Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [15]
He leaned his shoulder against a richly paneled wall, his arms still crossed over his big chest. His eyes glittered and his lips lifted the tiniest bit at the corners as he said, “You could go back to wherever you came from. If you leave now, you’ll be home before dawn.”
At first I thought he was kidding. I’d noticed a couple of times since I’d arrived that he seemed to have a caustic, quiet sense of humor, though he did a pretty good job of hiding it behind a surly sneer. But this time he looked deadly serious.
My mouth dropped open. I could not believe how rude the guy was being. Despite feeling sorry that his uncle had died, I was really getting mad.
That didn’t, of course, mean I no longer wanted to jump on him and lick him like he was a mountain of cotton candy. He might be rude, but he was still just about the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
A loud crash of thunder sounded overhead and I flinched a little. “You can’t expect me to go out in that. This is a hotel….”
“Was a hotel. I closed it immediately after inheriting it upon my uncle’s death.”
“And you live here alone?” I asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of my voice. Because, really, who would want to live in a place this enormous—that had once housed a serial killer and the corpses of his victims—all alone?
“Yes.” He tilted his head, as if listening for something, then murmured, “You should probably be going. I think the rain has lightened up.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. This was a hotel as of a few months ago,” I argued, not about to let him push me out. “There has to be a place for me to sleep. For God’s sake you probably have forty guest rooms.”
He shrugged. “I like to spread out.”
I looked for a twinkle in those black eyes but didn’t see one. Damned if I could read him. And that was like waving a red flag in front of my face.
I couldn’t figure this man out. I wanted to figure this man out. Ergo, I had to stay. “You’re being unreasonable. You really can’t expect me to go back out in that.”
Somehow, I knew I was arguing not only for the sake of my job, the research project, but also because I wasn’t ready to walk away from the obsidian-eyed stranger whose muscular arms bulged against the fabric of his shirt and whose striking face was only enhanced by his swarthiness and that scar. The one who had, at least a handful of times, checked me out from half-lowered lashes when he thought I wasn’t watching.
Not watching? Hell, I hadn’t taken my eyes off the black-haired god since we walked into the room.
I liked that he was looking. Because it told me that despite his brusque attitude and coldness, he wasn’t entirely unaffected by me. Even if it was simple attraction, he was feeling something. Just like I was.
“A half hour ago you thought I was a serial killer. Now you want to sleep under my roof?”
I waved my hand, unconcerned. “I told you, my imagination was just all worked up.” Trying to sound pathetic and tired—which I really was, I supposed—I added, “Probably from exhaustion and fatigue after driving in such horrible conditions for so many hours.”
“You can’t stay here.”
Grabbing my purse off the side table where I’d dropped it, I dug out a folded, damp piece of paper. “I have a reservation. I have a guaranteed room here until October 31.” I waved the thing at him like a banner, almost daring him to come close enough to take it.
He did. And suddenly my butt wasn’t the only thing getting hot. With every step closer he took, the temperature in the room went up a degree. Or ten. My breath got heavy and I had a hard time forcing it out of my lungs because the air was so thick, and strong with his musky, masculine smell. His presence.
He kept coming closer, until the tips of his feet touched the base of the hearth. I was standing on top of it, which gave me a few inches of height, until we were almost eye-to-eye.
Oh, the face… He should