He rubbed his forehead, racking his brain to figure this out. A voice was coming from his bedroom. A female voice. A throaty, attractive female voice. A throaty, attractive female voice talking about something very sexy. To herself.
Wondering if he’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in a male fantasyland, or was being set up for some kind of X-rated Punk’d episode, he pushed the door open another inch and looked into the room. He couldn’t see far, because his line of sight was blocked by the woman staring at her reflection in the mirror on the other—closed—closet door. Yep. She had definitely been talking to herself; to her reflection, anyway.
Then he realized … it was her. The redhead whose eyes, he now saw, were so blue they looked violet. The one in the green dress. Only, now, she wasn’t wearing that green dress. She was—holy shit—nearly naked.
The long strands of her red hair had fallen forward over her soft, bare shoulders, covering much of a lacy black bra. And covering the curves that bra was covering.
Too bad.
No, it’s not, jackass. Because he didn’t know if his heart could have taken seeing what he suspected was an utterly perfect pair of breasts. Just spying the rest of her body was enough to rob him of breath. And coherent thought.
The hair played peek-a-boo with the bra. But below that was nothing but smooth, soft-looking, pale, feminine skin. Miles and miles of it.
Her bare midriff drew his eyes downward, to the indentation of her small waist, then the flare of her hips. Those hips were covered by two thin straps of silky fabric—dark green, lacy—that descended into a V of shimmery material that covered her groin. Long, supple legs went on forever, or to the floor, ending in a pair of sexy, spike-heeled black shoes.
“So I guess a thong might be overdoing it,” she said.
A thong could never overdo it in his book.
“Too bad. This thing doesn’t look too shabby,” she said with a sigh. She turned, glancing at her reflection, checking out the rear view.
Oh, man, what a view. The strip-of-fabric-pretending-to-be-underwear slid between two delectable cheeks, and Xander nearly choked, sure he’d never seen a more perfect ass.
Suddenly realizing what he was doing—playing Peeping Tom—he slammed his eyes shut. Sure, the woman had decided to come into his bedroom to do her lingerie assessment, for some weird reason, but that didn’t mean he should stand here in the dark like some perv, squirming to catch a peek.
He tried to figure out what to do. How did one handle this type of situation? Should he go back the way he’d come, hoping she wouldn’t hear him, then go tell his landlady that some chick with a great ass and a Godiva complex was trespassing in his place? Or maybe he ought to get out there and confront her before her boyfriend showed up to decide whether he liked her thong? He hadn’t even slept in his brand-new bed himself yet; he sure didn’t want another couple christening it.
Especially not if the other couple was that woman and any other man on the planet than himself.
He could have answered one question for her—yes, oh, hell, yes on her current underwear. If the guy was straight and breathing, he’d like the damn thong. In fact, as for himself, well, he couldn’t think about much except how much he wanted to tug that shiny green fabric out from between those luscious curves. With his teeth.
You gotta get out of here.
Yeah. Pronto.
Even though the lighting was low in the closet, and he couldn’t see well, he knew he’d have to at least open his eyes to make sure he didn’t poke himself in the face with a hanger. So he risked a peek, opening just the left one. He hadn’t turned away from the crack in the door, so he got a full-on image of what she was up to.
She was up to dropping her panties.
“Whoa, stop right there!” he barked, not even having made the decision to reveal himself. Instinct just propelled him out into the bedroom.
She let out a little scream, and he opened his mouth to tell her he wasn’t some kind of attacker. But before he could speak, and before she could dive for her clothes or dart for the door, his foot caught the edge of the dresser, and he fell flat on the floor, landing right at her sexy feet.
And looking up at a most interesting view.
2
LOOKING DOWN AT the incredibly gorgeous, hot, sexy, shirtless man lying at her feet, Mimi at first thought she’d had one too many glasses of wine and was seeing things. But considering she’d only had one, she doubted she was intoxicated.
Her second thought was that she was about to be attacked.
She grabbed a vase off her dresser. It was a heavy, leaded crystal thing, that would probably crack the pervert’s skull open. She came close—so incredibly close—to dropping it on his head, when a voice whispered in her mind, He’s Mr. Hot. He was at the party. Anna knows him.
It seemed crazy to suppose that before attacking, a sexual predator ditched his clothes and socialized at parties in his victims’ backyards. So who was he?
“Who are you and what were you doing in my closet?” she asked, still not letting go of the vase.
“Your closet …?” he mumbled, rising to his hands and knees. On all fours, he turned his head from side to side, looking around the room, and added, “I’m in the wrong apartment.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Now who are you?”
He lifted his head to look up at her. And his big brown eyes—gorgeous, beautiful, velvety-brown eyes that were ringed by the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man—got even wider.
That was when she remembered she was naked but for her bra. And that he was kneeling at her feet. About eye level with.
“Oh, my God,” she groaned, lunging for her dresser. She plopped the vase on it, grabbed her robe and thrust her arms inside, quickly wrapping it around her body.
She couldn’t stop shaking. Adrenaline had put her on high alert. Now humiliation and embarrassment were doing their darnedest to make her quiver into a ball of mush.
Had she really just flashed her goodies to a complete stranger? And, for the briefest, most wicked second, had she not been tantalized by the image of that incredibly hot, sexy stranger moving a few inches closer for a more intimate look?
She’d been in here planning to seduce a nice man she’d been dating and was about as aroused as a stick of wood. But playing a Sharon Stone-type game of peek-a-crotch with a gorgeous mystery man got her all warm and melty down there?
She clenched her thighs together. Yeah. Warm and melty. Like chocolate left in the sun.
Just waiting to be tasted.
She winced and clenched harder. What on earth was wrong with her? “This can’t be happening,” she said with a moan.
“Tell me about it.”
The stranger, all slick-skinned, broad-chested and rippling muscles, slowly rose to his feet. He continued to look around the room, shaking his head slowly, as if in a daze.
Up close, he was more attractive—not to mention at least twenty degrees hotter—than he had been from across the party. His jaw was so square, his face so lean and masculine. Such masculinity shouldn’t have looked right with the accompanying long lashes and the downright full lips, but managed to come across as perfect.
“This really isn’t my bedroom.” He still sounded thoroughly confused.
“I think we’ve established that. It’s my bedroom. Did you not happen to notice the pink sheets and lingerie?”
Of course he noticed the lingerie, idiot.
Feeling