“You got a license for that?”
Cole spun around to face the bathroom door. She hadn’t heard a sound. Nor had Hugo reacted to the presence of someone in the apartment. “Oh, I didn’t know you were back.”
Scott stood in the doorway dressed in a dark T-shirt and low-slung jeans. He didn’t say anything else but there was a dark, intense look on his face. After a few seconds more, he crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, and waited. Finally, she realized why.
She stood there wearing next to nothing. A see-through lacy red bra and matching hip-hugging panties that left the lower curves of her butt exposed didn’t quite count as clothing. Perhaps he thought she was about to offer him an invitation to remove those next-to-nothings. If so, he was out of luck.
“If you need to use the facilities I’ll be done in a second.”
She turned away from him but the four-by-four-foot vanity mirror gave her a crystal-clear image of the very sexy, if seriously unhappy man standing behind her. His stance was deceptively relaxed. In contrast, his mouth had formed a hard line. His gaze narrowed as it tracked down her body with a single-mindedness that sent a zing of longing through her.
“You’ve got a wedgie.”
She reached back automatically before she could stop herself. But she let her hand slide away without adjustment. If he was trying to throw her off balance he needn’t have bothered. He’d done that just by appearing.
Scott had also discovered the location of her tattoo. Below the small of her back a little red heart with delicate curlicues on either side sat just above the lacy red edge of her low-rise panties.
She picked up her brush. “Please close the door on your way out.”
“I don’t think so.”
He leaned away from the jamb, moving with a deliberate slowness toward her. She knew he was trying to ratchet up her awareness factor of her half-dressed state. A rush of warmth moved up and down her torso as he came within two feet of her. It was as if the heat of their last encounter in a bathroom had followed them to the condo. Did tummies blush? She didn’t dare release her gaze holding his to find out.
She put the brush down, handle rattling slightly, but she didn’t turn toward him.
“How are your parents?”
“Good.”
He had taken off before dawn to drive up and check on his parents. That’s what made her decide to treat herself to a grooming day—the kind of self-pampering that she couldn’t do with a man around twenty-four/seven. It included deep conditioning her hair, a facial, and complete body buffing. She’d even splurged and paid to get her brows waxed, and her nails and toes done. The new undies were her little gift to self.
Now he was back.
The strain of being in close proximity without really connecting was wearing on both of them. They were police, accustomed to donning armor both real and mental to step out into the world each day not knowing what to expect. That was the job. Most days it was boring as hell. But the possibility, that’s what kept the blood pumping and the adrenaline flowing, and the mind focused and set.
Two weeks of enforced idleness had tightened their frustration to the buzzing level of a high-tension voltage wire. It was a wonder the lights in a room didn’t spontaneously light up when they entered. They could no longer speak to each other without the words being barbed, pointed, aggravating. Nothing to grind the irritation of inactivity against but each other’s nerves.
It was a stalemate she didn’t know how to end.
She’d thrown herself at him that night in the shower. And he’d been more than happy to oblige. Correct that. Blown her mind and satisfied her body in ways she had begun to think her memories of him had exaggerated. Yet, he hadn’t made a move on her since. Why?
Each day that that question went unanswered made it more difficult for her to approach him. She’d offered—okay, Noel had offered Sam everything. Conclusion, Sam was not that into her. So, she’d withdrawn the offer. And, damn him, he hadn’t even complained.
Cole watched him wander around the small space, picking up first her hair dryer and placing it in the linen cabinet, then hanging up her towel. Each task brought him closer to her. He was scowling, as if he didn’t want to be here, but neither could he back away. Wary, alert, they watched each other like adversaries looking for a weakness they could exploit.
If something didn’t happen soon, she was going to walk away from the mission. Her first instinct was right. This wasn’t working. Correction. They weren’t working.