivan rule. Brian’s told me about it. I bet that’s another factor for some of these women who throw themselves at you—trying to become the white unicorn who you one day break your rule over.”
His jaw firmed. “Never going to happen.”
The corner of her lips quirked up. “Don’t worry, stud. I’m not submitting an application or anything.”
Now why did that declaration fill him with a touch of disappointment?
“Enough about me,” he said gruffly. “Tell me more about you. Something besides your research.”
She laughed. “Well that narrows it way down. Now that I’m in my final year of my PhD program and done with all my coursework, my dissertation is the only big thing in my life right now. Other than that, there’s really not much to tell.”
“What about work? Don’t you tutor at Skylar’s school?”
“Oh, I do that as a volunteer. A couple of afternoons a week for the kids that are struggling.”
How noble. He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d met whose idea of volunteering wasn’t strictly confined to sitting on executive boards and planning fundraising events. “I could’ve sworn Brian told me you teach English.”
“I do. I teach English at ASU as a part of my fellowship. I get my tuition covered and get paid a lecturer’s salary, which isn’t much. Thankfully, one of my professors offered to rent out this guesthouse to me—living here costs less than I used to pay for my apartment in Tempe two years ago, and I basically get the entire back half of their ginormous lot all to myself.”
Connor leaned back, stuffed, surprised at how easy it was to talk with Abby. “Doesn’t sound like you have that much time for yourself. What do you do for fun?”
She got up to grab them another two beers from the kitchen. “Honestly, I’m a homebody. Never got into the nightlife scene here. By the time I was twenty-one, I was basically babysitting Skylar every weekend, and half my weeknights. Since that pretty much carried on clear until last year, I guess my idea of fun is hanging out with her. Lame, I know.”
He felt like he was talking to a martian. He hadn’t realized she’d spent even more time babysitting Skylar than he had. And he knew for a fact—from Brian’s complaints about it—that she hadn’t taken a single cent from them for babysitting.
For God’s sakes, she was just so
nice
.
“So you don’t do
anything
just for yourself? Just for fun?”
“Well, I have been privately executing my mission to learn how to cook the most beloved dishes from every country in the world,” she returned with a smile. “That’s fun.”
It was possible baby bluebirds helped her get dressed in the morning.
She was just that sweet.
“You’re driving me crazy.” He swept an arm around her waist and lifted her right up onto his lap.
“Connor!”
He slid a hand into her hair, rubbed a thumb over her heated cheekbone as he brought his lips to within inches of hers. “I shouldn’t want you this much. You’re everything I’m not, and I’m everything you couldn’t possibly want. I know I should leave you alone, but I just can’t. I can’t stop myself from wanting you.”
Her breathing had grown so erratic, he was actually starting to get concerned. “Say something, sweetheart. I’m baring my soul here.”
“I shouldn’t want you either,” she whispered, “but I do.”
His arms locked around her, instinctively staking a claim on her.
Mine.
For now.
The two words were his only two anchors keeping him in the reality he’d created for himself. He had to be brutally honest with her, with them both. “I meant what I said earlier, Abby. I’m never going to break my one-month rule.” Feeling like the lowest piece of scum, he hammered that last nail in, “Not for anyone. Not even you.”
She was silent for a long while, and Connor started preparing himself for the rejection to come.
“I know our fifteen minutes of friendship are up, but can I ask you something as a friend? Will you answer me as one?”
He tensed. “I’ll try.”
She chuckled. “Again with the copout.” Raising her warm doe eyes up to his, she asked quietly, “If you weren’t trying to get in my pants. If you were just my friend and I asked you what one thing I could do to stop being ‘a nice girl’ for just a little while. What advice would you give me?”
That was easy. “I’d tell you to try something new. Something that excites you. Something that’ll take you from zero to sixty just as fast as it could take you back to zero whenever you were ready to return.”
“Something wild and fast.” She loosened her death grip on his shoulders, slid her hands down his back slowly. “That’s good advice.”
He saw her gaze travel down to his lips and it took everything he had not to kiss her right then and there.
“Are you volunteering, Connor? To be that something wild and fast for me to try?”
“No,” he replied raggedly, breathing in her scent. “I’m insisting. Requiring.” He dropped his forehead against hers. “Asking.”
Her eyelids dipped down, veiling her reaction from him.
And so he waited.
“I can’t do a whole month with you.”
He blinked in surprise. That, he hadn’t been expecting. No one had ever asked him for
less
time with him before. ‘Why not?” he demanded.
“It’s too long.”
Well, he did ask.
