A wobbly laugh escaped her. “I meant is it really okay with you that our one month is going to be different than what you’re used to?”

“It’ll be worth it,” he assured her.

She stared at him for a weighty moment before getting up and scurrying onto the couch, leaving him on the floor, a good two feet away.

That was probably wise.

Didn’t mean he had to like it. He picked up his beer and downed half the bottle. The liquid was already lukewarm but considering how unbelievably hot he was feeling, it was practically ice cold going down his throat.

“So what kind of case are you working on right now?”

He choked and almost sent the beer down the wrong tube.

She wanted to do small talk? Now?

One look at her was confirmation enough that she was serious. Sitting there with her forearms wrapped around her legs, knees tucked under her chin, and eyes still slightly glazed with arousal, she was seriously asking him about work.

“It’s just that I figured you must be working on some big case since your phone has been going off nonstop in your pocket all night.” Her eyes widened then as she turned her focus quickly down at her toes.

He grinned...because they both knew his phone had been on vibrate during all those missed calls.

And she’d been sitting on it for a good five minutes.

“Actually, I have been working on a big case,” he eventually replied, letting her off from the teasing he was dying to give.

Just this once.

He turned and draped his arm on the seat cushion beside her, grinning outright when the accidental brush of his fingers against her calf had her eyes dilating sharply. “It’s my most important one this year—a corporate acquisition tied to a multi-layered merger that I’ve spent months trying to close.”

She frowned and sat up. “Why didn’t you say something? You didn’t have to waste the last hour eating here with me. And why the heck have you been ignoring all your calls?”

“I’d hardly call the last hour a waste of time. In fact, it’s the most fun I’ve had in a while.”

Clearly, she was unconvinced.

“As for my phone,” he hesitated, and then went with the truth. “My work phone isn’t on vibrate. The phone calls that I’ve been ignoring are from my, uh, personal cell.”

“But what if it’s Brian calling or… Ohhh.” She looked away. “That kind of personal cell.”

He felt like the world’s biggest creep.

But he didn’t want Abby to have any illusions about him. “The last woman I dated isn’t taking the end of our one month well. But it is completely over, I assure you. I’m not dating her or anyone else right now, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t. Wondering, that is. I know you wouldn’t be asking me for a month if you were.”

He was utterly curious as to why, how she was so sure of such a thing.

At his questioning look, she shrugged. “You strike me as a monogamish kind of guy. Plus, I don’t believe you’d go through the hassle of enforcing a rule if you weren’t going to be man enough to honor it yourself.”

There was a good chance he was going to start needing this woman as a valium for his soul.

She saw a glimmer of good in even his worst qualities, and didn’t hesitate to call him on the rest. But in a matter-of-fact way, free of judgment.

If it was possible, she seemed to just like him for being him.

“Hey,” she said, concern latent in her voice. “You okay? You looked a little worried there for a second. Is it your case? Did you want to talk about it?”

She had to stop.

He couldn’t take much more of her innate niceness; he didn’t deserve it, didn’t have the first clue what to do with it. “Oddly enough, I do want to talk about my case with you. Hell, I want to share my whole day with you. Which is why I need to do this.”

So quickly it surprised even him, he swooped onto the couch and lowered his mouth down to hers.

Just one taste.

He just wanted one little taste before his hunger got out of control. Before he started craving things he couldn’t truly have.

Like a nice girl he had no business wanting.

He stopped himself mere seconds before his lips made contact though...shut his eyes and took a steadying breath. Then another. And then finally backed away.

Christ, that was close.

But just when he’d gotten a handle on his roiling emotions, just when he thought he could be the good guy for a change, he felt two gentle hands smooth over the sides of his face.

And he was lost.

Because that was when she kissed him. Just once. Softly. Not at all like how he’d intended to kiss her, not at all like he normally kissed, period.

Yet it was the most memorable kiss he’d ever experienced.

“Just because we can’t have sex doesn’t mean you can’t keep trying to convince me otherwise,” she murmured against his lips.

Hot damn.

Everything male in him lit up to all systems go. He blinked down at her smiling face, not sure whether to be amused or turned on. Past experience dictated the two were mutually exclusive emotions for him.

Not so with Abby. “You’re that confident in your ability to resist me?”

“Of course not. But resisting you and sticking to what I say I’m going to do are two completely different things.”

“How do you figure?”

“I could, and very likely may fail at the first, but there isn’t anything you could possibly do to make me fail at the second.”

Brushing his lips gently against hers in a barely-there tease for them both, he whispered back in a thick voice he hardly recognized, “Challenge accepted.”

He’d never been good with folks telling him there was something he couldn’t do.

She smiled. “I was simply stating a fact. But if you want to take it as a challenge, feel free. Just so you know, if you do, it becomes a two-way street.” So saying, she slid open those long curvy legs of hers and pulled him flush against her body. “Still up for the challenge?”

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

A second later, she was kissing him again and he definitely wasn’t sure.

The way she kissed…hell. It wasn’t that she did some fancy new tongue trick or anything like that. It was just…nice.

And outrageously arousing.

“I better go pack,” she said abruptly, pulling away well before he was ready for the kiss to end. “I’ll see you in the morning, Connor. Thanks for being my dinner company tonight. It was fun for me, too.”

With that, she gave him a final kiss goodbye and stood up, by all accounts in total control of her senses.

Unlike him.

Well, shoot.

There was a chance this was going to be harder than he thought.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“SO TELL ME, this bad boy reputation of yours—did it start in your personal life and bleed over into the courtroom or vice versa?”

Connor frowned as he helped Abby carry the last of her luggage up to his biggest guestroom, the only one that could accommodate the huge desk he’d relocated from his study.

At first, when she’d arrived at his house with three gigantic suitcases, he’d been shocked and a bit disillusioned. She hadn’t seemed the type.

But now that he saw them each flipped open and filled to the brim with books and folders, and stacks of Xeroxed sheets and scribbled notes, he realized the small duffle bag on her shoulder was the only thing not carrying her research.

Now that seemed much more Abby.

He belatedly considered the question she’d asked. “That depends on who’s doing the commenting about my reputation, I guess. Why?”

“I just wanted to see how accurate I was. Seems you have an unofficial coalition who thinks your licentious ways are going to be your downfall at the firm. I argued it couldn’t possibly be, not with those very qualities being the ones that turned you into the kickass lawyer that’s probably bringing in more money than over half the other lawyers there.” She smirked at the memory. “I don’t think those women like me very much now.”