Witch Is The New Black (Paris, Texas Romance #3)

Now? Now he was undeniably oozing sex appeal.

Ridge reached behind him, his hand jiggling the doorknob, his wide chest expanding farther, pushing against hers until she thought she’d weep. “I think someone locked us in.”

In Fee’s words, she felt faint. Jesus and a juice box, if she didn’t get away from all this smokin’ body and manly scented man, she would explode.

Licking her dry lips, she tried to slip around him, knocking over a box of cereal and scattering the colorful circles on the floor. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean that up as soon as we get out of here.”

Ridge gripped her chin, his eyes piercing hers as his thumb sizzled against the flesh of her jaw. “Relax, Bernie. It was just an accident.”

Yeah, that was how all the really rotten things in her life started. Accidents. Oops, sorry I set your hair on fire. Oops, sorry I knocked you down a flight of stairs and broke your arm. Oops, oops, oops. For most of her teenage years, she was like Carrie at the prom minus the buckets of blood.

After graduation, she’d learned to stay as far away from people as possible for a very long time. Every job she took involved working in one cubicle or another, alone as much as possible.

And just a year before she’d met Eddie, after her parents had died in a home invasion the police never solved, she’d really begun to isolate herself, moving from job to job, apartment to apartment, living off the insurance money her parents had left her between failed jobs.

But looking back now, none of those instances—only a mere handful, compared to the actual number of accidents she’d been a party to—could have been coincidences.

Yet, Eddie had convinced her they couldn’t be anything else.

Eddie…

She’d fought hard not to remember him since her incarceration. Fought to forget his betrayal.

Eddie’d wormed his way into her life and her heart at her lowest point, laughed off her mishaps—made her feel special and wanted. With no other family to call her own, allowing him to help isolate her came naturally. In fact, she’d welcomed his encouragement. She’d believed he understood why crowds troubled her and why she’d far preferred to stay in rather than catch a movie or dine out.

And she’d trusted him—with everything she had. But that had helped her get here. She wasn’t going down so easy this time.

“Bernie?” Ridge said her name, letting it roll off his tongue like a warm dollop of caramel.

A shiver slithered along her spine. She had to get out of here. Bad things would happen if she didn’t get out of this damn pantry.

Because this—this right here—this was no good. Ridge couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t look down at her with his melty eyes. He couldn’t make her want to sling her legs over his hips and beg him to ravish her like in some old romance novel.

“Bernie? Did you hear me? It was just an accident.”

She forcibly pulled her chin from his grasp, stifling a reluctant groan when the warmth of his fingers left her flesh. “An accident I’ll clean up the minute I can move. But first we need to get out of here. Bang on the door or something. We need to get someone’s attention.”

She knew her voice was rising in hysteria, but being in such close quarters with this man wasn’t just dangerous for her libido, it was dangerous for her parole. There had to be rules against it somewhere.

Ridge raised a fist and banged on the door then waited.

Bernie held her breath, but all she could hear was laughing and what she was able to identify as a Tony Bennett song.

Ridge rested his hand on her waist as she wobbled again, bracing her body against his as he knocked on the door once more. “The music’s pretty loud. We might be stuck in here for a little while.”

Panic was beginning to set in. “Then bang harder!”

Ridge reached up over her and plucked something off the top shelf. “Granola bar to soothe your tattered nerves?”

She held her body rigid—so rigid, her back ached. “What kind?”

He held the green wrapper up to the light. “Honey and oats.”

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “I only like the one with those teeny-tiny chocolate chips.”

“Can you afford to be fickle at a time like this?”

Can you move away from me before I ignite? “We need to get out of here.”

“Are you claustrophobic?”

“No. Are you?”

“No. So why so panicked, Bernie?”

Her sigh was ragged, full of frustration. “Because this…this is inappropriate. The people outside that door are going to talk. I can’t afford to get in any trouble. Did you see that whistle my parole officer has? She’ll blow out my eardrums if she finds out we’re in here alone.”