brown-uniformed woman glanced down at the name on the label, then nodded.
He reached out for it.
She took a step back. “I need a signature, and it has to come from the recipient.”
“How about from the recipient’s husband?” he said, and reached for it again. “I was just visiting next door.” He could hear the dogs’ hysterical barking on the other side of the door, and at the end of his patience, he roared, “Sitz, dammit!”
Blessed silence fell.
He turned his attention back to the woman. “Look, I don’t know why Carly isn’t answering the door, but give me the package, will you, please? If she has to wait until tomorrow for you to attempt another delivery, she’ll be hell to live with.”
It was apparently a complaint with which the woman was familiar, for she handed him an electronic device and a stylus to write his signature, then passed him the package. “Have a good one,” she said, and marched off down the hallway, disappearing a moment later down the stairs.
He waited long enough for her to exit the building, then whirled around and knocked on Carly’s door. The dogs started barking again and he lost the last tenuous grasp he’d had on his wrath. Hammering on the door, he half expected the solid wood to give way beneath his fist at any second. “Open. The. Goddamn. Door!”
Over the thundering of his own heart and the clamoring of the dogs, he somehow heard the slap of feet against the tile foyer on the other side of the panel. Then Carly’s voice snapped, “Sitz!” and once again the mutts fell silent.
His jaw sagged at the sound of the German command coming from within her apartment, and he barely managed to snap his mouth shut again before the door whipped open.
Then he caught his first good glimpse of her standing on the other side of the threshold, and it was all he could do not to let his jaw drop all over again.
But, holy shit. Her face was scrubbed clean and her hair was wet. She was all gold and pink as water dribbled along her temples, down her smooth throat and over her chest, soaking into a white tank top and turning the edges of the material transparent. As he watched, the transparency spread across the uppermost thrust of unbound, truly spectacular breasts. Puckered nipples that he imagined were the result of leaving a steamy bathroom for the air-conditioned chill of the rest of the apartment poked against the still-dry portion of the top’s stretchy fabric. Her feet were bare, and the sun filtering into the foyer from the living room window turned her pointy-hemmed skirt translucent enough to highlight her mile-high legs. He’d take a wild stab here and guess that she’d recently climbed out of the shower.
Hands hanging limply at her sides, she, too, looked him over as if she’d never seen him before. Even as the thought crossed his mind, her slender eyebrows drew together over her nose and her gaze rose to his face. “What do you want, Jones?”
“Uh…” He couldn’t remember and latched onto the first thought to waft across his mind. “You spoke German.”
Color washed up her chest and climbed her throat. “So?”
“So, nothing. I just…didn’t expect to hear it.” He took a step closer and the shift of weight caused the sharp edge of the cardboard box under his arm to dig into his inner elbow. It jerked him back to reality. “Here.” He thrust it out at her. “The damn dogs were going crazy, so I signed for your package before their noise made my head implode.”
“Oh, for—” Snatching the parcel from his hands, she whirled away and stalked into the living room. “Don’t even start on my pets. There’s not a dog alive who doesn’t bark at the UPS man.”
“Woman,” he corrected. But he was operating purely on autopilot, for his brain was cutting out like a combustible engine laboring on its last fume of fuel.
The hazy view of her thighs and butt beneath her gauzy skirt didn’t improve matters. From what he could see, only a narrow blue thong that widened to a little butterfly above her firm cheeks stood between her and an indecency charge. Sternly pulling his gaze away, he followed her into her apartment. “You are training Doofus in German?”
“Rufus!” She whirled around, blue eyes snapping. “His name is Rufus! How would you like to be called da Wolfgangsta?”
“I wouldn’t,” he admitted stiffly, his head continuing to pound. “I apologize. I will remember it is Rufus.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Well. All right, then.” She straightened her shoulders and met his gaze squarely. “As for the German command, yes. It seemed to work for you, and contrary to what you obviously think, I’ve been knocking myself out trying to find a way to get through to him.”
“A whip and a chair might do the trick.”
He wished the words back the minute they left his mouth. But it was too late. Carly’s eyes narrowed, her chin shot up and she took an incensed step forward. “Listen, you— Buster!”
Her older dog, the one so goofy-looking he was almost a caricature, with his springy tufts of brindled fur sticking up atop his head and poking out like ruffles around his ankles, stepped between them, seeking her attention. Wolf didn’t know exactly what happened next but thought that Carly must have almost caught the mutt with her foot. It occurred so fast that all he knew for certain was that when she pulled her stride to avoid kicking the dog, she pitched forward.
Buster scrambled aside and Wolf reached out to steady her at the same time that she flung out her hands to be caught. Given their mutual athleticism, they should have been able to right her with the minimum of contact.
But somehow the outsides of her arms slid along his inner forearms, knocking his hands aside. Her hands plowed inside his unbuttoned shirt, shoving back the open sides, then skidded along the bare skin over his ribs. As he reached for her hips to brace her, she grabbed the folds of material and hung on so tightly that she jerked the shirt clear off his shoulders to well beneath his shoulder blades. Her actions yanked his arms to his sides and the reflexive step backward that he took slammed his back against the wall. Her pets scattered, yipping and hissing, and Carly and Wolf slapped together, breasts to diaphragm. Her chin bounced off his collarbone, snapping her head back.
“Ow,” she said, working her jaw. “Shit.”
Wolf didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. Every Y chromo-some he possessed was aware of the scent of soap and heat and woman—not to mention the feel of that long, lush body mashed against his. He was also howlingly aware of the dampness of her thin tank top, which was all that separated her breasts from his flesh. They were real breasts, too, soft, full globes that flattened where they met corded muscle, not the artificially enhanced tits so many of the showgirls seemed to sport these days.
He noticed for the first time that Carly’s eyes had little golden flecks around her pupils and a deeper hue circling the clear blue iris. And her abrupt stillness told him she was suddenly as aware of him as he was of her. Or at least that she was aware of his awareness. Of course, the latter would be damned hard to ignore when he was half erect against her stomach.
Okay, all the way erect.
He saw her pulse tripping madly in the little hollow at the base of her throat, and he reached out to peel her off of him before he did something irrevocably stupid.
Trouble was, his shirt pinned his arms, preventing their usual full
