Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(31)

“What do you want?” His voice was gruff from sleep, but his gaze was unflinching.

Why hadn’t she realized he might be staying here? Ethan had told her Annie’s cottage held too many memories for him. This house would have no memories at all, but she hadn’t stopped to think that he might have moved in. Her reasoning powers had weakened along with her undernourished body.

She tried to come up with a lie that would explain why she had broken into the house. His eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to peer more deeply into the beam of light, and she realized the flashlight had blinded him. He couldn’t see who his intruder was.

To her surprise, he turned toward the bedside clock and looked at its glowing face. “Damn it. I’ve only slept an hour.”

She couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. She took a step backward, but kept the light shining in his eyes as he swung his bare legs over the side of the bed. “You got a gun?”

She said nothing. He was definitely naked, she realized, although the beam of light was focused too high for her to make out any details.

“Go ahead and shoot me.” He stared directly at her. She saw no fear in his eyes, nothing but emptiness, and she shivered. He didn’t seem to care whether she was armed or not, whether she shot him or left him alone. What sort of man had no fear of death?

“Come on! Do it. Either do it, or get the hell out of here.”

The ferocity in his voice chilled her so that all she wanted to do was run. She snapped out the light, whirled around, and rushed into the hallway. Darkness enveloped her. She groped for the balcony rail and stumbled along it toward the stairs.

He caught her on the first step. “You son of a bitch.” Grabbing her by the arm, he threw her against the wall.

Her side hit hard and then her head. Pain shot through her arm and hip, but the blow to her head dazed her just enough to dull its intensity. Her legs gave out, and sparks shot behind her eyelids as she slumped to the floor.

He fell on her. She felt bare skin and hard tendon, and then his hand tangled in her long hair as it curled on the carpet.

For a moment he froze, then he spat out a nasty curse and lurched to his feet. An instant later, light flooded the hallway from the eight-foot chandelier that hung above the foyer. Dazed, she looked up at him as he loomed over her and saw that she hadn’t been mistaken. He was definitely naked. Even through those dizzying whirligigs that were scrambling her brain waves, she found her eyes drawn to the most naked part of him, and just when all her resources should have been focused on survival, she got distracted.


He was beautiful. Larger than Dwayne. Thicker. In her grogginess—it had to be grogginess—she wanted to touch.

Dwayne had never let her satisfy her sexual curiosity. Lusty pleasures were reserved for him, not for her. She was heaven’s gatekeeper, designed for piety, not passion, and she’d never been permitted to caress him or do any of those things she fantasized about. She was suppose to lie quietly, praying for his salvation, while he rutted inside her.

Bonner knelt next to her, bending his near leg and spoiling the view. “How many?”

“One,” she managed.

“Try to focus, Rachel. How many fingers am I holding up?”

Fingers? He was talking about fingers? She groaned. “Go away.”

He left her side only to return a moment later with her flashlight. Once again, he knelt down, then flicked on the light, peeled open her lids, and shone the beam in her eyes. She tried to turn away.

“Hold still.”

“Leave me alone.”

He turned off the light. “Your pupils contracted. You don’t seem to have a head injury.”

“What do you know? You’re a vet.” A naked vet. She groaned again as she tried to sit upright.

He pushed her back. “Give yourself a minute. I want you fully recovered before I call the police and have you arrested.”

“Bite me.”

He gazed down at her, then sighed. “You need a serious attitude adjustment.”

“Stuff it, Bonner. You’re not going to have me arrested, and both of us know it, so just give it up.”

“What makes you think I won’t?”

“Because you don’t care enough to call the police.”

“You think I don’t care that you’ve broken into this house in the middle of the night?”

“A little maybe, but not much. You don’t care much about anything. Why is that, by the way?”

She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. The world began to steady around her. “Look, would you mind putting some clothes on?”

He glanced down at himself as if he’d forgotten he was naked. Slowly he rose to his feet. “This bothers you?”

She gulped. “Not at all.” Her gaze locked on that most amazing of all his body parts. Was it her imagination, or was it getting larger? She began to feel fuzzy again. Maybe she had a head injury after all. Except the fuzziness didn’t seem to be in her head. It was in her legs. Her stomach. Her breasts.

“Rachel?”

“Um?”

“You’re staring.”

Her head shot up, and she could feel herself blushing. That made her mad. But she got even madder when she saw the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth and realized that something had finally struck Mr. Sourpuss’s funny bone. Unfortunately, it was her.