Slow Burn: Seducing Mr. Right / Take Me

* * *

WEARING JEANS AND one of his old Pratt Institute sweatshirts, Cat’s five-foot-ten frame was curled up in the big black leather armchair in the corner of the living room when Luke returned.

Thank God she’s dressed, he thought, and thank God she’s tamed that hair. Catherine Anne Harris had the reddest, wildest, most touchable hair he’d ever seen. It had a life of its own.

Seeing her naked in his bed with that electrified mane, like living flame gone berserk, had almost given him a coronary. He wasn’t quite so tempted to bury his hands in it when she had it scraped back in her usual French braid. And if he concentrated very hard for the next three or four hundred years, he might forget how the light had sculpted, in shadows and highlights, the satin sheets on Cat’s naked body. And the sight of one plump, perfect, pale freckled breast. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and sauntered into the living room.

“Hi.” Cat sat up and rubbed sleepy hazel eyes, her cheeks flushed under a generous sprinkling of cinnamon-colored freckles. She pulled her bare feet up and wrapped her arms around her knees. Even her slender toes had cinnamon dots.

There was a short, strained silence. “She seems like a nice woman,” Cat commented, offering a hopeful smile. Luke was caught by the humor in her eyes and the lushness of her wide, soft mouth.

He shook his head. “Not particularly.” He sat on the edge of the coffee table facing her. Thank God she had no inkling how much it cost him to sit this close and not jump her bones.

Cat frowned. “I don’t get it. If you don’t like her, what were you doing sleeping with her?”

“A, I hadn’t slept with her. Yet. B, I like Elizabeth just fine. C, don’t change the subject. Not that you aren’t welcome, Catwoman, but what are you doing here?” he asked mildly.

“I thought you’d gone to New York this week.” She rested her chin on her bent knees. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her you have a warped sense of the ridiculous, but that basically you’re harmless.” About as harmless as dropping a centerfold into a maximum-security prison block.

“I was embarrassed. It was awkward for all of us. I guess I made it worse by trying to joke about it. I’m sorry to have put you in an uncomfortable position, Luke. Really. If you want me to call her—”

“There’s no need, Cat. Don’t worry about it.” Elizabeth had the sensitivity of a newt. Anyone else would have seen Catherine’s embarrassment. “I came home from New York early.”

She wasn’t wearing a bra. He could see her full breasts move gently as she shifted. He frowned. “Don’t distract me, answer the question. What are you doing here?”

Cat yawned, then rubbed the tip of her nose with her palm. “I was in a rut in Oregon. I needed a change, so here I am.”

“You aren’t going to stop day trading, are you?” Luke asked, horrified. Self-taught, Cat had become a market wizard. She enjoyed the challenge of figuring out which stocks were about to go up, and buying and selling them on the same day to immediately profit on the stock’s rise in value. This enabled Cat to multiply her money many times over the course of a day. Plus she’d been able to do it from home, on her own computer, while she took care of his dad. With her canny knowledge of the stock market, and uncanny intuition, she’d made a bundle of money trading stocks for Luke over the years. If it wasn’t for her, he and Nick would never have been able to afford to open their own architectural business so soon. The business was doing well enough to afford them the luxury of owning their own building.

The woman had a mind like a steel trap and the Midas touch. There were several of his dad’s old cronies whose money she’d parlayed into small fortunes, just for the fun of it.

“Don’t worry. I brought my computer. Your future fortune is still safe in my hands.”

“Thank God. You can set up camp at Van Buren and Stratton if you like. There’s a spare office on the second floor you can use.” The thought of being with Catherine Harris 24/7 terrified him. He wondered where he could find large amounts of saltpeter.

“You don’t have to sound so unenthusiastic,” Cat laughed. “No, thank you, it would never work. We all know each other too well. You’re too much of a slob, and Nick and I would goof around and I’d never get any work done. If you don’t mind, I’ll work from here for a while.”

“Sure.” Cat would be here every night when he got home. A curse and a blessing.

“Did I mess up a beautiful relationship?” she asked suddenly.

Luke easily followed the non sequitur. Cat was nothing if not tenacious. “Probably not.”

“Will you see her again?”

“More than likely.”

“She could have given the situation the benefit of the doubt, you know.” Cat nibbled her bottom lip. He wished to hell she wouldn’t do that. “A little sense of humor would have gone a long way.” She sighed gustily. “Okay, it was stupid, and I’m really, really sorry.”

Ah, Cat’s innate sense of honor and fair play. “No harm done. Don’t worry about it.”

“Do you mind if I stay here until I find a place of my own?”

Don’t offer, he thought. Do not, the hell, offer. “No, not at all. I wouldn’t have given you a key if I minded your comings and goings.” He paused, then scowled, alarmed that his eyes kept dropping to her chest. “I told you when I came home for the funeral that you’d be welcome anytime. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t happy there?”

Cat sighed. “Luke. How old am I?”

“You’re...twenty-three?”

“Try twenty-six, I’ve always been seven years younger than you. How come you never remember?” She shifted back in his chair, clearly uncomfortable under his close scrutiny. She’d always been a prickly little thing. “Life was passing me by. I want to stretch my wings a bit.”

“I know, honey.” He reached out and covered her hand. Cat had nursed his father for the five years preceding his death eight months ago. Luke had frequently envied Cat and his father’s close relationship. Now Luke was all Cat had left. Her flaky mother didn’t count.

She flushed and withdrew her hand. “I didn’t sacrifice anything. We were father and daughter by choice, not chance, and I loved him. Don’t go all big brother on me. It took longer than I thought to get his affairs tied up. I contacted a real estate agent and put the house on the market—” She put up a hand to forestall his usual rhetoric about the estate. “No, Luke, I’m not keeping the house. Besides, my moth—Faith is between husbands at the moment, and she’s been broadly hinting she might like to come ‘home to rest’ for a little while.”

“She’s run out of money.” It wasn’t a question. If Faith was between husbands or lovers, it was a given.

Cat’s smile broke his heart. “That, too.”

He’d like to wring Faith’s beautiful neck. “You should buy a nice condo with the money Dad left you.”

Those expressive tiger eyes of hers darkened. Ah, hell.

“It’s invested. If you don’t want me here,” she said stiffly, slender shoulders hunched, “just say so. I’ll go and stay with Nick.”

Nick. Their mutual friend, partner, fellow architect and ladies’ man? No way. “Does Nick know about this?”

“Not yet.”

At least she’d come to Luke first.

He and Nick had been next-door neighbors, and best friends, when Luke still had a matched set of parents. After the divorce, and his father’s remarriage, Nick and Cat had become friends. Luke wasn’t jealous of their close relationship anymore, but he was inordinately pleased she’d chosen to come to him instead of going to Nick.

“Hey! Mi casa es su casa. Finding an apartment in San Francisco is almost impossible. I was planning to keep the condo for the nights I work late. You might as well live here. In a few months the house should be finished, and I’ll be moving out of the city, anyway. Until then we can figure out who gets the bed and who gets the sofa.”

Her eyes clouded briefly. “Sure?”

He knew this particular insecurity well, and said casually, “Positive. But on one condition. This time unpack and spread out. Last time you came you kept your stuff in your suitcase stuck in the closet for two weeks. If you’re going to live here, live here. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.” Her shoulders relaxed. “The house is that close to being finished, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s coming along great. You can come and help me tomorrow, if you like.” He noticed her sleepy eyes and smiled. “Since you had the bed last, why don’t you finish the night there? I’ll take the sofa. We can work out our sleeping arrangements tomorrow.”

“I’m not sleepy. How about hot chocolate?”

“I don’t have any.”