“Don’t come in.” She couldn’t see him like this.
She pushed the door open farther.
“Are you drunk?”
“I’m pretty sure.” He tried to look her directly in the eye but couldn’t choose one of her four eyes. He did see the amazement flood her face.
“You are drunk. What were you doing?”
“Drinking.” She had to ask?
He pulled himself up and lurched out of the bathroom to his bed. He sat on the edge to unlace his boots. It took a while. Finally, he let them fall to the floor with a thump and lay back on the bed with his eyes closed. Much better.
His eyes popped open when he heard a sharp clatter as she tossed the hairbrush back on the bathroom counter. “Sorry,” he muttered. Couldn’t even pick up his mess. His eyelids felt like they were weighted with Buicks and fell shut.
It was too quiet. He pried one eye open and suffered a full body twitch. Her face was a foot and a half away, studying him as she wrinkled her forehead. “What?”
“I’ve never seen you like this.”
“You’ve hardly seen me.” He shut his eyes to stop her face from doing a pirouette. “You don’t know nothing about me. Maybe I’m like this every night.”
“I doubt that.” Her words were soft and he felt himself float away on their weightlessness.
Lacey was fascinated. The big protective man was drunk in his bed. He’d made so much noise in the bathroom, she’d thought someone had broken in. She sniffed at him. Beer. Why had he gotten drunk? She was the one with the baggage tonight.
Slightly envious that he’d managed to achieve the delirium she would appreciate tonight, she considered removing his sweatshirt. He’d collapsed on the bed fully clothed. At least he’d gotten his boots off. It’d taken him three minutes but he managed.
She couldn’t stand seeing him sleep with a thick sweatshirt on. She hated the feeling of sleeping in her clothes. Jack probably couldn’t care less, but she pulled at a sweatshirt cuff and slipped his arm out. She did the same to the other arm and pulled the shirt up over his head. Underneath he wore a black long-sleeve T-shirt that did good things with his chest and abs. She looked her fill; the man was cut. He was also out cold.
His jeans bothered her, but she wasn’t touching those. No way. Looking at him closer, she noticed he needed a shave. With a tentative finger she touched the bristly stubble, delighted she could study him covertly.
His short hair was mussed, making him look sexier than ever, like he’d been rolling in bed with someone all night. The stubble made his rakish air seem stronger than usual. He had a kind of rogue pirate thing going on. At least those intense eyes were closed instead of unsettling her. The thick black eyelashes made her jealous. Women would kill for those.
Her gaze moved lower to the neck of his shirt where the slightest bit of black chest hair showed. Maybe he was one of those hairy-as-a-bear guys. The ones whose backs looked like a rug. That would make up for the eyelashes. She glanced at his eyes to make sure he was still sleeping. He was, but now he wore a smile. Not a big one, but a very content one.
Her eyebrows arrowed in. What was he dreaming of? His last trip to Hawaii? His last fling with a flight attendant? The man was a playboy. She knew that. He was bad news and she should keep her distance.
She raised his sweatshirt to her nose. A touch of beer hovered under the masculine smell of Jack. He didn’t seem ever to wear cologne. That was good. She liked that he always smelled like clean, healthy male. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeper this time, letting the scent unsettle the muscles below her stomach. She smiled at the sensation and reluctantly opened her eyes to check Sleeping Beauty again.
He was looking right at her. Her hands froze. Had he seen her sniffing his shirt? His mouth turned up at one corner and triumph glowed in those heavy-lidded eyes.
“I knew you liked me.” The words were quiet but not drunken. “Come here.”
Before she could shake her head, a strong hand clamped on her wrist and pulled her down. She braced herself with a knee on the bed as he pulled her closer.
“Lay down.” He commanded as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
“No. I’m not...”
“I’m not going to jump you. I just want you to lie down. I need to know you’re safe. I can’t do that if I’m asleep and you’re in the other room.”
She pulled at her wrist, shaking her head. Get in bed with him? No way. Every hormone in her body escalated to full alert.
“Jesus Christ. I’ll leave my clothes on. And yours. I need to sleep. If I can hold you I’ll know you’re all right and I can sleep awhile.”
That sounded logical. Sort of. Stiffly, she lay down on top of the bedspread next to him. He promptly rolled her to her side, facing away from him and spooned himself up against her butt and thighs. One heavy arm fell over her chest and his breath was warm at her ear.
“That’s better.”
