Irresistible Force (A K-9 Rescue Novel)(13)
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Shay rolled plump shiny silver oysters in cornmeal and spices before adding them to the skillet, glad she had decided to buy more than she thought she could eat in one sitting. Frying messed up the stove so she'd planned to cook enough to last for a couple of days. Now, of course, she had a man to feed. The thought made her smile. Immediately she banished the warm feeling.
She couldn't afford to like James. He was an A-type take-charge personality. Just what she didn't want or need after Eric. Not when the self-respect she'd worked so hard to build for herself the last few years had just come apart at the seams. Timing. Timing was everything. Hers had always been lousy.
As she forked the oysters to turn them over in the grease, she began to analyze her feelings so that they could be brought to heel before James emerged from her bathroom. She needed to think of something to talk about over dinner, nothing too personal. And maybe she should go brush her hair. She must look a mess after-
"Crap!" Shay glanced guiltily at the kitchen doorway. She was making plans for the possibility that the man in her bathroom might care how she looked.
As if she had just found a new prospect for her love life.
As if the last disaster hadn't just stalked out her door.
No! James made her uneasy. For instance, why had he come back? Just because he had turned up in time to stop Eric before things got completely out of control didn't mean her silent pleas for help had worked. He must have had some other motive.
She glanced down at Bogart. "I don't suppose you'll tell me what's up with your partner?"
Bogart thumped his tail, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.
She tossed him a fried oyster which he caught and swallowed without even rising from his prone position.
Afterward, he sat up and barked and offered her his paw.
She laughed and shook it. "Yeah, you're cute, my charming Prince. But it seems you come with attachments I can't afford to have in my life."
When the last oyster had been fried and a salad of kale added to the table to fill out the menu that included black-eyed peas over rice, she glanced at the clock.
He'd been in the bathroom thirty minutes. How much water could one man use?
On the way through the living room, she glanced at her front door. She knew she had locked it after James came back in but she found herself checking, just in case.
All three locks were in place.
Her breath came out in a whoosh of relief. As she turned into the bedroom she heard music coming from behind the bathroom door. No wonder he hadn't heard her call. He was singing rather loudly to a Jake Owen country and western song.
His rather nice baritone was crooning "can't be alone with you," as she tapped on the bathroom door.
No response. She rapped more loudly, saying in a near shout, "Dinner is-"
CHAPTER EIGHT
Shay had seen naked men. But not one quite this impressive close-up. He was bigger than he appeared when clothed. As the steam curled out of the room behind him, he seemed to have emerged from some primitive grotto. Muscles she'd felt in their morning struggle and later brief encounter in the hallway were covered in smooth tanned skin lightly furred in a golden pelt that still held a few drops of water from his shower.
Instantly embarrassed to be staring with lips parted in surprise, she looked down. That didn't help.
The hair on his torso turned darker and sleeker as it arrowed down his flat abdomen, skirted his navel and then sank out of sight behind well-used jeans left unsnapped and half zipped. In fact, the denim seemed precariously hung on the hook of one jutted hip.
"Yes?" A voice from somewhere over her head delivered the word in a quiet, deep register.
Shay closed her mouth. She'd come here to say something. She was pretty sure she had.
"Dinner ready?"
"Yes." It took her another second to lift her gaze to his face.
A single slick of shaving gel covered the last patch of uncut whiskers. Where he had shaved, the smooth skin of his lower face was drawn taut in a grin.
He must have seen something in her face because he glanced down at himself then muttered, "Oops! Sorry!" He tossed the razor into the sink and used both hands to yank up his zipper.
"And don't leave a mess in my bathroom." She spun quickly, and stalked away.
He was watching, she could feel his gaze slide warmly down her spine to her behind. That made her aware of the way her boots made her hips sway.
She turned the corner into the living area before she let herself slump against the wall. Her mouth was dry, her breath tangled up between "oh my God!" and "hot damn!"
The details of him still simmered in her overstimulated senses. The swell of his shoulders, still damp from the shower, were freckled. He smelled of soap and shower steam. There was a small scar on the swell of his right bicep and a small mole above and to the right of his left nipple. Her palms still prickled with the ridiculous urge to touch the whorls framing those flat brown male nipples.
Shay felt her skin ignite as her body betrayed her attraction. Officer Cannon was getting in under her guard. Just by being here, he was taking up valuable space that she desperately needed to keep herself whole.
She struggled with the impulse to turn around and tell him to get out. She didn't want to share her meal with him. He made her uncomfortably aware that what she really wanted to do was go back in there and join him in that steamy room, and show him what a slutty mind she had.
Shay took a deep breath. If only she had the same courage she did in her imagination. But she was not a wild girl. At least, not outside her head.
She could hear her counselor now. The exaggerated intensity of her emotions was simply because Officer Cannon represented safety and order. And his confident sexual attractiveness was easy to appreciate. She needed to stop fantasizing in order to face her anxieties.
Those thoughts sobered her. Yes, James Cannon was a babe magnet. Probably accustomed to women going all gooey at the sight of him. That's why he'd thought nothing of opening a door half naked. It wasn't a come-on. It was a comfortable fact of his life.
She needed to keep it together. An hour and he'd be gone. Plenty of time for a full-blown meltdown after that.
Lifting her bangs from her damp forehead, she straightened up and headed for the kitchen.
Bogart was there waiting for her by the stove, all innocence with his bright eyes trained on her. That's when she knew there was a problem.
"Oh Prince! You didn't!"
Prince had gobbled up half the platter of fried oysters.
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Shay stirred her iced tea in silence as she watched James eat. He was nearly done and they hadn't yet exchanged more than half a dozen words. The silence was worse than talking would have been; it gave her brain nothing to do but be acutely aware of every inch of the man sharing her table. He wore a Henley shirt of waffle fabric and, over that, an unbuttoned flannel shirt to ward off the evening chill. His hair, still damp from the shower, molded to his head in dark wet spikes. She wished she was bold enough to catch on her finger the single bead of water hanging from his right earlobe.
No, she mustn't touch. Out of her league.
Annoyed with her thoughts, she got up and turned on her digital music player plugged into its dock across the room. It blared to life with a driving beat that scattered the silence.
Bogart sat up and glanced at her, his head and ears cocked to take in the unfamiliar music.
James continued to eat in silence because every time he looked up, his hostess was staring at his plate as if he were her last customer whose idling over his meal was keeping her past the end of her shift.
When he'd opened the bathroom door he hadn't thought about the fact he was shirtless until he saw the blush flare in her cheeks and her top teeth catch her lower lip. She looked vulnerable and wary, and yet he knew she could be tough and bold. Because there, behind the surprise and instinctive modesty, was the shimmer of sexual interest. He'd felt himself expanding in reaction to the curiosity in those tortoiseshell eyes.
James swallowed, hard. He was thinking way too much about things he shouldn't. Her interest died soon enough. He saw it the second she began to recoil. She must have thought he was being deliberately provocative with his unzipped jeans.
When he'd entered the kitchen, he half expected her to change her mind about him staying for dinner.
He stole a look at her plate, empty but for a smear of black-eyed peas and three rice grains. She'd said he'd taken so long to dress that she'd eaten her share of oysters ahead of him. He wondered if she had lied about having enough to share, and was forgoing the oysters so that he could eat the plateful she'd served him. If so, it was too bad for her. Honest to God, it was so good he wanted it all.