Trace of Fever - Lori Foster [81]
She couldn’t see through the opaque shower curtain, so she strained her ears. When she heard nothing else, her anxiety amplified. Whoever had just intruded, he was good. Very good.
Slowly, so as not to give herself away, she reached for the full squeeze bottle of shampoo and got a good grip. Too afraid to breathe, she prepared herself.
She whipped back the shower curtain in a rush, and before her stood a tall, muscular masked person. Startling green eyes shone through the mask—and dipped to look over her body with what appeared to be appreciation.
Swallowing back the terror, Priss squeezed the bottle hard and sprayed shampoo into those prying eyes. As he reacted with a disturbingly quiet flinch, she used the bottle like a club, whacking him in the temple, back up across his chin and lifting it for another blow, intent on breaking his nose.
He didn’t make a sound, but he did bend and toss her over his hard shoulder.
His hands landed on her wet, naked butt.
When she started to scream, he whipped her around fast enough to steal all the oxygen from her lungs. He slammed her up against the wall, further knocking the breath from her. His eyes irritated by the shampoo, red now took dominance in the color of them. Even so, his gaze fried her as a hard hand clamped over her mouth.
Nose to nose with her, he started to say something, but on an adrenaline rush, Priss brought her knee up hard into his groin.
His gaze went blank before he whispered faintly, “I’m Jackson…” and then he slumped against her with a muffled groan.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. In an equally soft whisper, Priss said, “Why?”
Through his teeth, he gritted out, “Company.”
“Oh, God!” Her rescuer was big, solid and thanks to her, weak-kneed with pain. Trying to push around him, Priss reached for the doorknob so she could retrieve clothes, but Jackson had recovered enough to grab her back.
He shoved a towel at her. Still in a barely audible voice, he said, “No time.”
“But…” She was naked.
Taut, pissed off and vibrating urgency, he gave a cursory glance over her body and then at the ceiling. “Out the window. Fast.” The window? In a towel?
A knock sounded on her front door.
Priss froze, but Jackson, after swiping his eyes with her washcloth to remove most of the shampoo, bent to offer his cupped hands as a boost. “Sorry, sweet. No time for modesty. We gotta go now unless you want me to kill someone in front of you, and that might put Trace in a bad way with Murray—”
“Oh… Shut up!” No way would the towel stay in place for her climb out such a small window. And she really didn’t have any other choice.
Rushing, Priss tossed the towel over the bottom of the windowsill. She wrapped her fingers over the ledge and stepped into Jackson’s hands.
Her belly—and more feminine parts—were on a level with his face.
She could feel her skin burning, especially as she propelled forward with her backside in the air a few seconds before she got her hip braced on the window ledge. She pulled her legs through and, after seeing that no one was around outside to witness her disgrace, got ready to drop out.
The front door squeaked as it opened.
Wasting no more time, Priss hopped down as silently as she could to the metal landing. As she moved aside, she wrapped the towel around herself and tucked in the end—not that it did much for her modesty at this point.
Far quicker than she had managed, and with a great deal more grace despite his size, Jackson dropped down next to her. He said right into her ear, “I’m going to lift you down to the ground. You’ll have to drop a few feet.”
Priss nodded—and he immediately caught her under the arms. As if she weighed nothing at all, he lowered her over the railing.
She lost the damn towel.
Like a bird with a broken wing, it took a spinning dive to land in a heap below her, which left her dangling naked.
Outside.
With a big guy looking down at her.
Jackson never changed expressions. “Ready?”
This is too unbearable. “Do it, damn you.”
He let her drop and she landed hard, first on her feet, then her