A MAN OF ALL SEASONS.

"SORRY, SORRY,SORRY!" Marlie Waters winced at her house mate's grim expression. Tyler stood in the doorway of home office and jammed his arms into his shirt sleeves. He looked exactly like a man who'd been about to get laid and had Been interrupted. Because he had been. By her. Not the laying, the interrupting. "I was distracted." Marlie gestured to her computer. "I was concentrating in the website and checking to make sure it looked the same in every browser and decided a snack sounded good and while I was thinking about code and something to eat, I wasn't thinking about you and ....." your chest. Her gaze danced ahead of his fingers as he did up his shirt. "Axelle." Tyler finished buttoning his shirt and glared at her, fist on his hips, his hair rumpled .A little smear of eye shadow gleamed on his cheek. No doubt whatsoever about what he'd been doing on the big brown, comfy sofa_and with whom_even though Marlie had raced backed downstairs, eyes averted. Awkward, yes, but more disconcerting was seeing her housemate as a desirable man through Axelle's slate-shadow eyes instead of her own naked, puffy, over-worked ones. Intellectually, Marlie had known Tyler was a good-looking guy, the All-American, touch-football-on-the-weekends type, but emotionally, he'd never pushed her buttons. She'd disconnected that buttons, anyway. Maybe forever. Life was much less stressful without those buttons connected. But now, here he stood in all his rumpled, sexy glory, and right in the middle of her apologetic explanation, her buttons decided to reconnect themselves just in time for Tyler to lean on them. Lust sucker-punched her. Marlie needed a moment. Ty was like a brother_okay, never a brother. More like a cousin. Her gaze skipped over his face, gritted jaw, and the rise and fall of his chest. A really distant cousin. By marriage. A muscle worked in the cheek unadorned by Axelle's eyes shadow. Tyler Burton, the son of longtime friends of her parents, her reluctant playmate on several joint family summer vacations, the sulking teen from their last, shared camping trip_that Tyler Burton_had grown into a manly man. One might say he was a hunk. Tyler inhaled deeply, his chest rising impressively before he exhaled in a whoosh. And that person would be Marlie. How convenient that he was temporarily living with her and how incredibly remiss of her not to have taken advantage of that fact sometime in the past eighteen months. Whoa. Marlie beat the lust back into long-term storage and summoned the memory of the skinny, surly Ty of her youth. "Axelle", she repeated to ground herself. Axelle, Ty's current girlfriend and her client. in fact, Axelle's website was the one Marlie had been working on this evening. she didn't think they'd appreciate the irony. "Anyway, I forgot you and Axelle were her when I came upstairs, and then I remembered and_" Screamed." "it was more of yelp". the music twitced again. " I'm sorry! I closed my eyes, I swear." Unfortunately not before the image of a shirtless Ty and, oh, this was not good, her shirtless client, was burned into her retinas. You spoiled the mood." Tyler tucked on his shirt and buckled his belt . Marlie thought he'd been overdressed for a casual dinner at home, but Axelle's idea of casual is more upscale than hers. Probably a French thing. "You can get it back. I'll stay in my office for the rest of the night, I promise. Look, I'm shutting the door." There was a rustling at the top of the stairs and Tyler glanced up before fixing Marlie with a look that told her their discussion wasn't over. "I'm driving Axelle home now." Marlie went into her office and stayed there, Anyway, but she could hear their voice murmuring. She couldn't make out what they were saying, so she pressed her ear against the door. " But she never goes anywhere! "she heard a frustrated Ty protest. " No boyfriend? "Axelle asked. Well, no, she wouldn't I suppose." And the door to the garage closed. Ouch. Ouch not because Marlie was pining for a boy_friend_she wasn't_but because in the nearly three years since Marlie had, had a boyfriend_a fiancé, actually_ she'd embraced a simpler style. simple meaning Marlie no longer bothered with make-up, stuck her bushy, over-grown hair in a ponytail, and adopted yoga pants, a tank top, and flip-flops as her uniform. it wasn't as though she spent her days in pajamas, she thought virtuously. But that was only because she slept in her clothes. So what? it was an efficient, time saving system and there was nobody around to see her, except Ty, who didn't count. He wouldn't have noticed anyway. But Axelle had noticed and that was the ouchy part. Axelle had forced Marlie to acknowledge that there was a difference between simple and unkempt. The first time they'd met face-to-face , when Axelle had been bringing by the new menus for the downtown Houston restaurant she and her brother owned, Axelle's gaze had swept over Marlie, and her expression had immediately changed to concern. You should have told me you were sick! " Axelle had made little French tsking sounds. "We won't be using the new menus until next week, so updating the website can wait. please. Return to bed. Get well." "Okay" was all Marlie had been able to manage as Axelle had quickly backed out the door. Marlie hadn't been sick. Or in bed. After hurrying across the hall to the powder room beneath the stairs and really studying herself in the mirror for the first time in the months, Marlie couldn't justify feeling insulted. Especially when Axelle returned later with leftovers from the restaurant, including veggies swimming in the most intensely flavored broth Marlie had ever tasted. Axelle was explaining that her brother, the chef, had made it especially for Marlie when Tyler, who'd been lured down stairs by the smell of the food, appeared in the doorway.