Love Me Sweet (Love Me book 1)

Chapter 8

Lia waved goodnight to Chloe and turned to go into her apartment, but as she crossed into her driveway she saw a shadow and automatically reached for the canister of pepper spray she kept attached to her purse. She was lifting it when she heard Ben's voice.

"Stop, it's only me!" he hissed.

"Only you, then I should definitely use this on you if for no other reason then you just scared me to death!" she hissed back. "Why are we whispering?" she asked.

"Huck's been carrying on for the past half hour, he only stopped a few minutes ago."

"Then why are you in my driveway? If you didn't want to listen to him you could have left," she insisted, walking towards her door as Ben stood up from the bench on which he had been sitting.

"I needed a break from the book I'm writing, and sometimes sitting under the stars helps," he said as he came up behind her.

"That's right, I heard you were a writer and a pretty famous one too, congratulations."

"Well if you had to be told that then I can't be that famous, can I?" he said drily.

"True, when one of your books has been made into a movie then you will have really made it into the big time." She smiled as she pushed through her door.

"Do you have a minute to talk?" he asked as she turned to shut the door on him.

She considered him for a moment, his dark beard and wide shoulders, then nodded, standing aside as she grabbed Huck's collar, so he wouldn't dart out the door. "Would you like some tea?" she asked putting her keys on the counter next to the door.

"I'll have some coffee thanks," he said, taking a kitchen chair and making himself at home. To add insult to injury, Huck padded over to him and placed his head in Ben's lap.

"I didn't offer coffee," Lia said, putting the kettle on the stove.

"Then nothing, thank you," he said passively as if he sensed she was itching for a fight and wasn't going to give it to her.

She pulled out the chair next to him and angled it to face him. "I'm tired, what did you want to talk about?"

"You look very pretty," he said, surprising her.

Lia never got complements. Even when she had been engaged to Chance, she hadn't received them. A look of admiration, but never the words.

"Thank you, is that your way of buttering me up?" she asked, her eyes meeting his.

Time seemed to stand still as her green eyes met his hazel ones and neither one of them moved. The eventual sound of the kettle's whistle broke the spell.

"So, I'm waiting," Lia said as she made her tea.

"What if I offered to let you restore my house, carte blanche, anything you wanted, all the way down to the furniture?" Ben looked down at Huck who was looking adoringly up at him.

"If you did, I would ask why? What's in it for you?"

"Besides the simple fact of not having to fix it up myself?" he asked. "The reason I haven't touched it in the time I've lived there is because I can't be bothered, I don't have the time nor the desire to."

Lia finished making her tea and joined him, her knees brushing his as she sat. "Alright, I'll bite, besides that?"

"Hear me out first, before you say anything?" His eyes met hers over the rim of the cup and she sensed he was very serious, whatever he was about to say.

"Alright," she agreed.

"I don't let the rumors about me or llliana bother me, I never have, but it has come to my attention very recently that they have greatly affected others in my life-"