Watching her very fine ass as she left the room, Michael had to acknowledge that if he’d had a tail, his would be wagging as well. “You seem to have a way with dogs,” he remarked, stepping into the kitchen.
A tray of burned rolls sat abandoned on the counter, hot pads flung nearby. Dishes tilted at precarious angles in a pile in the sink and a large amount of mail was stacked haphazardly in the corner. Messy and noisy. Two things he couldn’t abide.
But when she turned and grinned, his body, still on high alert from having her flattened against him, didn’t seem to mind messy and noisy at all.
“Yeah. I’ve always had a way with animals. Dogs love me and I have no problem training them. I’ve even had jobs as a dog-walker and obedience trainer.” Right at home, the dog curled up on a dishtowel that had slipped from the towel bar.
“What do you do now?”
She smiled. “Not much, really.”
Messy, noisy, and lazy. Three strikes. Still… She was different and intriguing. And judging from her toned body, perhaps not lazy after all.
Her eyes widened and her hand flew to her throat. “Oh, no.”
Before he could react, she flew past him and out of the kitchen, Shit Head hot on her heels.
“No!” she yelled from the back of the apartment.
He bolted through her disaster of a bedroom and slammed to a halt just outside her bathroom. Water spilled over the lip of the tub as she groaned and jerked the faucets closed and opened the drain. “Quick! Throw me a towel from the cabinet to your left,” she said.
Weighing the cost of repairing his bathroom floor, which was just on the other side of her wall and would be damaged if the water seeped under, versus replacing his custom made shoes, he sat on the edge of her bed and untied them. Then, he carefully rolled up his suit pants.
Wringing the hand towels she’d tugged from the bar next to her, she shouted over her shoulder. “Please! Throw me a towel!”
He did better than that. He opened the cabinet just inside the bedroom door, grabbed the entire stack of towels, and pitched them to the bathroom floor before shoving them against the wall that adjoined his. Maybe he could spare his shoes and his bamboo bathroom flooring. The puddle had barely expanded that far. What a mess. This woman was a disaster. While she fussed over the placement of the towels, he strode back to her bedroom, past her rumpled, unmade bed, and scooped up a heap of clothes from the corner.
“What are you doing?” she practically shrieked as he dropped the clothes to the floor, and then shoved them around with his foot, sopping up some of the remaining water.
“Helping.” He then grabbed the soaked towels one at a time, and careful not to get any water on his suit, he rung them out in the tub which was half-way drained.
She sat back on her heels and brushed escaped hair from her face, and then snatched up a black lace thong from the top of the pile. “The towels were probably enough,” she said, grabbing another pair of panties from the dry section of clothes. “Now I have to wash all my clean clothes again.”
Clean? Who dumps unfolded clean clothes on the floor? “I’m sorry. I assumed they were dirty.”
“Do you assume things a lot?”
“My assumptions are almost always correct.”
“But not this time.”
He smiled. “Clearly not.”
As she pulled another lacy scrap of lingerie from the pile on the floor—this one appeared to be a teddy type of thing—he stifled a groan at the image running through his mind of her wearing it…it and the other pieces of lace and satin clutched in her fist. Noticing his stare, she balled them up and blushed. Maybe she had some self-consciousness after all. Following a quick circle to check out the floor, her stance relaxed and she took a deep breath. “So, do you live on this floor?”
Again, she’d thrown him off balance. He’d assumed she knew who he was. Most people did—if not from business journals, then from the news outlets or tabloids. His concerted effort to refine his image and bring his name and that of Anderson Enterprises to the forefront of the business world made him a near celebrity in some circles. Obviously, this girl didn’t get out much…or she didn’t care, which puzzled him more. “Yes. I live in 1206.”
She passed him and headed into her bedroom. “Apartment 1206… Is that across the hall?”
“No.” He pointed to their adjoining wall. “It’s next door to you.”
She froze. Then her shoulders stiffened and she straightened, spine rigid.
Rigid, his psychiatrist’s favorite word to describe him.
As a scowl darkened her face, the entire world seemed to stand still, except the dog, who nonchalantly strolled to the foot of the bed, yawned, and then lifted his leg on Michael’s thousand-dollar custom made shoes.
Chapter Two