As he ate, Zoë came to the table and sat beside him, sipping her own coffee. Her nearness made him slightly uneasy. She usually worked while he had breakfast. He stole a glance at the finespun skin of her inner arm, noticing the healed-over burn mark. He wanted to press his lips to it.
“The cabinets have come in,” he told her. “We’ll start installing them later this week, and I’ll build the kitchen island.”
“Build it? I assumed you would order a premade one.”
“No, it’ll be a little cheaper—and look more custom—if we make one by trimming down some stock cabinets, finish the outside with beadboard, and add the countertop.” He smiled as he saw her expression. “It’ll look great. I promise.”
“I wasn’t doubting you at all,” she said. “I’m just impressed.”
Alex drowned his smile in the cup of coffee. “I’m not doing anything special,” he said. “Just basic carpentry.”
“It’s special when it’s my house.”
“In another week, I’ll need to know what paint colors you want.”
“I’ve almost got them all picked out,” she said. “Soft white for the beadboard and trim, and butter yellow for the walls, and pink for the bathrooms.”
Alex gave her a skeptical glance.
“It’s a nice pink,” she said, laughing. “A blush tone. Lucy helped me pick it out. She says pink is a great color for bathrooms because the reflected glow is flattering.”
The image jumped into his mind before he could stop it … Zoë, stepping out of the bath, surrounded by pink walls, tender wet curves gleaming in steam-misted mirrors.
Rising to her feet, Zoë went to check on something in the oven. “Would you like some water?”
He was hot from head to toe. “Yes, thanks.” Picking up his cell phone, he glued his gaze to it, reminding himself desperately to keep his distance from Zoë.
She stopped beside him and set a glass of ice water by his plate. She was close enough that he could breathe in her fragrance, cottony and flowery, with hints of smoke from the chorizo, and all he could think of was how much he wanted to turn and press his face against her, and lock his arms around her hips. He stared at his phone, scrolling blindly through text messages he had already read.
Zoë lingered beside him. “You need a haircut,” she murmured, a smile in her voice. He felt a light touch on the back of his neck … her fingers … sliding softly through the hair at his nape. His hand clamped on the phone until the casing threatened to crack.
He managed a quick, irritable shrug that caused Zoë’s hand to fall away. She went back to the stove, and he heard the sound of something being whisked in a pot. She was speaking casually about her plans to go to the floating fish market attached to the main dock in Friday Harbor, they had just brought in a fresh catch of halibut. Struggling to clear away the haze of lust, Alex did math problems in his head. When that didn’t work, he resorted to gripping his fork so that the tines dug sharply into the heel of his hand. That settled his rampaging desire just enough that he could walk. He pushed back from the table and stood, muttering something about going to work.
“Tomorrow, then,” Zoë said too brightly. “Pumpkin ginger pancakes.”
“I can’t make it tomorrow.” Realizing how brusque he’d sounded, Alex added, “I’ve got to get to work earlier, now that we’re putting up Sheetrock.”
“I’ll make you something to go,” Zoë said. “Stop by, and I’ll hand it through the doorway. You won’t even have to come in.”
“No.” Exasperated, he couldn’t think of any way to soften the refusal.
The ghost entered the kitchen. “Are we leaving?”
“Yes,” Alex said reflexively.
“So you will come by?” Zoë asked in confusion.
“No,” he snapped.
Zoë followed him to the back door, looking tense and miserable. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
The ghost looked perplexed and indignant. “What does she mean? What happened? I told you before—”
“Don’t start,” Alex warned him wrathfully. Glancing down at Zoë’s worried face, he amended, “Don’t start jumping to conclusions. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“There’s something to be sorry for,” the ghost insisted. “Because from what I can tell, hormones are flying through the air like a biblical plague.”
Zoë stared up at Alex as if she were trying to read his thoughts. “Then why did you react like that when I touched you?”
Alex shook his head in baffled annoyance.
“Obviously you didn’t like it,” Zoë said, flushing deeply.
