They were just going to look at the city view, he told himself as they walked back down the alley. Nothing else had to happen at his apartment. Nothing was going to happen. He could exercise some self-control—as long as she could.
Chapter Fourteen
Olivia had second and third thoughts on the way to Colton's apartment. The sparks between them had been heating up all night and now she was going to his place alone, ostensibly to see the view, but she couldn't help thinking that neither one of them was as interested in a moonlit view of the Golden Gate Bridge as they were in seeing each other naked.
The thought made her shiver, and she shifted in her seat, crossing her arms in front of her chest. That didn't help because the movement made her breasts tingle. She was a mass of sensual nerves right now, and she needed to get over it.
So she was attracted to Colton? Who wouldn't be? He was good-looking, incredibly fit, sexy as hell, charming and outgoing, and a man's man as well as a woman's man.
What she needed to do was stop thinking about all that was right with him and focus on his flaws. He was a firefighter. That was a check against him. She didn't want to end up in a relationship with a man just like her father.
And aside from that, Colton didn't want her to do her job. In fact, he was only with her to stop her from doing her job, finding the story that could launch her career as a biographer.
Okay, that wasn't completely fair. She'd put the brakes on her investigation as soon as she'd stumbled over that birth certificate.
The memory of that piece of paper gave her another reason not to get involved with Colton. She didn't know who she was anymore. And she couldn't be with him if she didn't know who she was—could she?
She rolled her neck around on her shoulders as her mind continued to shoot off question after question. That was her problem. She thought too much. She over-analyzed everything. She tried to predict possible consequences, and in protecting herself from the potential of any painful or embarrassing moments, she tended to do nothing at all. She was very different from Colton, who was adventurous and brave. She was pretty much an analytical coward, especially when it came to men.
She wanted love. She wanted to be in love. But she didn't know how to get there. She didn't know how to risk her heart. She'd retreated after her father's death.
After losing the most important man in her life, she'd put her heart away and swore not to let anyone close to it again. Until tonight no one had. But Colton was chipping away at her armor.
He might not want love. In fact, she was pretty sure all he wanted was sex. But she wasn't very good at separating the two.
She wanted to throw caution to the wind. She'd been trying to do that all night, but how far could she really go before her cautious brain put the brakes on?
She was about to find out.
Colton pulled into an underground garage, and they took the elevator to the fourth floor of his building.
"We can stop in my apartment and get some wine," he said. "There's a picnic table on the rooftop deck where we can sit."
"Sounds good." She forced herself not to consider whether or not he had another reason for wanting to stop in his apartment. "I'm curious to see where you live," she added.
"It's not impressive," he said with a dry smile. He unlocked the door and waved her inside.
He was right. His place was not at all impressive. In the living room there was a mismatched brown recliner and a black leather sofa behind a round oak coffee table that looked like a wagon wheel. The only thing on the wall was an enormous flat-screen TV. There were no framed pictures, no family photographs, no personal items whatsoever.
"Well," she murmured, hands on her hips. "Did you just move in, Colton?"
"A few months ago."
She raised an eyebrow. "Too busy to hang pictures?"
"Too busy to buy any. I haven't had much time to spruce up the place, and I pretty much just sleep here."
"And watch television."
"I do like to watch sports on the big screen."
"Don't you have a couple of sisters in that big family of yours who'd be willing to help you decorate?"
"No doubt, but I prefer to keep my sisters out of my life as much as possible. With their help usually comes unwanted advice. I'm going to grab some wine out of the kitchen. Feel free to look around, not that there's much to see."
What she saw were the signs of a man who didn't care much about material things and wasn't at all self-conscious about his living conditions. She didn't know whether that was confidence or plain old laziness. Not that the place was sloppy. It was in fact pretty neat; it was just sparse.
She really shouldn't be criticizing, though. She wasn't much of a decorator either, but she had taken time to put some art on her walls and buy furniture that matched.
