Regency Rumour. Annie Burrows

      Chapter Two

      At the house he met her on the veranda steps. Once inside she left the groceries on the couch and excused herself to go check on Max. Clayton was left to close the door behind him. He took off his hat, almost able to hear Mrs. Harrison reprimanding him for such a breach of etiquette in her home. This house was like an old friend. He hadn’t been inside in years but the memories came flooding back. The sleepovers and camping trips. The fishing expeditions and the carefree weekends spent helping Gray’s grandfather build the tree house in the backyard. Those days seemed a lifetime ago now.

      Lucy came back downstairs, her jaw clenched.

      “Everything okay?”

      “I’d like to take a two-by-four to Gerry Anderson’s skull, though I doubt it would even leave an impression.” The warmth of the house reminded Lucy that she still wore his coat. She shrugged out of it. “Thanks for the loan.”

      “Any time.” Clayton took it from her, making sure his fingers brushed over hers. Lucy looked up, her eyes wide and wary. A reaction was all he’d wanted. He laid the coat over the arm of the couch, inhaling the light, flowery fragrance that clung to it. He sat his hat on top. “It’s a beautiful old house.”

      Fine. If he wasn’t going to mention the last few seconds, neither would she. He’d taken her by surprise but she wouldn’t let it happen again. “The hardwood floors need sanding, then I’ll polish. The wallpaper in some rooms needs replacing and the whole structure needs a coat of weatherproof paint.” The house had stood idle for the last two years. The large living room had boxes still stacked in a corner waiting to be emptied. “I think we’re going to be very happy here.” She picked up the sack of groceries. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

      Clayton followed her into the kitchen and made himself comfortable on a straight-backed chair at the table. The room was inviting. The pale lemon of the freshly painted walls blended nicely with the brand-new light grey linoleum on the floor. While the coffee perked, Lucy set out ceramic mugs on the counter. She went to the refrigerator and withdrew a container. “Chocolate cake?”

      “Thanks.”

      She sliced two pieces of cake with medical precision and set them on plates. When she paused to lick a dab of chocolate icing from her finger, he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t do much of anything! The only basic function he maintained was breathing…but only with a concentrated effort. Her lips closed around her finger back to the first knuckle. She pulled it out of her mouth so slowly he almost groaned. She broke the spell by placing the knife in the sink and the cake back in the refrigerator. Clayton shifted in his chair to relieve the beginnings of arousal.

      The coffee was finally done and she busied herself placing forks, milk and sugar on the table. She set cake and coffee before him, then went back for her own, carrying a can in the crook of her elbow when she sat down opposite him at the table.

      “Whipped cream?” he asked. “I thought all you city people were health nuts. Low-fat this, high-fibre that.”

      She shook the can vigorously before squirting a quantity onto her cake. “Not me. There are some things I won’t give up even for the sake of my arteries.”

      “Such as?”

      She thought about it for a few seconds. “Hamburgers, pizza, potato chips…whipped cream. The kids say my eating habits are going to kill me some day but hey, why not die happy?”

      She could eat junk food and still have a body like that? The look of absolute anticipation on her face mesmerized him. Her delicate pink tongue peeked between perfect teeth as she concentrated on sculpting a work of art with the cream. Lucy paused, her fork in midair. “You have a strange look on your face.”

      Clayton figured it was a little too soon in their relationship to divulge that watching her smooth whipped cream onto a piece of chocolate cake had aroused him. He didn’t want her thinking he was some kind of pervert.

      “I’ve never seen anyone look at a piece of cake like it was a three-course meal.”

      “Yeah, well, I skipped lunch because tonight is pizza night and that’s better than sex. But then Max came home and I took him to the doctor, I got so upset, the last thing on my mind was food. Now I’m starving.”

      Better than sex? In Clayton’s experience there weren’t many things that even came close to the delicious euphoria of sex.

      “Are you saying that you’d rather have pizza than sex?” If that was the case then she hadn’t found the right partner. He was already preparing his application for the position. Fun-loving farmer seeks to warm the bed of prickly little cactus flower. Satisfaction guaranteed every time.

      Lucy had given too many safe-sex lectures to streetwise teens to be easily embarrassed, though she wished he weren’t studying her so intently. “You make it sound like nothing could possibly be better.”

      “Good sex is pretty tough to top. Two people wanting each other so badly that nothing else matters but the moment,” he said, his gaze dropping to her lips. “A deep-pan cheesy crust with everything doesn’t even come close.”

      “At least with a pizza you can order ahead, have it delivered, know what you’re getting, and if it isn’t satisfying you can take it back and get a refund.” With a serene smile that she hoped would effectively end the conversation, she raised the laden fork to her mouth.

      Clayton watched her lips close around the fork, gliding along the tines as her eyes closed. He’d eaten meals with a lot of women in his thirty years. But this woman turned eating into one of the most erotic things he’d ever witnessed. Clayton didn’t question the urge he had to lean over and taste the sweetness of cake and cream on her mouth. Nor did he act on it…not just yet. He looked away long enough to get his body back under some sense of control before attacking his own cake.

      “How long have you worked with these kids?”

      Lucy stirred her coffee. “Five years.”

      He smiled. “Not real big on details, are you?”

      Lucy raised an eyebrow at him. “That would depend on the topic of discussion.”

      He pointed to her with his fork. “You.”

      “Then it’s going to be a very short conversation.”

      The expression on her face dared him to try to prove her wrong. Normally he didn’t back down from a dare, but he sensed a need to go carefully with her. “So, how do you like your pizza?”

      Lucy looked up at him, momentarily startled by the abrupt topic change, and wondered if this was a double-edged sword, given their previous conversation about pizza and sex. “With everything,” she said. “Is there any other way to have it?”

      “Cold.”

      “God, that’s disgusting!”

      Okay. So I’ll never suggest we have cold pizza for breakfast, he thought wryly.

      “The one food you couldn’t do without?”

      Lucy didn’t even hesitate. “Seafood…any and all.”

      He filed it away for future reference.

      “What’s going on?”

      Clayton