Hunted

by Karen Robards

  It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a man’s chest before. She had. But this was Reed, Reed wearing nothing but black tuxedo pants and a towel around his neck—in other words, sexy personified.

  In sheer self-defense she frowned at him.

  His eyes as they met hers were dark and impossible to read. He’d definitely noticed her looking, and she waited for some wiseass remark.

  It didn’t come.

  “I brought you something,” was what he said, in a clipped tone that told her he was still bent out of shape about the kiss. Thanks to the feeble light of the overhead fixture, she noticed fine lines at the corners of Reed’s eyes, and deeper ones bracketing his mouth, that hadn’t been visible earlier. He looked tense, tired, and faintly grumpy.

  He held up a new toothbrush, still in its packaging, which he waggled at her. In his other hand, he was carrying his gun, which was still in its holster.

  “A toothbrush!” With a gift like that in hand, she didn’t care if he was still mad at her. Caroline reached for it with genuine enthusiasm. A second one was in his hand, which she presumed was for his own use. They’d probably been in the bag of groceries on the table, which she hadn’t taken time to look at before heading for the bathroom. She’d seen a tube of toothpaste in the medicine cabinet, she recalled. Turning back to it, she set the AfterBite down on the edge of the sink, and grabbed the toothpaste from the shelf with gusto.

  “You’re lucky I bought two.” He pulled the towel from around his neck, which actually turned out to be two thin, cheap white ones intertwined, and slung them over the top of the shower, which lacked about two feet of reaching the ceiling. The display of rippling muscle that was involved sent her pulse fluttering. As she redirected her gaze in a hurry, he walked around her to place his gun on the back of the toilet, and she noticed that he was barefoot. Clearly her mind had been focused on something—somewhere—else, or she would have noticed sooner. As he turned back toward her his eyes slid over her, and Caroline was reminded once again of the revealing state of her blouse. Of course, he’d seen her accidental display before, but she’d just as soon he didn’t keep seeing it. Casually she angled her body a little away from him. A quick glance as she squirted a dab of toothpaste on the brush found him looking at the AfterBite. He lifted his eyebrows at her inquiringly.

  “Mosquito bites?”

  “A few on my legs,” she replied. It was, she discovered, perfectly possible to engage in innocuous conversation with a gorgeous, bare-chested guy who was biting his words off at her while he stood right beside her, seeming to take up way more than his share of the limited space. What was harder was not looking at his chest—or his muscular arms, or his taut abs—while she did so.

  He glanced at her legs.

  “That’s the problem with showing so much leg: no telling what you’ll attract.”

  “I was on a date. Sorry I didn’t get the memo on the proper dress code for being kidnapped.” Okay, so much for friendly chitchat. The bathroom was feeling way too small. “Look, do you mind going away? I’d like to brush my teeth. And take a shower.” She remembered the towels he’d been wearing around his neck. “Unless you want to shower first, of course.”

  “There’s no showering first,” he said. “Since I don’t have anywhere to lock anything up, and I’m not prepared to leave you out here on your own with my gun and everything else, we’re showering together.”

  At the idea of showering with him her heart gave a little hiccup. The picture it conjured up was so tantalizing that her mouth went dry. Which was why she had so many problems with the suggestion that she practically sputtered.

  “What? Oh, no we’re not. If you’re thinking I’m getting naked with you—”

  “Cher, we both know you’d love to get naked with me.”

  She was indignant. In spite of the fact that it just might be true. “In your dreams!”

  “But I didn’t say you had to get naked,” he continued smoothly. “I’m going to strip down to my boxers, you strip to whatever you feel like stripping down to. Or not. You can stand fully dressed in the corner out of the spray for all I care. We get in, we get out, we hit the sack for a few hours. I’ve got a dry T-shirt you can sleep in. It’s big enough so you’ll be decent.”

  “If I was going to shoot you, I would have done it already,” she pointed out astringently. Had she thought his trust issues were the size of Texas? More like the planet. “I didn’t. I think that means you’re safe.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not prepared to chance you changing your mind.”

  “I don’t want to shower with you,” she said.

  “Too bad. That’s what’s going to happen.” He gave her an impatient look. “Come on, Caroline. Don’t make it a big deal. I’m dead on my feet, and you have to be, too. Let’s do this the easy way, then grab some sleep.”

  “You can’t just say, too bad.”

  “I’m pretty sure I just did.”

  “Screw that.”

  He sighed. “There are two ways we can do this. You can get in the damned shower with me, or I can haul your ass in there.”

  “You can try.”

  “What’s the matter, afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me?”

  “That,” she said with dignity, “was low. I mean, I get it: you’re mad. Believe me, if I’d known you were going to get so bent out of shape over a little thing like being kissed, I would have thought of some other way to get your gun. You don’t notice me being all pissy because you kissed me.”

  His eyes narrowed at her. “You’re not winning this one, Caroline.”

  They exchanged measuring looks. She could see from the obstinate set of his jaw that he meant what he said.

