My Man Pendleton(36)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

“Only one little something? That’s a surprise.”

“I, um,” he continued, “I sleep naked.”

She smiled sweetly again. Uh-oh. “I know.”

“How do you know?”

“I peeked.”

“When did you peek?”

“Last night, when I crawled into bed beside you.”

“So it was dark?”

“I had a flashlight.”

“Ah.”

“Well, I’d never been in your house before,” she said, “so I had no idea where the furniture was, and I didn’t want to trip over anything. Imagine my surprise to discover there is no furniture. You’re going to have to ask Daddy for a raise.”

“Miss McClellan—”

“Kit.”

“The reason there’s no furniture isn’t because I don’t have the funds to buy it, but because I haven’t had the time to shop for it and…” He hesitated, wondering just how one went about dealing with this sort of thing. “I’m naked,” he finally reiterated.

“So? I’m naked, too.”

That was a fact of which he really wished she hadn’t reminded him. “Which is something else we need to talk about,” he said.

“Okay,” she agreed, way too easily. “Let’s talk about it. In fact, let’s go ahead and talk about all the things we need to talk about.” She extracted her hands from beneath the covers and ticked off the facts on her fingers as she enumerated them. “Let’s see now. You’re naked—that’s one thing. I’m naked—that’s two things. We’re in bed together, we’ve slept together, and I can’t wait to see what happens when Daddy tells the boys all about it—that’s three more things. Oh, wait, another thing—you’re going to make my family so happy, Pendleton. And you can’t possibly know how important that is to me. I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to properly thank you.”

Thinking he should probably just roll belly-up and surrender, he continued heedlessly, “You could start by getting out of my bed.”

“Okay.” She gripped the covers again, clearly ready to throw them back and reveal herself in all her na**d glory.

“Wait!” he cried, squeezing his eyes shut. “Not yet.”

“Hey, Pendleton, no time like the present.”

“Stop,” he commanded her. “Just…stop.”

He opened one eye experimentally and was delighted to see that she had done as he requested for a change. She was still in his bed, and still covered up. But she was also still naked. As was he. Wasn’t this just a wonderful way to wake up in the morning?

“What time do you have to be at work?” she asked.

“Not until eight. What time is it?”

Kit reached over to the nightstand on her side of the bed and retrieved her watch, then squinted at it in the dimly lit room. “It’s seven forty-five.”

It took a moment for that to register. “What?”

She tossed her watch back onto the nightstand and reached her arms high above her head with a contented groan. As she relaxed the stretch, she told him, “I guess I forgot to tell you I turned off your alarm when I came to bed last night. Frankly, those things annoy the heck out of me. I like to wake up gradually, by my own internal alarm clock. And it never goes off until after ten. Not unless some guy running his fingers through my hair wakes me up first.”

“I was not running my fingers through your hair,” he said, more to beat back the panic threatening to overtake him at being so late for work than to actually deny what even he had to admit was a valid argument.

“Well, at any rate, you’d better hurry if you have any hope of getting to work before nine,” Kit pointed out as she snuggled back down into the covers and closed her eyes. “Boy,” she added in a sleepy murmur, “it must be a drag to be a working stiff.”

In spite of running inexcusably late for work, Pendleton could only lie there for a moment on his side and watch Kit McClellan in utter disbelief as she slipped effortlessly back into a nice, steady slumber. Only a person with no conscience could possibly fall asleep that quickly. Of course, his realization of that only compounded his discomfort.

He shook his head slowly, silently. What on earth was he supposed to do with her?

Unfortunately, way too many ideas popped into his head in response to that question, few of them in any way polite. Or legal. For now, he was just going to have to worry about it later. Because he had only fifteen minutes to shave, shower, dress, and make the seven-minute drive to work. So, keeping an eye trained carefully on the woman sleeping in his bed, he threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor. Then, because he knew better than to trust her, he picked up his pillow and, as he stood, placed it strategically over his lower torso before he began backing toward the bedroom door.

He was as quiet as he could possibly be as he eased shut the door behind him. In spite of that, he wasn sure, but he thought he heard Kit mumble something in her sleep just before the latch clicked. Although he tried to tell himself her remark must have been some incoherent observation about a half-forgotten dream, he couldn’t help but think instead that it sounded a whole lot like, “Nice tushie, Pendleton.”

And that, even more than being egregiously late for work, was what made him dash for the bathroom.

“You’ve made me a very happy man, Pendleton.”

Pendleton clenched his hands into fists behind his back and willed his employer to spontaneously combust. Holt McClellan, Sr. sat on the business side of a massive mahogany desk, the worn leather chair beneath him creaking under his weight as he leaned back with much satisfaction. On the dark-paneled wall behind him, stuffed in various poses of literally glassy-eyed terror, was a disturbingly large collection of hunting trophies. But what really bothered Pendleton the most—aside from the obvious fact that his boss enjoyed killing things—was that each of the prizes had been wrested from completely passive animals like deer, raccoons and large-mouth bass. You’d think the least McClellan, Sr. could do was go after something that had big, pointy teeth and razor-sharp claws. Even things out a bit, for God’s sake.

“Yepper,” the CEO continued happily, scattering Pendleton’s thoughts. “Very, very, happy”.

“I assume, sir, that would be because of my report on priority enhancement to promote productivity,” Pendleton stated, feigning ignorance. “I’m glad you approve. I—”