LITMIR.BIZ

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if he was as irritating as hell. “I’m not even going to bother to answer that,” he growled. “There’s no reasoning with you tonight. I’m going home.”

      Storming past him out to his pickup, he never saw Zeke’s grin of delight. He knew he was letting him push his buttons, but he couldn’t stop himself when his brother called after him, “Tell Angel hi!” Shooting him a rude hand gesture, he drove away in a cloud of dust, cursing all the way.

      In the deep silence of the night, a door slowly eased open downstairs, and Angel came awake with a start. Disoriented, she frowned at her shadowy surroundings, trying to get her bearings, when she heard it again. The quiet tread of a footfall somewhere downstairs. Her heart slamming against her ribs, she froze and tried to convince herself it was just Joe.

      But in the six days she’d lived in his home, she’d come to recognize the sound of his step, and even in the dead of night, he never moved quite so stealthily. And when she soundlessly slipped from her bed to look out her bedroom window, Joe’s truck wasn’t parked in its customary spot in the front driveway. He’d left soon after they’d spoken in the barn, and he obviously hadn’t returned.

      The fear hit her then, low and hard and all the more terrifying because over the last week she had foolishly begun to think she’d found a safe place to bring Emma. Idiot! She should have known better. Every time she’d changed her phone number, hadn’t her stalker discovered the new one within a matter of days? And in spite of a state-of-the-art security system, hadn’t he managed to find a way into her house twice to leave gifts for her? The police had warned her he was exceptionally clever—

      A nearly soundless step on the stairs had her thoughts grinding to a halt and her heart jumping into her throat. He was coming for her, just as he’d promised. Dear God, she had to do something!

      Panic clawed at her. Every instinct she had urged her to run for her life, but she could hear him on the stairs, climbing steadily, and soon he would be at the top. Her eyes wide, she looked wildly around in the darkness of her room for some kind of weapon, but the room was simply furnished. Then she spied the vase sitting on the dresser. Grabbing it, her heart thundering in her ears, she tiptoed out into the hall to lie in wait for the man who had made the last two months of her life a living nightmare.

      From where I’m sitting, I’d say Miss Angel Wiley has you shook up.

      Zeke’s words still ringing in his ears, taunting him, Joe swore under his breath and carefully made his way up the stairs in the darkness. Nobody had him shook up, especially Miss Hollywood. If he was restless and on edge, it was just because he didn’t like being forced to share his house with a woman. Any woman. Angel could have been eighty-six and as pious as a nun, and he would have still felt the same way.

      Lost in his furious thoughts, he was halfway up the stairs when he suddenly noticed a slight movement in the shadows at the top landing. His step never faltered, but every muscle in his body tensed. He never locked his doors, had never felt the need. The house couldn’t even be seen from the highway, and crime was rare in Liberty Hill. But then again, so were strangers…at least they had been until Hollywood came to town.

      Too late, he remembered Angel sleeping upstairs, unaware that someone had broken in. Was she safe? Fury flashed in his eyes at the thought that someone might have harmed her. She might drive him nuts, but by God, no one was going to hurt her while he was around. Braced for a fight, he reached the top of the stairs.

      He had no time to think after that, only react. The intruder moved in the shadows off to his left, and suddenly something came flying at him in the dark. Cursing, he dodged it just before it could connect with his head and heard it crash against the wall behind him. Furious, he hit the hall light switch almost at the same instant he launched himself at his attacker. It wasn’t until his arms closed around a struggling, squirming woman that he realized it was Angel.

      “What the devil!”

      “Joe!”

      “You were expecting Jack the Ripper?” he snapped, furious now that he knew she was safe. “Of course it’s me! Dammit, what were you doing hiding in the dark like that? I could have hurt you!”

      “Me? You were the one sneaking around like a thief! When I heard someone moving around downstairs and I saw your truck wasn’t here, I thought someone had broken in. Why didn’t you turn on a light, for God’s sake?”

      “Because I don’t need a light to see where I’m going in my own home! And I didn’t park out front because my truck is low on gas, so I left it by the gas tank so I could fill it up in the morning.”

      Still holding her close, Joe glared at her and only just then noticed that she was wearing nothing but a pale blue nightgown. Made of cotton and designed more for comfort than seduction, it was hardly the type of nightwear you’d expect Hollywood’s latest sweetheart to wear to bed, but there was something about its very simplicity that would have tempted a saint. And God knew, he was no saint.

      Stunned, he knew right then he should have released her and gotten the hell away from her. But with a will of their own, his fingers tightened on her arms, drawing her closer, and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it. He watched her eyes flare with awareness, and suddenly the air between them was thick with a tension that had nothing to do with anger. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and just like every other man in America who’d sat in a darkened theater and watched her on the big screen, he found himself wondering what she tasted like. Right or wrong, he had to find out.

      In the bright glare of the hall light, she read the intention in his eyes and stiffened like a board. “No.”

      “Yes,” he growled, and covered her mouth with his.

      The second his lips touched hers, he knew it was a mistake. The sweetest things always were. Like an addiction that called to a man’s very soul, her soft, generous mouth trembled under his, innocently teasing, tempting, until the need to taste became a need for more. His head clouded, and with a low groan, he gathered her closer and took the kiss deeper.

      Her senses reeling, Angel clung to him and tried to tell herself this couldn’t be happening. Not with Joe McBride. He didn’t like her, had made it clear from the moment he’d laid eyes on her that he didn’t want anything to do with her. And the feeling was mutual. She wasn’t any crazier about him. He was cold and distant and whenever the opportunity presented itself, he went out of his way to make her feel unwelcome. If anyone had told her he was a sensuous man who could turn her knees to butter with just one kiss, she would have called them a liar. She would have been wrong.

      And it was that, more than anything, that abruptly brought her to her senses. The last time she’d let herself be taken in by a man’s kisses, she’d been wrong about him, too. She’d been young and naive and so damn trusting that just thinking about it made her wince. She’d actually thought she’d found her prince. Instead, she’d been taken in by a toad. She’d promised herself then that she’d never make that kind of mistake again, and that wasn’t a promise she intended to break.

      Furious with herself for letting him tempt her even for a second, she abruptly broke free of his arms and quickly sidestepped him when he instinctively reached for her again. Her blue eyes sparking fire, she snapped, “I don’t know what you think is going on here, cowboy, but somebody read the script wrong, and it’s not me. Back off!”

      The taste of her still on his tongue, infuriating him, Joe rasped, “You’re the one who came at me in the dark dressed in nothing but a skimpy gown. I only took you up on your invitation, sweetheart.”

      She gasped, outraged. “I already told you I thought you were an intruder! What was I supposed to do? Stop to change while someone was sneaking up the stairs to rape me? I don’t think so!”

      She was right, of course. He was being completely unreasonable, and that only angered him more. He’d taken advantage of the situation, of a guest in his home, and he’d never done that in his life. But, dammit, he wasn’t made of stone! What man wouldn’t lose his head when he found Angel Wiley in his arms and dressed for bed?

      “Next

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