"Do you ever actually work?"
"It's the beauty of working for yourself. You get to dictate your own hours."
"Yes, I get that bit." She tried her best to sidle past him without him reaching out to tickle her ribs. She failed, so continued on a giggle. "But you still have to do some writing."
Lucas smiled at her contortions to avoid him while she made dinner. "I work when I leave here."
"Really? Too what time?"
He shrugged. "Three or four."
"In the morning?" Her eyes widened in surprise. "Aren't you exhausted?"
The truth was that he was exhausted. But another truth was that he didn't want to be away from her for long. It seemed as if his need for her company was greater than his need for sleep. Quite possibly born of the fear that too much time away from her would give her too much time to think. And he knew where that might lead….
"I'm fine."
Turning her back to the counter top, she tilted her head and searched his face. "You'll drop if you keep going at this pace."
The smile was slow, and seeped with meaning. "Oh, I have plenty of stamina. Don't you worry"
Her laughter was musical.
He let his gaze wander from the top of her shinning dark crown of hair, down over her arched brows and from dimple to dimple until it rested on her mouth. When he spoke his voice was husky, and not just from lack of sleep. "I'm serious."
"So you say."
His eyes jerked back to meet hers. She was flirting with him again. Out and out, plain as the sparkle in her eyes, flirting. And suddenly he wasn't at all tired.
With a minuscule step forward he had her body pinned back against the counter. Then he moved his arms so that his palms were flat on the cool granite either side of her.
She let out a small gasp, but another quick search of her eyes told him it wasn't a gasp of fear. Uh-uh.
Her pupils were large and dark, her breasts rising and failing against his chest. She was turned on.
"When did you say Haley and Nate were coming to get the kids?"
Brooke's answer was breathless. "Day after tomorrow."
He nodded, his eyes moving over her face again as he tilted his head closer. 'I guess we'll have to do with more of the other kind of intimacy stuff 'til then."
There was more? Brooke wasn't sure she could take much more. She watched with wide eyes as he brought his head closer, his mouth wavering over hers.
But when she tried to meet him halfway he tilted he head away with a sensual smile.
"Uh-uh." He kept his mouth a mere inch from her skin as he moved his head to the neck she dutifully arched from him with a sigh. "My rules."
It was agony of the sweetest kind. And if this was what other people had together, then Brooke could understand why they would try for a relationship longer lasting than a few months.
His breath fanned over the sensitive never-endings below her ear. "You smell good."
Damn, but so did he. Up close, the scent of him was one of soap and faint muck. So male, so very individually him. It made its way from her nose directly to her abdomen. And she felt the spiralling grow and spread wide. Wow.
She cleared her throat. "It's Lilly of the Valley."
Again his breath tingled against her skin, this time closer to where her neck curved into the hollow of her collarbone. "Would that be perfume or…"his head lifted so that he could look into her eyes, his mouth hovering over hers again. "….body lotion?"
Who'd have thought the words 'body lotion' could take on a sexual meaning? If this is his idea of intimacy lessons without, well, the more obvious intimacy, then she was in bug, big trouble.
He pushed his hips I against the cradle of her stomach. And growled a very low groan as he moved his mouth past her ear.
Brooke blew out a small breath of the air she'd been holding in her lungs.
"I want you." Again his head tilted, this time to the other side of her neck.
Oh, damn. She wanted him too. She felt her heavy head droop back as his breath worked its way up towards her ear again, where it tickled as he whispered, "to come away with me this weekend."
She froze.
"What did you just say?"
Either he ignored the change in her, or he was so wrapped up in what he was doing that he hadn't noticed. Either way, he continued his assault on her neck. "A friend of mine from collage is getting married, this weekend."
Trying her best to ignore the distraction of his mouth so tantalisingly close to her skin. Brooke focused her efforts on staying calm. He couldn't be serious.
"You can't be serious."
Lucas stilled, his breath still brushing over her neck and returning her scent to him. But his voice changed, became less of a whisper. "Is that a problem?"
How could he not see that it was? They were still on scarily new ground for her. And although she had slipped into the role of 'intimacy' with him fairly smoothly, he had to know that it was way too early for her to be doing couple-y things with him. Especially a weeding.
"Lucas…"
"Don't." His head came back into a position where he could look her in the face. "Don't go taking a step backwards here. It's just a wedding. It's not like you haven't been my date to a wedding before. Plus you love weddings."
She searched for her security button. But he was wearing a T-shirt as dark a blue as his eyes, so there was no escape there. Reluctantly she looked back up at him.
"Don't you think it's a big step?"
"Brooke, I've known you longer then the groom who wedding we will be attending. I hardly think this is rushing things, but if you want we can go as 'just friends'." He took a breath, and jumped in. "But I'd really like it if we went as a couple."
They were a couple in his mind? Her heart beat a loud rhythm while she started at him. And if they weren't a couple, then what were they? They were certainly behaving the way a couple would, and when they had collected the children from Karen she had immediately invited them to dinner. As a couple. So it had to be the way other people way starting to see them.
It was the first step to a commitment, and Brooke knew that. Knew it as much because of the attachment she already felt to him as by the way it looked to outsiders.
But a wedding? That would present them as a couple without question. Did he want that so soon?
With shock she realised she wanted him to want it. And she had to question again how she could feel so quick an about-face after years of vowing to walk alone.
"I just don't know…"
He stepped back from her. "Fine. Don't worry about it. It was just an idea."
And now she'd hurt him. Maybe even given him the impression that what was happening wasn't all that important to her. Which in turn hurt her – because it was that important. She laid hand on his broad chest as he lifted his hands from the counter. "No. if you really want me to go, I'll go."
It was a big thing for her to do, and Lucas knew it. The fact that she would take such a big step for him touched him. Gave him more hope to hang onto. This was closer to the Brooke he remembered of old – the one who stepped forward bravely even when she was concerned or worried. And the fact that she was prepared to do this for him, to try something difficult out of respect for what he wanted.
Pinning what she hoped was a convincing smile on her face, she stepped forward and circled his neck with her arms. "I'll go."
Lucas let out a breath against her hair. "Good."