  Well, as long as she didn’t have to get naked she didn’t really have a problem with the shower anyway. She just didn’t like the way he was ordering her in there. Or the fact that he still didn’t trust her. Or the fact that he wouldn’t tell her anything, or let her help him. Or the fact that he was clearly perfectly prepared to trade her for Ant and just walk—run?—away.

  At the moment, though, the shower was the issue at hand. The rest she would find a way to deal with later.

  “Oh, fine,” she capitulated ungraciously. “First I’m brushing my teeth.” For some reason, the idea of doing it in front of him bothered her: it seemed way too personal. That was one reason she had never lived with any of her boyfriends: she liked her privacy.

  “So brush them. Here, I’ll brush mine, too.” Tearing his toothbrush out of its packaging, he came over to the sink beside her. Smearing toothpaste on it, he turned on the tap, warning, “The water’s from a tank, so don’t swallow.”

  Then he brushed his teeth. Watching white foam bubble around in his mouth, Caroline slowly followed suit. Rinsing her mouth in the sink alongside him felt disturbingly intimate. If he had any similar reservations about it, he didn’t show it.

  “Looks like your clothes are starting to dry. Lucky there’s not much material to that date-bait skirt.”

  “So what is it that you have a problem with, exactly? The length of my skirt, or the fact that I was on a date?” She turned to scowl at him, and found her gaze riveted. His hands were busy undoing the top button of his fly, and as they moved on to his zipper she felt unexpected shimmers of excitement dance over her skin. Then she realized that she was watching, and abruptly glanced away, glanced down at her sneakers, found nothing of interest there, and was glad to get busy kicking them off as the sound of his zipper being lowered reached her ears.

  “Neither. None of my business.” Before she could reply to that, he added, “The good thing is, short as that skirt is, it should dry fast. I only mentioned it because, before you go getting in the shower fully dressed, you should know that the only clothes I’ve got here are a couple of pairs of jeans, which aren’t by any stretch of the imagination going to fit you, and some underwear and socks and T-shirts. Which means you’re probably going to want to put on the skirt again when you wake up,
so I don’t know if getting it soaked in the shower is the best idea. If I were you, I’d take it off.”

  Glancing up from nudging her shoes out of the way against the wall, she was just in time to watch him shuck his pants. He was wearing light blue boxers. They hung low enough on his lean hips that she could see even more of his washboard abs and the line of black hair that bisected them. His legs were muscular, masculine, and sported a nice amount of black hair. If he wasn’t tan all over, she couldn’t tell.

  She’d been feeling cold before. No longer.

  Wadding his pants up into a ball, he lobbed them into the laundry basket. “You’re wearing panties, right?”

  “Of course I’m wearing panties.”

  “That’s right, I remember seeing them. So you can lose the skirt. Do what you want, cher, but we’re going in the shower now.”

  Caroline gave him a trenchant look. Getting her skirt soaked did not seem like a good idea. “I’m not doing a striptease for you. Turn around.”

  One side of his mouth quirked up in a wry half smile, but even as she narrowed her eyes at him threateningly he turned around.

  Lips compressing, she shimmied out of her skirt. Made of stretchy jersey knit, it was pretty wet, she discovered as she shook it out. So wet that getting it soaked in a shower wouldn’t make a difference? It was a judgment call, but she decided that the shower could only make her sodden skirt even more waterlogged.

  Off with it, then.

  “You want to speed it up?” he said impatiently. “I’m growing old here.”

  Glancing at him—which she shouldn’t have done, because she immediately got a close-up and personal eyeful of his wide shoulders and sleek, muscular back above a small, tight butt encased in trim boxers, all of which were sexy enough to make her breathing quicken—she draped her skirt over the side of the sink in hopes that it would be dry by the time she needed to put it on again. Then she hesitated. Her blouse was already wet through, and as revealing as it was going to get. And it reached almost to the top of her panties. If she took it off, she would feel naked in her panties and bra, which were flimsy, skimpy things that, wet, would be practically nonexistent.

  The thought of showering with him like that made her body start to quicken and throb, but she wasn’t quite ready to go there. She didn’t think.

  “Caroline—” He glanced around at her. His voice was a growl.

  “I don’t suppose you have anything resembling a shower cap?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Without another word, she moved to the shower, pulled it open, and stepped in. Inside the cubicle it was shadowy, but not really dark because the bathroom light spilled over the top and filtered through the frosted plastic door. She was twisting her hair, which she really didn’t want to get all wet again, into a knot on the top of her head when he stepped in behind her and closed the door. Standing partially facing away from him, she was suddenly aware of him with every nerve ending she possessed.

  “Short skirt, no bra: must have been some hot date you had planned,” he said as he reached past her for the tap, which was a single porcelain knob set into the middle of the white molded acrylic that lined the shower on three sides.

  His comment reminded her that her nipples were plainly visible through the clingy wetness of her blouse. Turning so her back was to him and thus depriving him of that particular view, she resisted the urge to fold her arms over her breasts.

