Just Fooling Around(32)
“What did you do to your leg?” Devon asked, flipping on the porch light and then opening the door before stepping back in shock.
No way did the tiny three-inch image on the monitor compare to the sucker punch of the full in-person effect. His hair wasn’t merely black, it was the startling blue-black of stealth bombers, gun barrels and every other doomsday device known to man. Long thick lashes framed silvery gray eyes, which were currently wearing that ah-shit look that she knew well from having two older brothers, who, not being nearly as accepting of their fate as Devon, experienced ah-shit moments on what was a nearly daily basis.
Her mouth went dry from looking at him, and in her mind, she was already calculating the estimated maximum loss if she just did something small, like touch him, like kiss him, like seduce him.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, what was she thinking? Instantly she made a note to get a bigger vibrator.
Devon locked her arms across her chest, determined to remain unmoved, uninvolved, unaroused and alive.
“The leg’s not injured. It’s uh…encumbered,” he answered, those silver eyes widening innocently, which should have been impossible, considering the slightly tipsy tilt to his mouth…and the ball and chain around his leg.
Ball and chain?
Devon slammed the door shut.
2
“OWWWW!”
That wasn’t a good sign.
Devon cracked the door open again. “Did I hurt you?”
“Just the nose,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” she apologized, then added in the spirit of total deniability: “Please take a step back before it gets beat up again.” All legal waivers of liability completed, she slammed the door shut. If his nose got out of joint this time, it wasn’t her fault. He’d been warned.
Seemingly incapable of showing good sense, he knocked quietly.
“Ma’am?”
Her eyes closed, as if a lack of vision could block out the insidious persistence of that voice. This man wasn’t used to women who slammed doors on his nose. He wasn’t used to horrible miseries for one day of the year. No, he was that clueless individual who believed that all mountains should be climbed and all plumbing leaks could be fixed with a wrench and a roll of duct tape.
In other words, he was a man.
If only he wasn’t so…tempting.
After suffering from previous April Fools’ day hoaxes that required FBI interrogations (no she wasn’t a terrorist, and she didn’t know any Nigerian princes, nor had she ever claimed to be one) and accidents that required interior fumigation, it was somehow freeing to know that she wouldn’t mind spending twenty-four hours in bed, if Mr. Ball-and-Chain were there to keep her company.
Sensing her defenses starting to falter, Devon moved to the offensive. “Do not attempt to guilt me into opening the door against my better judgment, knowing that you’re an escaped criminal with a sordid past, recently on the run from a chain gang.”
“No chain gangs in North Dakota, ma’am. The penal system is a lot more humane than it used to be. No, this is just my buds pulling an April Fools’ joke on me.”
An April Fools’ joke? Seriously? For the first time on this godforsaken day, she found herself actually smiling. “You have very sick friends.”
“I know, I tell them that every day. You don’t know how many times I wanted to ditch the bastards, but then I tell myself, Self, you’ll get shot down behind enemy lines and captured, and if I went and kicked their ass—exactly like they deserved, mind you—then they’d have no reason to pull off one of those death-defying rescues you see in Hollywood and I’d never get famous. So you can see, I don’t have any choice in the matter. And that’s why I’m here at your doorstep with a ball and chain wrapped around my leg. It’s pitiful. It’s pathetic. But you’re my last hope. And I know you’re a very smart lady, and shouldn’t open the door, but goddamn it, it’s cold and wet out here, and the base is sixty-five kilometers away and I think if I was one hundred percent sober, I could probably make it, even with this monstrosity attached to me. But currently I’m sitting at about seventy-eight percent sobriety, and I think I’m coming down with a cold.” He sneezed, a genuine sound that breached the nuclear-bunkered walls of her heart.
All biological dictates aside, Devon knew there were a thousand reasons she shouldn’t open the door. More importantly, no self-respecting female would let a slightly drunken voice curl her toes and cause her spine to collapse upon itself.
But something about that low, hot summer drawl made her warm in places that had forgotten they could get warm. Her skin was starting to feel tight and itchy, and she had a strange desire to dig through her lingerie drawer to find something more attractive than a red-rose flannel gown. All further arguments against the door opening died a short and violent death.