“Damn it, Zoë.” The only way he could stop himself from grabbing her was to slam his hands on the counter, on either side of her. She jumped a little, her eyes turning round. “I liked it,” Alex told her gruffly. “If I liked it any more, I’d have you bent over the counter right now, and it wouldn’t be to help you roll out biscuit dough.”
The ghost groaned. “Spare me,” he said, and made a fast exit.
Zoë colored at his deliberate crudity. “Then why—” she began.
“Don’t give me that,” Alex said testily. “You know why. I’m a drinker in the process of drying out. I’ve just been divorced, and I’m a paycheck away from being broke. I don’t know of any more damning combination of qualities a man could have. Except maybe being impotent on top of it.”
“You’re not impotent,” she protested. After a brief hesitation, she asked, “Are you?”
Alex covered his eyes with one hand and began to laugh. “Sweet Jesus,” he said feelingly, “I wish I were.” After a moment, seeing the hurt confusion on her face, he sobered and let out a sigh. “Zoë. I don’t do friendship with women. And the only other possibility is sex, which is not going to happen.” Alex paused, seeing a snowy dusting of flour on the crest of her cheek. Unable to resist, he reached out and brushed it off gently with his thumb. “Thank you for getting me through this past week. I owe you for that. So the best thing I can do for you in return is stay away long enough for you and me to get some distance from this.”
Zoë was quiet, staring at him, weighing his words. An oven timer went off, and a hint of rueful amusement hitched the corners of her mouth into apostrophes. “Every moment of my life is measured by oven timers,” she said. “Please don’t go yet.”
He stayed, watching as she went to pull a pan of biscuits from the oven. The smell of hot bread flooded the kitchen.
Returning, Zoë stood very close to Alex. “I know you’re right,” she said. “And I know what I’ve got ahead of me. Probably more than I can handle. My grandmother will be here in a month, and after that …” She gave a helpless little shrug. “So I know my limits, and I think I know yours. But the problem is—” A nervous breath of laughter. “Sometimes you meet a really nice guy, but no matter how you try, you can’t seem to make yourself want him. But that’s not nearly as bad as when you meet the wrong guy, and you can’t make yourself not want him. You feel hollow inside, just waiting and wishing and dreaming. You feel like every moment is leading to something so amazing that there’s no name for it, and if you could just get there with him, it would be such a … relief. It would be all you’d ever need.” She let out a trembling sigh. “I don’t want distance from you. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but I have to let you know how I—”
“I already know,” he said coldly, dying inside. “Give it a rest, Zoë. I’ve got to go.”
Zoë nodded. She didn’t even look offended. Somehow she knew that it was the only way he could leave her, that some things couldn’t be seasoned to make them go down easier.
Alex reached for the door handle, but she stopped him with a touch on his wrist.
“Wait,” she said. “One more thing.”
Even though she was no longer touching him, the skin of his wrist had come alive with craving. It was getting worse, he thought with something like despair, this need that threatened to turn him inside out.
“From now on I’ll never mention anything about this again,” Zoë said, “or tell you about my feelings, or even try to be friends with you. But in return, I want one favor.”
“The cat door,” Alex said in resignation.
She shook her head. “I want you to kiss me. One time.”
“What? No.” He was aghast. “No.”
“You owe me a favor.”
“Why the hell do you want that?”
Zoë looked stubborn. “I just want to know what it feels like.”
“I kissed you once before. Right here.”
“That doesn’t count. You were holding back.”
“You want me to hold back,” he assured her grimly.
“No I don’t.”
“Zoë, damn it, this is not going to change anything.”
“I know that. I don’t expect anything to change.” She was practically vibrating with nerves. “I just want it as a sort of … amuse-bouche.”
“What’s an amuse-bouche?” he managed to ask, afraid of the answer.
“It’s a French term for a tidbit the waiter brings from the chef at the beginning of a meal. Nothing you order or pay for, it’s just … given.” At his stunned silence, she added helpfully, “The literal translation is ‘to please the mouth.’ ”
Alex gave her a dark glance. “You want a favor from me, it’s going to involve crown molding or adding extra can lights. I draw the line at amusing your bouche.”
