“Don’t be cute.”
He batted his thick lashes at her. “I can’t help it; I’m a publisher. We’re naturally alluring to writers.”
“You have a warped mind.”
He winked at her. “I’m going to take a shower. Any chance of finding a razor?” He rubbed the dark shadow on his cheeks.
While May thought the shadowy beard very attractive, giving him a brooding, dangerous look, she also recognized the wisdom of removing it from her sight. Hunter was starting to look tempting.
“Check the medicine cabinet; I think Billy left some stuff in there.”
“Billy?”
“My neighbor—this is his place.”
Hunter nodded, whistling off to the bathroom.
Surely she had misread that brief flash of relief in his eyes?
Hunter lathered his thick hair with some shampoo he found. Along with razor, shaving cream, deodorant, and best of all, a new toothbrush, he didn’t feel half bad. Good ole Billy. He’d have to thank the man personally for the supplies.
Earlier, Hunter had noticed a box of condoms on the top shelf behind a large bottle of mouthwash. It remained to be seen whether he would be thanking the man for those as well. Ms. May Bea was looking mighty tempting to him.
In fact, she had from the instant he had first seen her.
Admittedly, he had been momentarily turned off when he discovered she had almost cracked his skull. But once he found out she was a writer, he realized he couldn’t hold the outlandish behavior against her.
She couldn’t help it. The poor kid.
The hot water sluiced over his head.
It felt great. The cabin was drafty as hell, and the heating system didn’t keep up with the nightly drop in temperature.
When he came out of the shower, he eyed the red velvet outfit distastefully. He was going to have to see what he could rustle up in the way of clothes. And he wasn’t going to put on that moldy red suit again until he washed it.
Donning his T-shirt and boxers, he padded out of the bathroom.
May was leaning over the bed, and he had a very good view of her backside. She had changed into a heavy flannel nightgown; inexplicably the old-fashioned garment looked sexier than a lacy negligee to him.
Her derriere wiggled under the loose flannel as she tried to pull the quilt free from the top mattress. Hunter crossed his arms over his chest and, leaning against the fireplace mantel, considered the scenery. It was…picturesque.
And it worked for him.
He felt himself begin to harden.
When she turned around and saw him standing there, she jumped a little. Seemingly against her will, her sights drifted to his paisley boxers, hesitating slightly. He wasn’t really erect but he was…bulging. A becoming blush stained her cheeks.
Which made him bulge more.
He stepped forward. “Ready to go to bed?” His voice held the slow drawl of suggestion.
May sucked in her breath. He was gorgeous. Even the wretched red suit had not been able to disguise that fact, but when he appeared fresh from his shower in a V-neck white T-shirt and silk boxers, May was nonplused. He had an exquisite physique. Perfectly toned.
Real contemporary hero material, she acknowledged to herself.
However, the heated look in his silver eyes said he had more on his mind than sleeping. Therefore, May did the only thing a romance writer could do in this situation: she stuffed the quilt into his arms and showed him the floor.
To say that C. Hunter Douglas was not a happy camper was an understatement.
He was even less happy when she allowed the wiener dog to get into bed with her.
The floor was hard, cold, and drafty. Hunter heard the dog rustling close to her under her jacket. He bit off an expletive.
For a dog, Benny was one lucky bastard.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sometime in the middle of the night, May felt the bed dip.
Sleepily, she opened her eyes to the sight of Hunter crawling into bed with her.
She was instantly wide awake. “What do you think—” He placed a finger against her mouth.
“It’s freezing on that floor. I’m sleeping here and I don’t want to hear one word.” That said, he covered them both with the quilt.
Then he turned his back to her.
May’s lips curved in amusement. And didn’t that sound just like a hero in a book? She’d have to remember that line.
The bed shook slightly and she realized he was shivering. So he really had been cold. Unaccountably, she felt bad for him. His T-shirt and boxers couldn’t be providing him with much protection.
Turning her back to him, she scooted a little bit closer to give him some of her body heat. May heard a faint sigh of contentment coming from his side of the bed.
Benny wiggled under the quilt like a sand worm, heading to the foot of the bed. He covered Hunter’s cold feet with his long, puppy-warm body, giving his ankle a little lick before settling in to sleep.
Hunter got the strangest impression that he had just come home.
It didn’t make sense, but he was too comfortable to care.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“He threw back his head and roared with laughter.”
May looked at the sentence she had just typed on her screen. Something about it bothered her.
She paused, brow furrowed. “He threw back his head and roared with laughter”? She read it again, this time picturing the strange scene in her mind. May wondered if the gesture didn’t indicate a silent plea from her hero for Prozac…
What’s the matter with me? Everyone loves it when the hero does that! I love it when the hero does that…
May sneaked a peek at Hunter, who was sitting on the floor by the fire, engrossed in one of her books.
Well, if Hunter started throwing back his head to roar with laughter she was going to radio that sheriff to have them parachute down some medication for him!
She shut off her laptop.
