Page 18 of The Price of Scandal

A very naked man with the slightest British accent. My brain was scrambling to keep up to assess and hypothesize. Was I about to be murdered by a nude serial killer?

A cigarette dangled indolently from his lips. His hair was thick and dark, curling carelessly on top. The eyes that studied me were a glacier blue. His jaw was aristocratically carved, highlighted by delicate hollows just below breath-taking cheekbones. His lower half was covered under a frothy layer of my own damn Prosecco bubble bath.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, holding the curling iron like a short baseball bat. I needed to call Jane and have her cuff this guy and march him naked out my front door.

My neighbors would love that.

There was a scar under his left eye that gave him a roguish look. Lazily, he pulled the cigarette from his mouth with long fingers. He exhaled a blue cloud and eyed my skimpy sports bra as if he had the right to.

“I’m here to help you,” he announced.

This is how it ended. Being murdered by a crazy naked man. Yesterday, I’d been more likely to die in a private plane crash. How far I’d fallen.

“You have five seconds to get out of my tub and another ten to get out of my home, or I’m calling the police and having my security team stun gun you to death in the tub,” I said.

He smiled, a knowing kind of grin, and the urge to slap it off his face was so overwhelming I nearly bit through my lip.

“Now what’s the fun in that?” he asked. His voice was smooth, amused.

“How the hell did you get in here?” I’d had to disarm the alarm when I came in with Jane.

Jane.More angry than scared, I stormed to the Hepplewhite side table next to the tub and picked up the phone. If this smug idiot and I didn’t kill each other in combat, I was going to have a long talk with Daisy about security in Bluewater.

Tilting his head, the naked stranger blew another cloud of smoke toward the Baccarat chandelier and ignored me.

“Jane? I need your stun gun in my bathroom.”

“Another spider?” she asked.

“No, it’s not another spider,” I hissed, eyeing the about-to-be dead man in my tub. “It’s worse.”

“Are you in danger?” she asked, her tone clipped.

“Probably only of committing murder.” I hung up.

The movement took me closer to my stalker. Reckless with anger, I snatched the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it in the bubbles that barely covered his lap.

“I don’t allow smoking in my home. Or naked strangers.”

“Pity,” he said, and a dimple flashed to life in his cheek. “But it does make my job easier, I suppose.” Bracing his hands on the sides of the tub, he rose, sending bubbles and water cascading down his body.

He stepped out and into my space.

I stood my ground but made no effort to tear my gaze away from the soapy cock between his muscled thighs.

If I had to be murdered in my own home by a naked crazy man, at least he was the embodiment of the perfect male form. It would have been more depressing had my murderer possessed a beer belly and hairy knuckles. Made-for-TV movies about my death would run for years with such a handsome, homicidal villain.

His lips curved on one side as he let water puddle all overmymarble.

I was going to really enjoy watching Jane electrocute him. Then I’d have a scotch while I watched security drag him away, I decided. Perhaps I could instruct them to drag him through one of the thornier bushes?

He reached toward me with a muscled arm.

I flinched, wondering if I’d completely misjudged the danger factor.

It amused him. “Do I make you nervous, Emily?” he asked, pulling a monogrammed towel off the shelf behind me. He began a slow, sensual show of toweling off. My eyes were glued to every place the towel dried.

I took a step closer to him and trod on his bare foot. He towered over my five feet and seven inches, but anger made me stupidly brave.