AllFreeNovel
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I pointed to the intruder alarm in the bathroom. “You knew someone was here. I was waving,” I said as I raised my hands.
“I was in the shower.” Unspoken was that an alarm had sounded, and he’d reacted on instinct—hence the towel and the gun.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was edged with frustration.
I shrugged, trying to play it cool despite the adrenaline pumping through my veins. “I don’t know. I just … needed to see you.”
Neil’s eyes narrowed the tension between us thick enough to cut with a knife. “I’m having a shower.”
“I could wash your back,” I offered and held out my hands. I was just as muddy as he’d been.
“Fuck off.”
Okay, so humor wasn’t working—maybe honesty would. “I couldn’t stay away.”
The porch was filled with the sound of the shower still running, the steam curling out of the window. Neil sighed, running a hand through his wet hair. “You can’t just hang on my back porch, Connor.”
“I need to talk.”
Neil looked at me for a long moment, the anger in his eyes fading into something else. Exasperation maybe. “Fine. Stay here, let me get dressed. We’ll talk.”
“What if you don’t get dressed?” I asked, pulling off my coat. The chill of the fall air gave me goosebumps as I yanked my T-shirt over my head.
“What are you doing!”
“I don’t want to track mud in your house.”
“You’renotcoming inside.”
“I need a shower; you have a shower. Simple.”
He blinked at me as if I wasn’t making sense. “I’m using my shower.”
I moved closer; he stepped back. “Is it a big shower?” I asked, toeing off my boots and putting my hand to my belt.
“What are you doing?” he snarled and shoved my chest.
I nearly tumbled off the porch but caught myself on the railing. “We need to talk. I’m muddy. I need a shower.”
“Jesus, asshole!”
“My name is Connor,” I gripped his wrist. “Call me Connor.”
“I’ll call you arrested,” he snapped, and he took a final step into his house, and I went in with him, unbuckling my belt. “You need to leave.”
I stopped a breath away. “We have all this adrenaline pumping through our veins, all this energy. Do you want me to leave? One word, and I’ll go, and that’s it.”
It would be so damn hard to leave him, particularly now I had a soapy, wet, sexy man within touch. Worse, the soapy, sexy man was Neil, and yeah, Ireallyhad a thing for Neil.
“Connor, wait,” he said, but he wasn’t pushing me away.
“Tell me to leave, Neil. Tell me.”
He closed his eyes as if not seeing me there would make this any easier as I held his wrist and rested my other hand on his hip.
“You’re fucking everything up,” he said, brokenly, and then he shook off my hold and trailed his touch from my chest to my chin, tilting it and then cradling my face. “This is fucked up.”
“Uh-huh.” I didn’t want to say anything else because this moment was warmth and need, and I didn’t want it to shatter like crystal.
