Read Online Ain’t Misbehaving by Jennifer Greene - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jennifer Greene
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belonged to his grandparents. He’d collected Chinese prints from the time he was a kid, so the walls didn’t look too bare. Chinese had been the first language he’d started to learn during those years when he’d been forced to pursue sedentary activities.
Sheets hung in the windows. He’d gone to a store to buy curtains once, but couldn’t make head or tail of the measurements, nor did he have the least idea what a valance was. Of course, he could have asked for help—but he wasn’t much inclined to take help from anyone these days. All his life, he’d had to ask for far too much from other people.
Within ten minutes, he was out of the business suit he’d worn to lunch and into painting jeans and an ancient crewneck sweater.
He switched on the overhead light and opened a paint can, smiling to himself as he thought about his mother’s less than subtle machinations.
She wanted him married. She also wanted an even dozen grandchildren. Preferably yesterday.
The paint roller scudded over the wails, turning an odd shade of rose to an antique cream. The house was around fifty years old. When he’d finally recovered from the last operation, he’d looked at newer houses. And to speed the recovery process, he’d generally tried to fill most evenings with a woman across a restaurant table from him. That’s what he thought he should want: to buy a brand-new bachelor’s pad, and to hurry back into circulation and make up for lost time. Neither houses nor women had been hard to find.
Neither gave him what he wanted.
He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t play it like a kid just starting out. He was a man, not a kid. He had a man’s need for a home and privacy, but the home had to express him, and none of the newer places he looked at fit the bill. He also had a man’s need for a woman at his side, the kind of woman he’d like to wake up to in the morning. He wanted more than just the quick encounters that were readily available.
Oh, he’d considered going to bed with them. An easy lay would have solved any number of problems—not the least of which was sheer overwhelming physical frustration. And with a stranger—well, if she guessed about his inexperience, it would hardly matter.
Mitch stepped back, viewing the half-finished wall with a critical eye. The plaster sucked in the paint, and minutes later the original color showed through. The cathedral ceiling had taken him an entire week to paint, and then another week to repaint.
Strangers hadn’t been an answer. Twice, he’d been close. But the scenes had reeked of two people taking advantage of each other so cold-bloodedly that he’d backed off, feeling like a bastard. The women might not care that they were being used, but he did. He’d had to fight for life too damn hard not to separate the gold from the dross. Nobody had time to waste on experiences with no value.
An image of Kay flickered in his mind. He blocked it, irritated. In the past two weeks, ever since he’d left her that Friday night after the poker game, he’d been carrying a mental picture of her around with him everywhere. Gold framed. Twenty-four-karat gold, because she was far softer than fourteen-karat.
He told himself he was completely over that first rush of overwhelming attraction for her. She had droves of men in her life already, lovers he couldn’t begin to compete with. And he wasn’t going to try. But he just couldn’t dismiss that resistant mental picture of the woman.
Chapter Five
“So when are you going to tell me who the man is?” Susan asked. Plopping down three bulky parcels, she slid into the booth across from Kay. Hurriedly, she finger-combed a disordered set of bouncing blond curls in a characteristic gesture.
“What are you talking about?” Kay returned, as she nodded a thank-you to the waitress for delivering two steaming mugs of coffee. Unbuttoning her jacket, she wrapped her freezing hands around the warm mug.
“For openers, we’ve been shopping
Sheets hung in the windows. He’d gone to a store to buy curtains once, but couldn’t make head or tail of the measurements, nor did he have the least idea what a valance was. Of course, he could have asked for help—but he wasn’t much inclined to take help from anyone these days. All his life, he’d had to ask for far too much from other people.
Within ten minutes, he was out of the business suit he’d worn to lunch and into painting jeans and an ancient crewneck sweater.
He switched on the overhead light and opened a paint can, smiling to himself as he thought about his mother’s less than subtle machinations.
She wanted him married. She also wanted an even dozen grandchildren. Preferably yesterday.
The paint roller scudded over the wails, turning an odd shade of rose to an antique cream. The house was around fifty years old. When he’d finally recovered from the last operation, he’d looked at newer houses. And to speed the recovery process, he’d generally tried to fill most evenings with a woman across a restaurant table from him. That’s what he thought he should want: to buy a brand-new bachelor’s pad, and to hurry back into circulation and make up for lost time. Neither houses nor women had been hard to find.
Neither gave him what he wanted.
He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t play it like a kid just starting out. He was a man, not a kid. He had a man’s need for a home and privacy, but the home had to express him, and none of the newer places he looked at fit the bill. He also had a man’s need for a woman at his side, the kind of woman he’d like to wake up to in the morning. He wanted more than just the quick encounters that were readily available.
Oh, he’d considered going to bed with them. An easy lay would have solved any number of problems—not the least of which was sheer overwhelming physical frustration. And with a stranger—well, if she guessed about his inexperience, it would hardly matter.
Mitch stepped back, viewing the half-finished wall with a critical eye. The plaster sucked in the paint, and minutes later the original color showed through. The cathedral ceiling had taken him an entire week to paint, and then another week to repaint.
Strangers hadn’t been an answer. Twice, he’d been close. But the scenes had reeked of two people taking advantage of each other so cold-bloodedly that he’d backed off, feeling like a bastard. The women might not care that they were being used, but he did. He’d had to fight for life too damn hard not to separate the gold from the dross. Nobody had time to waste on experiences with no value.
An image of Kay flickered in his mind. He blocked it, irritated. In the past two weeks, ever since he’d left her that Friday night after the poker game, he’d been carrying a mental picture of her around with him everywhere. Gold framed. Twenty-four-karat gold, because she was far softer than fourteen-karat.
He told himself he was completely over that first rush of overwhelming attraction for her. She had droves of men in her life already, lovers he couldn’t begin to compete with. And he wasn’t going to try. But he just couldn’t dismiss that resistant mental picture of the woman.
Chapter Five
“So when are you going to tell me who the man is?” Susan asked. Plopping down three bulky parcels, she slid into the booth across from Kay. Hurriedly, she finger-combed a disordered set of bouncing blond curls in a characteristic gesture.
“What are you talking about?” Kay returned, as she nodded a thank-you to the waitress for delivering two steaming mugs of coffee. Unbuttoning her jacket, she wrapped her freezing hands around the warm mug.
“For openers, we’ve been shopping
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