Hot Protector(22)

Which was a good thing because all her makeup was gone, burned up with her purse.

She found Chase in the living room, kicked back on the couch with his feet propped on the coffee table. CNN blared from the television, but he looked up when she walked in. Her heart thumped as his eyes narrowed. They slipped over her, from her wet hair to the robe and down to her pink toenails before landing on her face again.

“Feel better?”

“Marginally. But I have no clothes to put on.”

His face became a thundercloud. “Are you warm enough in that robe?”

She ran her hand down the softness of the fabric. “Yes.”

“Then it’ll have to do.”

“My clothes will be dry by tomorrow—but my boots are ruined.”

She knew they would be, but damn, she’d loved those boots. It wasn’t easy to get a low heel from Louboutin, or a comfortable one—and those boots had been both.

“We’ll get something for you. But if you expect designer names, ain’t happening.”

She felt herself bristling. Yes, everything she’d been wearing was a brand name, but that didn’t mean she had to have them. “I don’t know what makes you think I won’t be happy with a pair of tennis shoes.”

“Honey, you look expensive. Those weren’t Walmart clothes you had on—and then there’s the gold watch on your wrist.”

She sniffed. Her watch had been a graduation present from Tyler and her mother—and yes, it was Cartier. “As long as the shoes are dry and comfortable, I don’t care who makes them.”

Which was essentially true. Maybe if she was in New York, she’d want to go to Saks and buy whatever her heart desired. She could admit that shopping made her happy. It had been a crutch since she’d been old enough to realize she wasn’t ever going to be a Victoria’s Secret model herself.

Chase reached into a bag of potato chips sitting by his side and crunched a few. Her stomach rumbled, but she was not eating chips.

“There’s a washer and dryer behind those folding doors in the hallway,” he said without looking at her. “You can wash your stuff and dry it. If you know how to use a washer, that is.”

“I’ll manage,” she said tartly. She hadn’t realized there was a laundry area in this house, but the thought made her ridiculously happy. So happy that his snottiness wasn’t going to get her down.

“Good,” he said. “My stuff needs washed too.”

She gaped at him. And then she got mad. “Tell you what. I’ll fix something to eat better than those”—she nodded at the chips—“and you can do the laundry.”

His eyes flicked up to hers—and stayed there. The intensity of that gaze—God, she didn’t know why it made her heart thunder or her pulse trip. Or her body grow achy and needy.

He pushed himself off the couch, all six foot three inches of him. Then he picked up the chip bag and rolled the top down before tossing it to her. She somehow managed to catch it, but she clutched it to her torso so hard she probably crushed half the chips.

Chase reached behind his back with one hand and tugged his shirt up and over his head in the sexiest maneuver she’d ever seen. Then he smirked at her and balled the shirt in his fist before heading down the hallway.

“Deal,” he called behind him. “But the food better be good.”





11


The food wasn’t bad. It wasn’t gourmet, but Chase finished the grilled cheese sandwich and wished he had another one. Sophie sat across from him at the table in the small living/dining room combo, her eyes on her food as she took slow, deliberate bites.

He’d showered and thrown their clothes into the washer, then returned here to find her fixing grilled cheeses and tomato soup. Hell, he could have done that—except she’d done something to the grilled cheese that tasted better than when he fixed them.

When she’d realized he was in the room, she’d turned to him—and colored immediately. He wouldn’t forget the look on her face for a long time. He was wearing a pair of athletic shorts and nothing else because that’s what he had in his bag until his stuff was clean.

The look she’d given him had arrowed straight to his balls. He’d seen need on that face. Raw, lustful need—and it knocked him for a loop.

She’s not really your sister, dude. You could totally bang her.

Yeah, true—but not helpful. Banging Sophie was a bad idea because he couldn’t walk away in the morning. He still had a few days left with her while they tried to get to Paris to find that flash drive before Androv’s people did. If he let his guard down and fucked her—which he really wanted to do, God help him—he had no idea how to handle the aftermath.