The outside door was unlocked. The vestibule stank. The stairs creaked; he stepped in something sticky and tried not to think about what it might be.
One flight. Two. Three, and there it was, straight ahead. Apartment 4B, even though the “4” hung drunkenly to the side and the “B” was upside down.
Karim hesitated.
Did he really want to do this tonight? Was he up to what was surely going to be a dirty hovel? He remembered the time he’d flown out to the coast to visit Rami when he was in school. Dirty dishes in the sink and all over the counters. Spoiled food in the refrigerator. Clothes spilling out of the hamper.
“Goddammit,” he said, under his breath.
The truth was, he didn’t give a crap about the apartment being dirty. What mattered was that it would be filled with Rami’s things. The hotel rooms had not been; the hotels had all removed his brother’s clothes, his toiletries, and put them in storage.
This would be different.
And he was a coward.
“A damned coward,” he said, and he stepped purposefully forward, stabbed the key into the lock, turned it—
The door swung open.
The first thing he noticed was the smell—not of dirt but of something pleasant. Sugar? Cookies?
Milk?
The second thing was that he wasn’t alone. There was someone standing maybe ten feet away …
Not someone.
A woman. She stood with her back to him, tall and slender and—
And naked.
His eyes swept over her. Her hair was a spill of pale gold down her shoulders; her spine was long and graceful. She had a narrow waist that emphasized the curve of her hips and incredibly long legs.
Legs as long as sin.
Hell. Wrong building. Wrong apartment. Wrong—
The woman spun around. She wasn’t naked. She wore a thing that was barely a bra, covered in spangles. And a thong—a tiny triangle of glittery silver.
It was a cheap outfit that made the most of a beautiful body, though her face was even more beautiful …
And what did that matter at moment like this, when he had obviously wandered into the wrong place … and, dammit, her eyes were wide with terror?
Karim held up his hands.
“It’s all right,” he said quickly. “I made a mistake. I thought—”
“I know precisely what you thought, you—you pervert,” the woman said, and before he could react she flew at him, a blur of motion with something in her hand.