Sultry Escapes. Leslie Kelly

you a good cook?”

      “The best. Excellent. Cordon Bleu. Restaurants vie for my services.”

      “Are you lying?”

      “Oh, hell, yes. Right through my teeth. Now would you please help me?”

      “I thought you didn’t need any help except in the most dire emergency.”

      “This is dire.”

      “Are you an arachnophobe?”

      “If that means I am utterly terrified to my bones and feel like I’m going to throw up if I so much as glimpse a spider, then yes, that’s me.”

      “Gotcha.”

      He didn’t tease her anymore, as if knowing she wasn’t playing the weak girlie-girl in some effort to entice him. Not, she hoped, that he would ever expect her to. Turning, he grabbed the dustpan, then unhooked her death grip from the broom. Drawing on his primal, caveman-hunter genes, he stalked the monster, deftly swept it into the pan and carried it toward the front door.

      “Are you just going to let it go?” she asked, following him. “What if it gets back in?”

      “I’m sure he’d be too afraid to risk it. You’re pretty intimidating.”

      “Are you sure you shouldn’t squish it?”

      “Bloodthirsty, aren’t you?”

      She thought about it. She wasn’t, really. Still, some things were just beyond the bounds of humanity, and sharing a house with a big honking spider was one of them.

      “You’ll be glad for him during mosquito season.”

      “Maybe if they’re killer mosquitoes carrying the ebola virus. Otherwise, I’ll invest in calamine lotion and take my chances.”

      He opened the door, walked outside and was back with the broom and dustpan a moment later. Leaning them both against the wall, he said, “All gone.”

      Relieved, she drew in a deep breath and whispered, “Thank you.”

      “You’re welcome. You okay now?”

      She nodded slowly. “Oh, sure. Fine.”

      Her pulse finally stopped racing and her muscles loosened. The nausea receded, as did the panic. Not for the first time in her life, she found herself wondering if an older cousin had dangled a spider in her face when she was a baby or something. Because her phobia about them had been lifelong and was, even she could admit it, a little obsessive. Now that her heart wasn’t thumping hard enough to beat out of her chest, she could acknowledge she might have overacted just a teeny, tiny bit.

      Feeling almost normal, she waited for Oliver to turn and walk out the door. Considering he usually avoided her, that’s what she expected him to do. But for some reason, he didn’t leave. He just stood there, two feet away, drawing in slow, even breaths as he studied her.

      Finally, he murmured, “Cold in here.”

      Her spider terror having receded, she paused to remember just what she was wearing—not much.

      Her skimpy robe hung to the tops of her thighs, leaving her legs completely bared. The robe also gaped over her breasts, revealing a deep V of cleavage. The whole thing was held together only by a loosely knotted sash.

      “Yes, I guess it is,” she replied slowly, wondering if he had been making small talk or offering a sideways comment on the fact that her nipples were hard, poking visibly against the silk sliding so sinuously over them.

      He continued to stare, falling silent. She knew the answer to that question. He’d finally noticed her apparel—or lack thereof. Oliver was definitely reacting to it. Looking at her. Staring at her.

      Visually devouring her.

      Her lips parted on a tiny helpless sigh. He didn’t acknowledge the sound, instead merely swept that dark-eyed attention over her, from damp-haired top to bare-toed bottom. The gaze was like a touch, lingering here, skimming over there, and she reacted to it instinctively. Here went soft, there went hard, and her most vulnerable places went all hot and wet.

      She knew she should yank her robe more tightly around her body and glare him into stopping, or else turn and flounce up the stairs, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’d been looked at by men before, of course. By lovers, by potential lovers, by strangers, but she had never felt as thoroughly studied as she did now. It was as if he was examining her, tucking away every detail of her into his prodigious internal memory bank. His dark eyes gleamed, and he made absolutely no effort to disguise his focus or make her think he was doing anything other than memorizing all the things he could see, and imagining all those he could not.

      He wanted her. It was stunningly obvious. He was imagining what wild, wicked things they could do together, of that she had no doubt. She knew because she’d been thinking the same thing since the night she’d arrived. So how could she blame him?

      A mental voice shouted a warning. But another part of her—the part that had been trying to figure out if he had been avoiding her for the past few days because he wasn’t attracted to her, or because he was—appeared to be calling the shots.

      She couldn’t walk away from him now. Not just yet.

      “This is a really bad idea,” he muttered.

      She knew what he meant but still replied, “What is?”

      He swept a hand through his dark hair. The movement made his arms bulge against the white T-shirt he wore, and drew the thin fabric tight against his shoulders. “You standing there, looking like that. Me standing here, looking at you looking like that.”

      Her mouth went dry.

      Turn around, Candace. Go upstairs. Pray your vibrator is still safely tucked in your suitcase and wasn’t pawed over by some luggage guys, dig it out and remember you don’t technically need a man to give you orgasms.

      But she remained still, as if her feet were glued to the floor. Her vibrator couldn’t fill her the way she so desperately wanted to be filled. It couldn’t hold her, stroke her, touch her, lick her. It couldn’t make her feel as utterly jittery with excitement as she felt just standing here, knowing he wanted her.

      Besides, she suddenly realized she couldn’t run away up to her room. Not while he was standing at the bottom of the steps. Her robe was short and tiny, which was why she’d stuffed it in her carry-on bag, and she had never been more conscious of the fact that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Although she and her sister had done their share of mooning during her younger, wilder days, the only way she wanted to wiggle her bare bottom at this man was if she got on all fours and invited him to make her howl.

      Unfortunately, it seemed a bit early in their relationship for that kind of invitation.

       No relationship. There’s not going to be any relationship. Remember?

      “Go upstairs,” he ordered, his voice strangled. That was pretty far from an admission of lust.

      She instinctively shook her head.

      He stepped closer, scowling, almost threatening, as if he could intimidate her into going. “Walk away, Candace. Please.”

      “No. You walk away. The door’s right there.”

      “I can’t.” His hand rose and he stroked the sleeve of her robe, fingering the silk. He didn’t look down, never took his attention off her face, and she wondered if he even realized he’d moved so close. So incredibly close.

      “It has to be you,” he insisted.

      “Why?”

      “I need you to turn your back on me, to make it clear that you want me to leave.”

      He waited. She didn’t turn.

      “All right, at least say it,” he ordered. “Make