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“Put your hand in my pocket and pull out my wallet and phone,” he said, against his better judgement.

Her eyes flicked to the front of his jeans. Her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips as her face paled. Oh no. Not now. Jack shook his head at himself as all the blood in his body rushed to the one place he didn’t want it to go.

“You want me to go in there?”

She pointed at his jeans, just as the blood arrived at ground zero. He closed his eyes briefly. There was humiliating – and then there was this. They were in new territory. He’d been assaulted and tied up by a page-three model and now it looked like he was trying to play kinky games. He knew the minute she registered his physical reaction to her. Her cheeks flushed.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she told him.

“It’s either that or free my hand so that I can get to my phone.”

She sucked her lip again, which didn’t help matters any. For the first time in his life he cursed the fact his body was on a separate circuit board from his brain. This was not the time to get horny. At last she spoke.

“Which pocket?”

She looked him in the eye and he knew. Beneath the bravado was fear. Fear, and if he wasn’t mistaken, a hefty dose of attraction.

He let out a slow breath. At least that levelled the playing field a little.

“Left,” he said as evenly as he could.

She took a deep breath, which made her ample cleavage rise and fall. His mouth went dry. This had to be the most insane situation he’d ever been in.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll get the phone and your wallet.” She pointed at him. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”

There was absolutely no point in denying his physical state. It was there for the world to see.

“This is not for you,” he told her. “I’ve got a thing for old Gothic houses.”

She flicked her eyes to the front of his jeans then threw back her head and laughed. Against the odds he found himself smiling along with her.

“Well, tying you to the porch was a bad idea then,” she said as she knelt beside him.

“Yes ma’am.” He nodded solemnly. “It’s the carved detail and stained glass windows that send me over the edge.”

Her cheeks flushed again. She paused briefly.

“I’m sorry this is so weird,” she said.

And something shifted within his chest. Suddenly it didn’t matter that he was tied to the veranda, or that his head thumped out a rumba rhythm, or that he’d been knocked out by his tenant. She blinked and the moment shattered. He sucked in air. Obviously he’d long since stopped thinking with his brain. As she reached towards his pocket, he grimaced. Yep, the control centre for his thoughts had run south, all right. As her fingers gently slid into his pocket, he stopped thinking all together.

This was insane. And yet, she was doing it. This was exactly the kind of situation that made Davina’s parents despair. She didn’t know why crazy things kept happening to her. They just did. And trying to lead an ordinary, quiet life only seemed to make things worse. She shook her head a little. Now wasn’t the time to wonder why she wasn’t normal. Right now she had to concentrate on the fact that she had her hand in the pocket of jeans belonging to a strange man. Jeans he was still wearing.

“Goodness, these are tight,” she muttered, as she tried to get a grip on his phone without actually touching him.

He grunted.

“I don’t usually do this sort of thing,” she told him.

For a brief minute she wasn’t sure what she was explaining exactly – the fact she’d knocked him out and tied him up, or the fact she was rooting around in his trousers.

“I mean, I don’t usually hit people. Hardly ever. And not without provocation.”

Her fingers touched leather. She angled herself further over the gorilla’s body to get a grip on the wallet. Seriously. Who wore their jeans this tight?

“I hope I didn’t do any permanent damage. I just wanted you to stop breaking into my house.” She looked down at him. “You understand, right?”

His dark eyes stared up at her.