When this kind of stuff happened, May knew it was useless even to attempt to write. Yawning, she stretched her hands over her head to loosen stiff muscles, her mind going to that morning and how she had awakened in Hunter’s arms.
He had been wrapped all over her, and to make matters worse, Benny was tangled up in there with them, too. The three of them lay there like a multi-tentacled lump of snoozing flesh.
The man might suffer insomnia on occasion, but when he did fall asleep, he slept like the dead.
“Hunter!” She jabbed an elbow in his side.
“Nnnn,” he mumbled into the curve of her neck. The man was too comfortable.
“Claude?”
She felt him smile against the skin of her throat. “No.” He snuggled in and went back to sleep. After a few minutes, May gave up on the idea of untangling herself and fell asleep again as well.
The next time she woke, Hunter was up and making coffee in the kitchenette.
That’s when she discovered him draped over the refrigerator drinking the Half-and-Half. From the carton.
She let out an ear-piercing shriek.
Stupefied, Hunter stared at her, a mustache of white coating his upper lip.
May made a dive for the carton, rescuing what was left of her cream. “You fiend!” She clutched the carton to her bosom.
“What in the world is wrong with you?”
“I’m a writer; I have to have coffee! It’s our lifeblood; our adrenaline!”
Having had a great deal of experience with the breed, Hunter calmly inquired, “Can’t you drink it black?”
“No!” She clutched the carton tighter. “It’s my one weakness. My God, you drank almost half the container!”
He gave her a patient look. “Your one weakness,” he said dryly.
“And you were drinking right from the carton!” She screwed up her face. “Eew! I hate it when men do that! What is it—something genetic with you guys?”
She ranted on until he poured her a cup of coffee, pried the cream
lose from her, plopped some into her cup, and brought it to her lips, forcing her to drink.
Those silver eyes flashing all the while in amusement.
She was fine after the first cup.
May glanced to where he was sitting by the fire. What was he reading that had him so engrossed? He hadn’t lifted his nicely shaped nose from that book in hours.
She squinted her eyes to read the title. No wonder. It was one of her favorite authors and the woman wrote steam heat. Her love scenes could blister paint from a wall. Smiling, she went back to her own story.
Hunter closed the book and leaned his back against the wall of the cabin.
He had just had an incredible revelation.
He had just realized that all these years he had known next to nothing about women. Not according to these books, anyway.
Like most men, he had always assumed that women wanted the same things men did. Now, he realized, they wanted something else. Something completely different. Something more.
Did they really go for the swaggering, drag-them-by-the-hair, boy-next-door type? And what did that mean? How could one man be all those things?
Did a man with a heavy-lidded expression—whatever the hell that was—turn them into…He tried to recall how the last author had phrased it. “A bowl of mush.”
And those love scenes.
Mama mia.
They were beyond even his imagination. Since Hunter had always prided himself as a man with an excellent imagination, especially in bed, he was impressed. I’ve discovered something here.
It was a blueprint! A set of directions. Waiting in every bookstore, supermarket, and airport for any man smart enough to find it.
His sights rested on May. Luscious, soft, sweet-smelling May. Totally-oblivious-to-her-own-appeal May. Who had made him stone hard with one sweep of those sexy green eyes.
Hunter smiled wickedly. The theory was at least worth a test run.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
That night Hunter came out of his shower wrapped in the quilt.
He sat by the fireplace and pretended to read. Making doubly sure the quilt slipped over his shoulder and down one side of his chest.
May finished the last sentence in her chapter and gratefully closed down her computer. “Well, that does it for toni—”
Hunter was sitting by the fire dressed in nothing but that fluffy comforter. May swallowed. Is he naked under there?
Firelight bounced off the highlights in his rich brown hair, gilding his shoulder and chest. May noted that said shoulder was plenty muscular and said chest was nicely delineated.
Hunter shifted his attention from his book to her, gazing at her with a carefully constructed, boyishly sweet, totally innocent expression. Like the book said. “Were you saying something?”
She quaked a bit under that intense regard. “N-no, just that I’m finished working for the night.”
“Oh. Were you going to take a shower? I washed all my clothes and hung them up over the tub, but I’ll take them down if you need to use it.”
“Thanks.” Her voice cracked a bit. She was right; he was naked under there.
It was sweet of him to offer to clear the shower for her…although, she didn’t want him to move just yet. He looked awfully cute sitting there quietly reading a book.
Naked.
But for the quilt.
“It’ll just take me a minute.” He stood up, clumsily gathering the quilt about him. A section accidentally parted, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of tanned, muscled thigh before his fist clenched the material closed.
May forced herself to look away. Unfortunately, the picture must have seared in her brain, for she could not seem to shake it.
Hunter exited the bathroom, his damp clothes draped over his arm.
“You washed the velvet suit?” she asked incredulously.
“Uh-huh. Why? Is something wrong?” He looked at her earnestly.
She didn’t have the heart to tell him. He’d find out soon enough when it dried. And could stand on its own.
