Dirty Sexy Knitting by Christie Ridgway Page A

as he straightened on the couch. His grimace made her eyes narrow, and then she noticed the bulge in his jeans. Hah. That little session they just had might not have been shared, but it had certainly gotten to him a little. Well, good.
    It only strengthened her decision. She definitely wouldn’t correct his wrong impression that they’d slept together. But she was going to make him pay for it. And now that she knew he wasn’t as immune to her as he’d always pretended, she thought she had an idea of just what it was going to cost him.
     
     
     
    Don’t look at her, Gabe told himself, staring out the passenger-side window of Cassandra’s veggie car and pretending a fascination with the light rain. Don’t breathe, because then you’ll take in her perfume. Don’t think about the sight of her incredible breasts . . . The pale globes, their nipples red and sweet and wet after he’d loved them with his mouth.
    Find your detachment, buddy. Remember, she’s like a nun . Okay, not with the image of those breasts branded into his brain. Sister, then—uh, can’t go there now either. Then friend. Yeah, Cassandra was a friend, though one he needed to keep a decided distance from—and hadn’t she asked for it herself just days ago? He couldn’t take the chance on letting his lust take over for his common sense.
    She pulled into the parking lot of the medical building in Beverly Hills, and found a spot in the first row of patient spaces. “It looks like the staff will have to walk right past us to get inside,” she said, turning off the ignition. “Now we just have to sit back and wait. I was told Dr. Tucker would be in this morning.”
    “Are you sure it is morning?” Gabe grumbled, peering out at the dim light. “Morning is when birds sing and sun shines and I’ve had at least three cups of coffee.”
    Cassandra unhooked her seatbelt and kneeled on her seat to reach behind it. From the corner of his eye, he gave himself two seconds to check out her curvy behind in blue jeans. Her waist was tiny, flaring to hips and ass that were in proportion to that pair of spectacular . . .
    He was not thinking of those spectaculars.
    She flipped around, and settled back behind the steering wheel, a cardboard carrier in her lap. She had a colorful knitted hat perched on her head with tassels on its two upstanding corners, making her look like a jaunty, sexy milkmaid. “Here,” she said, handing over a cardboard cup. “Thirty-two ounces of mood enhancement.”
    Hesitating, he eyed the beverage with a frown. “Froot Loop, that’s not the sick seaweed stuff you usually drink, is it?”
    “It’s one hundred percent caffeinated, he-man java, Gabe,” she replied. “Black and ugly, just like you seem to be feeling today.”
    Though he maintained his scowl, inside he perked up. This was the way things usually were between them. He baited, she poked, they both used the activity to maintain a safe space between them. He took the coffee from her and raised it to his lips.
    “Thank you for coming with me, by the way,” she said, her voice low. “Thank you very much.” Her slender hand landed high on his thigh and squeezed.
    He jumped, and his fingers curved around the cup matched the movement of hers. Hot coffee burped out of the small drinking hole, scalding his fingers. “Damn!”
    “Ouch,” she said, commiserating. She grabbed up a napkin from the cardboard carrier, and when he transferred the coffee to his other hand, she tended to the burned one herself. She dried it with the paper square, then inspected his skin.
    He tried pulling away. “I’m fine.”
    She held on. “Let me make sure.”
    Gritting his teeth, he kept still for her ministrations, though the feel of her warm breath against his wrist might as well have been her tongue. The sensation tickled up the smooth inside flesh of his arm.
    Then she brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his fingers.
    “What?” He yanked his hand from her grasp. “What do you