Millionaire Playboys: Paying the Playboy's Price. Emilie Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ Ten minutes later, after showering and dressing, she followed the smell of freshly-brewed coffee to the kitchen and stopped in her tracks.

      Rex, wearing only jeans riding low on his hips, leaned against the counter clutching a mug and staring into it like it held the elixir of life. His hair was loose and rumpled, and beard stubble shadowed his jaw and upper lip. Long hair should lessen his manly impact, but if anything the soft strands drew attention to the rugged masculinity of his sharply angled jaw, square chin and his broad shoulders. Curls in the same dark shade dusted his powerfully built chest, and Juliana couldn’t prevent her eyes from following the line of hair bisecting his well-defined abs to the button of his jeans.

      “G’morning.” His gravelly, sleep-roughened voice struck a match inside her, setting fire to her nerve endings as if they were fuses. She jerked her eyes upward and met his heavy-lidded gaze. He looked more like the big, bad wolf than ever and she wanted to be gobbled up by her reluctant rebel more with each passing day.

      “Good morning.”

      She’d never spent an entire night in a man’s bed—with or without him—and therefore, she’d never experienced a morning after. Was that why this felt so intimate and awkward? And yet she couldn’t have left the room if she’d wanted to.

      “Coffee?” He angled his head toward the pot on the counter.

      “Please.” Why couldn’t she be one of those women who carried a makeup kit in her purse? She didn’t even carry a comb or brush. She’d had to borrow his. Feeling unkempt and exposed, she dipped her head, swinging her hair over her cheek.

      He filled a mug and passed it to her. “Milk? Sugar?”

      She took it, being careful to avoid touching him. It was too early for that kind of shock to her system. “Just sugar.”

      He gestured toward the sugar bowl. “Help yourself.”

      “Thanks for um…washing my clothes.” With the way her skin tingled, you’d think he’d handled her, not just her panties. The idea of becoming intimate with him was growing on her—almost enough to drown her remaining reservations about her crazy plan to break rules. Her hand shook as she sweetened the dark brew.

      “You’re welcome.” He made no attempt to leave the kitchen. The room seemed to shrink and she had a hard time keeping her eyes off his body. If he’d lived a self-indulgent life before leaving Nashville as the tabloids claimed, then it didn’t show. There wasn’t an ounce of surplus flesh on his muscular torso.

      She dragged her gaze from his pecs to his eyes. “Would you like for me to prepare breakfast?”

      He scrubbed one hand across his nape. “I’m not sure what you’ll find. I’m not a morning person. I usually don’t eat until I go downstairs.”

      “May I search? The girls should eat before we head out. And honestly, there’s not much food in my fridge either. I usually shop on Saturdays. Irma promised to bring lunch and snacks for the girls with her today.”

      “Go ahead.” His assessing gaze slid over her, making her mouth dry and her palms dampen. She was out of her element and knew it. Not for the first time, she wished she had the sexual confidence of some of her coworkers, but the personal relationships in her past hadn’t been the type to instill self-assurance. She opened the refrigerator and the cool air swept her hot cheeks.

      She found eggs and butter in the fridge and then spotted bread on the counter. She located the pancake syrup in a cabinet. “French toast?”

      “That’ll work.” His steady regard unnerved her. She tried to block him out as she mixed the batter, dunked the bread and laid it in the frying pan. What was he looking for?

      He refilled his coffee cup. “You’re not what I expected.”

      Ka-boom. Her heart pounded. She jerked up her chin. “Wh-why’s that?”

      “You dropped fifteen grand without batting an eyelash for lessons you could have bought for a fraction of that cost. I figured you had more money than sense.”

      Ouch. Talk about making a bad first impression…. “And now?”

      “I was wrong.”

      The simple sentence filled her with an idiotic amount of pleasure. “Thank you.”

      “But that doesn’t change the decision I made last night before Kelly showed up.”

      Uh-oh. She didn’t like the sound of that. “Decision?”

      “You need to take your lessons from someone else.”

      The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Why?”

      “Because I’m not looking for a short-term affair and you are.”

      Her lungs seized and mortification burned her face. “I never said that.”

      His mouth tilted in a skeptical slant. “Are you telling me you want to marry me?”

      What! “No.”

      “But you’re not averse to sleeping with me.”

      She gulped and focused intently on flipping the bread before meeting his gaze again. “What makes you think that?”

      “Because you have a box of condoms in your purse.”

      Horrified, Juliana spun back to the stove. She prodded the French toast with the spatula even though it didn’t need her immediate attention. “And how do you know that?”

      “Because your purse was gaping open when I brought your clothes in this morning. The condoms were on top.”

      If she’d ever been more embarrassed, she couldn’t recall the occasion, but she stood her ground. “You have quite an ego if you think they’re for you.”

      Her snippy comment didn’t faze him. Probably because it didn’t come out in nearly as scathing a tone as she’d intended. How could it when he was right?

      “That’s what I thought, too, until I realized you’re not the type of woman who picks up men.”

      “Don’t be so sure,” she blustered.

      “You’re an accountant.”

      “So?”

      “So you like things neat, and you like to be prepared. The CDs in your car are arranged alphabetically. You memorize instruction manuals that most people don’t even bother to read. You fasten your seat belt before putting the key in the ignition, and you check your mirrors three times before changing lanes. I’ll bet you don’t have a risk-taking bone in your body.”

      Boy did he have her pegged, and that annoyed her immensely. “I bought you, didn’t I?”

      “I’m guessing you researched my background before you did, because lady, you sure know a lot about me for someone who’s not a country music fan.”

      Guilty as charged. If he’d noticed that her CDs were in alphabetical order then he’d probably also noticed she liked Broadway tunes. Little did СКАЧАТЬ