“What do you know about guilt?” he retorted before he thought it out enough to control the bitterness in his voice. From the corner of his eye, he saw her head swivel in his direction and felt her gaze.
“Enough to know you don’t belong here because of it.”
He met her gaze and called her raise. “I like you. That a good enough reason for you?”
The rosy shower-glow on her cheeks brightened considerably, but she didn’t say anything as she looked away from him toward the fire. He studied her profile before turning his attention back to the flames as well. Damn. What should’ve been a simple line of deflection had spiked his pulse, making it feel more like an admission.
“I suppose I should offer you some tea…or something,” she said, her tone less confrontational than before.
“I don’t drink tea,” he said with an appropriate amount of disgust.
“Ever try it?”
He shook his head.
“Here.”
She held out her mug to him. He deliberately placed his hand over hers as he took the ceramic cup from her. Her skin was soft and warm and he didn’t want to break the contact. She pulled away first, but not overly fast.
Raising the mug, he turned it so he could put his mouth where he’d seen her drink. Desire shot though him with the absurd notion that the warmth that met his lips was from her mouth, not the hot liquid inside the cup.
He took a drink and choked. Handing it back with a hoarse cough, he said, “Have a little tea with your honey, do you?”
“It’s not that bad.”
He loudly cleared his throat to get rid of the lingering tickle and she smiled.
“I take it you don’t want any?”
“Yeah, no thanks,” he assured her.
“Do you want anything else?”
Oh, sure, he wanted plenty. What would she say to that? He declined the offer of a drink and tried to keep his attention on the fire as his imagination started on a little road trip. It began at the tips of her bare toes, slid up the delicate arch of her foot and along the curve of her calf to…the terry cloth robe.
What did she have on under there? She hadn’t even spent a minute in her room before he’d run into her in the hall. Not enough time to dress and put the robe back on. His pulse kicked up. He closed his eyes so his imagination could wander further, over her knee, across the soft silkiness of her thi—
“Did you hear that?”
He snapped his eyes open to see her peering into the darkness beyond the fire. He stared hard, straining to catch a sound, however faint. Unfortunately, he didn’t hear anything beyond his overactive libido slamming the gearshift into second.
He looked back and saw the gun in her hand, partially hidden along the folds of her robe. “Shit, Marley,” he exclaimed in a hushed tone. “I didn’t know you had that thing on you.”
She lifted her mug for a sip of tea. “Where’d you think it was?”
“I don’t know—in a drawer somewhere.”
“And how would that be any more effective than in the closet?” she inquired with raised eyebrows.
“You plan on sleeping with it, too?”
“Under my pillow.”
Her matter of fact statement did something to him—it just happened to be the exact opposite of what he expected. Damn if he didn’t find her sleeping with a gun under her pillow seductive. Whether the aura of danger, or her level of confidence with the gun turned him on, he shifted into third pretty darn fast.
“Do guns make you nervous?” she asked.
His heart pounded as if the weapon were pointed straight at him. “Considering recent events, would that be so surprising?”