Widow - Anne Stuart [84]
And she’d have good reason to. He wanted to get her warm. But he was even more interested in getting her naked. Even freezing to death and guilty as hell he was still a horny bastard, all things considered. At least as far as Charlie was concerned.
He’d been a mass of frustrations since he first laid eyes on her, and those tantalizing moments in the sagging bed this morning had brought him to the boiling point. Which was just too damned bad—Charlie was in no condition to be hit on, particularly by him. She’d be lucky if she ever let another man touch her after this morning’s betrayal.
Not that it was his fault, he reminded himself, fiddling with the old key and pushing the door open. He switched on the light, then held the door for her, and for the first time he saw his ramshackle apartment through someone else’s eyes.
It had high ceilings and large windows overlooking the alleyway where he parked his car. It had a huge bathtub. And that was about it as far as good points. The place was cluttered—he had someone come in and hoe it out every few weeks and, thank God, she’d just been there. Otherwise his discarded clothes would have been scattered all over the place, along with newspapers, filled ashtrays, empty bottles, dirty dishes, you name it. It still looked like a seedy wreck, but it was his wreck, and it was marginally neat.
“Nice place you’ve got here, Maguire,” Charlie said faintly. “You want to open a window so I don’t choke to death from the dead cigarettes?”
Her color wasn’t bad, even in the lousy lighting of the bare bulb hanging in the hallway. Her forehead had stopped bleeding, but she was still shivering.
“The bathroom’s through there,” he said, jerking his head in the direction.
“I didn’t say I needed to use it.”
“There’s plenty of hot water, towels, soap. You need to warm up. My sister-in-law left some clothes the last time she and my brother came to visit—she’s a little shorter than you but about your size.”
“I don’t believe it. You can’t have a brother. You were hatched from a spider.”
“Watch what you say about my mother,” he cautioned calmly. “I was very devoted to me old mum.”
“I’m not taking a shower, I’m not changing my clothes. I’ll use a towel to dry off a bit and then I’m calling a hotel—”
“Charlie, you don’t want me stripping you down naked, do you?” He kept his voice absolutely reasonable. There was nothing he’d like more than the excuse to put his hands on her and strip those clothes from her shivering body. And she knew it.
She glared at him. “Fine,” she said bitterly. “When I come out I want there to be a hotel reservation waiting for me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Mary’s clothes are in the closet on the right. Take your time.”
“Hurry up,” she countered in a dangerous voice.
And he gave her an affable grin.
20
She wasn’t about to admit to Maguire how desperately she wanted to get clean and warm. Or, for that matter, to use the toilet.
The bathroom was huge—a converted room, and the marble tub looked like a cattle water trough. At least the room was relatively clean—she couldn’t believe Maguire would be that neat. He must have someone come in.
The bathroom had doors leading into the bedroom as well as the hall, and she found the closet with no problem, keeping her eyes averted from the rumpled-looking bed. There were a couple of long, casual dresses, but of course no underwear. On the off chance, she went to the massive chest of drawers.
No bras, no panties, of course, but she hadn’t really expected them. She grabbed a pair of Maguire’s briefs, then stopped as she saw the gleam of metal at the bottom of the drawer.
Not a gun, and Charlie would have been more than happy to have found one. They were plaques, of various sizes, weights, dates. They were journalism awards, prestigious ones. She stared down at them in consternation. What the hell had happened to him, to