“Oh my God,” she muttered, closing the bedroom door and leaning her forehead up against it. “Calm down.”
Easier said than done, though.
Her hands were almost too unsteady to remove the bottle cap. Especially when she thought of the way Fox uncapped beer with his teeth. Why was that so stupidly hot? His dentist must be appalled.
Finally, Hannah got the top off the bottle, and the aroma filled the air, sensual and rich and heavy with sex. No wonder she’d been so determined to figure out the source. She wedged the container between her knees and stripped the dress off over her head, letting it drift to the ground—
The apartment door opened and closed.
What the . . . ? she mouthed.
“Hannah,” came Fox’s voice from the other side of the bedroom door. Like the immediate other side. It sounded like he was speaking right against the wood. Don’t think of wood. “Are you okay in there? Looked like something was wrong.”
“I’m fine,” she lied—not very successfully, since her voice sounded like it had been sanded raw. “I just needed a minute.”
Too much silence passed.
Then: “I can smell the oil, Hannah.”
Fire blazed up her neck and cheeks. “Oh my God,” she said, dropping her forehead to the door again. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Stop that, Hannah.” His voice had fallen another octave. “I wasn’t embarrassed this morning when I admitted to doing the same thing.”
“You didn’t do it during business hours.”
His low laugh made the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck stand up. “If you’re done berating yourself for having natural impulses, you can open the door.”
“What?” she breathed, staring at the barrier in shock. “Why?”
A slow exhale. “Hannah.”
That was all he said.
What did he mean by that?
Hannah.
Narrowing her eyes, she tried to read between the lines, and meanwhile, none of the heat tickling her belly had dissipated. In fact, God help her, standing in her bra and thong with Fox right on the other side of the door was exciting her more.
And it shouldn’t be.
For a lot of reasons.
One, he was unavailable. I’m not in the relationship race and I never will be. After he’d made that statement, he’d backed it up by trying to help her win another man. Never mind that she’d kissed him at that party because she couldn’t seem to help it. She’d wanted to. Nothing to do with Sergei at all. But he’d made it clear he’d just been helping her out.
Right?
Another reason she shouldn’t be considering throwing open the guest-room door? They were friends. She liked him. A lot. If she let him in and something happened, things would get awkward. Fox would probably regret hooking up with a houseguest immediately, because there would be no easy exit.
That brought her to the third reason she absolutely should not open the door.
The gut feeling that Fox had intentionally tried to put her off-balance this morning with his innate sexuality. That he’d wielded it like a weapon for some purpose she wasn’t fully grasping.
So there she was, armed with her three reasons and gingery lube, when the knob of the bedroom turned, an inch of space appearing between the door and the jamb. And then another. Another. Until she was stepping back to allow it to swing open completely, her tummy muscles seizing at the sight of Fox outlined in the entrance to her room. Shirtless, filthy, rugged, and sweaty.
Uh-oh.
His gaze traveled down to the black triangle of her thong, a muscle popping in his jaw. “Don’t move.”
Frozen in place, she watched through the doorway as Fox crossed to the kitchen sink and washed his hands, drying them on a rag and tossing it away. And then he was prowling back in her direction through the unlit apartment, entering the room once more, and closing the door behind him. “Get over here, Hannah.”
The rasped order almost made her moan. Did Fox washing his hands mean what she thought it did? That he was planning on . . . touching her? It was such a practical action. Like he was getting down to business. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s a great idea if you need to come.” She took a step forward, and he caught her wrist, pulling her close, closer, until they were about to collide, then he moved at the last second and let her come up softly against the door, facing away from him. His fingers sunk into Hannah’s hair, angling her head to the left, his breath fanning her neck, her vision doubling when he settled his hands on her waist and squeezed, his palms scraping slowly to the center of her belly, waking up a bunch of Jane Doe hormones, never before encountered and therefore never named. “Goddamn, Hannah. You are such a sexy little thing.”