“Sweet Jesus doing jumping jacks!” She bolted upright in the bed, pressing a hand to her chest and blinking at him myopically. “What’s wrong?”
“Why didn’t you answer when I knocked?”
She frowned and waved in a circular motion. “The wind is screaming. The shutter is banging against its locking bar. It sounds like the roof is flexing. And all the joists are popping. I didn’thearyou.”
He blinked when he realized he’d been silly to panic.
“Right.” Shaking his head, he walked over to the bed, carefully avoiding staring at the damp clothes she’d draped over the lamp on his nightstand. Particularly because she’d placed her bra and panties on top, and even though they didn’t appear to be anything special—just your average, everyday cotton set—they were stillhers.
Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he peered into her eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Like I could sleep for a decade.” She covered her mouth and yawned.
“What in god’s name made you think it was okay to double down on Dramamine?”
She shrugged one rounded shoulder before snuggling back into bed.Hisbed.
Camilla D’ Angelo was in his bed. Her dark hair was splayed across his pillow. His sheet rested atop her breasts. And her bare thigh was pressed against his hip because she’d done that quintessentiallyfemalething of needing one leg out from underneath the covers.
It was such a smooth, shapely, undeniablyedibleleg too.
His mouth filled with saliva.
“I mean…” She yawned again. “I thought it was like doubling the dose on Tylenol. Not recommended, but not likely to hurt me either.”
“And that’s what you get for thinking.”
Her lips twisted even as her eyes fluttered shut. “Hey Dr. Know-It-All, have I mentioned how much I love the sound you make when you shut your piehole?”
He chuckled despite himself and tried to come up with a pithy comeback. But he realized it was a wasted effort when a deep, resonant breath left her lungs.
The drugs had finally pulled her under.
Without thinking, he tucked the sheet tighter around her shoulders, fitted it snuggly around her hips. Then, of their own accord, his fingers hovered above her bare thigh.
The world disappeared as he dropped his hand lower. Lower. Lower still. Until there was nothing but a hair’s breadth between her skin and his fingertip. He went deaf to the sound of the storm. Blind to anything that wasn’t the sight of her smooth, lightly tanned leg and—
A knock sounded at the door.
He hopped out of bed like he’d been caught taking advantage of an unconscious woman. And he was ashamed to say, if he hadn’t been interrupted, he might have done exactly that.
What is this woman doing to me?
Turning him inside out, that’s what. Making him forget himself. Forget…everything.
Running a hand through his hair—why did it feel so much better whenshedid it?—he glanced down to find that neither the knock on the door nor his sudden movement had awakened Cami. Her rosy mouth was open ever so slightly and her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
Tiptoeing across the room, he carefully opened the door. John stood on the other side with a different laundry basket than the one Doc had worked on earlier. It was filled with dry goods and Mason jars full of fresh water.
“Provisions.” John shoved the basket into Doc’s arms. Then he glanced over Doc’s shoulder at Cami and asked, “How’s our lady lawyer doin’?”
“Out like a light.” Doc moved the candle aside so he could set the basket on his dresser. “But she’ll be fine.”
“It’s a good way to ride out a hurricane, if you ask me.”
“A good way to ride out a hurricane is to be two, maybe three hundred miles away from it,” Doc countered.
“Pssht.” John waved a hand. “Julia only thinks she’s big and bad. I’ve seen plenty of her older sisters and brothers that were way worse.”
