“Hard to say.” Impossible to tell him.

“Yeah.”

He touched his lips to hers again, testing, stirring, then deepening until they were both breathless.

“I’d better go get your shoes.”

“Okay.” But she pulled him back, racheting up the heat, groaning with it when his hands stroked down her sides to grip her hips.

He teetered on the edge, but made himself pull back. “Shoes,” he managed. “Free the hostages.You really need to go. Home.”

Stirred and shaken, she leaned back against the deck rail. “I told you dating’s harder than sex.”

“We don’t shirk from challenges.You’ve got some lips. I’ve always liked the look of them. I like them even better now.”

They curved. “Come over here and say that.”

“Better not. I’ll be back in a minute with the shoes.”

She watched him go and thought it was going to be a really long month.

SNEAKING BACK INTO THE HOUSE SHOULD BE, BY ALL THE ODDS, simpler than sneaking out. Carter and Mac would be tucked into their place, Emma and Jack in theirs. Mrs. G would either be watching TV in her cozy apartment with her feet up and a pot of her evening tea, or out with some cronies. Parker? Probably still working, but in her own suite and in comfortable clothes.

Laurel parked, reassured by the lights in the studio and guest-house. She just wanted to get into her own space, alone, and think about everything that happened, everything that had changed or started to change tonight.

Her lips still tingled from his; her skin still hummed. She could all but dance to the tune. If she’d kept a diary, she’d cover today’s page with little hearts and flowers.

Then rip it out and tear it up because that was embarrassing. But still, she’d do it.

Smiling at the idea, she let herself into the house, carefully and quietly locked up behind her. She didn’t exactly tiptoe up the stairs, but it was close.

“Are you just getting in?”

She didn’t scream, but that was close, too. Whirling, Laurel gaped at Parker, then sat down hard on the steps before she tumbled.

“Jesus Christ! Jesus! You’re scarier than a Rottweiler. What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” Parker waved the carton in her hand. “I went down for a yogurt and I’m going up to my room. What are you doing sneaking up the steps?”

“I wasn’t sneaking. I was walking. Quietly. You have yogurt in the little fridge upstairs.”

“I’m out of blueberry. I wanted blueberry. Do you mind?”

“No, no. God.” Laurel took a ragged breath, patted her heart. “You just scared the crap out of me.”

This time Parker pointed with her spoon. “You have guilty face.”

“I do not.”

“I’m looking at it. I know guilty face when I’m looking at it.”

“I’m not guilty. Why should I be guilty? I don’t have a curfew, do I, Mom?”

“See, guilty.”

“Okay, okay, put away the rubber hose.” Laurel threw up her arms in surrender. “I just went to Del’s to get my shoes.”

“Laurel, I can see that.You’re holding them in your hand.”

“Right. Right. Well, they’re great shoes and I wanted them back.” She stroked one affectionately. “He’d ordered Chinese.There were pot stickers.”

“Ah.” Nodding, Parker walked up to sit beside Laurel.

“I wasn’t going to stay, but I did, so we sat out on the deck and talked about me kissing him, then him kissing me. Which I didn’t actually mention to you. It feels weirder talking to you about it than it does talking to him.”

“Get over it.”

“I’m working on it, aren’t I? Anyway, we had to get to what do we do about it, if anything. He had an outline.”

“Of course.” Parker smiled as she spooned up yogurt.

“You’d expect that because the two of you are from the same mold. I told him if you and I were g*y we’d be married.”

Parker nodded again as she ate her yogurt. “I could see that.”

“We talked it over and we agreed we’d see each other and do stuff that people do, except no sex.”

Brows lifting, Parker licked her spoon. “You’re going to date but not have sex?”

“For thirty days. The theory being we’d know by then if we really wanted to have sex, or if it’s just ... hmm. I know it’s reasonable and adult, but we know we want to have sex now.”

“You take a little time first to make sure you’ll still like each other if and when you do.”

“Yeah, that’s the sticker.There was more in there. Tribes and my legs, but the upshot was we’re going to see how it goes.You’re really okay with it?”

Parker rapped her knuckles lightly on Laurel’s head. “Of course I’m okay with it, and if I wasn’t okay with it, you should tell me to go to hell and mind my own business. Want some of this yogurt?”

“No, thanks. Pot stickers.” But she leaned her head on Parker’s shoulder. “I’m glad I didn’t manage to sneak in.”

“Be gladder I’ve decided to be magnanimous and not be insulted you tried to.”

“Best friend ever.”

“It’s so true. I am. He’s a good man. I know he can be bossy because, same mold.And I know he has flaws, but he’s such a good man.” She laid her hand over Laurel’s briefly. “He deserves you. You and I have to make a pact right now, that when you need to bitch about him—or he needs to bitch about you to me—that you and I handle it the way we handle any other bitching about guys. You don’t feel hamstrung because he’s my brother, and I don’t take offense because he’s my brother.”

“All right.”

They hooked pinkies on the swear.

“Now I’m going up, finishing up a couple things.” Parker rose. “You know if you don’t fill in Emma and Mac, their feelings are going to be hurt.”

“I’ll update them.” She pushed to her feet to walk to the third level with Parker.

FULL DISCLOSURE, DEL DECIDED, AND MADE ARRANGEMENTS TO meet Jack for a morning workout. Since the word was full, he told Jack to drag Carter along. He started off with cardio while Carter approached a treadmill with obvious trepidation.