Page 58 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

LINDY

Since my blue bag was still in the bathroom, I changed into my nightie in there.

The space was humid from Dex’s earlier shower.

I’d heard the water turn on and imagined him naked and soaping himself up.

Imagined the spray washing away all those bubbles that ran over all of his hard muscles.

I didn’t get any more words down from then on, only fantasizing while waiting for him to finish up and go into his bedroom.

Then I took my turn. Brushed my teeth. Flossed. Washed my face. Moisturized. Plucked stray eyebrow hairs. Put on lip balm. Smoothed on lotion to my heels and legs.

I was finally ready to climb into bed and forget all about the house problems. Until tomorrow when they would be waiting for me. I started thinking of what I had to do as I left the bathroom.

Get the food out of the fridge and bring it here first thing.

Then hopefully connect with a tree service.

Answer all the messages I hadn’t gotten back to from friends and neighbors who heard what happened.

It wasn’t as if it was big news, but it wasn’t too often a tree fell on a house.

Word spread in Hunter Valley. I had a feeling everyone in town would drive by to check it out like it was December and it was the annual holiday lights tour.

I padded down the short hallway and opened the guest bedroom door, flipped the switch and stared. The room was empty. Not one piece of furniture. Only bare white walls and pine floors. Not even curtains on the windows.

Turning around, I crossed the hall to the other bedroom.

“There’s no furniture,” I said, stepping into the room, then my mind blanked out.

Because there Dex was, lying on the bed, propped up with a few pillows behind his back. Reading. In only a pair of very snug, black boxer briefs.

Holy shit.

Those thighs, bulging with muscle.

Then there was his abs. A six pack. No.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight. He had an eight pack.

And arm porn. The sinewy and corded muscles and bulging veins that made my ovaries pop out eggs spontaneously.

He was literally the epitome of a romance book hero. Tall, dark, handsome, muscled, those big hands and even bigger… squash.

“Oh fuck,” he murmured, which had me giving his body a break from ogling and I worked my way up to his face.

His eyes were heated. Dark. Intense. And they weren’t meeting mine. No, they raked over my body in my…

Oh fuck was right because when I looked down at myself, I remembered what I was wearing. My tiny pale blue nightie that didn’t hide how hard my nipples were. Or most of my body.

I always wore nighties to bed. Short ones because the long ones tangled around my legs and woke me up.

I crossed my arms over my chest, which only made him growl. Yeah, he growled. For some reason, he looked angry. No, he looked… intensely aroused. And maybe hating himself for it.

“There’s only one bed,” I commented, stating the obvious.

With his gaze on my bare thighs, he patted the space beside him. “We’re sharing.”

“What?”

“One bed.”

“Why isn’t the other room furnished?” Out of all the questions to ask, like Why didn’t you tell me this before so I could have stayed in a hotel? or Where are your pajamas? or Can I feel all of those muscles?, that was what came out.

“Because Bradley found this place. It was unfurnished and since it was just me, he only had the bare essentials delivered.”

It must have been pretty nice having an assistant do all kinds of things for you. I could only imagine having one. He’d take my list and have everything accomplished before lunch. Or maybe before I had my coffee in the morning if he was as good as Bradley seemed. Like the snap of my fingers… Done!

I needed one of those. I’d add it to my list.

“There’s a plant in the living room,” I prompted, because the man’s priorities were skewed. Bradley’s, although maybe Dex’s, too. “That’s more essential than a guest bed?” I didn’t know the assistant, but he needed a talking to.

“Seems that way.”

“I’ll just take the couch.” I thumbed over my shoulder. It was a leather sectional. It was big enough, but it would be slippery and chilly.

“Not happening.”

“I’ll go to a hotel.”

“Definitely not happening.”

“I’m not sharing that bed!” I pointed at it as if I were a prudish maiden. Or nun. Or prudish maiden nun.

“Come to bed, sugar. To sleep,” he added. It was an important clarification. For my brain. And my vagina. Because my vagina liked the come to bed, sugar part and my brain snagged on to sleep like a fish on a hook.

“You sure about that?” I pointed at him again. This time at the front of his boxer briefs and the thick–very thick–outline of his dick pressed against the fabric. I couldn’t believe that was real. If it didn’t just pulse and–did it just grow larger?–beneath the cotton, I’d have wondered.

