LITMIR.BIZ

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and the hot water from the sink scalded my hands. I gave a longing look at the bathtub, an old-fashioned claw-foot tub Patrick hated and I coveted.

      Downstairs, the kitchen was gloriously warm. Heat flooded up from the open grate in the floor from the furnace directly below. In another twenty minutes I’d probably be sweating, but for now I gloried in it. I also reveled in the shelves of leftovers from the party the night before, everything tucked away in plastic containers and stacked neatly according to size and shape. Patrick’s work. I could only guess how late he’d stayed up, tidying, before Teddy forced him to bed. On the upside of that, I could be sure none of the food would give me food poisoning. Patrick was a stickler for keeping his buffet table appropriately cold or hot, depending.

      Chicken pot stickers called my name, the little bastards, not even trying to pretend they didn’t know I was trying to lose a couple of pounds. The chocolate cake I could ignore, but not the little dumplings of fatty, sweet-and-sour goodness. I pulled the container from the fridge and turned to put it on the table—and almost ran smack into a bare chest.

      The container of pot stickers hit the floor and bounced. I screamed. Loudly.

      Alex Kennedy smiled.

      “Damn, you’re pretty,” I said.

      He blinked, his smile getting wider. He crossed his arms over his very fine, naked stomach. “Thanks.”

      I thought about bending to pick up my breakfast, but doing that would put me at his feet, and that wasn’t a place I was sure I could stand to be. Not after last night, and what I’d seen. He cast a glance at the container by his toes, then at me. Then he bent to pick it up.

      Alex at my feet, on the other hand? Very nice indeed.

      “Thanks.” I took the container and eased past him to put it in the microwave. I looked over my shoulder. “Want some?”

      He laughed and shook his head and took a step back. And then I realized something sort of funny, sort of strange. He was…uncomfortable?

      I was used to finding half-naked men in Patrick’s kitchen the morning after a party. True, I’d never watched any of them come down someone else’s throat, and then used that thought to give myself an orgasm, but he didn’t know about that.

      “I’m Alex. Patrick let me crash here last night.”

      “I’m Olivia,” I offered, and waited for a reaction. Not even a blink.

      “It’s nice to meet you, Olivia.”

      He cleared his throat and shifted from foot to foot. His bare toes were as lovely as the rest of him. For the first time I noticed his pajama bottoms, printed with Hello Kitty faces, a faded pair that looked well loved and often worn. They covered more of him than my thigh-length T-shirt did of me, and I wished for a robe or at least a sweater, though I was no longer the least bit cold.

      I gave them a look. “Nice.”

      Alex laughed, staring down at his toes. The glance he gave me was amused, a little embarrassed, but not much. “Thanks. They were a gift.”

      The microwave dinged and I removed the container, holding it out. “You sure you don’t want any?”

      He shook his head, even though his tongue crept out to dot his bottom lip. “I think I’d better go with oatmeal.”

      I pulled a fork from the drawer and poked it into a dumpling. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to make me feel guilty because I’m not up this early to run a mile and a half.”

      His laugh sounded more genuine this time. “Hell, no. I’m not going for a run. Not in this weather, anyway. Or, well…not ever.”

      I swallowed a bite of delicious. “Thank God.”

      I went to the fridge again for some orange juice. Teddy squeezes it fresh and never leaves the pitcher empty. I pulled it out and offered some. Alex nodded. I grabbed a couple of glasses and set them on the table, then poured. His expression prompted me to check if I had something in my teeth or hanging from my nose.

      “What?”

      “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just…”

      I sat at the kitchen table and waved him to a seat, too. He pulled the glass of juice toward himself and sipped. I waited.

      “Just what?” I said, when it seemed he’d stalled.

      “Patrick didn’t mention he had another person staying here. That’s all.”

      “Ah.” I dug into another pot sticker, which shouldn’t have been so tasty washed down with orange juice, but was. “He didn’t tell me you were staying here, either. In fact, he said…”

      Both of us seemed to have come down with a case of bite-your-tongue-itis.

      Alex quirked a brow and sat back in his chair. The kitchen was warm, but he was shirtless, and goose bumps dappled his skin. An image of myself leaning across the table to lick his nipples sent a flash of heat through me that didn’t come from the furnace chugging to life beneath our feet.

      “What? Tell me.” The man I’d seen last night at the party, the one in my room, was back. His voice melted, gooey caramel on soft ice cream. I wanted to lick it.

      “He said,” I told him, carefully not looking at him but at my food, “to stay away from you.”

      “Did he?”

      I knew my laugh sounded forced, but he didn’t know me. “Yes.”

      “Why?”

      I licked soy sauce from a finger and caught him looking, his eyes narrowed but not angry. Interested, maybe. Intrigued. “Because Patrick likes to make sure I don’t get into trouble.”

      Alex snorted lightly and drank more juice. “He thinks I’m trouble?”

      “Aren’t you?” It sounded like flirting. It felt like flirting, but I knew better than to flirt with a man who was into guys. I’d learned my lesson on that a long time ago.

      “I guess that depends,” he said. Then, “Yeah. I am.”

      We both laughed at that, somehow companionable in our assessment of his character via the conduit of Patrick’s warning. “I thought so. You look like trouble.”

      Alex’s fine brown hair had been carefully groomed last night to look like a mess, but now it fell in genuine disarray over his forehead and into his eyes. When he bent to stare at the table, tapping his fingers on it, his hair obscured his face. I wanted to brush it off his forehead.

      “Emo bangs,” I said.

      He looked up at me then and pushed the hair out of his eyes. “Huh?”

      I gestured. “Your hair. Those long bangs, like one of those emo kids who wear skinny jeans and black fingernail polish.”

      He laughed again, for real this time, and long. “I guess that’s a sign if nothing else is, huh? Time for a cut?”

      “I don’t think so. I like it.” I speared the last pot sticker and held it up to him. “Sure you don’t want it?”

      “What the hell.” He plucked it from the fork and ate it from his fingers.

      I watched his lips close over his fingertips and suck away the soy sauce. Warmth swirled inside me, which was stupid, but hey, a girl can look even if she can’t touch. We both finished our orange juice at the same time.

      Then we sat in silence. Alex might be trouble, but he sure wasn’t chatty. Not that I got a snobby vibe off him or anything, as if he just didn’t want to talk to me. More like he wasn’t sure what to say.

      “How do you know Patrick?” It was ask or leave the kitchen for the chilly wilds of upstairs, where I’d have to dress and go into the colder outdoors to head home. Besides, I wanted to know.

      “We met in Japan.”

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