A touch indignant, he argued, “You said you don’t do one night stands. Now you’re saying a month is too long?” He knew he was getting overly worked up but he couldn’t help it, she was being irrational. His brain started firing on all pistons, every cell in his body taking a front seat like they did when he was about to do battle in the courtroom. “Or is it just one month with
me
that’s too long?”
She flinched.
He felt thoroughly insulted.
“It’s not how you’re making it. Being with you would be like…ice cream. The most decadent ice cream I could ever imagine. I’d be hooked after the first bite. And if I didn’t discipline myself, I’d overindulge.”
“Until it made you sick?” He wasn’t really good with metaphors.
A smiled peeked through. “No, until it was all I’d want to eat, all day, every day.”
What the hell was wrong with that?
Her smile broadened. “There’s
everything
wrong with that,” she continued, somehow reading his mind. “One month will take me right up to the third week of teaching for me, which is generally when my life starts getting busy. That means this month is my only time to really focus on getting a huge chunk of my dissertation written.”
“And if you overindulge on the ice cream…”
“I’d be in a sugar coma, incapable of doing or thinking of anything else.”
Call him a bastard but hearing that felt good. “Fine, I can respect that. How about this? What if I promise to leave you alone all day, every day throughout the week, and only send you into mini ice cream comas at night…as a build-up to one massive, no holds barred night to overindulge until we’re both too weak to move? Would that work for you?”
Hot, slick desire exploded in her expression.
His fingers flexed against her hips in response.
“Stand down, counselor. You made your point.”
If she agreed to this arrangement, he fully intended to have her bring this legal speak into the bedroom—coming from Abby’s lips it was the equivalent of dirty talk.
“How about we reach a compromise?” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Two weeks.”
Two weeks? She was
negotiating?
He didn’t like it. Not one bit. “Half? You’re only willing to give me half?” Geez, he was doing a remarkable impression of a screech-fest he’d heard in the firm’s conference room the other day.
“What’s the big deal?” Now she looked genuinely mystified. “The one month is your
maximum
time period, isn’t it? What’s wrong with two weeks?”
Technically, nothing. In reality, everything. Though he wasn’t quite sure why. As he mulled it over, he supposed he could temporarily agree to two weeks and then appeal for an extension…
Why the hell was he strategizing this like it was a court case?
“Will there be a possibility for extension?”
She frowned. “Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of these relationship parameters of yours?”
It would, yes. “I’ll make an exception…unless you tell me you have a history of flipping out on the guys you date.”
She winged an eyebrow up. “What if I did?”
Hell, he’d probably date her anyway. What was it about her? “I’ll worry about it if it happens.” He smiled when she did. And then renegotiated—an occupational necessity. “How about we do a month, and lessen it to two weeks if you feel you really want to?”
He could tell she was trying not to grin. “Even if I wanted to agree to that, I couldn’t. I’m heading out of town the day after tomorrow for two weeks.”
Something unsettling pricked his heart. Unease? No, it stung deeper than that. Burned, actually. Whatever it was, he wanted to be rid of it. “You’re going on a trip? I thought you said you were busy.”
“It’s not a trip so much as me going home to stay with my parents for two weeks. My—for lack of a better term—landlords are enclosing the huge patio off this living room to make one extra bedroom. They’re slowly making this guest house bigger since I’ll only be living here until next May, and their son is moving in after I’m gone with his small family.”
“So they’re kicking you out for two weeks? They should be providing you with an alternative place to live. It’s standard for a landlord—”
She shot her hand in the air. “Whoa. Don’t turn into Mr. Bigshot Lawyer. I
offered
to go home to California. Plus, they went out of their way to get a crew that could do the work really quick, specifically in these two weeks to fit my schedule. They even had the builders work out a plan where they all the interior reno work would be completed in the two-week span, and the rest would come afterward, so as not to disrupt my life too much. They really are being great about this. And since all I’m doing is writing for the next few weeks, I can do that in Santa Clara in my old room.”
“But everything you need for research is here.” He was well aware that he was pulling at threads now.
“True. But, the UC schools have an outstanding library system so I don’t think I’ll have too much difficulty accessing things.”
“But you’ll lose half a day flying each way.” Okay,
now
he was reaching rock bottom. He was actually embarrassed for his law school diploma; it was probably getting ready to jump off his office wall.
“I’m not flying, I’m driving. It’s peak travel season and flying over would cost more than I’d care to spend.”
“You can’t be serious? You’re planning on driving all the way to Santa Clara in that hunk of junk out in your driveway?”