three days and nine hours after he’d let her walk away.
“I was in Huntsville for a consultation, thought I’d stop by and see Karyn since I was so close.”
“She’s not here.”
“Apparently. I talked to her earlier.”
So if he wasn’t here to track down his sister … “How did you know where I live?” Her brain, sluggish from the scare, finally caught up. Waving her hands, she cut off his response, answering her own question, “Never mind. Karyn told you.”
A deep sound rolled from the center of his chest. It reminded her of the sound Prada made when she deigned to allow Anne to pet her. It wasn’t an outright laugh … more of a quiet admission of amusement. “No, actually, she didn’t. I own a security firm. Finding people is part of my job.”
“So … what, you looked me up on the internet?”
His only response was a shrug.
Damn it. She could only guess at the shit he’d found. Because surely he hadn’t resisted the urge to look up the exploits of her alcohol-and-drug-soaked sexcapades. After all, everyone else wanted to know.
“Entertained?” Her lip curled up in disdain, for both him and herself. Anger and embarrassment twisted inside making her a bit harsh. “So you decided to pop by for an unannounced visit a month after we screwed each other’s brains out, why?” And why now? It wasn’t exactly the most convenient time for her to receive visitors.
“Well, that’s a flattering visual.”
“You prefer sex? Just sex?”
“I don’t think you can call it just sex when the marathon session goes for five hours and leaves my brain fuzzy the next morning.”
What the hell was she doing? She was fighting—and flirting if she was honest—with a man she barely knew, sitting in her car outside her very broken into town house, while she waited for the cops.
“Forget it. I don’t care why you stopped by. Now isn’t a great time. Go away.”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” Had she exited her house into an alternate universe? Or maybe she was still asleep. That was it. It would certainly explain the crappy sales report she’d gotten raked over the coals for—she never made mistakes like that. A nightmare tied to hearing her mother’s voice every day for a week. If she lost her job, her mother would only insist harder that she come home.
And the ransacked house. Another dig at her security.
And the sexy-as-hell devil with the deep chocolate, bite-me eyes and stubborn demeanor who had shown up on her doorstep after a month? That was just too many lonely nights of lustful thinking.
This was all a nightmare … or maybe this last part was more a dream. She’d wake up any minute, Prada would beg her for breakfast and she’d race off for her morning Starbucks.
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
Or maybe not. Sighing, she said, “Someone broke into my place. I’m waiting here for the police to show up. Thanks to you scaring me half to death and making me scream in the dispatcher’s ear, I would guess they’ll be here shortly.”
Blake reached inside her open window, ran his hand a little too close to the side of her breast for sanity, and unlocked the car doors.
It was a sad state of affairs. Her brain shortcircuited at the nearness of his hand, leaving her stupid and powerless as he walked around to the passenger side, opened the door and plopped his butt into her front seat. She’d clearly had enough time to lock his ass out in the cold. If she’d thought of it.
Instead, a laugh—probably hysteria—bubbled up inside her chest at the look of absolute horror he gave the spitting, clawing sack of skin in his hands. He held the cat as far in front of him as the console would allow. “Why do you have a skinned squirrel in your car?”
Reaching over, she snatched her baby from his hands. “Prada is not a squirrel.” She turned her focus to the cat and held her up to coo at her, “Are you, baby?” She did it more because she knew it would bother him than for anything else. How she knew this, she had no idea, but she was dead certain it would.
And the curl of his lip and squint in his eyes proved her right.
“She’s a hairless cat.” Placing the cat in her lap, the black-pink-and-white mottled ball of skin curled up, keeping her eyes firmly on the man who’d dared to pluck her up from her comfy seat.
He watched, a mixture of horror and bewilderment on his face. “Why do you have a hairless cat?”
She shrugged, continuing to run her hand down the rough skin in rhythmic strokes. “Her original owners bought her because it was trendy, but then decided she was too much trouble to keep, so they took her to the shelter. But no one wanted her. The shelter volunteers said everyone thought she was ugly.” It had broken her heart to see the tiny, shivering thing stuck in a corner cage, away from everyone else. She’d watched as several children had ignored Prada, opting for the cute and cuddly kittens with their wide take-me-home eyes. It had stirred something inside her. Prada deserved a chance to have a warm and loving family.
“That thing is ugly.”
She looked over at him in disgust. No one ever looked beyond Prada’s unusual exterior to the fiercely loyal soul beneath. Just another reason they never would have worked. Want her body? Love her cat.
“She’s not ugly… . She has personality.” Prada sighed, a discordant sound that cut through the car, and closed her eyes for a nap. Anne wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the cat was sort of a spoiled brat.
The silence stretched out around them. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, the kind that left you lax and somehow in tune with the person next to you. There was too much friction, too much male sexuality emanating off him for her to be comfortable.
What she wanted was for him to go away. No, that wasn’t true. What she wanted was to take him upstairs—to hell with the ninjas—and let him give her libido another mind-blowing workout. What she needed was for him to go away. Because she couldn’t deal with this—with him, too—right now.
She wanted him with a fierceness that had apparently sharpened in the month since she’d seen him, not lessened. The problem was that she shouldn’t. They weren’t good for each other. He made her feel things she’d left in her past. He made her want to abandon everything and lock them both into a room with a bed for the next month … or twelve.
She couldn’t think of anything but him when he was so close.
So he needed to go. Turning her head, she looked at the man sitting beside her. Comfortable. Cocky. Solid as a damn bull.
“What do you want, Blake? You didn’t come here looking for Karyn. It’s way too late to contact me about our night together. Why are you here?”
He opened his mouth to answer her. She could see it would be something pat. It was written in his eyes. You could never lie to a champion liar.
“No bullshit.”
