To Die For (Page 54)

"I was just thinking of things to put on your list."

"Would you forget about that damn list! How would you like it if I made a list of all your mistakes and shortcomings?"

"I’d read it and try to work on my problem areas," I said righteously. Well, I’d read it, anyway. What he considered a problem and what I considered a problem might be two very different things.

"That’s a crock. I think you actively cultivate your problem areas."

"Such as?" My voice took on a very sweet tone.

"Your smart-ass mouth, for one thing."

I blew him a kiss. "You liked my mouth this morning when I was kissing my way down your zipper."

That reminded him, all right, and he visibly shuddered in response. "You’re right," he said thickly. "I liked it a lot."

I knew what he meant. All day, I’d been harboring some longings myself. I wanted to forget all this jockeying about as we fought for the upper hand and for once just eat him up, enjoy him, wallow in sex and pleasure. Maybe when I got him home-Until then, though, there was no point in letting him think he’d won.

"You also like my Pebbles hairdo, even though you made fun of it."

"I didn’t make fun of it. And, yeah, I like it. I like everything about you, even when you’re being a pain in the ass. You’re a walking wet dream, you know."

I gave him a doubtful look. "I don’t know if that’s good or not." The image in my mind was decidedly sticky and icky.

"From my point of view, it is. Personally speaking, not professionally. You’re playing hell with my concentration at work. All I can think about is getting you naked. Probably when we’ve been married a year or two that’ll slack off, but right now it’s pretty intense."

"I haven’t said I’ll marry you," I said automatically, but my heart was doing a tap dance and my own concentration kept wanting to slide off our conversation and instead focus on getting him naked.

"It’s gonna happen and we both know it. We still have some details to get ironed out, like this trust thing you’re so worried about, but I figure in a couple of months I’ll have that under control and we can maybe have a Christmas wedding."

"Definitely not gonna happen. Even if I said yes, which I haven’t, do you have the tiniest clue of how long it takes to plan a wedding? This Christmas would be impossible. Next Christmas, maybe-I mean, it would be possible to plan a wedding in that length of time, not that I want to get married next Christmas, because even if we did get married, it wouldn’t be at Christmas because our anniversary would get lost in all the holiday hoopla and I’d hate that. Anniversaries should be special."

He grinned at me. "You said ‘our anniversary.’ That’s tantamount to an acceptance."

"Only if you don’t understand the English language. I said ‘if,’ not ‘when.’ "

"The Freudian slip overrode that. It’s a done deal."

"Not yet it isn’t. Until and if I say those three little words, I haven’t committed myself to anything."

He gave me a thoughtful look, as if until now he hadn’t realized that neither of us had said "I love you." I don’t think men put as much importance into saying "I love you" as women do. For them, it was more about doing than it was about saying, but while they might not understand why it’s important, at least they get that it is important to women. The fact that I hadn’t said it to him got his attention, though, made him realize that perhaps things weren’t as cut-and-dried between us as he assumed.

"We’ll get there," he finally said, and I was relieved that he hadn’t said "I love you" as a means of prompting me to say it too, because then I would have known he didn’t mean it. Lord, this man-woman stuff was complicated; it was like a game of chess, and we were equally matched opponents. I knew what I wanted: total reassurance that he was in this for the long haul. I hoped, but until I knew, I was holding back a little part of myself. He was having fun, I thought; I was having fun, even when we argued. At some point the chess game would be over and then we would see where we stood.

He took my hand. It was my left hand, of course, since he was driving, so I couldn’t move my arm very much. He gently slid his hand under mine, and laced our fingers. No doubt about it, he was a damn fine strategist.

That night was far different from the first two nights. He did laundry, both his and mine, and impressed me by not messing up. He cut the grass, even though it was dark by the time he got around to it. His riding lawn mower had headlights on it and he also turned on his outside spotlights. I felt as if I were Ms. Bower Bird, watching Mr. Bower Bird build his nest with all sorts of interesting sparklies to show what a good provider he was, then parading in front of it, hoping to lure Ms. Bower Bird inside. This was Domestic Wyatt in action. To be fair, though, his yard was well-maintained anyway; I could tell he regularly mowed the grass.

It was ten o’clock when he came in, shirtless and dirty, sweat gleaming on his chest because it was still hot outside even though it was dark. He went straight to the sink and downed a big glass of water, his strong throat working as he swallowed. I wanted to jump on his back and wrestle him to the ground, but my darned arm wasn’t up to the action.

He set the glass in the sink and turned to me. "You ready for your shower?"

Maybe it was a tactical error, but tonight I didn’t feel very hard to get-well, not that I’d ever been all that difficult for him anyway. Give me points for trying though. Tonight I didn’t even want to try. "Can we wash my hair tonight, too?"

"Sure."

"Blow-drying it won’t take long."

"Doesn’t matter." He gave a slow smile. "I’ll enjoy the scenery while I’m working."