Buck Naked Read online

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Sadie protested. “I tried to get lunch at the Lemon Squeezy, but . . .” She stopped, not wanting to tell her gruff neighbor about her failed attempt to get lunch at the diner.

  “But?” he echoed, raising one black eyebrow.

  “But I couldn’t,” Sadie finished. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go home and . . .” She stopped abruptly, remembering that she had yet to stock her fridge and pantry. The thought of eating the Count Chocula breakfast cereal that was almost as old as she was wasn’t very appealing. But that only left the Gatorade gum. Ugh.

  “Look, have dinner with me,” Mathis said grudgingly. He looked like he could scarcely believe he was asking her, but the invitation sounded genuine. “I was about to sit down and eat right before you showed up.”

  “Really?” Sadie wasn’t sure if she ought to accept or not. She couldn’t help remembering the strange instant orgasm she’d had the first time they shook hands. What had that been about? Still, he’d just been holding her on his lap for God alone knew how long and there had been no repeat of the strange electric-lust feeling. Also, Mathis, for all of his gruffness, was one of only two people that she knew of in Cougarville who would actually talk to her.

  Another loud, embarrassing growl from her stomach decided her.

  “Look, I can’t have you fainting again.” Mathis frowned. “Come on—come in the kitchen. I’ll heat up the steak—won’t take a minute.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” Sadie followed him from the comfortable, fire-lit living room to a small, snug kitchen.

  To her surprise it was extremely neat and fitted with all the latest appliances in brushed stainless steel. An enormous rib eye steak was sitting on a blue china plate and a baked potato almost as big as a hoagie roll could be seen wrapped in aluminum foil through the glass of the oven door.

  Mathis busied himself reheating the food, which had apparently gone cold while he held her on the couch. Sadie admired his swift, economical movements—he worked like a man who really knew his way around a kitchen.

  “Can I help?” she asked. “Maybe set the table?”

  “Plates in that cabinet.” He nodded at one of the carved oak cabinets above the sink.

  Sadie opened it but the blue china plates were far above her head on the top shelf. She stood on her tiptoes but it was no good—even in her heels she couldn’t reach.

  Mathis saw her trouble and reached up easily to hand her two plates from the shelf.

  “Sorry,” he grunted. “I built this place for someone my size, not yours.”

  “So you built this all yourself?” Sadie took the plates, looking around the kitchen again. Now that she thought about it, most of the surfaces seemed to be higher than normal. Instead of hitting around her hips, the counters and sink were almost up to her chest. Even the round maple-wood kitchen table seemed bigger and sturdier than usual.

  Mathis nodded as he plated the steak. “Had no one but myself to please and every other place I’d ever lived my whole life was too damn small. I got tired of smacking my head on doorways and crouching over counters.” He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling. “So I built everything in here to suit myself.”

  “So you’re a carpenter? You’re really talented.” She admired the wood of the table, running her fingertips over the smoothly sanded grain.

  “Yeah,” he said noncommittally but she could see the dark flush of pleasure on his cheeks at her compliment. “I make custom furniture, do some carvings. It’s a living. Anyway, I’m my own boss. I like that.”

  “I like it too,” Sadie said. “Well, I think I would if I could find any clients. Other than Fiona, that is.”

  “So you’re trying to do her books?” Mathis raised an eyebrow at her as he cut the rib eye into two neat sections. “Good luck with that. I saw ’em once around tax time when she asked me for help—what a lot of scribble-scrabble.”

  “Yes, her record keeping is . . . interesting to say the least,” Sadie said, smiling a little. “Where do you keep your silverware?”

  He showed her the right drawer and she got out a fork and steak knife—both oversized, she saw—for each of them.

  Mathis got the potato—which was now piping hot—the butter, and a bottle of steak sauce and placed them all on the table. He got some glasses out—again from a shelf too high for Sadie to reach—then looked at her uncertainly.

  “Uh, sorry but all I have to drink is beer or water. I don’t usually have company so I don’t keep a lot of soda or wine or—”

  “Water is fine,” Sadie said quickly. Her stomach was growling again in response to the delicious aroma of the steak and potato. At this point she didn’t care what she had to drink as long as she got something to eat before she fainted again.

  “You got it.” Mathis filled her glass from the tap and got a bottle of beer for himself from the fridge. “Let’s eat.”

  They did and Sadie couldn’t help thinking that it was the most delicious meal she’d ever had. Maybe it was because she was so hungry but she didn’t think so—even if she hadn’t been starving she would have appreciated the food, which really was spectacular. The steak was juicy and tender and seasoned to perfection and the potato was fluffy and buttery with a crispy skin.

  “You like it?” Mathis asked after they had been eating a while in silence. Sadie knew she ought to have been making polite small talk but the food was so good and she was so hungry she hadn’t been able to make herself do anything but eat.

  “I’m in heaven.” She speared another juicy bite of steak and smiled at him. “You’re an amazing cook.”

  “Well, thanks.” He looked cautiously pleased. “It was either learn to cook or eat all my meals at the Lemon Squeezy, and as much as I like Darla’s cooking it gets old driving ten miles into town for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all the damn time.”

  “Darla—that’s the woman with the platinum-blond hair she wears in a beehive?” Sadie asked, remembering the owner of the diner.

  “Sure, that’s her. You meet her today?” Mathis raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Sort of.” Sadie shifted in her chair uncomfortably, remembering how the proprietor of the diner had screamed at her and stomped the lunch she’d ordered on the floor.

  She thought about asking if Darla was bipolar but then Mathis would probably want to know why she had asked and the scene at the diner was way too weird and embarrassing to explain.

  “What about the Cougar’s Den?” she asked instead. “They’re supposed to be a bar and grill, right? What kind of food do they make?”

  “Stay out of there.” His face, which had been more open and inviting since they’d started eating, suddenly went hard. “It’s not fucking safe in there for someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?” Sadie frowned. “You mean a woman without a man to protect her? Because that’s pretty sexist.”

  “No, that’s not it. I mean . . .” He shook his head, apparently at a loss for words. “Well, you know what I mean. It’s just not safe so stay out.”

  “All right.” Sadie didn’t know what he meant at all but she didn’t want to rile him up either.

  “So is steak your specialty or do you cook other things too?” she asked, diplomatically changing the subject.

  He shrugged. “I make a mean marinara sauce and a pretty good shepherd’s pie. That was my mom’s recipe—she learned to make it for my dad. He was Irish.”

  “Really? You don’t look Irish.”

  “Oh, no? What do you think I look like, then?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

  Sadie looked at him critically from his huge size to his shaggy black hair and neatly trimmed black beard. He had olive skin and large well-made hands with very clean nails. Sadie liked that—she always noticed a man’s hands. For a moment she had a flash of what it would be like to have those hands caressing her body, roaming all over her naked flesh until she moaned for more.

  Wait a minute—where did that thought come from?

  She had