I nodded silently, and I wasn’t sure he could see, but he seemed to understand.
I could not think of a single life experience more lowering than this. Hunted by paparazzi to the wilds of Florida, abandoned and alone, attacked by a house cat, forced to accept help from an intruder… though, yeah, an intruder who’d given me his cell phone, so maybe not even a very good intruder. I wondered where my life had gone wrong.
“No more VIP parties,” I swore. “No more parties at all.”
“Wanna play fetch, Marjorie?” The guy reached out a hand and petted the cat, who batted his hand away. “Let’s go for a walk?”
She pointedly ignored him and clawed me.
“Eeep.” I cleared my throat. “Um. Not to tell you how to do your job, but fetch is for dogs. Are you sure she’s yours?”
“Know a lot about murder cats, do you?” he asked in that same mild voice.
He reached for the edge of the sheet, and the cat hiss-coughed again. I shuddered.
“I’m just saying—” My voice was mortifyingly high. “If you could maybe find her a mouse to chase or a bowl of cream to eat before she de-peni-fies me, that would be great.”
The guy gave me a stern glare I could sense more than see. “I’m tryna make sure she doesn’t de-peni-fy either of us. Now, hush and let me do this.”
“Excuse me? I am not your servant. I will not hush. I will continue to—” I moved the flashlight to get a better look at the guy and shut my mouth with a clack because holy shit, it seemed the rescue-intruder was naked also.
What the hell? Did he run around naked with his cat, invading people’s homes? Was that a thing in Florida? Or had Mason left out important details about life on this little island?
First things first, I reminded myself sternly. When the bomb squad rolled up to defuse your bomb, you didn’t ogle them or wonder why they were in the neighborhood. To be fair, I was pretty sure they didn’t generally show up naked, though, and they sure as fuck never looked like this guy did.
He was tall—and not just tall, honey, I mean taaaalllll—and beefy, but not like those gym rat muscle daddies who were so swole one wondered how they could bend their arms far enough to brush their own teeth. Maybe it was because this guy’s shoulders were wide enough to accommodate his pectoral muscles. Maybe it was because his thighs were so tree-trunky. Who cared? Everything about him was perfectly, wonderfully… proportional.
Which naturally made a person—me—wonder how proportional his other… proportions were. Right? If I were about to bleed out from a dick wound, I figured I deserved one last glimpse of a cock besides my own, especially since it was the intruder’s fault I was about to be a murder victim anyway. I casually nudged the beam of light closer to his waist, just in case this might be my last chance on earth to catch a glimpse, and—
“… your penis,” the guy concluded in that same deep voice.
I fumbled the phone and caught it again. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, stop looking at me and put the light on the cat if you want me to move her before she claws off your penis.” He sounded annoyed now. No longer mild. “Or mine.”
Ooops. Busted.
“But remember not to shine it in her eyes.”
“I was just trying to get a good look at you so I could identify you,” I sniffed as I obeyed. “When I report this incident to the police.”
“Me? I’m not the one who… Wait. How would that even work? You’re going to put my dick in a lineup?”
“Hardly,” I said haughtily, but I was momentarily caught by the idea of me saying, “I just don’t know for sure, Officer. Can you make them all turn for me again?” and I snickered.
“Is this funny?” the guy demanded.
“No! And I didn’t even see anything.” I sounded pouty. I was pouty. But in my defense, these were trying circumstances, and I was not at my best.
The giant sighed. “Okay. On the count of three, I’m going to reach my hands under the sheet and lift her off you, to minimize damage. You ready?”
“Under the sheet.”
“Yes.”
“Where my junk is.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s okay for you to touch my junk, but I can’t even see yours?”
“That—” The guy broke off and ran a hand through his hair, and a blush stained his high cheekbones. “It’s not like I want to—Jesus Christ. Not everything in the universe revolves around your… your… junk!”
“Pardon you? Everything in my universe does!” I huffed right back.
“If you’re feeling uncomfortable—”
“Of course I’m uncomfortable! Each of her claws is creating a separate and uniquely painful incision mere inches from my very best feature, and I’m relying on you, a perfect stranger, to save me.”
“If you’d rather take care of this yourself, feel free, as long as you don’t hurt her. Or you could wait. She’ll be hungry soon.”
“Hungry?” I gasped, and the bastard intruder snort-laughed. Somehow, even that sounded sexy.
“I meant hungry for her food, which she’d have to leave to eat.” He shook his head. “You’re really funny, you know?”
“Obviously. Men are dying to get me naked just so they can compliment my sense of humor.” I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d have been so much better off in the Maldives. “I’ll just lie here, then. And trust you. To handle me gently.” I gripped the phone tightly.
The guy shook his head again. “Count of three. One—”
“Just to say, you wouldn’t have such sangfroid if it were your pleasure sword on the line,” I sniffed.
“Two—” His hands were large and rough where they slid over my stomach and leg, and I shivered.
“If asked, please tell the true crime podcast people I died bravely!” I squeaked. “And don’t give the tabloids any details!”
“Three.”
He lifted the cat and the sheet in one smooth motion, and I curled my legs up to my chest and screeched. The cat exploded into movement, screaming like something out of a nightmare, before she jumped out of his arms like she was the victim in this scenario and disappeared.
“Is she gone?” I whispered, moving the flashlight around the room.
“Yes. And not happy about it.” He flipped on the light in the corner by the window and peered over the far side of the bed near the door. “Poor baby. She’s probably petrified.”
“Poor baby? Her? What about me?”
“Yes, what about you?” The guy’s voice hardened, and he folded his arms over his chest to stare down at me. “Who the hell are you, and why are you here?”
I wish I could say I was immediately restored to sanity by his tone and used the phone he’d handed me to do something intelligent like call the police, but that would be a lie, because adrenaline was flooding my system and… did I mention he was tall? And fucking hot? Because he really, really was.
He had floppy gold-brown hair in need of a haircut, bristle on his jaw that was halfway between scruff and full-on-mountain-man, and freckles. His eyes were deep cerulean blue, and the happiest happy trail I’d ever encountered—and it must be said, I’d followed a lot of trails—led down to a cock that was…