She held the keys up by two fingers, gave him a four-letter smile and dropped them in his palm.
This time, what he fought back was a burst of laughter.
She had more than spirit; she had resiliency.
For some crazy reason, he wanted to kiss her, and that was patently ridiculous. Instead he did the only safe thing: turned his back to her and unlocked the door.
It opened on the kind of hallway he suspected was endemic to cheap student housing everywhere. A narrow corridor, dim lighting, closed doors.
Nothing unusual.
Still, a caution born of years spent on not-necessarily-friendly territory half a world away made him move forward and enter the hall first. A quick but efficient glance revealed nothing more threatening than a moth batting against an overhead light at the foot of a staircase.
He turned, ready to signal her past him, but she was already moving.
Her body brushed his.
His breath nearly stopped. And unless he’d forgotten how to read women, so did hers.
Electricity filled the space between them.
He knew what he wanted to do.
Take Jennie in his arms. Kiss her. Touch her. She’d let him do it, too. He knew it as surely as he knew what that look in her eyes meant...
How many bad ideas could a man have in one night?
He took a step back.
“Okay,” he said briskly. “Which apartment?”
He wanted her to say it was on the second floor. Then he’d have the excuse to hold her in his arms again, but she swallowed hard, dragged her gaze from his and nodded toward the nearest door.
They walked to it. The same key opened the door, and they stepped inside.
The place was like all the off-campus housing complexes he’d visited back in his university days.
Small. Institutionally-furnished. Nothing to define it as Jennie’s, except for a small plush animal sitting in a corner of the sofa.
It was a dog with long, floppy ears. One long, floppy ear, anyway. The other was pretty much gone, as was most of a faded red bow around its neck.
It was the kind of sentimental keepsake his sisters—well, Emily, anyway—were big on. Somehow, he hadn’t expected Jennie to harbor such attachments.
“A silly thing.”
Travis turned around. Jennie was standing a few feet away, eyes fixed on him.
“The dog,” she said. “I don’t know why I keep it.”
“It’s not silly to keep something you love.”
“I don’t love it. Why would anybody love a beat-up old toy?”
Their eyes met.
She cleared her throat.
“I need to—to—”
She gestured toward what he figured was the bathroom.
“Yes. Sure.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll wait.”
“No. I mean, you don’t have to...”
“I’ll wait,” he said.
She nodded.
Safely inside the bathroom, the door closed and locked, Jennie stared at herself in the mirror.
She looked awful.
Not that it mattered.
Travis had performed a rescue mission; what she looked like was unimportant.
She peed. Washed her face. Brushed her teeth. Took a pill for her headache, just in case it returned.
Then she took a few deep breaths, let them out, opened the door and went back into the living room.
He was standing beside the window.
Say something, she told herself, say anything!
“Great view of the parking lot, huh?” she said briskly.
He turned around.
“Yeah.” A quick smile. “Well. Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Because if you still feel sick—”
“Travis? What I said before, about it not being the tequila...It’s the truth. I—I wasn’t drunk.”
She spoke the words in a rush, even as she chastised herself for having said them.
“Look, I didn’t mean to...I shouldn’t have set myself up as judge and jury. You drank too much. So what? Believe me, I’ve done the same—”
“It was a reaction to medication.”
“Medication?”
He looked startled. Jennie’s heart thudded. He couldn’t be more startled than she was but somehow, it had become important that he not think worse of her than he already did.
“You mean, an allergic thing?”
She took a deep breath.
“Not exactly. I get—I get headaches.” That was certainly true enough. “I take something for them and—and the doctor warned me it wouldn’t mix well with liquor but—but—”
“But, you forgot.”
She hadn’t forgotten. She’d just thought, What the hell is the difference?
Life was closing down so quickly...
But she couldn’t tell him that.
“Something like that,” she said, trying for a carefree smile.
He smiled, too. Her heartbeat quickened. She’d almost forgotten how devastating his smile was: charming, flirtatious, sexy...and all Travis Wilde.
“Well,” he said, “after what happened tonight, you won’t forget next time.”
They both laughed politely—but nothing in their eyes was polite. The way he was looking at her, the way she was looking at him...
She turned away and walked to the door.
He followed.
She looked at him, held out her hand. He took it.
His touch sent a wave of longing through her.
“Anyway—anyway, thanks for taking me home.”
“No,” he said, “thank you.”
“For what?”
“For tolerating me being such an ass.”
“You weren’t. I mean, you had every reason to think I was just plain drunk.”
“Even so, I had no right to judge you.” His hand tightened around hers; he moved closer. “As for last week—”
“Really,” she said quickly, “there’s no need to—”
“There’s every need. You gave me a gift beyond measure that night.”
She felt her face flame with color.
“No. I understand. I burdened you with—”
“You honored me.” His voice was rough, so sexy she could hardly breathe. “No woman’s ever given me such an incredible gift before.”
He meant it. She could see it in his
eyes, hear it in his words. It made her want to explain...at least, to explain as much as she could.
“Travis,” she said softly, “I know I made it sound as if—as if you—as if what we did—was just something that I’d planned could happen with anybody. But—but—”
“But what?”
The rest was hard to say. To admit. She didn’t want to embarrass him. Or embarrass herself. But he had the right to hear it.
She took a deep breath.
“But one step inside that bar and I knew I’d never go through with it. And then—and then—”
His eyes darkened.
“And then?”
“And then I saw you.”
“You were a miracle, coming through that door,” he said softly. “I told myself the miracle was that you could save my sorry tail...” He cupped her face with his hands. “But the truth is, the miracle was that you were so beautiful. And that I wanted you the second I saw you.”
Her smile, her sigh, told him everything he’d spent the past week needing to know.
“Truly?” she said, all the innocence in the world in the one, softly-spoken word.
“Truly,” he said. “I never wanted a woman the way I wanted you.”
“What we did,” she whispered, “it was—it was—”
“Incredible,” he whispered back, putting his arms around her, bending his head to hers, nuzzling her hair away from her temple. “I thought about you every single minute since that night.”
“Did you?” she said, her voice trembling.
“Every waking moment.” He smiled. “Every sleeping moment, too.” His smile tilted. “I dreamed about you.”
Was he saying that to make her feel better, or did he mean it?
Stop analyzing, was the last thing her alter-ego said, before she sent it packing and moved fully into his embrace.
She could feel the hard, quick race of his heart.
“I—I dreamed about you, too.”
He cupped her face. Lifted it to his.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he said gruffly.
Jennie took a deep, deep breath.
“Then don’t,” she whispered.
Travis kissed her. She kissed him back. He groaned, kissed her again, hard and deep.
Then he reached past her, and closed the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE WASN’T GOING to make love to her.
What kind of man took advantage of a woman when she didn’t feel well?