She laughed. She hadn’t heard that phrase in a long time. And the man had a point.
He stopped, midway through buckling his belt.
“Unless you don’t want me to drive you?”
He was far more thoughtful than she would have assumed at first glance. Both offering to drive her, and then pulling back when she’d hesitated, showed a lot more perception than she would have given him credit for.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d love a ride home.”
He nodded.
“Great. I’ll be ready in a second.”
It was kind of funny, how polite and almost formal they were with each other, after last night . . . and this morning. Both of them making carefully worded requests and acceptances that made them sound like the strangers to each other they really were, even when they did make reference to the reason she was here right now, and not in her house, six blocks away. It made sense, after all. They barely knew each other. She didn’t even know his last name. They’d spent, what, three hours talking before they’d tumbled into bed together?
She grinned to herself. It had turned out pretty well, though.
She retrieved her jacket and bag from the front hallway and then went into the bathroom to wash her face and do something to her hair so it didn’t look like she’d been having sex all night. She found a few bobby pins in the crevices of her bag and managed to twist her hair up into a more or less presentable topknot.
When she came out of the bathroom, Luke looked at her with just a hint of that admiration from the night before.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, and slid her feet into the shoes she’d kicked off by the door.
His car was right downstairs, parked in a prime spot outside of his building. She grinned when she saw it.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“Oh, just that if I’d seen this car last night, I wouldn’t have needed to look at your clothes to know you were new in town.”
He opened the passenger-side door for her.
“People don’t have cars like this in Napa? I know that’s not true.”
She pursed her lips as she got in, and waited for him to join her before she answered.
“Sure, people do. Mostly tourists do, though. Some weekend people, absolutely. And some of the major Valley players, but then, I know who all of those people are. But not a lot of people who really live around here, if you know what I mean.”
She gestured to the apartment buildings around them.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.” He turned to her. “Which way?”
“Two blocks this way,” she pointed. “And then left on Washington Street.”
She was glad, as they drove the short distance, that she wasn’t walking home right now. There were a lot of people out and about in downtown Napa at this time of morning—runners, restaurant workers setting up for breakfast or coffee service, people chatting while they waited in line for coffee or pastries. She very possibly may have seen someone she knew. She was glad Luke had spared her that.
“I’m here,” she said as he pulled onto her street. “That little blue house.”
He stopped in front of her house, and smiled at her. His smile had some of that heat from the night before in it.
“Margot. It was a pleasure.” Laughter jumped into his eyes. “Actually—quite a few pleasures.”
She grinned back at him.
“Likewise.”
He leaned in to kiss her, and it felt natural for her to meet his lips with hers. At first she thought it was going to be a simple, chaste goodbye kiss, but then her tongue slid into his mouth, and his fingers tangled in her hair, and the kiss became a lot more. Finally, she pulled away.
“I should, um, go,” she said.
He kissed her softly again.
“Maybe we could . . . see each other again sometime?”
This guy was so nice he even wanted to pretend it wasn’t a one-night stand.
“Yeah, maybe,” she said.
He pulled open the console between the two front seats and grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen.
“What’s your number?” he asked.
Oh, he was serious? She hadn’t expected that. He looked at her for a second, and his smile faded.
“Why don’t I give you mine?” he said.
He scrawled a number on the paper and handed it to her, and she tucked the paper with his number on it into her wallet.
“Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for the ride home.”
She opened the car door and turned to him.