All questions he couldn’t afford to ask. Not when he needed to get away from this woman and back to his memories. This was Amy’s day, and he wouldn’t share it with anyone else.
Certainly not anyone who had polka-dotted toe nails, a killer smile, and something going on with her hair that made him think she hadn’t been able to sit still at the hairdresser.
Oblivious to his thoughts, Rue grinned and tipped her head toward the trigger-happy neighbor, making all those glossy layers dance. The foreign sensation of wanting to touch them, to see if they were as silky as they looked, invaded his thoughts, but he pushed it back.
It resurged when she poked at his wet shirt with her free hand. “Lending you the use of my dryer may not be the least I could do,” she said, “but I won’t take no for an answer.” With a hapless, none-too-innocent shrug, she added, “It’s either me or the neighbor. At least I don’t have any weapons.”
When she turned to go into her house, he realized his attention was involuntarily pegged on her perfect ass. No weapons? He wasn’t so sure about that.
But he followed her inside anyway.
…
Rue couldn’t help side-eying her hero in distress. She was zero parts shy and didn’t have any qualms about staring head on, but he looked as if he couldn’t wait to escape, and he was just too gorgeous not to enjoy a while longer. His hair, now water-darkened and plastered to his head, had been a striking platinum color with dark lowlights that perfectly set off stunning green eyes. He was tall—tall enough that she’d have to tip back her head and completely lose herself in him in order to taste those incredibly sensual lips, but that was only the wretchedly delicious beginning. His soaked T-shirt clung to every rise and fall of his ripped upper bod, from broad shoulders to the provocative V lines that disappeared into a pair of well-worn jeans slung low on his hips.
Oh, hel-lo. Her fingers itched to walk over all that hard, slick skin, but she kept the feeling—and her hands—to herself. The fact that her last fling had been both months before and woefully inadequate was no reason to accost her very sexy, very unhappy-looking…neighbor? She’d never seen him around, but he’d been walking. He had to have come from somewhere, although he hadn’t used a nearby destination as an excuse to get away from her. Still, he seemed distracted, and while he’d graced her with a glimpse of a smile that she’d think about for days, he hadn’t exactly warmed to her. Probably because he’s shivering.
“Let me toss your clothes in the dryer,” she offered again. An unnecessary reminder, considering that was why he was in the house to begin with, but he didn’t look to be in any hurry to strip down. Her intent was genuine, but if it got him naked, she’d be okay with that, even if the last thing she needed at the moment was to fall hopelessly in lust with anyone. She was up for an internship out of the country, and with an ounce of luck, in three weeks she’d be so far from New York City, she’d forget all about it—or if not the city, at least the string of disastrous, short-lived relationships she’d suffered within its borders.
“I’m fine,” he said, eyeing her like he expected her to rip the clothes off him herself. “I appreciate the gesture, but—”
“But nothing. We’re adults here, and you’re not fine. You’re soaked, and there’s no good reason to wander the city that way.” With a wink, she added, “You’ll chafe.” That said, she went into her extra bedroom and grabbed a pair of pajama pants she’d bought for her brother but had never gotten around to giving him because he was in Europe, and they were too hideous not to see his face when he opened them. She and Ian had a long-standing thing of trying to out-ugly the other when it came to sleepwear, a tradition inadvertently started by a particularly hideous matching set their grandmother had given them one Christmas. Rue bit back a grin as she returned to hand the uber-serious Ethan a pair of flannel pants covered in freaky clown faces that more closely resembled John Wayne Gacy than cheerful party entertainers. “You can wear these.”
He stared at the pants he held and then, blankly, at her. “I never really thought I had an issue with clowns.”