скачать книгу бесплатно
“He’ll be okay. He doesn’t do well being transported, and his food, water and bed are here.”
“Okay. If you’re sure he’s okay.”
“He has a cat door in the back if he needs to get out, but he usually just hunkers down at night.”
“Let’s go, then,” she said, and he pulled back when she took his hand.
“Cripes, Jonas, relax. I’m just helping you out to the cab, not trying to come on to you,” she said, gritting her teeth.
He blew out a breath, seeming as tense as she was. “It’s not you, Tessa. I hate this, my situation and being led around like a poodle all the time,” he admitted.
Her own aggravation softened. He was a protector, a man who wasn’t used to being vulnerable. He stood in front of others who were. She put her own feelings aside, realizing how difficult this was for him. He let her lead him out through the maelstrom to the shelter of the cab.
“Hardly a poodle. More like a rottweiler with a nasty temper,” she muttered under her breath as they climbed inside the cab, and thought she might have seen him smile, just a little.
TESSA ALMOST BOLTED from the cab by the time they reached her store. The silent tension between her and Jonas was intolerable.
“No more fares,” the cabbie said, looking back at them as she started to get out, but Jonas didn’t.
“My friend needs you to take him home,” she said to the driver, who shook his head vehemently.
“No more fares,” he repeated, shifting his light to Out of Service, and staring at Jonas, not that Jonas could notice.
“He says you have to get out here,” she spoke to Jonas.
“Yeah, I got that.” His tone was clipped and short. He was obviously not happy about that option, and she couldn’t help feeling insulted.
It infuriated her, but she held her temper. “You can come into the store and wait for another taxi,” she offered.
She’d call one herself, and make sure she told them to hurry, she thought testily, helping him from the taxi. He insisted on paying the fare, and she let him.
“Careful stepping up,” she cautioned as they ascended
to the shop, and he pulled his hand out of her grasp, taking the railing.
“I’m fine. I have this whole property memorized. It was part of my job,” he said.
She made some faint response, noting that he did seem to move easily up her stairs and inside the door, as if he could see.
Why did it make her heart constrict in an uncomfortable way to think he knew her space so well? That he had committed something about her to memory? It didn’t mean anything, she reminded herself. He’d said as much.
It was just a side effect of his job.
“I’ll call another taxi,” she said.
“Thanks.”
Tessa was on her phone for several minutes, watching Jonas stalk around her shop like a caged tiger. She called one company, and then another, but no one could send a ride for at least an hour, if then.
The city was paralyzed by the storm. The taxis were starting to return to the garage for the night.
As she redialed, she watched Jonas lift one scented bar to his nose and turned his attention to her.
“This is new,” he said, and she blinked in amazement.
He paid that much attention to her products? Most of the time he had acted as if he couldn’t care less.
“Yes,” she answered, while seeking another taxi service.
She didn’t tell him what he had picked up was one of the soaps in her new Erotic Enhancements collection. That particular scent could intensify orgasm. Standing and watching him lift the soap to his nose, inhaling, made her skin warm. Her heart fluttered. From her brief experience in Jonas’s arms, he wouldn’t need any help giving intense orgasms.
“Tessa?” he interrupted her train of thought.
“Oh, what? Sorry,” she responded, shaking her attention away from Jonas and sex. Even when he was being unpleasant, she couldn’t stop picturing him naked.
“Any luck?”
“No, I’m sorry. We can keep trying, but the city is—”
She stopped as everything went dark around her. The store was suddenly pitch-black, no light outside or in.
“Oh no.”
“What?” he asked sharply.
“Blackout. Everything just went dark. Really dark.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Um, yeah, but it looks like you might be stuck here for a while.”
He was quiet, and she bit her lip. He certainly couldn’t think she’d orchestrated this.
She stepped down from the register where the phone was, and started to make her way across the store, but couldn’t find anything to focus on, and gasped in pain as she knocked into the corner of a display.
“Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just having a lot harder time than you making my way around in the dark,” she said grumpily. It seemed the tables had turned.
“You stay put, but keep talking. I’ll find my way to you,” he said, and she thought she heard a slight smile in his tone.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know what to talk about,” she groused.
“Then sing something,” he offered, sounding closer.
“I don’t sing outside the shower,” she said, and then, a second later, felt his hand on her arm.
“There you are,” he said.
His strong fingers closing around her forearm reminded her of that morning, and memories swamped her.
She had been so frightened by his call, and then so relieved to find him with only a minor injury, that it had been easy to set desire aside. Well, mostly.
Not so now. Here, in the familiar setting of her store, where they had spent so much time together, it was harder to ignore her attraction to him, stupid as it might be. He obviously didn’t feel the same way about her.