  “My skirt is not that short, I am, too, wearing a bra, and my date was for dinner and that’s it.” Made for one, the shower was way too small once he was inside the plastic rectangle with her. She took an involuntary step forward, closer to the tap, but that didn’t help: the warm firm muscles of his bare arm and chest brushed her as he turned the tap, which squeaked in protest. She felt the sizzle of the contact clear down to her toes.

  “Sounds like a dull date.”

  “What, are all your dates orgies?”

  “Always.”

  That was annoying. “No girlfriend?”

  “Not lately.”

  She calculated how long it had been since his divorce, and then since his ex-wife had died, and found herself wondering if maybe he was still carrying a torch for her. Not that she meant to ask.

  “Out trolling the bars, hmm?” was what she said instead.

  “When I need to.”

  She was just registering the implication of that—translate when I need to to mean when I feel like having sex—when he added, “If you’re really that interested in my love life, I can show you my little black book.”

  “I’m not at all interested in your love life,” she snapped. “And you’re crowding me.” Because, with his big body brushing up against her back, he definitely was.

  “You’re crowding me,” he replied equably. “I didn’t build this shower for two.” The tap squeaked loudly. “Come on, you cantankerous son of a bitch, work.”

  That last was clearly directed at the shower and not her. Other than that, his reply was interesting on a couple of levels: he’d built the shower, and most likely the rest of the bathroom as well, and when he came out to the shanty he probably wasn’t in the habit of bringing a woman with him.

  “Mechanical difficulties?” she gibed as the tap squeaked, a pipe groaned—and nothing else happened. When he didn’t answer, she glanced around at him, and found herself eyeballing his wide, muscular, hunky chest. Standing foursquare and solid, he was broad-shouldered enough that he took up most of the space from wall to wall. His right arm still stretched past her, his hard biceps moved against her arm as he continued to wrestle with the tap—and there was no mistaking the fact that the reason he was slow to reply was that he was too busy checking out her butt.

  She was wearing silky black bikini panties, which were damp and which she was quite sure were completely visible below the hem of her hip-length blouse. They were snug, on the skimpy side, and cut high on her thighs, but they provided perfectly adequate coverage for all her salient parts. She tried to imagine exactly what, standing behind her as he was, he might be able to see. Her blouse should just about meet the lacy waistband, which would give him a clear view of the silky cloth cupping her butt. Below them, her legs, long and tanned and slender, were bare.

  She couldn’t see his eyes, because his lowered lids blocked them. But she could see the sudden tautness of the skin over his cheekbones, see the sudden sensuous curve of his mouth, see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed just that telltale degree too fast. She could feel her own blood heating. She could feel the sizzle in the air.

  “Damn valve sticks sometimes. I had to jury-rig the whole system. No city water way out here.” He glanced up, encountered her gaze, and frowned. She was looking at him over her shoulder. His arm rested right up against hers as he continued to twist the tap without, so far, any result except a whole lot of squeaking and the occasional groan: the shower didn’t seem to want to work. She could feel the steely strength of his biceps as they turned and flexed. She could feel the heat of his skin.

  She battled an impulse to duck her head and press her lips to that long, powerful arm.

  Maybe she was ready to give one-night stands a try.

  Maybe she was ready to give a one-night stand with Reed a try.

  Maybe she was ready to take whatever she could get from him.

  Just having him so close was making her shiver a little. Her lips parted with the need to take in more air.

  He said, “You cold? Scoot around me, and let me try putting some muscle in it.”

  Not the response she had been expecting. If he was feeling the same sexual charge that she was, he didn’t show it. She did as he asked, turning sideways as they edged past each other. They were both nearly naked, and the proximity of all that bare masculine flesh made her heartbeat speed up. It clouded her thought processes. Their bodies brushed—his arm against hers, the cloth of his boxers against the skin of her bare thighs—and she felt tiny electric tingles ever
ywhere they touched. Sleek and powerful looking, his heavily muscled shoulders were at eye level, so she dropped her gaze, immediately encountering his wide chest with its well-developed pecs and wedge of fine black hair. Her breathing quickened and she could feel herself starting to go all soft inside. Then the tips of her breasts accidentally brushed his arm and immediately responded by tightening in a way that sent shivery little tendrils of desire shooting through her body. Catching her breath, she pulled back and looked up, checking to see if he had noticed. She could see the pulse beating in the little hollow at the base of his throat. She could see every whisker in the black scruff that darkened his chin. She could see the fine texture of the bronzed skin stretched tight over his cheekbones.

  Then, because she was looking at him rather than where she was going, she stumbled over something—his foot, she thought—slipped, and automatically thrust out a hand to steady herself.

  It landed right in the middle of his very masculine chest. Her fingers looked slim and pale splayed out in the wedge of fine black hair.

  “Careful.” He caught her arm, causing her to look up just as she was registering how firm and solid and warm his chest felt beneath her palm. She could feel the soft mat of his chest hair, and the beat of his heart, which was stronger and faster than she would have expected it to be under ordinary circumstances. Their eyes collided, held, and suddenly the memory of those hot kisses shimmered in the air between them. Just looking at his lean, hard-jawed, handsome face made her pulse pound. Her mouth went dry, and she licked her lips to moisten them.