Flushed by Sally Felt Page B

he’d tried.
    Thanks a lot, Charlie.
    She reached for them, but Kim said, “That’s no good,
Charlie. She needs something to protect her from the glass. Something that
won’t leave so much of her foot exposed.”
    Good thing someone was thinking. She sure wasn’t. “Back of
the cherry armoire, Charlie,” she said, hoping he’d hurry. She needed her feet
back on the ground, and not just because her legs were starting to cramp.
    Charlie rolled his eyes and returned to the bedroom.
    Kim tugged at their still-joined hands. “Let’s talk,” he
said. “Put your feet on mine.” He stood directly in front of her and looked
from his feet to hers then to her face, clearly repeating his invitation.
    If she did it, they might be eye to eye, or at least closer
than ever before. She’d be in his arms again. If they moved, they’d have to
move together.
    But they weren’t dating. They weren’t. She couldn’t remember
why, exactly. Not much was working in her brain, but she knew there was a
reason and a good one. It would come to her.
    He had to leave—now. She couldn’t trust herself. If she put
her arms around him again, she might not let go until morning.
    Charlie rescued her with sneakers. She thanked her brother
and pulled on the ugly shoes. She and Kim crunched outside to the porch. The
splintered doorjamb was going to have to be the first thing fixed if she was
going to feel safe. She didn’t even want to think about how she’d be spending
her day tomorrow.
    Kim put his coat around her shoulders while they stood on
her dark porch. The smell of leather did more to warm her than the coat itself.
His hands rested on her hips and his breath moved her hair as he said, “Stay at
my place tonight.”
    Oh, it was tempting. Forget the house, her brother, herself.
Spend the night with the man whose every kiss promised it’d be a night she’d
never forget. How good a reason could she really have for saying no?
    The light spilling out around her busted front door was a
pretty good one. Crap.
    “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Charlie is here.”
    “Should I be jealous?” She heard the smile in Kim’s voice,
making it easier to remember the other reason she shouldn’t say yes to a
good-looking man, a man pawed by women and approached by ex-girlfriends. Any
man this smooth and charming would be utterly confident she wouldn’t be the one
straying. It was a pattern she knew all too well.
    “Of course not,” she said. Three words. She turned her
shoulders so his jacket slid free, forcing him to let go of her to catch it.
She just needed three more. She forced them from her throat.
    “We’re not dating.”
    * * * * *
    Not dating.
    Kim pulled into his assigned space beneath the mid-rise
condo development and yanked on the Jeep’s parking brake.
    She could smile. Flirt. Completely lose her composure in
anger. Isabelle Caine could kiss him and touch him as if she were seeking a way
inside his skin—a quest in which she seemed to be succeeding—and yet…
    They weren’t dating. For a guy with plans to leave town, it
sure bothered him a lot.
    She wanted him. He was pretty sure about that. Well, he’d
had moments of being sure about that. No question they’d be great in bed
together. Outstanding. And they’d seemed well on their way to finding out.
    He took the stairs from the basement garage to the lobby of
his building, the concrete walls and industrial light fixtures made it seem
like another garage level, albeit filled with funky, curving furniture rather
than cars. He saluted the night security guard and continued up the stairs to
his eighth-floor loft.
    He swiped his security card and burst out the stairwell door
into his concrete breezeway, breathing hard. That was better. Running stairs
might not bring the same clarity as a day on the rock face, but it helped. He
could now see it might have been a bad idea to bed Isabelle the same night her
house had been turned inside out. The same vulnerability that made him