His Perfect Woman (Harlequin Superromance) by Kay Stockham

“Soon.”
    â€œHow about now?” he urged with a low laugh when he heard the distinct sound of her stomach growling. “I’m hungry again and you’ve proved you’re up to the task by being so engrossed you’ve backed yourself into a corner.”
    Melissa added the file to the top of a stack and looked up, her face coloring slightly when she noted the truth of his words. She stood and, with careful placement of her feet, crossed the small waiting room, trying not to cause any of the piles surrounding her to topple. Tall and graceful, she looked like a dancer with her short, trendy hair and lithe form.
    Long gone were the carefully braided pigtails, buck teeth and the kid who’d tripped over her own feet nearly as often as he had. Melissa held her arms away from her body forbalance but wobbled on the next-to-last step. She adjusted quickly and then hopped the last files without incident.
    â€œOh, I almost forgot.” She knelt down and grabbed a pile of thick file folders. Rising and turning, her head low because she concentrated on what she was doing, she hadn’t seen him step forward to help and he didn’t have time to get out of her way. Melissa bumped into him, the files she held sliding to the right. Bryan scrambled to help her keep the foot-thick stack from falling, but ended up grasping her arms and smashing the files between them to do so.
    Color spread up Melissa’s neck into her face. “Sorry.”
    â€œNo problem.” Except it was.
    He couldn’t move, because if he did, everything would wind up on the floor. She shifted and tried to straighten the files again, her elbows digging into his stomach in the process. The mass of paper kept them from full contact, but desire raced through him regardless. Now? His body was responding now?
    â€œI’ve got them. Oops, wait a sec. Now I do.” She smiled up at him. “Thanks.”
    Up close, her hair smelled of raspberries and looked so soft his fingers twitched with the need to touch it. The sprinkling of freckles across her nose were undisguised by powder, but the sight of them made him want to—
    â€œYou can let go now.”
    Bryan released her and stepped back, more than a little surprised at himself for feeling like a hormonal teenager on a rampage. Melissa turned and walked away, seemingly unaffected by what had just happened. And him? Biting back a curse, he ran a hand over his mouth and rubbed hard to erase the temptation of kissing those freckles.
    Melissa was the epitome of the girl next door—blond,blue eyed, long legged and thin. But thanks to her speech earlier and because of his past, he couldn’t ignore the fact she was too thin, her hair too short and her eyes shadowed by light circles born of prolonged illness—one he didn’t want to ever have to acknowledge again. Not on an intimate level.
    Melissa walked over to the desk to place the files on the corner and then began gathering up the dozen pens scattered across the top of the long counter. Within seconds, she’d put a fistful in the nearly empty container and went on to another task. Did she feel the tension, too? Somehow he doubted it. She seemed…oblivious. Simply trying to get as much work done as possible before she had to leave.
    Curious, drawn by some invisible, unrecognizable force, Bryan moved to lean his elbows atop the high counter. His mind warned him to back off and not go where his thoughts led, but he couldn’t help himself. It was too strange. He wasn’t used to being dismissed by a woman.
    Melissa glanced up at him. “Is something wrong?”
    â€œNo.” He reined in his thoughts once more. “Just wondering if you like Italian?”
    â€œOh, right, lunch. Sure, Italian’s goo—”
    The phone rang and he glanced at the caller ID screen. “It’s the station, probably the chief.”
    Melissa hesitated. It was obvious to him that she