pepper spray.”
“Don’t apologize to me. You didn’t realize who I was.”
Did he have to be so nice about it? Now she felt even guiltier than before. “Let me get you a towel. You’re soaked.”
She retreated to her bathroom, grabbed the cleaner of her two towels off the rack and hurried back to the main room. Sheesh. What was wrong with her? Was she afraid he was going to bolt from her place before she got a chance to flirt with him or something?
Oh, my. As she stepped into the living room, she was just in time to see him grab the back of his T-shirt and haul the wet garment over his head.
Oh, my. Acres of bulging pecs and rippling abs came into sight as he straightened. Top-tier male models had nothing on this guy’s physique.
“Wow,” she breathed. “You’re pretty without a shirt.”
He glanced up and smiled wryly. “Thanks. And thanks for the towel.” He lifted it gently out of her nerveless fingers and began toweling off his muscular acreage...while she stood there and basically drooled at him.
“You okay...?”
Wait. What? He’d asked her something. She replayed the garbled syllables and blurted belatedly, “Yeah, sure. I’m fine.”
“Let me see your hand.”
Huh?
Before she could figure out what he was talking about, he’d moved swiftly to her side and lifted her hand in his, palm up. Oh, hey. Look. There were three angry red scratches running the length of her hand and culminating in big gouges.
“Tweezers,” he bit out.
“Medicine cabinet.”
He turned and strode swiftly into the bathroom. Oh, God. A half dozen skimpy thongs and lacy bras were draped over the shower rod, drying. Too late to stop him.
Sure enough, he was smirking a little as he emerged from her postage-stamp-sized bathroom. But then he picked up her hand and started digging around.
“Youch!” She tried to yank her hand away but might as well have had it lodged in a block of concrete for all it moved.
“Splinters,” he muttered. “Stay still.”
Obediently she stopped squirming and leaned closer to watch as he deftly extracted several splinters from her hand. He was actually really good at it. His fingers were steady and swift. Exquisitely gentle. Then suddenly, he glanced up at her and asked, “You holding up okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“One more to go. You’re being very brave.”
This from a man who’d cracked heads twice in the same evening without breaking a sweat. The last splinter surrendered to him, and he rubbed the pad of his thumb across her palm, soothing it tenderly.
“I think the patient is going to live,” he murmured.
“Thank you. For everything.”
He looked up from her hand, and their gazes met—or rather, tangled together in a sexually charged dance of intense awareness of one another. Of hot, undeniable attraction, of hunger and need...
Yowza. The man sure knew how to, well, look at a woman.
Some sort of bright light flashed outside her window. “That would be Bastien,” Ashe said. “He’s shining his spotlight down the alley.”
“Wow. That was fast.”
“We’re good friends. Used to work together. He knows I wouldn’t bother him unless it was important.”
He took a careful step back from her and glided over beside the window like James Bond, peering furtively past the blinds at an oblique angle that spoke of cloaks and daggers. What was up with that? Her other window onto the street got the same treatment.
A text came in on his phone, and as soon as he read it, the tense set of his shoulders relaxed. “Bastien says the alley’s clear. He drove around the block a couple times, too. Your attacker has left the area.”
She was more relieved than she liked to admit. Thank God Ashe had been there to save her. And that he knew a cop who would come scope out the area so quickly and thoroughly.
Ashe moved away from the windows and settled on the lurid red velveteen sofa, part of the furnishings that came with the dive.
She had never thought of her apartment as particularly small, but he filled the space with his large frame and even larger presence. His silver-blue gaze honed in on her again, but this time it was filled with questions. Speculation. Determination to find answers. And more of that disconcerting heat.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a nasty joint like that?”
How did he manage to fill such a straightforward question with so much loaded innuendo? Her heart fluttered—actually fluttered—in response. Belatedly she mumbled, “You mean the bar?”
A frown pleated his dark brow. “You and I both know the Who Do Voodoo is a lot more than a bar.”
Caution stilled her entire being. She knew it because she’d been working there for months. But how did he know after only a few hours spent sipping booze in the corner? Who was this guy? Surely he didn’t work for Vitaly’s bosses. “Are you a cop?” she blurted.
“No.” His answer was prompt and without hesitation.
“FBI or something?”
“Nope.”
“Why do you care if I work at the Voodoo, then?” she asked. “It’s a steady paycheck.”
“It’s not worth the money. That place is trouble.”
“I’ll work where I want,” she snapped. “It’s my life.”
He leaned back, stretching an arm along the back of her sofa. Deeply tanned, it was wreathed from wrist to shoulder in corded muscle and bulging veins that spoke of ridiculous strength. And she was alone in her isolated apartment with this total stranger who could overpower her without even exerting himself. She really ought to be scared silly of him. But she couldn’t work up anything but a sense of complete trust in this man. Clearly, she’d lost her mind.
“So what’s the deal with the club?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’d bet my next paycheck there’s a whorehouse upstairs. Given how young the dancers looked, I’m guessing it’s a sex trafficking outfit. You may be too scared to call the FBI, but I’m not.” He tilted up on one hip to fish his cell phone out of a back pocket of his jeans.
“You can’t call them!” she exclaimed.
He froze. Eased back down to the sofa slowly, phone still in pocket. “Why not?” Something dark and dangerous vibrated in his