She straightened the stack of papers she had printed out, scanning them for typos. A voice came from right behind her chair and it sounded like a croaking bullfrog.
“You must be stiff from sitting here all day; would you like me to massage—”
She gaped at him over her shoulder. “What happened to your voice?”
He seemed surprised at her reaction. He frowned. “I’m speaking to you in a husky murmur.”
“Well, don’t. You sound like a foghorn at low tide.”
Hunter stroked his freshly shaved jaw. “I must be doing it wrong. Can you demonstrate it for me?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Where did you ever get such a crazy idea? And why do you want to talk in a husky murmur?”
“I’m…testing out something. Go with me on this, okay?”
She expelled a gust of breath. The man was strange. “All right. Try this.” She lowered her voice to a throaty, intimate drawl. “The shower’s ready and waiting…”
Hunter’s eyes glazed over. His heart kick-started. He leaned toward her…
“Your turn,” she said in her normal voice.
Hunter pulled up short. Well, it sure worked on him! Positive that he could give as good as he got, he cleared his throat to try again.
Resting his forearm on the back of her chair, he bent close to her, whispering softly, “Your…shower is ready and I’m waiting…”
May’s eyes widened. “Th-that’s good.” More than just good. Drooling good.
The corners of Hunter’s mouth curved. He decided to move in a little closer to her. He wanted to kiss that little curve on the corner of her mouth that had been fascinating him since he met her.
May bounced out of her chair. “Guess I better take advantage of it then, huh?” She dashed to the bathroom.
Just before she closed the door, she called out, “Cedric?”
“No,” he yelled back, smiling. It was working. He could feel it in his…bones.
The thought made him laugh. Huskily.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“My underwear is still damp. I guess I’ll have to sleep like this.”
Hunter gestured to the quilt covering his bronzed skin and gave her an apologetic “it’s beyond my control— what can I do?” look which didn’t quite pass muster.
May’s black brow notched. The man was getting decidedly frisky. And if he thought he was crawling into bed with her buck naked, he had another think coming. There was no chance she was going to wake up in the morning wrapped up with an in-the-raw Hunter.
She marched to the bathroom, where he had slung the clothes he’d washed over the shower rod. Hunter followed behind warily. May looked like she meant business.
Spotting the paisley silk, she whipped the shorts off the rack and grabbed her blow dryer. Adjusting the heat setting to low, she held the very edge of the garment up between two fingers as if it might bite her at any moment and blasted the dampness right out of it.
Hunter’s lips parted slightly. Now, why hadn’t he ever thought of that? His second thought was: foiled.
May turned to him with his boxers dangling from her index finger. The arrangement of her features was definitely smug. “There you go—nice and dry.”
Sheepishly, Hunter reached for them. “Ah, yeah. Thanks.”
Once again, when they got into bed they turned their backs to each other.
Just before May drifted off, she asked him in the darkness, “Chester?”
Hunter smiled, drowsy. “Nope.” He rubbed his silk-covered backside against her flannel-covered one before falling into a restful sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hunter tossed a piece of apple to Benny, then crunched into his fourth apple of the day. And it was only late afternoon. He was getting mighty sick of apples.
Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Desultorily he wolfed down the fruit. He was starving.
Those frozen meals were not enough for him, even though Ma
y had been giving him two of the tiny cuisine meals every night.
His silver gaze wandered to the windows. It had stopped snowing this morning but it was a real mess out there. There was no chance of getting to his car. Not without boots and a plow.
He looked down at his wardrobe. May had dug out a pair of her black sweat pants this morning after he discovered that the red velvet suit was now a free-standing sculpture. They fit him like a second skin and only came to mid-calf on him, but he had been determined to ram down into them.
There was a faint floral perfume to the pants which evoked May. The fact that he was inside them, surrounded by the scent, made him…bulge. A situation made more blatant by the stretchy material.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, wishing it were something else. Something May.
This morning she had been been draped over his back, her cheek using his shoulder as a pillow. One of her small hands had found its way around his waist to rest flat against his lower stomach, just above the band of his shorts.
In his sleep his hand had come over hers, making sure she didn’t leave the needy spot. He was uncomfortably aroused and had a hell of a time disengaging himself from her without waking her up.
The memory of it alone was enough to get him going again.
Frustrated, he grabbed up another book. Rough Possession was the title. Hunter quickly threw it down and picked up another. Day for Knight. That sounded innocuous enough.
He began to read.
Across the room, May furtively eyed Hunter.
He was engrossed in his book and he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her.
Good.
Her hand inched slowly to the stack of papers on her lap. The stack that was hiding the half-eaten package of M&M’s she had found in the bottom of her purse this morning.
She was starving.
In desperation she had tackled her pocketbook for booty and had come up with a small treasure trove.
Covertly she rooted around in the little bag, her finger snagging the small candy-coated jewel. Glancing his way one more time to be certain the coast was clear, she secretively brought the nugget of heaven to her mouth where she sucked on it for five minutes, savoring every molecule.