She felt strange a few minutes later as she backed out of the driveway. It was odd, not having Brendan and Jenny with her. Yet she didn’t feel lonely, necessarily. She felt…excited.
She shivered uncontrollably. The temperature had plummeted and the car heater seemed to be having no effect. It wasn’t until she turned left, not right, on Travertine Drive and drove west—in the opposite direction of her house—that she realized she wasn’t trembling from cold, but from anxiety.
And excitement.
It took Eric only seconds to answer her knock, but it felt like tortuous minutes to Colleen. The entryway light switched on and the door opened. She froze when she met his gaze through the outer glass door pane. He was wearing only a pair of black sweatpants. A towel hung around his neck. He was swiping one end of it across the damp hair at his nape, a slightly puzzled look on his face.
His expression stiffened when he saw her standing on his front stoop. Her gaze swept down over his naked torso. Moisture gleamed on taut, olive-toned skin.
He dropped the towel and whipped open the door.
“I’m sorry. You were in the shower. I should have called—”
Her apology was cut off short when he reached for her elbow and drew her into the house. The sound of the door shutting behind her sounded like a gunshot in Colleen’s oversensitive ears.
“You’re shivering,” he murmured, chafing her back and upper arms. “It’s freezing out there.” He backed up and started to unfasten her coat. “Come on inside. I’ll start a fire.”
She laughed. He paused and glanced up at her face, the ends of her belt in his hands.
“What’s funny?” he wondered aloud.
She shook her head as if to clear it. “You didn’t even ask me what I was doing here.”
He resumed unfastening her coat. Colleen tried to ignore the feeling of his long fingers moving down her chest and belly, working the buttons through the holes, but it was difficult. “I guess I was too busy being happy to see you to question why you were.” He glanced toward the door as if something had just occurred to him. “Where are the kids?”
“On the way to Chicago.”
He froze in the process of peeling back both sides of her coat.
“They left tonight?” he asked, clearly stunned.
Colleen nodded.
“I thought they’d leave tomorrow,” Eric said.
“They always leave after dinner. The kids usually fall asleep in the car. That way, they have the whole day tomorrow to goof off in the city. There’s a pancake place they always have to go to for breakfast, and Marc has tickets to a basketball game tomorrow—”
He interrupted her breathless rambling.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, his manner fleetingly reminding her of how he might respond to a scattered parent who’d forgotten to tell him something crucial about his patient in the emergency room.
“I tried to,” she said defensively, giving him a pointed glare. “But you ran out of the house so fast, I didn’t get a chance.”
He released her coat like the material had burned him. “Why are you here?”
Not only his questions, but the blazing look in his dark eyes seemed to shine a blinding spotlight on her. She averted her gaze. Looking at him seemed to make her heart beat even more uncomfortably in her ears.
She dug deep for courage and slipped off her coat, hanging it on an antique armoire with hooks affixed alongside the mirror. She smoothed her skirt and shifted her feet, studying him through lowered lashes. “I just came to a decision, that’s all.”
“A decision,” he said deadpan, his eyes narrowed on her, his nostrils slightly flared.
“Yes,” she said with false cheerfulness. “And I really couldn’t have told you earlier, because I technically just decided on my way over to your house.”
“Are we talking about the decision…the rational decision?”
“That would be the one. Although…” She gulped as she met his stare. “I think we both have come to the conclusion that there isn’t much rational—” she waved her finger between their bodies “—about this.”
Her cheeks heated at his slow smile. He stepped toward her and leaned down. Her face was only inches away from his bare chest. His nipples were dark brown—small and erect from the chill of the outdoor temperature on his damp skin. When she inhaled, she smelled soap and felt a tingle of warmth on her lips.