LITMIR.BIZ

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shower. No, no, no!

      Ten long, agonizing minutes passed as she waited for him to come out, the mountain lion on his bed giving her the evil eye the whole time. Finally the man emerged, a towel wrapped around him this time, and his dark, wet hair slicked back. But instead of moving aside to let her in, he slowly ran both hands up either side of the door frame, blocking the entrance, nonchalantly flexing those awesome biceps and chest muscles.

      “Going somewhere?” he asked.

      She stared up at him. “Uh…the bathroom?”

      “Oh, yeah?”

      “Yeah.”

      Silence.

      She shifted uncomfortably. “Do you think you could let me by?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Like…sometime soon?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “When?”

      “As soon as you get naked.”

      “Get what?”

      For the span of several seconds, he just stared at her, a calculating expression on his face. Then she knew.

      This was payback.

      She rolled her eyes with disgust. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? How was I supposed to know you sleep naked?”

      “You came into my room without knocking.”

      “I didn’t want to wake you.”

      “I like my privacy.”

      “You can’t be serious about this.”

      “Do I look like I’m joking?”

      She eyed him carefully. “Truthfully? No. Actually, so far I haven’t found you to be a particularly funny guy.”

      He eyed her up and down. “Off with it, sweetheart.”

      She huffed with disgust. “I am not taking off my shirt!”

      “My shirt.”

      “Whatever.”

      Still he refused to move. She put her hands on her hips. “Just what do you intend to do? Stand there all day?”

      “Nope. Not all day. But I can spare at least a few hours.”

      “Oh, just forget it!” she said, glaring at him. “I don’t need your damned bathroom!”

      “Suit yourself. But there’s not another one within a mile of here. Not one you’d want to use, anyway.”

      “Well, I suppose that’s what bushes are for, aren’t they?”

      “Good luck finding one. This isn’t exactly the garden district.”

      He had her there. Damn it. How dare he keep her from one of the fundamental necessities of life for such a petty revenge?

      Unfortunately, he could be as petty as he wanted to be because it would take a bulldozer to move him away from that door. How was she going to get out of this?

      Okay. Maybe it really wasn’t such a big deal. After all, during that cheap vacation in Mexico two years ago, she’d sunbathed topless on the beach. And there was the tiniest little possibility that she might have gotten caught on a Girls Gone Wild video flashing her boobs during a moment of Mardi Gras insanity. If he’d happened along during one of those times, he’d have gotten an eyeful, along with every other man in the vicinity. Was this really any different than that?

      But there was a problem. One glance at her nearly nonexistent breasts, and he was going to know he’d gotten the short end of the deal. He’d showed her the body of Adonis, and all she had to offer was Olive Oyl. Still, a man was a man, and there was a strong possibility that getting naked in front of this one would be like dangling raw meat in front of a lion.

      All at once he put his palm against the wall beside her left ear and leaned in closer. She froze for several tense seconds. His sharp, challenging expression, his rugged features and his intense, dark eyes made him look almost…sexy. In spite of the situation, she felt an odd stirring deep inside her, and she couldn’t stop her breath from coming faster and her body from heating up. Then he slowly reached up and touched his fingertip to the top button of her shirt, and she was absolutely certain that she was going to end up naked whether she’d agreed to get that way or not.

      “I told you I like my privacy,” he said, his voice a malicious drawl. “And I meant it. So if I catch you sneaking in here again, it’s all coming off. And I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

      To her immense relief, he stepped back, wearing that pissed-off expression that made him look like a prison guard on death row. She brushed past him, went inside the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She turned and leaned against it, sucking in a huge breath of relief and letting it out slowly, shocked as hell to still be clothed.

      Then, out of nowhere, images sprang to mind of just what he might have meant by I won’t be responsible for what happens next, and it occurred to her that taking that particular punishment might not be a totally negative thing.

      Stop it. He’s big, he’s mean and he’s threatening. A man you don’t want to mess with.

      She did her business, then decided that if he could avail himself of the shower, so could she. She found soap in there, some heavy-duty manly deodorant stuff with little green flecks of Irish whatever in it, but what the hell. Clean was clean. And the generic shampoo would hardly make her hair brittle if she used it just once. On the other hand, the hot water was heaven. For the first time since she’d been driving in her car last night, her body felt warm all the way to her bones.

      Of course, there was still that pocket of cold desperation clinging to the inside of her stomach.

      Right now, the man in the other room was the only ally she had within seven hundred miles, and she was pretty darned sure he didn’t want her around any longer than necessary. But there had to be a way to persuade him to help her. She figured a trip to the police station to file a crime report would be a good first step. He’d at least take her there, wouldn’t he?

      Past that, she had no idea what she was going to do.

      AS SOON AS THE WOMAN SLIPPED past him into the bathroom, Wolfe got dressed, then went into the kitchen and found her damp clothes hanging over the chair. He threw them into the dryer on the landing of the back stairwell, then sat down on the sofa and picked up the Metro section of yesterday’s Dallas Morning News. A quick scan of the headlines told him he didn’t really give a damn about any of it, and he tossed the paper to the coffee table again.

      How was he supposed to concentrate on the newspaper when there was a naked woman in his bathroom?

      He folded his arms, closed his eyes and listened to the shower running, imagining what her body looked like beneath that spray of water. Damn. He would have loved to have made good on his threat, to take a look at that sweet little body he’d had his hands on last night. In the end, though, he never would have done it, no matter how bold she seemed to be about wandering into his bedroom whenever she felt like it. He hated that feeling of somebody invading his space, disturbing his peace and quiet, and by the time this day was over, he’d make sure she was gone and everything was back the way it was supposed to be.

      He heard the shower stop, and a few minutes later she emerged from his bedroom wearing his shirt again and a towel wrapped around her hair. She glanced toward the kitchen chair.

      “Where are my clothes?”

      “I put them in the dryer.”

      She smiled. “Well. That was nice of you. Thank you.”

      “You can’t put them on wet. And you can’t leave until you put them on.”

      Her smile evaporated, replaced by a look of resignation. She folded her arms across her chest and walked toward him.

      “Look.

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