Slow and calm as you please, Parker turned his head, those deep green eyes meeting hers where she stood frozen in place.
“Need something?” he asked, casual. Calm. Like it was an everyday occurrence to have a woman walk in on the middle of his shower.
God. God, he was so beautifully made, and now that the soap had vanished into the drain at his feet, she could see him even more clearly. His entire right side was a bloom of fading bruises, the colors of a kaleidoscope. Heart pounding in her ears, she took a step back and right into the doorjamb, hard enough to scramble her wits.
Or maybe that was just him; maybe he scrambled her wits. “Sorry,” she managed, covering her eyes. “My alarm—I’m late—The door wasn’t locked.”
“The lock’s broken,” he said.
“Right.” She knew that. It had been broken forever. “I’ll get it fixed right away,” she said, nodding like she was a bobblehead. “I’m really sorry. I . . . forgot.”
He smiled. “Just remember, paybacks are a bitch.”
Oh God. She took another step back and tripped over Oreo. Catching herself, she whirled and ran out of the bathroom. For a minute she stood there in the hallway, torn between horror and another emotion that took a second to process.
Sheer, unadulterated lust.
“Woof,” Oreo said, nudging her toward the stairs, reminding her that he believed he was starving, wasting away to nothing.
“Okay,” she whispered. “We can recover from this.” She had no choice. Running back into her room, she shoved herself into clothes and raced downstairs, needing to get out of the house before Parker came down. She hurriedly fed Oreo and then stopped and stared at the kitchen sink.
It wasn’t dripping.
She’d actually fixed it?
“Woof!” Oreo had gobbled up his food in about a nanosecond and wanted more.
“Sorry, Wyatt said I had to put you on a diet.”
From upstairs she heard the shower go off. Oh shit. She shoved Oreo out the back door. “Hurry! Do your business!”
Oreo stared at her.
“You know what I’m saying!”
Oreo looked out at the yard. There were no adventures in the yard. No mailmen to terrorize. No new bushes to anoint. He let out an unhappy whine.
“We don’t have time for a walk,” she told him. “I’ll make it up to you later, I promise, just hurry!”
With a huge doggy sigh, Oreo loped off to do his morning constitutional.
Zoe grabbed a bagel and a Slim Jim left over from Darcy’s stash and deposited them in her purse for later, got a bummed-out Oreo back inside, and left.
She went straight to Wyatt’s empty house, let herself in, and used his and Emily’s shower, the whole time picturing how Parker had looked in hers. Which was amazing. Gah. She stole a new toothbrush from Wyatt, dressed from a go bag she kept in her car for unexpected overnight flights, and left for work.
And still, every other second or so she felt her face heat up as she remembered walking—no, racing—into her bathroom, interrupting Parker’s shower.
Which meant she had a semipermanent blush on her face. Not that Parker had seemed all that bothered—unlike her; she was very bothered. As in hot and bothered.
She hoped he’d been kidding about payback. Maybe he would laugh it off. Maybe he would forget it.
And maybe pigs could fly.
She didn’t know much about Mr. Mystery yet, but she doubted he forgot much. Still, she’d talked herself into feeling slightly better by the time she parked in the airport lot.