Page 35 of Outlaw Ridge: Hayes

The sound of his voice gave her a different kind of jolt. Worry. A really bad punch of it. She opted for the towel now, coiling it around her as she hurried out of the shower to face him.

And she got a third kind of jolt.

Because he was naked.

Well, mostly. He was wearing only black boxers, but the naked parts of him snagged more of her attention than the underwear.

She instantly noticed a couple of things about him. The man was built. Mercy, was he. And he had a panicked look on his face.

“I heard you cry out in pain,” he blurted.

Because the sight of him was distracting her and clouding her mind, it took her a moment to recall the bottle of shampoo and her now bruised toes.

“Something fell,” she managed to say, tipping her head to the shower.

His breath rushed out, and he lowered his gun to the side of his leg. “Shit,” he ground out. “I thought…well, I thought the worst.”

She probably would have, too, if she’d heard an unusual noise come from his room. Which wouldn’t have been hard to do since the century-old walls clearly weren’t soundproofed.

“I’m okay,” Jemma assured him.

Her breath was gusting just as much as his was, and her body was experiencing a whole different flood of emotions.

Hot ones. Ones filled with that forbidden heat.

She opened her mouth and then realized no words were coming out. Good thing, too. Since she had no idea what she could say. Hayes knew though. He cursed, a single word of profanity. Before he reached out, slid his hand around the back of her neck and snapped her to him.

He knew what to do with his mouth. Because he used it to kiss her.

Not a tentative one, either. Nope. This was a lust-fueled mix of all that scorching heat, finesse, and a whole boatload of need.

That need roared right through her. And it kept roaring when he deepened the kiss and made it French. Mercy, he tasted good, like all her favorite treats and experiences rolled into one.

Like the best sex ever.

Yeah, a potent kiss indeed from a man who fired up every inch of her body and just kept firing when he lowered his hand to her waist and pulled her against him.

Center to center.

The contact was made even better because her towel slipped down enough so that her still-wet breasts slid against his bare chest. The touching and sliding made the heat skyrocket, and thekiss took on an urgency. A fierce need to go well beyond the kiss and into that full-blown sex.

But that didn’t happen.

Hayes suddenly stepped back from her as if she’d scalded him. She had no idea where he’d gotten the willpower to do that, not when it was obvious that his body was primed and ready for a whole lot more. But he did step back. Did curse himself. Then, he cursed again when her phone rang.

“It’s Owen,” Hayes said, glancing at the screen.

That gave her a much needed jolt to shake off the lust-fog. And to straighten her towel. Even though her boss wasn’t FaceTiming her, she didn’t want to talk to him with her breasts bare. She yanked the towel around her and hit answer, putting the call on speaker.

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” Owen greeted. “I tried to call Hayes, but he didn’t answer.”

“Uh, he’s here with me,” Jemma said, and then she quickly added, “We’re both awake.”

Obviously, that wasn’t the best response that she’d ever come up with, but considering she barely had any breath and her body was still revving, it was sadly the best she could do.

Owen didn’t say anything for several nail-biting moments, and Jemma hoped he didn’t have any smidge of ESP or sense what’d just gone on between Hayes and her. She couldn’t imagine their boss being happy about them kissing in the bathroom when there were obviously so many more nonsexual things they should be doing.

“I hope you both got plenty of rest because I need you downstairs,” Owen finally said. “Royce is here, and he said someone tried to kill him by firing shots through the window of his fishing cabin where he was spending the night.”

---