“One kiss is impossible? Twenty seconds of putting your lips against mine scares you that much?”
“Now you’re going to time it,” he said sardonically.
“I’m not going to time it,” she protested. “That was just a suggestion.”
“Well, you can forget it.”
She looked offended. “I don’t understand why you’re angry.”
“Like hell. We both know you’re trying to prove a point.”
“What point is that?”
“You want to make sure I know what I’m giving up. You want me to be sorry about not going after you.”
She opened her mouth to deny it. But she hesitated.
“If I did kiss you,” Alex said, “the only reason I’d do it would be to make you sorry as hell that you asked for it.” He gave her a hard look, willing her to back down. “Still want it?”
“Yes,” Zoë said promptly, and closed her eyes and lifted her face.
Alex was right, of course. Any kind of relationship between them was a bad idea, for many reasons. But she still wanted him to kiss her.
She stood with eyes closed, braced for whatever he would do. An electric quietness surrounded them. She felt him move nearer, and his arms went around her so slowly that a shiver crossed over her like rough light. There was the curious sensation she remembered from before, of being absorbed, drawn in, as if he were feeling her with all his senses, drinking in every breath and blush and heartbeat.
One of his hands came up to her face, angling her jaw upward, his fingers shaping over the fragile bones. A soft brush against her mouth, and another, ephemeral kisses that made her lips feel swollen. Her balance faltered, but he gripped her against the support of his body and held her steady. Bending his head lower, he dragged his mouth along the thin, blood-heated skin of her throat. She felt the tip of his tongue rest against a pulse point, and she went weak, her hands clutching at his shoulders. Slowly he kissed his way up to her jaw, while one of his hands cupped the back of her head to lift it, and finally she felt the full, hard pressure of his mouth on hers, making her dizzy with wholesale relief.
Soft plangent sounds rose in her throat. She reached up to grip his head with her hands, anything to keep his mouth on hers. But the kiss dissolved with a muffled laugh, and he looked down into her dazed face with a tender, mocking amusement she had never seen from him before.
She struggled to speak between ragged breaths. “Alex … please …”
“Shhh.” His lashes half lowered over eyes that were startlingly bright in the heightened color of his face. His gently restless hands moved over her hair, her body, her back.
“I want … ” she tried to say, but the dazzle of heat made it impossible to think. She tried again. “I want …”
“I know what you want.” The hint of a smile burned out, and his head bent again.
He opened her mouth with his, sent his tongue deep. The kiss turned rougher, wetter, acquiring a subtle erotic rhythm. To her mortification, her h*ps began to roll forward, seeking the hard pressure of him. She couldn’t stop herself. If only she could be somewhere else with him, some quiet and shadowy place where nothing would bother them. Just the two of them away from the rest of the world. The pleasure thickened, her thoughts dissolving. Sensations blended into a sweet ache that seemed to come from outside and inside at the same time. She arched feverishly, trying to bring herself closer against him.
Alex pulled his mouth from hers, and crushed her against his chest. “No more,” he said, sounding shaken. “Zoë … no … be still …”
She shuddered as he held her, his breath rushing in hot bursts against her hair. Linking her arms around his lean waist, she let her fingertips make a timid foray into the top edges of his back pockets, while his heartbeat pressed against hers. It felt as if she might fall to pieces without his hard grip holding her together.
“We’re even now,” she heard him whisper.
She managed a nod, her face hidden.
“I didn’t mean to do it that way.” Alex nipped softly at the outer curve of her ear. “I was going to make it hurt, just a little.”
“Why didn’t you?”
A long, wondering hesitation. “I just couldn’t.”
He eased her away. Zoë forced herself to look into his eyes, and saw that the same force of will that had impelled him to stop drinking was now being repurposed.
This wouldn’t happen again. He wouldn’t allow it.
An oven timer went off again, and she jumped at the piercing sound.
Alex smiled slightly, breaking their shared gaze, and turned away.