do. In the back of the kitchen. There’s detergent and fabric softener in the cabinet over the washer. Help yourself.”
“Thanks. If you throw your clothes out of the bathroom, I’ll put them in with mine.” Becca crossed to the kitchen and set her glass on the counter.
“I’ll only be a minute in the shower,” Quentin said on his way to the bathroom. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “I called for pizza, I hope that’s okay with you. Sorry, we don’t have any other food delivery service in the backwaters of Mississippi.”
She smiled. “I love pizza as long as it has pepperoni.”
“Good, because that’s what I got.” He nodded toward the kitchen bar. “There’s money on the counter. I don’t have to tell you to look before you open the door. With all that’s happened, you can’t be too cautious.”
She nodded. “Right. I’ll pay you back when Royce gets here.”
“My treat. It’ll be our first date.”
She frowned, but couldn’t find it in her heart to be mad at him. He’d offered his apartment, his clothes and his protection, and he hadn’t made another pass at her since she’d arrived.
Quentin disappeared into his bedroom, leaving the bedroom door open, but closing the door to the bathroom behind him.
Becca unwound the towel from her head and shook out her damp hair. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even tried to coerce her into kissing him since Royce had asked him to be her bodyguard. Now that Quentin wasn’t pressuring her, Becca had the odd sensation of missing his teasing and coy remarks.
The door opened and a pair of jeans landed on the floor.
Becca hurried forward to gather the clothes.
As Becca entered his bedroom, Quentin stuck half of his body through the opening, stopping short of exposing his private parts.
Becca’s pulse quickened and she drew in a sharp breath, her gaze drifting down his torso to the slice of hip and thigh visible through the crack in the door.
Quentin winked. “Like what you see?”
Caught staring like a teenaged girl in the boys’ locker room, Becca blushed. At a complete loss for words, she threw her towel at him, spun away and closed the bedroom door behind her with a snap.
A bark of laughter erupted behind her through the thick panels of both doors.
“Egotistical jerk,” she shouted.
He laughed again.
Pressing her palms to her cheeks, Becca entered the kitchen in search of the washing machine. She found it behind a louvered door, threw her dirty clothing into the tub and started the water, trying to forget what she’d seen and heard. It was hard. The man didn’t have an ounce of fat on his body and his thighs were just as muscular as his upper body. She could imagine what it would feel like to lie next to him, naked. Her softer body against his chiseled one.
Becca groaned. Thoughts like that would get her nowhere. No, they would get her into trouble, make her lose focus and forget why she was there in the first place.
She marched back across the living room, gathered Quentin’s jeans and returned to the washer. Once she had the load going, she wandered around the kitchen, opening cabinet doors. Every dish, glass, cup and spice was placed neatly on the shelves. The man obviously believed in order and structure.
Becca did, too. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had much of it since her father’s death. Everything about her life was out of kilter. The lead she’d gotten from one of Royce’s informants had led her to Cancun following the trail of a mercenary thought to be the one who’d shot her father in cold blood.
In Cancun, she’d stumbled upon the group of SEALs, one of whom was yet another target of the mercenary. Becca had helped them solve that case, but the killer she’d hoped to question had died in the subsequent firefight. With a trail gone cold, she’d been eager to return to the States and dig for more clues as to who had hired her father’s murderer.
She hadn’t planned on the plane she was in being shot down, nor did she have any contingency in her schedule to fend off a growing desire for the SEAL Royce had tagged with providing her protection.
Other than the neatness and orderly appearance of the apartment, there wasn’t much else in the way of personal items that could give her anymore insight into Quentin Lovett.
While the SEAL was in the shower, Becca wandered into his bedroom. Here, the king-sized bed was neatly made, the pillows stacked by size against the headboard. Becca couldn’t tell by looking at the mattress which side of the bed Quentin preferred to sleep on, or if he slept in the center. Becca preferred the left side. Not that which side Quentin slept on would pose an issue. Becca had no intention of sleeping with the man.
In his closet, all of his uniforms were pressed and hanging neatly, boots and shoes lined up on the floor. His civilian clothing hung by type and color. For what appeared to be a man with OCD tendencies, he was somewhat of an enigma. How had he come to be a navy SEAL, dealing in the chaos and messiness of war?
The water switched off in the bathroom.
Becca hurried guiltily back to the kitchen near the washer. She didn’t want Quentin to know she’d been snooping in his bedroom. He’d be drying off, rubbing the towel over all those lovely muscles across his chest, down his torso and across—
The doorbell rang, interrupting Becca’s lusty thoughts. She jumped. For a moment she’d forgotten about the pizza delivery. Her stomach growled, a reminder that she hadn’t eaten since the muffin she’d had in Cancun early that morning. She grabbed the bills Quentin had left on the counter and hurried toward the door.
A quick peek through the peephole reassured her the young man was indeed from the restaurant, complete with a uniform shirt bearing the name of a pizza establishment written in bold yellow lettering.
Becca slid the chain loose and twisted the deadbolt. When she turned the door handle, the door exploded inward, catching her across the side of her face, knocking her off balance. She squealed, stumbled backward and tipped over the arm of the sofa, landing on her back.
Two men dressed all in black from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes rushed in, both carrying handguns.
With no time to think, Becca rolled off the couch onto the hardwood floor and shoved the couch as hard as she could toward the advancing men as they aimed their guns at her. Becca somersaulted across the floor and ducked behind a lounge chair.
The couch hit the men in the thighs as they fired their weapons, throwing off their aim. But it wouldn’t take them long to regain their balance and fire again. The lounge chair wouldn’t stop bullets, only slow them down. She had to get to a safer place.
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