Page 66 of No Interest in Love

“Hey, I do my own stunts.”

She covers her small laugh with a cough. “I was protecting my investment.” Her head swivels toward a shadow that crosses the lot. She wraps a tight hand on the doorknob and pulls it toward her. I know I underestimated her strength before, but if Sasquatch comes knocking, he’s probably going to whip that door open like it was made of feathers, regardless of how hard she’s trying to keep it closed.

I walk up behind her, yelling at myself to keep my distance so my head stays on straight. Every time I touch the woman my brain seems to jump out of my skull. So I stay a breath away, close enough to look out the window with her, but we’re not even grazing each other.

Man, I’m overanalyzing everything. Maybe my brain’s already gone.

“I think it’s over there,” she says, her breath fogging up the glass slightly as she points to the right of the parking lot. “The shadow looked like a wolf or something.”

“Werewolf,” I whisper, and when I look down her lips are pressed together in amusement. “What?”

“You a believer in the supernatural?”

“Hell, yeah.” I point at the scratch marks near the ice machine. “That would be your classic James ‘Logan’ Howlett.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You believe in superheroes too?”

My damn heart skips a beat. “You know who that is?”

“Every Wolverine fan knows who that is.”

She winks. I smile because I can’t help myself. Something zaps between our bodies, and she steps away from the door, ducking under my arm, which I hadn’t realized was resting over her head. She leans her butt against the freezer, crossing her arms and tapping a stray piece of ice with her toe. She’s not wearing shoes.

She’s also not wearing my clothes anymore. From her shoulders to mid thigh is the T-shirt she bought in the lobby that saysMISSOURI LOVES COMPANY, and from waist to just above the knee is a pair of boxers. Her normally pushed-back-with-a-pen hair is down, damp, like she got out of the shower maybe an hour ago.

I’m conceding.

She.

Is.

Adorable.

Beyond that word. It’s so far beyond adorable and sexy and cute and hot and any other word used to describe an attractive woman. I have never in my life wanted something so bad andnotwanted it at the same time. I feel like my chest is being ripped apart in a thousand directions and sewn back together in a way I’ve never felt before. Like my heart is finding its way back from my high school to my chest, and I want to shake my head, tear at my hair, get my mind back to where it belongs with the Stinson Approach, but for the life of me I can’t remember why I’d ever want to bang and bail withanywoman, but especially one who makes me feel like this.

It makes me wonder if I ever gave any of the women I did sleep with achanceto make me feel like this.

“Stop staring at me,” she says with a tiny laugh, then she fixes her wet hair. “I’m already freaked out enough.”

“I have a tattoo,” I blurt, not knowing where the hell it comes from.

“I know.” She’s tilting her head toward me, eyes flicking to the door, when we hear another screeching howl. “You put it on your résumé.”

“That’s right.” That’s one of the requirements for some jobs in acting. They want to know every bump, bruise, scar, abnormality…“You know about the piercings, too, then.”

“The ones that closed up?” she says with an arrogant tilt of her eyebrow. I laugh because she’s right; the bars I had through my nipples weren’t the most comfortable things while shooting action scenes in a bulletproof vest. The holes closed last year.

“You’ve never seen it.” I shove off from the door and rest against the ice machine with her. Her eyes follow me and I swear to the Almighty her breath catches.

“Um…the piercings?”

“The tattoo.”

“I don’t normally ask men to take their shirts off for me.”

“I don’t have to take it off.” I lift the side of my gray tee so she can see the Wolverine tat along my rib. She breaks her closed-off stance, uncrossing her arms and turning a little to face me. Her thumbnail grazes my skin as she grabs the material bunched by my pit and holds it up to get a better look.

“That’s…Wow,” she says, and I laugh a little bit, realizing I’ve been sucking in and flexing this whole time. “Original costume too.”

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