Not that she was alone; he knew Levi and Bianca had set up time to go out on a date right after Edie was dropped off. That wasn’t it. It was that she looked . . . different. Her shiny, shoulder-length brown hair was full of the same careless waves as before, her bangs swept off to one side. She was wearing a T-shirt under another blazer, jeans, and sneakers. Very casual.
But her mouth—that sensual, pouty, heavenly mouth that had been in his dreams last night—was a bright, startling red that was just begging to be kissed.
He couldn’t stop staring at it. With just that little bit of color, Edie’s features had changed from mediocre to utterly sensual. Her upper lip, god. He kept picturing it skimming along his dick, brushing against his lips. It was a mouth made for dick sucking, his buddies would say. And then Magnus would have punched them in the face for saying that about his girl.
Except Edie wasn’t his girl. She was the damn cat lady.
“Hi. Thanks for coming back,” Magnus said, opening the door to let her in.
She limped into his house. “You asked for a consultant, right? Here I am.” She spread her arms and dropped them, and her cheeks colored a bright red for no reason whatsoever. She was . . . blushing? Why?
He scratched his head. “You okay?”
“Yep! Yep. Fine. Why do you ask?” Definitely blushing.
“No reason.”
She gave him a small smile and nodded, crossing her arms over her chest and glancing around. “So . . . where’s your brother today? I didn’t get to see him last time.”
Shit. “Him? Oh. He’s out meeting with uh, consultants. For our latest project.” Yeah, right. Levi never met with consultants. They always wanted to know numbers and deadlines, and all Levi would do was give them concepts and sketch pictures of his ideas and daydream about story ideas. Magnus was the guy with the details, but Edie wouldn’t know that. Time to distract her. He gestured at the house. “You want to look around before we head up to see Cujo?”
To his surprise, she smiled, showing perfect white teeth, and that sinful mouth seemed to draw all his attention. “Sure. You have a weird house. I admit I’m curious to see the rest of it.”
He gave a joking little bow. “Then allow me to show you around.” He took a step backward and gestured at their surroundings. “This is the foyer.”
She chuckled, the sound husky. It seemed to rasp right over his dick, asking for attention. “I knew that part.” She glanced around and shoved her hands into her jeans pockets, as if a little uncomfortable. “If you don’t mind me saying, your place looks a bit like a warehouse.”
“That was actually the look we were going for.”
“Really?” Edie seemed surprised.
“Yeah, really,” he said, and was impressed she picked up on it. “This place was apparently built in the twenties, and some big, famous modern artist bought it in the nineties and completely gutted the place. I think it was originally five floors but he had the second floor removed so the ceilings could be higher.” He pointed up. “You can see a lot of the structure from the original floor is still in place, but the beams are bare now.”
“Huh,” she said, sounding impressed.
“He also took out the walls to everything he could, because he wanted it to be open space, like a warehouse. I think it was supposed to be a play on modern life and how we live at work or something.” Magnus shrugged. “That’s why the kitchen is right open to the living room and the stairs are all the way at the very back of the floor.”
“It’s very . . . odd?” she said as they walked toward the kitchen area. “I don’t know that it feels all that welcoming. I don’t mean that to sound rude. I mean, the place is fascinating, but not really—”
“Much like a home? Yeah. I thought the same thing when I saw it.”
She gave him a funny look, that smile still curving her mouth. “Then why buy it?”
“Two things—location and price.”
Edie nodded thoughtfully, running her long fingers along the granite soda-shop countertop of the kitchen “table.” “It is a good location.”
“Walking distance to all the important parts of New York,” he agreed.
“So you got it cheap?”
“Oh, hell no. It was ridiculously expensive.” He lifted his fingers and made a quote. “Because it was ‘art.’”
She laughed again, shaking her head. “You wanted it to be expensive?”
“It was right after we sold Warrior Shop.”
Her brows drew together and she gave him a little headshake, indicating she didn’t understand.
“Warrior Shop? The game?” He couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard of it. They were all over the Internet. Hell, there were pages and pages of memes devoted to their game. “‘Take an axe to it’? ‘Axe to grind’? The game with the big plastic swords? Haven’t you seen the shirts?”
“I . . . guess I wasn’t paying attention. So it’s a game?”
He snorted, a little pissed that she didn’t know just how big a deal Warrior Shop was. “Biggest online game in years. A computer company bought it for two billion dollars.”
Her eyes got as big as saucers. “Two . . . billion dollars? For a game you made?”
“Yep,” he said proudly. He was still damn proud of that little game. “Levi and I made it ourselves. Levi had the concepts, but I did all the muscle work. At first we tried to sell it to a few places. I’d been told all over town two years before that it was too basic. Too simple, wouldn’t make any money. We put it online, and it got popular. Then we sold movie rights. Then merchandising rights. Next thing I know, we’re seeing Warrior Shop T-shirts on street corners and backpacks. That’s when the big companies came calling. So I decided that when we sold it, I’d buy the most expensive place smack dab in NYC that I could find.”
She tapped a finger on the countertop. “And this was it?”
“This was it,” he agreed.
“Couldn’t you have spent a little less and got someplace a little cozier?” she asked, still grinning with that beautiful red mouth of hers.
“I could have, but that wouldn’t have proved my point nearly as well,” Magnus said, smiling back at her. “You want to see the other floors?”
“I do,” she agreed, then gestured. “So this floor is the foyer, the living room, the kitchen, and I guess that wide open area with the pool table is the dining area?”
“That’s it. Second floor is bedrooms, third floor is the entertainment room and the workout room, and the fourth floor is our offices.”
“Sounds intriguing. Let’s go.”
He paused as she limped past him. “It . . . it’s not going to bother your leg, is it?”
She flashed him an annoyed look. “I’m not going to break. Do you have an elevator?”
“Well, no—”
“Then I’m going up the stairs, aren’t I?”
She sure did get prickly when he asked about her knee. “I could always carry you,” he offered, mostly because he wanted to see her bristle.
She shot him the finger and kept walking, which made him laugh.