“I don’t like this house all that much,” she said shakily as she entered her bedroom.
When he passed, his arm brushed her shoulder, triggering a tense, fiery frisson down her spine.
“You never did.”
He delivered the remark with no inflection as he surveyed her mirrored nightstands, and Paige couldn’t conceal her startled, “Oh.”
He walked past her vanity, his presence a shock of testosterone in such a girly room. The white comforter, the lacy pillows, the canopy, all seemed to fade into the background, flimsy and insubstantial compared to the primal magnetic force, the realness, of him.
Facing her, he crossed his arms and assumed a wide-legged stance that made her feel utterly small. “Were you in this room previously today?”
A shaft of unease spiked through her stomach. She’d not only been in this room today, she’d been screaming at the walls. You son of a bitch! I won’t forget forever, I won’t give you the satisfaction! “Yes,” she admitted.
“Can you retrace what you did for me?”
For me . . .
Flushing at how utterly personal that last sounded, she sailed over to the door. “I only came in and . . . sat on the bed for a bit.”
She promptly demonstrated, bouncing slightly as she did.
He didn’t smile, didn’t move; he was so intimidating. “You sat.”
His gaze drifted down her neck, lingered on her chest for a heart-stopping moment. Then his fingers curled into his hands and his jaw bunched as he dragged his eyes back up.
His voice rumbled up his chest, an octave lower than before. “Did you do some reading?”
She exhaled slowly and forced herself to focus on his question, but she was loath to admit to him what had just happened. What she’d done.
He’d think her crazy. Reckless.
/> “I straightened up,” she improvised, then winced and tried to appear contrite. “I shouldn’t have? I’m sorry, I’m afraid it’s a terrible habit of mine.”
He nodded toward the bookshelf and signaled at the bottom. “Do you recall which of these books you moved?”
Note: he didn’t ask if she’d moved them, but stated it as fact. She’d tampered with evidence. She might very well be in deep shit.
“I . . .” It took a second for her to register her folly. The yearbook she’d haphazardly stuck among the others was standing upside down. The rest of her books were lined up perfectly and in alphabetical order.
Cheeks flaming bright red, she rose to point at it, careful not to touch now that he was watching. “This one.”
She heard the snap of a glove and almost jumped out of her skin.
Swallowing a lump the size of a golf ball, she mentally calmed herself down and remained in place as he plucked out the yearbook with one gloved hand. Suddenly her every inhale of air was scented of him. He smelled natural and clean and terribly good.
Only inches away, she regarded him in confusion and awe as he bent his head. A lock of hair fell on his forehead as he thumbed through the pages.
Something in that visual made her breathless. She had a vivid image of his lips fusing with hers, of her hands in his hair, and insanely thought of sun and warmth and mint and apple juice. Her mouth began to burn so badly, she brought three fingertips to fleetingly feel her lips.
His head jerked up, his eyes flashing a bright, fiery green, and the startling move made her drop her hand. “Were you aware of a page missing?”
“I . . .” She nervously moved away and said, “Yes.”
He set the book down, and she became the sole focus of his attention. She struggled not to squirm under his brutally intense regard. “If you don’t trust me, I can’t help you, Paige.”
Help. Someone was offering to help her. She had denied that she needed help for years, but what if she did? What if this stranger helped her?
Gathering her courage, she confided, “He left a note. A message.”