Page 8 of Too Guarded to Love

Sighing, she stepped over the threshold and into the small living room. In the darkness, she could barely make out a couch on the wall and a recliner next to the fireplace. As she moved farther inside, the screen door slammed behind her. She flinched and let out a little shriek.

The stranger brushed his hood back. Short, dark, wavy hair curled onto his forehead. “It’s okay. I swear you’re safe with me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” Somehow, she felt safer in this house than she did outside. Safer than back in Atlanta. She didn’t feel safe from herself, though, not with those hooded eyes that promised wicked ways to satisfy a woman.

Not that she knew what being satisfied felt like these days. It had been a long time, and especially not with Jonathan.

The stranger pointed to a room to the left of the front door. “There’s a bathroom in there if you need to use it.”

Nodding, she ducked inside and locked herself in. She emerged a few minutes later in a dry sundress, her wet boots in one hand and her bag in the other. Dropping her duffel by the entrance, she stepped toward the warm blaze in the fireplace. The stranger crouched with his back to her in front of the hearth. The glow cast his dark hair into shades from charcoal to indigo to black as the devil. She inched closer. Her boots dropped from her hand. The crackle from the fire muted the thud as he rose.

Whoa. She fanned heat that had nothing to do with the fire away from her face. Outside, he’d appeared dangerous. Intriguing. Inside this tiny house, with the fire creating an aura around his glorious body, he looked like he’d risen from a place reserved in hell for angels who sinned in the most heavenly ways.

“Beautiful.” She breathed the word in silent admiration, afraid if she made a sound, he’d turn to her and say something polite or mundane. She didn’t want him to be a typical guy. Regular men didn’t consume the space in a room, nor did their broad shoulders seem to expand just because they’d taken off their raincoats.

She licked her lips as she followed the lines of his back that tapered to a mouthwatering V. Miles of muscle strained under his long-sleeve black T-shirt as he flexed his shoulders. Her hungry gaze landed below his waist. Dammit, why did his rain pants have to hug a perfect ass? How was a girl supposed to control herself around that?

You don’t.

A half dozen arguments surfaced at once. Each time, her impulsive side silenced each one. She’d never see him again after tonight. He wouldn’t hurt her. More importantly, he wouldn’t break her. Not her career, her confidence, and definitely not her heart.

The jittery feeling that hijacked her body when everything in her world felt wrong kicked into hyperdrive. What if the breathtaking stranger, whose name she really should learn, wasn’t interested in a cranky wet sea hag? What if he was a threat?

As if he sensed her spiraling thoughts, he reached a hand behind his neck and bunched his T-shirt in his fist. Pulling it up, so slowly it should be a crime to tease a woman with anticipation, he revealed his bare back, inch by tantalizing inch.

Forgiving his imagined injustices, she stared at muscles with more definition than a dictionary. She could name every length of corded sinew under his golden skin. Recite their function. Knew how they worked together to create the strong, exquisite specimen before her. She ached to conduct a thorough hands-on examination.

He angled his body toward the recliner and reached for a sweatshirt on the seat. His right arm—black, hard, and not human—came into view. A gasp hummed from her throat. The vibration rippled down her body and into her core.

“Oh my God.” She stared, catching her breath from the weight of uttering those three words. “Are you…?”

He turned from the chair and fully faced her. His smile, the first genuine one she’d seen all night, blazed bright and sinful, like he truly was made in heaven but played in hell.

“What do you want me to be, sirena?”

That voice, as equally flirty as his smile and as tempting as his body, crashed into her like a wave and sucked her misgivings into a riptide.

Screw it. She knew exactly what she wanted him to be.