His breath warm and close to her cheek in the dark. She had a feeling it wouldn’t take much to turn her face to his and lean in for a kiss.
“I guess we could go upstairs and wait it out. This can’t last for too long. I could get us something to drink,” she suggested.
“Thanks. I—” he started, and then stopped. Then started again. “I know this is awkward.”
“It is. Here, I can use my cell phone to light the way,” she said.
“Don’t use your phone as a light. It’ll kill the battery. I can get us there.”
“Okay.”
He grabbed her hand this time, his grip firm and warm, and she stayed close as he navigated perfectly to the stairs.
“You didn’t change any of the displays,” he commented as they climbed.
“I don’t, typically. I want people to find things easily when they come back for a second or third visit,”
she said. “I have an area for new items, and they know where to find those, too.”
“Makes sense.”
She did use her phone as a light for a quick minute to insert her key into the lock and let them in, finding her apartment as well in total darkness. It felt comfortable talking about the store, something neutral.
“We’re both pretty soaked from the rain,” she said.
It had been coming down so hard even the short walks to and from the cab had been drenching. “My brother left some things here after his last visit. They should fit you well enough, if you’d like to change.”
In spite of being soaking wet, the heat and humidity made the apartment muggy, and she felt a fine sheen of perspiration on her brow. Or maybe it was repressed arousal.
“I’d appreciate that,” he said simply.
“Wait here. I’ll get the clothes and some towels.” She carefully walked into the guest bedroom and found the Levi’s and a silky black T-shirt in a drawer where Tim had left them behind.
Her brother, a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago, wasn’t quite as broad in the shoulders as Jonas, but they were about the same height and weight, she figured.
She shivered in anticipation, in spite of herself. The storm didn’t seem to be letting up. Jonas might be here for the night.
Maybe … No.
There was no way she could sleep with him. He’d just think she was using him again, to get back at her father or for some blue-collar thrill, whatever. He’d memorized her home, her store, but didn’t he get to know her better in those weeks when he’d been guarding her?
Apparently not.
Could she have been imagining the chemistry between them?
She thought back to their encounter in his apartment, earlier in the day. It felt ages ago. He wanted her—he just didn’t want to want her.
Though in all honestly, she was partly to blame for what had happened to him. She wasn’t guilty of the things he accused her of, but she did bear some responsibilty. She’d set her sights on him, flirting, tempting, and did whatever she could to break his control.
That had backfired big-time. She also hadn’t believed in the threat that he was guarding her from, and he had ended up paying the price for that.
So maybe he had good reason to be angry with her. And maybe this was her chance to make amends.
“Well, I have the clothes, but as to skivvies, I don’t have anything like that on hand, unless you would like to try on something of mine,” she teased lightly as she entered the living room.
He did chuckle then, a gravelly, masculine sound that warmed her blood.
“Not necessary,” he said, and that turned her tease into a groan as she thought about Jonas and nothing between her and him but the thin denim.
Her mouth went dry as she put the clothes in his hands, and then the towels.
She licked her lips, impossibly turned on by him being here, so close and about to take his clothes off.
“You can use the bathroom,” she said quickly, turning back to her bedroom to change her own clothes, and promptly slamming her shin into the table leg.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Though I feel stupid for not being able to find my way around my own apartment in the dark,” she admitted.
“It gets easier with practice. Maybe you should use your phone for light before you really hurt yourself.”
She frowned, but did light her way back to her room as he disappeared into the bathroom with no trouble whatsoever.
Stripping out of her wet clothes, she dried off and applied some smoothing sage and lavender lotion to her skin, enjoying the calming scents. Her phone dimmed a bit, and she knew she was losing the charge, so tried to finish her ministrations in the dark.
Peering out the window as she was slipping on a pair of light capris and a tank, she couldn’t see a thing. Rain hit the glass so hard that the entire view was obscured, and everything was pitch-black, including the streetlights.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to make it through this night. She wanted Jonas, but he clearly had no such intentions toward her. They were stuck together, and she’d make the best of it, but she ached inside and wished things could be different.
Making her way back out to the main room, she did as he instructed and walked slowly forward, until she caught the edge of the flip-flop she wore on the throw rug, pitching forward and landing with a thud on the hardwood floor.
A lamp fell from the table beside her and she cursed loudly. That was her favorite lamp, a one-of-a-kind that she had handmade by a glassblower in New York.
“Are you okay? Where are you?” Jonas called, emerging from the bathroom.
“Yeah, I just stumbled over the rug, and I think I broke a lamp.”
“Don’t move, you could cut yourself on broken glass.”
