Free Fur Factor by Christine Warren

love/lust with plain, average kindergarten teachers to the one where she couldn’t get a date unless her friends arranged it, and the last two men she’d gone out with had both decided they’d rather be celibate than have sex with her. She intended to cling to this little fantasy until it shriveled up and died. Then they could try to pry it from her clutching fingers.
    The hot, salted water began to work its magic on her, easing her sore muscles and soothing the raw feeling between her legs. Too bad it couldn’t sooth the raw feelings of confusion and fear and doubt that lurked under her blustering declarations. She draped her hair over the back of the tub to keep it dry and let her head rest against the cool, enameled iron. Her eyes drifted shut of their own accord, and she stifled a yawn. With the adrenaline of the evening fading from her system, Missy began to realize just how short her nap in Graham’s bed had really been. She felt like she could sleep for a week, but she didn’t want to miss a second of her fantasy fulfilled. God, what wouldn’t she give if this one encounter really could go on forever? She couldn’t imagine anything more heavenly than to have Graham so enamored of her that he never stopped touching her. All the sexual exertion might kill her, but boy, would she enjoy the trip.
    When he picked up her feet and began to massage the arches with firm pressure, she sighed in pleasure.
    “You’re welcome to do that for the rest of my life,” she murmured and drifted into that cloudy, peaceful state between sleeping and waking where the sound of the lapping water and their quiet breathing faded into a soothing metronome in the back of her mind. She felt like she just might sleep for a week.
    Or at least until the water began to cool.
    “I’d be happy to do it for the rest of our lives,” Graham murmured, his voice distinct and warm and rumbling through her sleepy state. “So why don’t you make it easy for me and move in with me.”

    Christine Warren
    Fur Factor
    41

Chapter Five
    Graham wasn’t quite sure where the words came from, but once they were out, he realized how good they sounded to him.
    “Very
    funny.”
    She stiffened, and he felt his own muscles echo the posture, but the way she failed to open her eyes or even lift her head from the back of the tub gave him the impression she might not be taking him all that seriously. He tried again. “Move in with me,” he said. “I’ll give you regular foot rubs, pick up all my own socks, and I promise you all the sex you can handle.”
    He watched her eyes open and fix on him. Their warm, brown color looked soft and a little bit hurt. She stared at him for a long minute before she spoke. “It’s not nice to tease a woman while you’re rubbing her feet. We’re too vulnerable. Be serious, okay?”
    “Didn’t I sound serious?”
    “No man sounds serious when he asks a woman to move in with him on their first date.”
    “Technically, this wasn’t a date. For it to be a date, we’d have to go out somewhere and do something other than have mind-blowing sex.” She blushed at that, and he found the bright rise of color beneath her pale skin to be charming. Infinitely more charming than the way she started to shake her head.
    “If you were serious, then you’re also insane.” She pulled her feet from his lap and started to sit up straighter until the movement brought her breasts above the water line. She quickly sank deeper and pulled her knees to her chest and out of his reach. The expression she wore now looked upset and a little sad. “I really wish you hadn’t shattered my illusions quite so soon. I should be going. Can I have a towel please?”
    “No.”
    She looked over at him, her eyebrows lifted high and her eyes wide and startled.
    “No?”
    “No, you can’t have a towel. If I give you one, you’ll dry off and go home, and I’m not ready to let you leave yet.”
    “Haven’t we already been through this once?” She