Her bravado slipped a little. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
“I guess we will.”
She took her chin out of his hand and strutted up the walkway, which was just playing dirty. The clingy green material of her dress stretched and shifted over her ass, immediately making him question whether being a gentleman was overrated.
Yeah, he wanted to take her to bed more than he could remember wanting anything. Every muscle in his body was strung tight at the sight of her gorgeous legs in the darkness outside his front door. But he couldn’t shake the intuition that going too fast with Piper would be a mistake. Maybe she even wanted him to give in, just so she could put him in a box labeled Fling.
Worst part of it was . . . maybe he was only fling material for her. Tonight, she looked more suited to gliding around a Hollywood mansion than eating a homemade meal at his bachelor pad. He might be delusional trying to shoot his shot. If she was determined to go back to LA, there was no way he could stop her. But something inside him, some intuition, wouldn’t allow him to give Piper anything but his best effort.
Brendan unlocked the door, flipped on the lights, and turned to watch her reaction. She’d be able to see most of it at first glance. The downstairs was an open concept, with the living room on the right, kitchen and dining room on the left. It wasn’t full of knickknacks or cluttered with pictures. Everything was simple, modern, but what furniture he did have was handmade locally with driftwood—and he liked that. Liked that his home was a representation of what the people of his town could do with wood from the ocean.
“Oh.” She let out a rush of breath, a dimple popping up in her cheek. “Brendan . . . you set the table already.”
“Yeah.” Remembering his manners, he went to the kitchen and took the bottle of champagne out of the fridge. She came to stand by the dining table, seeming a little dumbfounded as she watched him pop the cork and pour. “You’ll have to tell me if this is any good. They only had two kinds at the liquor store, and the other one came in a can.”
She laughed, set her purse down, and removed the sweater in a slow, sensual movement that nearly caused his composure to falter. “Why don’t you have some with me?”
“I drink beer. No champagne.”
Piper edged a hip up onto the table, and he almost overflowed the glass. “I bet I’ll convince you to have some by the end of the night.”
Jesus, she probably could convince him to do a lot of things if she put her mind to it, but he reckoned he should keep that to himself. He handed her the champagne flute he’d purchased that very afternoon, watched her take a sip, and the memory of their kiss rolled through him hard.
“It’s fantastic,” she said with a sigh.
Relief settled in next to need. He ignored the latter. For now. “Just going to put the fish in the oven, then I want to show you something.”
“Okay.”
Brendan opened the fridge and took out the foil-covered baking dish. He’d already prepared the sole, drizzled it with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. In Westport, you learned young how to make a fish dinner, even if you never honed another skill in the kitchen. It was necessary, and he thanked God for that knowledge now. As he turned on the oven and slid in the dish, he decided his kitchen would forever look boring without Piper standing in it. She was something out of another world, posed to seduce with her killer body angled just right, elbow on hip, wrist lazily swirling her champagne.
“Come on.” Before he could give in to temptation and lift her onto the table, forget about dinner altogether, he snagged her free hand, guiding her through the living room toward the back of the house. He slapped on the light leading to his back patio and opened the door, gesturing for her to precede him. “Thought I’d show you what’s possible with the outdoor space at the bar, if you wanted to add some greenery.” It occurred to him then that maybe gardening wasn’t exactly a sexy trait for a man to have. “I just needed something to do on my days off—”
Her gasp cut him off. “Wow. Oh my God, Brendan. It’s magical out here.” She walked through the roughly cut stone pathway, somehow not tripping in her heels. The ferns, which he really needed to get around to trimming, grazed her hips as she passed. The trickling sound from the stone water feature seemed to be calling her, and she stopped in front of it, trailing a finger along the surface. There was a single wrought-iron chair angled in the corner where he sat sometimes with a beer after a long trip, trying to get his equilibrium back. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a gardener, but now I can see it. You love your roots.” She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “You’ve got everything carved out just the way you like it.”