Page 13 of Abducted

Her toes curled. She gripped the towel knotted between her breasts tighter and stepped farther into the room. “You shouldn’t be drinking more coffee. That’s what, thirty-six grams of sugar now?”

“Glad you’re keeping count.”

“My pleasure.”

He gave up on the stain and pulled his shirt over his head. Her breath sucked in. Holy hell. His stomach rippled with…what was that, an eight-pack? Good Lord, that much muscle looked like it would hurt her if she touched his stomach. She pressed her lips together as her eyes lingered over his wide shoulders and stacked chest. “I, uh…came out because I don’t have any clean clothes.”Don’t look at his abs, don’t look at his abs…“Do you have something I could wear?” The steadiness of her voice should have won her an Academy Award.

“Yeah, why don’t you grab me the clothes you had on this morning and I’ll put some laundry in the washing machine.” He waved the balled-up shirt he’d just removed in his hand, “I need to wash this anyway.”

“Okay.” She backed up and reentered the bathroom. Sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt gathered from the floor, she straightened and turned to the door—and slammed into his chest.

His hands snagged her shoulders, preventing her from reeling backward.

The clean clothes he’d brought her scattered to the floor.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” His voice was thick and husky. His hands never left her shoulders. His gaze traced her face.

Dammit, she wished she had makeup on. This close, she could see the vibrant striations in his eyes, and the stubble on his jaw was thick and darker than the hair on his head. Her palm itched to reach up and feel the scruff of his beard. She could smell a hint of coffee on his breath, and his musky scent.

God, he was so masculine. She couldn’t step out of his hold. Her nose hovered inches from his sternum. He towered over her, dwarfing her. He had to be six-foot-two at least, maybe taller. She let her eyes roam over the wall of muscle in front of her. A silvery scar beneath his collarbone caught her eye.

Gunshot wound?

Her throat tightened. She didn’t want to think about the types of things that would warrant a shot to his chest. His hot breath spiraled in the air between them. She lifted her eyes and met his face. A dark stain tinted his cheekbones, and his gaze lingered on her throat before trailing down. She swallowed. She was in a damn towel, half-naked. Her skin tingled under his stare, and her instincts screamed at her to back up, but her feet remained rooted to the floor.

He was like a solid brick wall blocking her exit. His thumbs smoothed over her shoulders as if reveling in the feel of her skin. Her lungs screamed for air, but for the life of her, she couldn’t take a breath for fear it would break his trance. He’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. But he could if he wanted to. She’d fight to the death, but he was much bigger than her.

His eyes finally found hers, and the burning intensity in them slammed into her solar plexus. As much as her body screamed at her to stay still, not to alert the wild beast in front of her, she wet her lips.

Like a spell being broken, his face softened and the heat ebbed out of his eyes, but the embers still burned. He took a step back and dropped his hands. She sucked a shallow breath in through her nose, releasing the tension in her chest.

She inched closer, a small part of her grieved at his distance.

“Get dressed.” His voice was low and gruff. “We need to get a plan together.”

CHAPTER 9

His muscles achedfrom the effort it took to hold himself back from capturing her stunned, moist lips. When her eyes had trailed over him and her breath had sucked in harshly, he had known. She wanted him as bad as he wanted her.

Any other day, any other woman, he’d have been all over that. Today, he had to keep his head in the game and devise a plan before whoever the hell had hired Stamos came looking for them. Any other woman besides Lana Vanderpoel was fair game.

She was not.

His only purpose now was to keep her safe and expose who wanted her dead. He rubbed his hand over his face. He would kill the sonofabitch with his bare hands when he caught him.

She was smart, witty, sexy as all hell…and that temper. Damn, he loved the way her eyebrows snapped; he loved her quick tongue, and her fists—slim but not in the least bit frail. His pulse quickened at all the ways he could tame that temper. But as much as his body craved hers, he could never get involved. Sure, relationships were great. Among people with normal lives. Men who came home to their wives every night. Men who hadn’t murdered a hundred people, men who hadn’t had a hundred people try to murder them. She’d seen the scar on his chest. He’d watched the horrific possibilities that had flashed across her face. That had been the clincher. The cold bucket of water that was his reality.

He went over to his gym bag and yanked on the last clean long-sleeved shirt he had. If she came out of the bathroom and looked at him with those large, wary eyes one more time, he wouldn’t have the willpower to stop himself from kissing her. Dammit, he hated that she feared him. Not that he could blame her. He scooped their wet clothes from last night off the hearth and went to the small laundry room at the back of the house.

He started the washer and exited the laundry room just as she opened the bathroom door. His oversized Michigan State sweatshirt hung nearly to her knees, while an old pair of sweatpants, the only pair with a drawstring, pooled around her legs. Her hands gripped the material on either side of her hips so she could walk without tripping.

The baggy clothes should have hidden her frame and dimmed his lust. Nope.

Her face was pale other than the flush that still stained her cheeks from their encounter. She might have been scared when she’d bumped into him, but beneath her unease, he’d caught a flicker of awareness in her eyes.

“They’re a little big.” She shifted in the doorway, her gaze down at the clothes.

“Sorry, I don’t normally carry women’s clothes around. I save my cross-dressing attire for home.” She flashed him a smile, some of the caution leaving her eyes. “Come have a seat, we need to discuss some things.”

---