He must have inwardly laughed when I mocked the size of it in the produce section earlier because boxer briefs left no one wondering. About anything dick related.

“You’re wearing a little scrap of nightgown and it’s more of a tease than if you were naked. I’d have to turn in my man card if I didn’t get hard seeing you like that.”

“What?” I wasn’t pretending to be that prudish nun, but a guy hadn’t seen me undressed in a long time. And a guy like Dex found me hot?

“Fuck, woman, you’re gorgeous. Now come to bed. No funny business.”

I gave him a look. I wanted funny business. All kinds of it. I owed it to myself, and women the world over, to have every kind of funny business that existed with Dex James. Who was aroused because of me.

Maybe it was the hit of power I felt at learning that, but I went around to the far side of the queen-sized bed. I tugged the quilt and sheet back, then grabbed a pillow and shoved it in the center against Dex’s hip.

Then I climbed in, pulled the blankets over me.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, propping himself up on an elbow and looking at me over the hump beneath the quilt.

“A berm.”

“A berm?” He stared at the pillow as if it was offending him.

“We might be sharing a bed, but that’s all we’re sharing.” Because I was looking for Mr. Right.

Mr. Right, where the hell were you? I only had so much willpower to find you when I had to share a queen sized bed with Dex.

“What about that kiss earlier?” he asked. “I’d like to do it again. And again.”

Yeah, that kiss. The berm was in place because of that smoldering kiss. Maybe a second pillow was needed for fortification. The kiss had melted my panties and I knew what would happen if there was another. If I was wearing panties. Shit. I was in bed with Dex without panties!

“I won’t say it was a mistake, but it shouldn’t have happened,” I told him, climbing beneath the covers. And myself. Because I was barely controlling myself where an almost naked Dex was concerned. I had good reasons to avoid him, although staying here was making that really difficult.

“Because…” he prompted.

“You’re too young–”

He rolled his eyes. “Not that again.”

“–and you’re on vacation.” I turned onto my side to face him. “You live in Denver. I won’t be a vacation fuck.”

His jaw clenched. “You’re not a vacation fuck.”

“Or a pity fuck because my house got destroyed.”

“Pity fuck? Are you serious right now?”

“Fine. A fling. I don’t want to be a fling. You don’t even have guest bedroom furniture. If that doesn’t say temporary, I don’t know what does.”

He studied me for a moment, then waited until I met his dark eyes. “I told you in the car, I don’t want temporary with you.”

I blinked, not understanding. “What?” I whispered, thinking earlier he was all talk. Or something. Or I’d been in shock from the whole tree thing. But now? I was hearing, and seeing, him clearly.

“I don’t want temporary. I want to see where this goes.”

“This? Where it goes? It goes nowhere. Or back to Denver. I’m thirty-five years old, Dex. I want to get married. Have kids. The picket fence. A house without holes in it.”

“Good, because I want that too. With you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh because he was clearly insane.

“We barely know each other.”

He shrugged his shoulder. “So? Mav and Bridget barely know each other and they’re in it for the long haul.”

“You don’t live here,” I said, enunciating each and every word clearly and concisely so he understood. “It’s pretty hard to make babies if you live in a different state.”

“It’s also hard with this berm,” he grumbled, eyeing the offending hump.

“I’m dating local guys. My age,” I added.

“How’s that working for you?”

I narrowed my eyes because that felt like a cheap shot, then rolled over to face away from him, tugged the blankets up to my chin and said, “Goodnight, Dex.”

Barely breathing, I held myself still because I wasn’t talking to him anymore. Yeah, local dating was shit. He knew how bad it was because I was lying in bed with him with a berm between us. Not getting all hot and sweaty with a boyfriend or lover or husband.

No, I got hot and heavy kissing him on the street.

Inwardly, I screamed. AAAHHH!

My life plans went to hell when my parents died.

I’d been a mess and so had Bridget and we’d made do as best we could.

Days turned into months and months turned into years.

Bridget grew up, went off to college. Was now living her life.

I was living my life, too, but not the one I’d dreamed of.

I was exactly where I was when I was twenty-three.

Nothing ever went as planned. Even when I had a master plan.