She realized her robe had gaped open over her thighs when, after settling his bulk into the rolling chair, his gaze latched onto her bare legs. That muscle beside his right eye went to town again. She considered leaving the robe exactly as it was. It obviously made him uncomfortable. And she figured, rather uncharitably, he was due a little of that given how uncomfortable he’d made her earlier.
Unfortunately, his distraction with her legs made her distracted too. And more than a little breathless. Which most decidedly would not do.
After she covered her legs, he seemed to relax. His big shoulders dropped a full three inches. His fingers loosened on the arms of the chair.
She took a moment to study his hands. They were broad and tanned, knobby-knuckled and sporting more than a few scars. A working man’s hands. A fighting man’s hands. Hands she’d dreamed of nearly every night for the last few months.
Hands that’d been around Donna’s waist barely two hours ago.
She suddenly had the overwhelming desire—nay, it was a need—to strangle him.
Homicide is legal in the Keys, isn’t it? No? Well, it should be.
He finally opened his mouth. But he proved ever vexing when his words weren’t anything she expected to hear. “You thought it was Doc at your door, didn’t you?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yeah. So?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, looking so tired her traitorous heart softened toward him. Of their own accord, her eyes roamed to the bandage beneath his T-shirt.
She would not give him the upper hand by asking how he was feeling. She would not.
“How are you feeling?” Damn it!
“Huh?” He saw the direction of her gaze, and glanced down. “Oh. You know. Feels like I got stabbed. But that’s not why I’m here. Alex, look. Doc…he…uh…told me you been having some trouble since that night on Garden Key. I shoulda known. I shoulda—”
“That’s what you came to apologize for?” she asked incredulously.
“Partly.” His heavy-lidded gaze would’ve had her swooning under other circumstances. But disbelief made her immune to his usual charms.
Partly? Right. Well, she supposed she was partly placated.
“What happened on Garden Key wasn’t your fault,” she told him, refraining from adding But there are a lot of other things that are!
“Shoulda known you’d have trouble,” he insisted.
“Like I said. Not your fault. So if we’re done here…” She let the sentence hang. “It’s been a day.”
She expected him to make his exit, but instead he regarded her french fries, which sat on the desk next to her cheeseburger. If her eyes weren’t mistaken, his fingers twitched in their direction.
“Touch one and you’re dead,” she warned him. “I need every bit of grease in those suckers to soak up the bourbon in my belly.”
And there it was again. That leg-melting smile of his.
Thank goodness I’m sitting down.
But then his expression sobered and he stared at her with startling frankness. “You got no idea what it’s like having sex with someone. Especially if it’s good sex. And us?” He flicked a thick finger back and forth between them. “It’d be good, Alex. It’d be really good.”
H-h-holy crap.
The bed tried to buck her off. The only thing that kept her seated was the death grip she had on the comforter.
“Good sex sends a rush of hormones through your body,” he continued, oblivious to the blood pounding in her ears. “If you’re not experienced, it’s easy to get hooked on that high. It’s easy to…” He cleared his voice. “To fall in love. And since we already like each other—”
“We do?” The two words croaked from her constricted throat. She couldn’t see her reflection in the mirror above the desk, but she was sure her eyes bugged from her head.
“Don’t we?” He frowned. “Guess I shouldn’t speak for you. Can only speak for myself. And I’m telling you, I like you. So, so much. Fuck, I probably like you more than anyone I know.”
Alex wanted to say something witty. Or maybe something seductive. But her sharp mind failed her. And she suspected that was due to lack of oxygen.
Chapter 13
10:57 p.m.
Mason was a firm believer that some things—fuck it, most things—were better left unsaid.
But all of his partial explanations for declining Alex’s offer had only hurt and confused her. So he’d decided to come clean with as much of the truth as he could.
For one thing, she deserved it. For another thing, sometimes a Hail Mary was the only Mary a guy had left. And he didn’t think he could live with himself if he saw another flicker of pain cross her eyes and knew he was the cause of it.
He wasn’t sure what he expected her response to his confession to be, but it certainly wasn’t the slamming of her eyebrows over her nose. She said something that sounded a lot like “Completely, totally, utterly vexing.”
“Huh?” He sat forward, clasping his hands tightly between his knees to keep from touching her legs.
Her robe had fallen open again, revealing inch upon inch of silky, soft skin. It was taking everything he had not to stare. And drool. If he touched, there would be no hope for him.
She blew out a breath, and he would swear he felt it moving over his body. Just like that he was hard.
Alex had done that to him from the start. Turned him into a fourteen-year-old boy with no control over what happened in his pants.
“You make it impossible to stay mad at you,” she grumbled, but he was pleased to note her normal expression, one of good humor, played around the edges of her face.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes!” She tossed exasperated hands in the air. “I want to be mad at you.”
He jerked back his chin. “Why?”
“Because…” She started and stopped and tried again. “Because…” This time when she stopped, she scrunched up her nose in frustration. Finally, she staunchly declared, “Because!”
“Right.” He used her own words against her. “Very articulate.”
She blinked and he was sorely tempted to remove her glasses so he could stare into her eyes until…well, until he got tired of it, which he thought might be never. “Did you just make a joke?”
He shrugged. “Two in one day. Must be some sorta record.”
“Oh my god. A joke followed by sarcasm.” A delicate hand landed on her chest. “Who are you? And what have you done with the real Mason?”