Behind Closed Doors (Behind Closed Doors #1)(9)

“How are you here?” I demand. “I gave you no personal information.”

“Well, Skye, I have friends in high places.”

“At a storage facility? Are there even high places at a storage facility?” I have no idea what made me make a smart-ass comment. I don’t do that. This is not the time to do that.

“Aren’t you funny?” he mocks.

“No. No, really, I’m not funny. I’m planning to go to law school. I’m quite serious, actually.”

He grimaces. “An ambulance chaser. Wonderful. Just what I need right now.”

Offended, I snap back, “That’s the most discriminatory thing you could possibly say. That’s like saying all women are stupid.”

“Attorneys aren’t protected by discrimination laws, and I do not think all women are stupid. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You called all attorneys ambulance chasers.”

“I did not call all attorneys ambulance chasers.”

“Maybe you don’t like attorneys because you’re afraid you might need one.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Before I know what is happening, he’s walked me against the arm of the couch and pinned me between his big body and the hard surface. His legs are pressed to mine, hips molded against me. His hands plant on either side of me on the couch, and I’m trapped.

“I’d hoped you weren’t involved, but that statement you just made tells me you are. Blackmail will get you nowhere with me, sweetheart, and neither will avoidance or playing it coy. So don’t even try.”





CHAPTER THREE


I MUST BE DREAMING. How else do I explain having a famous poker player who looks like a cover model in my house, pressed up against me, and accusing me of blackmail? That’s just the kind of messed-up, far-from-perfect dream I would have.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I assure him, in disbelief at both the accusation and the circumstances in which it was delivered.

“Don’t play coy,” he warns again, shifting his hips so that I’m snug against him, and a whole lot more intimate.

“I’ll leave coy to professional poker-playing jerks,” I retort, and dang it if my hands don’t settle on his chest. Which is broad. And hard. And much too nice to belong to a man I don’t like.

“Where’s Stephanie?”

“You mean the owner of the storage unit I bought at auction? If I knew her, I wouldn’t have bid to buy her unit along with other strangers.”

“Then how do you know her name?”

“I spent hours going through her unit.”

“I said don’t play coy.”

“Oh, good grief. I don’t even know the word coy.”

“Yet you’re going to be an attorney?”

“You really hate attorneys, don’t you?”

“I hate liars.”

“Did you just call me a liar?” I shove against his unmoving chest. “Let me up before I start screaming.”

“No one will hear.”

“Molly knows you’re here,” I snap, and the anger I feel is more welcome than the fear I’ve let consume me this past year. “If I end up dead—”

“Melodramatic much?”

“You’re a stranger, in my house, manhandling me. Asshole much?”

“For someone who thinks I’m about to kill her, you sure have your knives sharpened.”

“Would you rather I cower and cry? If so, you picked the wrong house.”

“You’re here. This is the right house.”

“You know, your approach is flawed, arrogant jerkiness.”

“Jerkiness? Is that even a word?”

“Yes. It’s in the dictionary next to Red Bull. And probably a new addition to your Wikipedia page.”

“That you read?”

“Yes.”

“How would you even know who I am? Unless you know Stephanie.”

From the poker chip, but I can’t say that. “I don’t know a Stephanie.”

“Where the f*ck is she?”

“What part of ‘I don’t know her’ do you not get? Haven’t you ever watched Storage Wars? Buyers don’t meet the owners of the units they purchase.” He’s making me claustrophobic. And warm. Way too warm. I shove ineffectually at his chest again. “Get off me.”

He’s unmoving, a stone wall, and he stares me down with enough turbulence in his eyes to be a stormy disaster waiting to happen. I find the look oddly sexy, though I’m pretty sure I should see it as a sign that he’s a psychopath. Surprisingly, he lets go of me, giving me his back and scrubbing his jaw before he faces me again. “You don’t know Stephanie?”

“No,” I assure him. “I do not know Stephanie.”

“Prove it.”

“You have to be kidding me. Why do I have to prove anything to you at all? You’re the one who somehow stole my personal information and showed up at my house.”

He runs his hand over his light brown hair and manages to tear several long strands free. For the first time since I’ve met him, he looks frazzled, not the cool, calm dude he has to be to win tens of millions playing poker. “I hoped that finding you meant finding Stephanie.”