When Staci Takes Charge (Leave Your Shoes On 2)

Just as she hadn’t thought to grab her key from the entryway table.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she hissed out.

Staci backtracked to her room and reached for the handle on her door, jerking it downward.

It didn’t give.

Of course not.

Regardless, she tried again. And again. Forcefully.

“Please tell me this isn’t happening,” she grumbled.

The metal bucket dropped from her other hand and clamored to the floor. She ignored it and applied more pressure to the lever. As if that would suddenly free the lock.

“No, no, no!”

She said the words out loud, though they weren’t the ones echoing in her head.

They were more like, Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Oh, come on,” she softly wailed. “I can’t go downstairs in a—”

The lock clicked. She jumped.

By some fabulous act of God, had she been spared public humiliation? Or maybe the hallway was monitored by security, and whoever was watching the screens took pity on her and unlocked her door electronically from his console?

Was that even possible?

She had no idea. Didn’t care. She’d take being saved any way she could get it at this moment.

She jammed the handle down again.

But like before, it didn’t give.

What the hell?

“You wouldn’t mind keeping it down out here, would you?” a deep voice asked from behind her. A deep, intimate, sexy voice, to be exact.

Staci’s hand froze. Her heart leaped into her throat.

A lock had released. It just hadn’t been hers.

She spared a glance heavenward and mouthed, Really?

A bit mortified and a lot agitated, she slowly turned around.

And lost her breath over the dark-haired, blue-eyed mountain of a man standing before her.

Chapter Two

Evan Hart stood across the hall from what could only be described as a fantasy come to life.

Mile-long legs. Narrow waist. Plump breasts. Soft-looking, damp red curls that fell just past her slender, bare shoulders. A freshly scrubbed face.

Despite being separated by an expanse of carpet, he could smell her. Vanilla with perhaps a hint of lavender, which was extremely alluring.

She stared at