She felt his muscles relax as he instantly fell asleep. Well, goody for him.
She was wide awake.
Lacey’s eyes blinked open and she glanced around the bedroom in a panic. The warm body next to her felt comforting, but the surroundings were wrong.
Alex’s house. That’s right. She relaxed back into the pillow. That intense, silent buddy of Jack’s with the sad eyes. And a drunken Jack had coaxed her to lie down next to him. Stretching, she felt her legs rub together.
Bare legs?
Jerking upright, she yanked the covers up to her chest. At least her shirt was in place. She was greeted by the sight of the smooth skin of Jack’s back as he slept on his side. Her lungs stopped, even as her brain registered that he didn’t have a fuzzy bear back. But he’d had clothes on when they fell asleep. And both of them had been on top of the covers. Not under them.
She slid over a tentative toe to see if his legs were as bare as his back. Her foot popped back. A definite yes. Oh, crap. Her mouth dried up.
Flinging her bare legs out of bed, she grabbed her jeans from a crumpled pile on the floor, noticing his clothes were in the same pile. Oh, shit. She yanked on her pants and perched on the edge of the bed, pressing fingers against her eyes.
“Where you going?” His voice was low with that just-woken-up roughness and he drew the words out, causing little shivers to dance up her spine.
Turning hesitantly to face him, she saw he’d rolled onto his back and propped himself up on two pillows with a hand tucked behind his neck. His eyes were sharp with a deceptively sleepy drop to his lids. And the damned bedspread had slid down to reveal the carved chest and stomach muscles she’d seen outlined beneath his shirt. It was better than she’d imagined. She tried not to drool and kept her eyes on his. Not on that chest.
“I...I’m getting up.”
A lazy grin broke across his face and she steeled her own abs to keep from crawling back under the covers. The man was pure sin.
“Maybe you’re used to waking up with strangers in your bed, but I’m not,” she snapped at him, using scorn as her last line of defense.
His eyes narrowed and silver bolts hit her.
“I don’t take strange women to bed.”
“Let me revise that to ‘women you’ve known for four hours.’”
The muscles at his jaw tightened and she heard his teeth grind together. It sounded like he was eating rocks.
“Don’t do that!”
His eyes widened. “Do what?”
“Grind your teeth. It’s not good for your teeth.”
After a confused stare, he let out a shout of laughter and pulled her pillow over his face to muffle the sound.
Peeved, she watched her pillow vibrate. She turned her nose up and headed for the bathroom.
“Wait. Wait a minute.” He forced the words out between laughs.
She stopped and spun around, planting her hands on her hips, giving her best pissed-off female glare. She couldn’t hold in her curiosity any longer. “How’d you get my jeans off? And when did your clothes come off? When I fell asleep we were both dressed and on top of the covers.” She winced at her frantic spill of words.
“You don’t remember?” His laughter dropped into a silent chest vibration every few seconds.
“No. All I remember is a very drunk man with disgusting beer breath who could barely take off his boots.” Actually, he’d smelled warm and wheaty, like a microbrewery.
He let his lips slowly widen and he looked her up and down as if he knew every part of her intimately. “Nothing happened. I didn’t try anything.”
Disappointment flooded her. “But...”
He shrugged, his eyes scanning the little room. “I woke up in the middle of the night with uncomfortable jeans, and slipped off them and my shirt.” The grin slid wider. “You looked hot so I decided to make you more comfortable.” He blinked innocent eyes at her.
Yeah, right.
“You shouldn’t have done that. You knew I’d freak out in the morning.”
Steel eyes locked on hers. “Maybe I was hoping you’d feel something else in the morning instead of freaked.” His sizzling gaze said what his mouth didn’t. “I didn’t touch you.”
“But you looked!”
“It was dark.”
She knew he was lying. Badly. His eyes had looked at everything they wanted to. Just like hers had. He sat up and started to pull the covers off as he swung his legs over the side. With a squawk, she averted her eyes and dashed to the bathroom.
She locked the bathroom door and stared in the mirror at her messy hair, willing her heart rate to slow. At least she didn’t have the usual morning mascara smeared under her eyes. That chest. Those eyes. Jesus Christ. She rubbed hard at her temples, trying to get the hot images out of her brain. The determined look on his face as he started to get out of bed had sent red alerts up her spine. She’d known he wasn’t wearing pants, but she didn’t know if he had anything else on.
And he seemed like a commando type of guy.