“You need to know anything else to be sure I’m not gonna maim you?” he asked. “Social security number? Height and weight?”
She shook her head with too much energy.
He smiled.
Amber thought she just might die.
It was dazzling. Tony Mazzara had a dazzling smile. Like a toothpaste commercial dipped in a porn movie.
“Now we’re at the part where you tell me your name,” he said.
“Sorry?” She had an urge to shake her head and clear away the smile vapors, but she managed not to. Just.
“Your name, honey.”
“Amber.”
“Amber what?”
“Amber Clark.”
His eyes were laughing at her, but they were doing it kindly. He had nice eyes. Dark, dark brown eyes and wavy black hair. A face like his name, like it should have been chiseled out of marble, with a big Mediterranean nose, high cheekbones, and one of those brows that could go dark and menacing and make a girl shiver.
His mouth was probably illegal.
She needed to stop cataloging him, because it only made the blushing, perky thing worse. The guy she now realized was his brother gave her sly looks whenever the two of them passed her. Looks that said, I see the way you watch him. Everybody sees.
She wanted to tell him, It’s not like you think. I’m not mooning over him. I’m trying to figure out a way to drag him into my bed and tie him up.
But that was such baloney. She was mooning over him.
“And you live …?”
She pointed out the door in the general direction of her place. “Camelot Arms apartments. A mile or so over that way.”
“And if I go into that basement with you, you’re not going to attack me? Compromise my virtue?”
“I’ll call your mother and swear to it if you want.”
He huffed, half a laugh, and his mouth curved into a sideways kind of smirk that lit her panties on fire.
“All right, Amber Clark. Shall we go find ourselves a corner to huddle in?”
Chapter Two
By the time Tony’s boots hit the basement floor, he could barely hear the storm. The buzz of the fluorescent lights overpowered the sound of the rain.
They might not even notice the all clear when it went off. If he’d been thinking, he would have brought the radio with him. Or pulled his cell phone out of his truck instead of leaving it lying on the front seat like an idiot.
“You have a cell?” he asked.
“No, sorry.”
“Is there a phone down here?”
“I don’t think so, but I’ll look.”
While she was searching around, Tony glanced over the tidy rows of rack shelving. It was a full basement, one he’d been in before several times, but he’d never paid much attention. He’d usually been focused on the electrical box or the ductwork or some other thing he needed to mess with to get a job done.