Sophie,” he called out over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time. “Need a shower; then we’ll talk.”
He marched down the long, carpeted hallway to the rooms that were always kept ready for him. In his suite, Hunter tossed the duffel down and stopped dead. The shower in his bathroom was running. His wife?
Anger and curiosity boiled in his gut, creating a churning mass that had him moving forward without even thinking about it.
He opened the bathroom door to a wall of steam and the sound of a woman singing—off-key. Margie, no doubt.
Well, if she was his wife…Hunter walked across the room, yanked the shower door open and stared in at a curvy, naked, temptingly wet woman.
She whirled around to face him, slapping her arms across her naked body while she gave a short, terrified scream.
Hunter smiled. “Hi, honey. I’m home.”
“Who—what—how—who—”
“Now, honey,” he drawled the words out, completely enjoying watching the shock ripple across her features, “is that any way to greet your husband?”
“I—I—”
He had her nervous—that was for damn sure, he told himself. Easy enough to see by the way her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, as if looking for an escape route.
Well, there wasn’t one. She wasn’t going anywhere until he had some answers. But that wasn’t to say he couldn’t make her as uncomfortable as possible. No better than she deserved for pretending to be his wife, for God’s sake.
The shower area was directly behind her, and steam twisted in the air like fog. A quick glance around the once familiar bathroom allowed Hunter to notice the jars and bottles of lotions women seemed to be unable to live without. Plus, the black towels he preferred had been replaced with navy-blue. Not to mention a vase full of flowers in the corner of the marble vanity counter.
Looked as though she’d made herself damned comfortable in his home, too. Which meant she’d been lying to his grandfather. Damn it. Fresh anger churned in his gut, and he had to fight to contain it. This naked, curvy, all-too-delectable woman had been lying to a lonely old man. Probably wormed her way into his affections and was no doubt stealing him blind to boot. Well, her game, whatever it was, was up. He didn’t care how good she looked naked. Well, he cared, but not enough to let himself get sidetracked.
He took a step closer and caught the delicious scent of her. Jasmine, if he wasn’t mistaken, and something inside him stirred. It had been a while since he’d had a woman. He’d been too busy with mission after mission and hadn’t wanted to bother. But now, with a naked, wet, terrific-smelling woman within arm’s reach, his body was snapping to attention despite the fact that he was as furious as he was aroused.
She was watching him as though she were a rabbit and he a cobra.
So, she was perceptive as well as a liar.
“What, no kiss?” he asked, moving in even closer. If she dropped one arm, he’d have another look at her high, full breasts. “Didn’t you miss me, honey?”
She jerked a quick look behind her, saw no help there and whipped her head back around to glare at him. The action sent tiny droplets of water flinging from the ends of her dark red, curly hair, and they hit Hunter’s face like raindrops.
“You just keep your distance, you…pervert.”
“Pervert?” He snorted a laugh and wiped the water from his face with one hand. “I’m just a husband trying to greet his wife.”
“There’s no greeting going on here. At all.” Sidestepping fast, she snatched a navy-blue towel off the closest rod and wrapped it around herself in the blink of an eye.
Too bad. Hunter had enjoyed the view and the glimpse of peaked pink nipples he’d had just before she’d covered up. If nothing else, his “wife” had a body designed to make a man want to spend some time exploring those curves.
Now, though, she was managing to look down on him even though she was a full foot shorter than he was. The ice in her emerald-green eyes was enough to give a lesser man frostbite. But Hunter had the fires of righteous anger on his side, so he wasn’t moved. Meeting her stare with an icy glare of his own, he demanded shortly, “Who the hell are you?”
“Who am I?” She whipped her head to one side, and her soaking wet hair swung back and out of her eyes, spraying Hunter with another spill of droplets. Frantically, she tucked one end of the towel into the valley between her breasts. But she was breathing so hard, the terry cloth shield she was obviously depending on didn’t look any too stable. “I’m in my bathroom taking a shower, minding my own business when—Oh, God.” Her eyes widened. “You’re…I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you right away. But you scared me and—”
He flicked another lazy glance at her now scantily clad body. “Babe, if I scared you, you had it coming. Imagine how it felt for me to find out from every-damn-body in town that I have a wife.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake…”
“That about covers it,” Hunter snapped, taking another step toward her. His voice was deceptively quiet. “See, I’ve got a month’s leave coming. Decided to head home, do some recuperating, check in with my grandfather…” He walked a small, tight circle around her and enjoyed the watchful look in her eyes as she slowly turned in place to follow his progress.
“Imagine my surprise when everywhere I go in town, people are telling me how excited my wife is gonna be to see me.”
“Well, I’m not. Excited,” she added, as if he’d missed that. “More like irritated,” she said. “Annoyed, really.”
“Now that’s a damn shame.” Hunter stopped directly in front of her and did his best to loom. Wasn’t difficult. Since he was taller than his “wife,” forcing her to tilt her head back to look up at him was all too easy. “You think you’re annoyed?”
“Wouldn’t you be, when a perfect stranger sneaks into your shower like a scene out of the movie Psycho? All that was missing was that hideous, screechy violin music.”
If she had been scared, she’d recovered now, Hunter thought. “I’m not the one in the wrong here, babe. You’re the liar. You’re the intruder.”
“Is that right?” She sniffed, plopped both hands on her towel-covered hips and started tapping one bare foot against the bathroom rug.
“Straight up, that’s right. You know damn well we’re not married, so why don’t you tell me what your scam is? And how the hell did you convince my grandfather to let you into the house?” The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. “Simon’s nobody’s fool, so you must be the queen of con artists.”
“Con artist?” She slapped both hands against his chest and shoved. He didn’t even sway in place. But her towel slipped a notch. He had hopes of another good look at her.
“If you think you’re scoring points by acting all outraged,” Hunter told her, his gaze dropping briefly to the slippage of her towel, “you’re
