Asking, not telling. On the other hand, she’d said “your” and not “our,” so clearly, he still had his work cut out for him.
“Because I thought we should discuss next steps on the diving proposal,” she said, as if they were purely business acquaintances and last night had never happened.
It was all very civilized. He half expected her to whip out a planner and start penciling him in. She obviously wasn’t fighting the same urges he was. To reach out and put his mouth on her neck. To run his fingers down her arm and tug her back into bed with him. Nope. She was all business.
“We need to finalize our sites,” she said. “We should probably coordinate our diving partners, as well, decide which boat we’re going to take—that kind of stuff.”
Going back to bed was apparently off the table. Good to know. “Your plan sounds fine,” he said gruffly.
“Okay, good. We’ll reconvene on Monday.” She gave him a tentative smile.
Monday was two days—and nights—from now.
“Come with me now.” He blurted the words out without thinking. “You know my mother. She does Saturday-morning brunch and there’s always room for one more.”
“Why?” Piper asked.
He ran a hand over his head. “Because you need to eat? And my mother cooks enough food for a small army?”
He had a place of his own just down the road from his mother, but he usually ate at her house. It was a win-win situation. He kept an eye on his mother; she fed him. He hadn’t been home long enough to worry about dating. It wasn’t like he had time, plus he wasn’t exactly relationship worthy at the moment. Of course, Piper had made it perfectly clear she was using him only for his body. He knew he was grinning but he’d just had the best sex of his life last night and he was in a good mood. He wasn’t letting Piper ruin that.
She didn’t look precisely overwhelmed by his breakfast offer, however. “Last night doesn’t change anything. We’re not dating.”
“Did I ask you out on a date?” Piper and him on a date? The thought wasn’t all that bad.
She slurped at her coffee. “Nope. I wasn’t sure if the omission was an oversight on your part or not.”
Holding back his laugh was impossible. That was Piper. Supremely confident. “You were the one who took advantage of me. I think any dating moves should come from you.”
She eyed the bottom of her mug. “How is this my fault?”
“You told me to get on your bike. And then you had your way with me.” He squatted next to her, hands cupping his own mug when what he really wanted was to be touching her. Huh. Imagine that.
“That’s one interpretation.”
“So I’m hearing a no for breakfast?”
He had to get going. He had a hundred things to do today, and there was no way his mother hadn’t noticed his absence last night. She might not say anything—although there was a fifty-fifty chance she would—but he’d swear she had her own secret spies or a highly developed Spidey sense, because she’d always noticed when one of his siblings had stayed out overnight. Saturday-morning breakfast was not optional. He’d thought... He didn’t know what he’d thought. Pancakes and sausage weren’t a diamond ring, and Piper had eaten breakfast at his house before. She had no business getting huffy with him. Plus, she had to be hungry.
Right on cue, her stomach growled, because as he’d suspected, half a muffin did not a breakfast make.
“I rest my case.”
“I’m not coming with you.” She’d done that more than once last night, which was apparently the problem.
“Why not?”
She stared at him for a moment. Maybe it was a girl thing, but he had no idea what he’d said wrong. “I just had sex with my main competition for the Fiesta contract.”
“You were amazing,” he said and he meant it, too. Again, apparently not the right thing to say, because she sighed.
“You owe me quarters,” she said pointedly. “Lots and lots of quarters.”
“I make you swear?”
“You make me do a lot of things, but this one’s all on me.” She fiddled with her coffee cup. “We shouldn’t have done this, but it’s been a long time coming. We’ve had this chemistry thing between us for years, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it kind of bubbled over last night.”
He’d never heard really hot sex described out loud as a chemistry thing that bubbled over, but she could call their night whatever she wanted as long as he got to repeat it again.
“So no breakfast?”
“Having sex would be a conflict of interest.”