Page 43 of Ruthless Creatures
His voice is that same low, lovely rumble, a velvet stroke along my skin. The man should get a second job as a DJ on a porn radio station, if there is such a thing.
When I only stand there staring at him like a lunatic, he says, “You dropped your oven mitts.”
It’s true. My cheery red Santa-and-reindeer Christmas mitts lie discarded on the threshold between us, dropped in my shock at seeing him.
At least I didn’t swallow my tongue.
Before I can recover from my surprise, he leans down, sweeps up the mitts in one of his big paws, and straightens. But he doesn’t give them back to me. He stands holding them like they’re a prized possession and he’ll only hand them over for a steep price.
“You’re back. I mean, you’re here. What’re you doing here?”
Not exactly neighborly, but I thought I’d never see him again. I thought I’d never have to deal with the hysterically shrieking hormones his presence always ignites.
Gazing at me steadily, he says, “I had business in Vegas. Thought I’d drop by and say hello. I just got in.”
“Drop by? Vegas is an eight-hour drive from here.”
“I flew.”
“Oh. I thought I just heard on the news that they stopped all the flights into Reno-Tahoe International due to bad weather?”
“They did. Just not mine.”
He looks at me with such intensity, my heart rate skyrockets. “Why not yours?”
“I was flying the plane. I ignored the call to reroute.”
I blink at him. “You’re a pilot?”
“Yes.”
“You said you were a debt collector.”
“I am.”
“This is confusing.”
“I’m a lot of different things. It doesn’t matter. The point is that I stayed away as long as I could. A little bit of fucking snow wasn’t about to stop me from getting here.”
That sends a jolt of electricity straight through me.
I want to pretend I don’t know what he means, but I do.
This beautiful, strange, magnetic man has just informed me that he’s thought about me as much as I’ve thought about him, that he tried to fight the urge to come back here from wherever he went, and that he thinks returning is a bad idea for whatever reason, but has resigned himself to it nonetheless.
We stare at each other until I regain my senses and invite him in out of the snow.
I close the door behind him. He makes the room feel crowded because he’s just sobig. I wonder if he has to custom order all his furniture. And clothes. And condoms.
Best not to think about that now.
We face each other in my small foyer, made even smaller by his bulk, and simply look at each other.
Finally, he says, “Something smells like it’s burning.”
“That’s just me thinking. You never put your house on the market.”
“No.”
