Page 25 of Lawbreaker

She was almost trembling with pent-up emotion. He looked at her mouth and wanted to throw his head back and rage at life for putting her off-limits. He could have made a banquet of her soft mouth. Just thinking about how it would feel under the crush of his made him go rigid.

She didn’t dare look up at him. She knew he could already see everything she felt. She didn’t have the experience to hide her hunger. It was humiliating to have him know it.

“Lock your door tonight.”

“I always lock my door,” she said. Then she added absently, “I hate earthworms.”

He blinked. “Are we having the same conversation?”

That tricked her into lifting her eyes. “Earthworms. When I graduated from high school, I had a little too much to drink at my graduation party and spilled a pitcher of lemonade on my brother John. He swore vengeance. So I had a shower and put on my gown and turned out the lights. Then I screamed so loud that everybody in the house, including my parents, came running.”

His eyebrows arched in a simple nonverbal question.

“John had gone to a bait shop and bought every container of worms in the place. He washed off the dirt, dried them a little, and put the whole kit and caboodle in my bed under the sheets. I didn’t know it until I climbed in.” She smiled sheepishly. “In the dark.”

He started chuckling and then laughed out loud until his stomach hurt. He could picture it. “My God, what a thing to do,” he blurted out.

“Oh, I got even,” she said. “I went hunting. I found ten bullfrogs around the stream behind the house, and I put them in his bed two nights later.”

“What did he do?”

“He stood outside my door waving a white flag he’d made out of his old baseball bat and a white undershirt.”

He shook his head. “I could have sworn your family was normal.”

“Parts of it are,” she confessed. “John and me...not quite.” She studied him. “Didn’t you ever put something in your family’s bed?”

He smiled sadly. “After my grandparents died, my father was never home. I only had my mother. She was the sweetest woman I ever knew. Nobody would have thought of doing anything like that to her. And my wife...” His face closed up. “She was like Mama. She never hurt a soul in her little life.”

She grimaced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned...”

“It was a long time ago,” he interrupted. He smiled musingly. “Do I look that sensitive to you?”

She searched his eyes and shook her head, very slowly. “I think it would take a bomb to dent you.”

“Dead right. Good night.”

She nodded. “Thanks again.”

He stared down at her with conflicting emotions, aching all over. The bed was visible in the background. She was beautiful. She wanted him, he knew it. He could...!

He cleared his throat. “Good night,” he said again.

While she was working through an equal set of milling emotions, the door down the hall opened and elderly Mrs. Manning came out, holding a vase of flowers. She saw Tony and Odalie and winced as she approached them.

“Oh, I hope I’m not interrupting,” she began quickly.

“No, you aren’t,” Tony replied with a smile. “I was escorting Miss Everett to her room.”

“I had sort of a problem downstairs,” Odalie began, flustered.

“That Donalson man, I guess,” Mrs. Manning said, and her eyes flashed. “If he were my son, I would thump him so hard that he’d be unbuttoning his shirt to eat!”

They both laughed. She looked so sweet and innocent.

She handed Tony the roses. “I’m really sorry, but my husband has asthma and although these smell so delicious...!” Her voice trailed away.

He took the vase. “No problem,” he said gently. He handed the roses to Odalie.