Into the Fire - Leslie Kelly [46]
Lacey tried not to notice the drops of water hanging from his hair and dripping onto the white towel he wore over his broad, bare shoulders. One drop trickled down his neck, riding on a cord of muscle. She watched it until it disappeared into the light hair on his chest. No doubt about it, the guy works out, she thought, noting the perfect symmetry of his form.
He wore only a pair of tight jeans. His feet were bare, as was his broad, sculpted chest. Lacey swallowed hard as her stare came to rest on his thick upper arms. He lifted the towel to his head, ran it across his damp hair, and she watched the ripple of muscles beneath his taut skin.
Finally, he took a step to the side to allow her to pass. The laughter had faded from his eyes. Now he stared at her intently. He had obviously noticed her scrutiny, and she watched him suck in a deep breath, then let it out on a shaky sigh.
Stepping quickly by him, her arm brushed his as she passed. Her skin tingled at the contact. Nearly breathless, she forced herself into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
She needed to splash some cool water on her face. Her temperature had skyrocketed when her arm had so briefly touched Nate's. She'd had a shockingly vivid image of herself wearing the plum-colored teddy. For him.
Stop it, she told herself. She wasn't going to be sleeping with Nate Logan. This was a working dinner. A meeting with a colleague. An interesting, delectable colleague … who happened to have some rather bizarre items in his apartment.
Glancing around for a towel to dry her face and not seeing one, she reached over to open the door of a small linen closet. She spotted a stack of neatly folded towels, but her attention was firmly caught by a box on the floor of the closet. Inside the box were several very distinctive packages.
"Tampons?" And there was more. The guy had every type of feminine hygiene product on the market. Lacey didn't believe what she was seeing at first. "Good grief, he's some kind of Lothario!" she murmured in shock. Only a man very accustomed to female houseguests would feel the need to stock up on such inarguably female products. And lingerie. And makeup.
Lacey rubbed a hand over her eyes, wondering which Nate to believe in. The one who'd amused her, who'd refused to take advantage of her, who'd listened to the story of her childhood with understanding and sympathy? Or the one who looked equipped to have the Baltimore Ravens' cheerleaders over for the weekend?
When she walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later, Lacey found Nate standing a few feet away in the doorway of another room. He hadn't noticed her. He was busy pulling a navy blue polo shirt over his head, tugging the fabric to fit over his thick arms and chest. Lacey watched silently, trying to figure him out.
When he turned and caught her staring at him suspiciously, an obvious grin appeared on his lips. His eyes crinkled at the corners. He laughed, a chuckle at first, then a rumble that rolled out of his chest.
"What's so funny?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he turned and walked into a nearby bedroom. When he flipped on alight, she saw the room was an office with a computer station and stacks of books and magazines. She wasn't a bit surprised to see a free-weight bench in one corner. "Nate?"
He continued to ignore her as he squatted next to a short bookcase and began pulling magazines off the shelf. He quickly glanced through one after another, discarding most into a pile at his feet. She heard him mutter something under his breath and asked, "What was that?"
"January oh-one," he said, but didn't explain.
Finally, curious, she entered the room and walked up behind him. After all the unusual items she'd spotted in his home, romance novels came as no big surprise. She noticed two sensual books by one of her favorite authors and several others stacked in a pile on the floor beneath the window.
Nate, meanwhile, continued to search