While Colton was getting the wine, she ventured down the short hallway, poking her head into the small bathroom, which was also neat and fairly clean. All the towels were hung on their racks and the sink looked freshly scrubbed.
Her next stop was Colton's bedroom. Like the living room, the furniture was minimal, just a king-sized bed and one nightstand with a lamp. There was, however, a ten-speed bike along one wall, a set of golf clubs in the corner, and a couple of ten-pound hand weights next to a jump-rope.
"Find anything interesting?" he asked, appearing in the doorway with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other.
"I thought it was interesting that you made your bed."
"I grew up in a big family. We were taught from a young age to pull our weight."
"And I was a spoiled only child who still doesn't like to make her bed. It makes little sense to me considering I'm just going to get back in it."
"Now you've surprised me." He tilted his head, giving her a thoughtful look. "I would have taken you for very organized and neat."
"In my business life I am, and in the kitchen I'm pretty good, but when it comes to the bedroom, I can be a little sloppy."
"I like that," he said with an approving nod. "People who are perfect are boring."
"I am definitely not perfect."
"Neither am I."
And she didn't think he was boring, either. In fact, standing here alone in his bedroom was raising the heat level between them, and she was very conscious of how close the bed was, and how much she really wanted to mess up those neat sheets and covers.
Colton's smile faded as he stared at her, and she had the crazy idea he could actually read her mind. Or maybe his mind was just on the same track.
She cleared her throat. "We should go up to the roof. See that view you were bragging about."
"Yes, let's do that." He turned and walked out of the bedroom with a brisk stride.
She wasn't quite sure how she felt about his easy acquiescence. Maybe he hadn't been thinking about taking her to bed. Maybe the attraction was all on her side.
No, that wasn't possible. She wasn't that much of an idiot. She knew when a man was attracted to her. But for whatever reason, Colton was not acting on that attraction, and she needed to follow his lead.
She followed him out of the apartment and up the stairs to the roof. Colton flipped on a light, illuminating the deck.
She was surprised to find the view just as awesome as he'd suggested. She moved quickly to the waist-high railing that ran around the flat roof and gazed out at the lights of the city and the Golden Gate Bridge. Colton's apartment building was on a hill, and she could catch glimpses of different parts of the city from every direction.
Colton set the bottle and glasses down on a nearby picnic table, and while he was opening the wine with the corkscrew he pulled out of his pocket, he said, "So, was I lying?"
"No, you weren't even exaggerating."
"I told you it would be worth the trip." He poured her a glass of wine and handed it to her. Then he poured himself a glass. "I know this isn't a New York view, but it's not bad, right?"
"It's beautiful. I feel like all my problems are way down there."
"That's how I feel when I come up here." He raised his glass. "A toast, I think."
"What shall we drink to?"
He thought for a moment, then said, "Let's drink to Molly."
She hesitated, his words bringing her problems up to the deck. "Really?"
"She is the reason you're here. And I'm glad you're here, Olivia."
"You didn't feel that way earlier today."
"A lot has changed since then."
He wasn't kidding about that. "It's strange. I feel like I've known you for years, Colton, but I just met you yesterday."
His gaze met hers. "Sometimes you have a connection with someone that happens instantly."
She shivered at the husky note in his voice, the gleam of desire in his dark blue eyes and the five o'clock shadow that darkened his jaw. "Yeah, I know what you mean," she murmured.
"I've changed my mind," he said. "I don't want to drink to Molly; I want to drink to you." He clicked his glass against hers. "Cheers."
"Cheers." She lifted her glass to her lips and took a sip. "Nice."
He nodded. "My brother Aiden's friend is a winemaker in the Napa Valley. He makes a good merlot."
"He does." She turned away from Colton, because her pulse was racing a little too fast. She moved back to the rail and set her glass on the ledge.
Colton came beside her and did the same thing. Then he turned and put his hands on her hips.
Her heart jumped in her chest at the purposeful look in his eyes. "What—what are you doing?"
"I can't wait any longer," he said, lowering his mouth to hers.
He wasn't asking for permission, nor was he giving her time to answer or to move away. He was going to kiss her, and she couldn't wait. She parted her lips as his mouth came down on hers.
The heat flowed between them with the first brief pass, firing up as he settled in for a longer ride, his tongue pushing past her lips, sliding inside in a delicious kiss. She could taste the wine on his tongue, the black cherry, the currants, and with that taste came a heady, dizzying spin of desire.
She put her arms around his waist, moving in closer, wanting to give as well as to take. She'd never had such an incredibly perfect kiss, and she wanted to keep it going as long as possible.
Eventually they had to breathe.
Colton lifted his head, his hands dropping from her waist as he took a step back. The heat of their breath mixed with the cool night air, surrounding them with whirling whispers of lingering passion. He looked at her for a long time, and she had no power to drag her gaze away from his. She could see the hunger in his eyes, but she couldn't read the other emotions, and there seemed to be a lot of them.
"That was—nice," he said.
She nodded, thinking
nice
was a huge understatement for what had been a fairly spectacular kiss, at least in her experience.
"I've been wanting to do that since I met you, Olivia."
"I don't think that's true. I hurt your hand when I ran into you at the senior center."
"Okay, about five minutes after that then."
"No, you wanted me to go away. You can't rewrite history, Colton."
"I wanted you to go away, because I instinctively knew you were going to be dangerous."
"To your grandmother?"
"To me."
She drew in a breath as she shook her head. "I'm not quite sure where you're going with all this."
"I'm not going anywhere. We're just living in the moment, remember?"
"I remember," she said, wishing the last moment was still going on. But with the space between them had come a return to sanity. She didn't want to start something with Colton that she couldn't finish, and she was only going to be in San Francisco for a few days. The last thing she wanted to do was go back to New York with a broken heart. While a kiss wasn't going to break her heart, she had a feeling anything more might, because she liked Colton way too much.
She picked up her glass of wine, took a sip and then moved away from the rail to sit down at the picnic table.
Colton joined her a moment later, sitting across from her.
"Is this better?" he asked with a teasing smile. "A nice big table between us."
She smiled back. "I wouldn't say better, but maybe safer. I can't start anything with you, Colton. It would be stupid."
"We've already started, Olivia."
"Let's talk about something else then."
"Whatever you want."
She thought about his open invitation and realized she had no idea what she wanted to talk about—certainly not Molly or the Harpers or his grandmother. She would leave those topics for tomorrow. "Tell me about your siblings. Start at the top and work your way down."
"Really? I'm going to put you to sleep."
"I doubt that. If they're anything like you, I suspect they all lead interesting lives."
"All right, if you insist. I told you about Burke already. He's a firefighter, overachiever from when he was a small child. He was top of his class, valedictorian, star athlete, class president; he set the bar really high."
"He must have some flaws."
"He can be moody and judgmental, but I suspect that's because he has the same high expectations for everyone else that he has for himself." Colton paused. "He's also very private. I don't really know if anyone in the family knows him very well anymore. He and Aiden used to be closer when they were younger, but they had a lot of conflict and competition between them. And Burke changed after his fiancé died."
"When did that happen?"
"Several years ago. She died in a car accident; her vehicle was smashed by a drunk driver." His lips tightened. "Burke was working that night. It didn't happen very far from the station."
"Oh, no," she said, her stomach turning over. "He didn't—"
"Yeah, he was first at the scene."
"My God! Was she already—"
"I'm not completely sure if she died in his arms or on the way to the hospital. I never wanted to ask. But it was rough. He was in bad shape for a while. He's the kind of person who doesn't accept help from anyone. The family, of course, tried to support him, but he pushed just about everyone away. Since then he's started to reconnect, but there always seems to be a part of himself that he holds back."