He was doing it. She knew he was doing it. She should have known but somehow she hadn’t and holy crap he was really going do to it, he was, he was, and suddenly the terrified part of her punched the part that didn’t want to moveright in the fucking face. It got it in a chokehold and squeezed until the excited bit of her passed out.
And that manifested in the worst possible way.
She actuallyskitteredback across the floor, in a manner last seen on a Discovery Channel special about bugs. Her entire body did things it hadn’t been able to do in years, and it did them just because he’d been about to do that thing she didn’t want to think about. She didn’t want to think about it so much that she almost took out the bathroom wall in her effort to escape, and even after she’d lost her unearthly speed and grace the fun didn’t stop.
She stumbled into the toilet and flailed around for about five minutes—and all while he looked too stunned to say or do anything. He raised a tentative hand in her direction, but that was all.
And she was grateful for that.
Running away from a kiss was humiliating enough on its own, without adding a naked man charging after you into the mix.
Chapter Five
She decided the best course of action was probably breakfast. Breakfast was normal, breakfast was wholesome, breakfast said, “I did not just destroy my bathroom because you almost kissed me.” Or at least, breakfast said that for ordinary people. It was a bit more of a struggle for her, considering that the insides of her fridge looked like an abandoned Chinese takeaway.
The only thing resembling normal food in there was a block of cheese she’d somehow gnawed into a ball, three potatoes that had sprouted arms and legs and tried to take over the salad crisper, and an aubergine. She hadn’t the faintest clue where the aubergine had come from, but its origins weren’t really the problem. The fact that it wasn’t an egg or a slice of bacon was.
She didn’t even have cereal. Her cupboards were full of things a three-year-old would buy, if they were given brief control of the grocery shopping. There were bags of marshmallows and jars of peanut butter mixed with something unholy—like mint-flavored peanut-butter spread. Why had she thought peanut-butter-mint spread would be a good idea?
More to the point—why had themanufacturerthought peanut-butter-mint spread would be a good idea? Surely the average American shopper wasn’t interested in something quite so bonkers. No, no...only someone whowasn’tAmerican would buy such ghastly items. Only someone who went nuts online shopping at Walmart—drunk on the idea of a thousand things that shouldn’t exist—would want marshmallows filled with mature cheddar.
She’d unwittingly flagged herself as an insane three-year-old foreigner.
And any second now he was going to come down and figure that fact out. He was probably already on his way right now. It had been over ten minutes since she panicked in the bathroom. Surely he would want an explanation soon? She was surprised he didn’t want an answer right fucking now—though of course hecouldhave fled out of the nearest window.
She wouldn’t have blamed him.
Hell, she might have thanked him. At least that way, she wouldn’t have to tape her fridge and cupboards shut and pretend they were full of spiders.I have a real insect problem, so I guess we’re going to have to go out for food, she pictured herself saying.Only you know I’m also physically incapable of walking out my front door, so maybe just imagine spiders have completely taken over planet Earth instead.
Yeah, that was never going to work.
For one thing, he knew what an actual spider invasion looked like. He’d battled them in that B movie he’d made before he hit before the big-time. And for another, spider invasions were not a real thing. He would know that they were not a real thing. She could have been a lying ninja, and he would have understood.
But she was not a lying ninja.
She was barely a lying beginner. The first thing she did when he suddenly appeared in the doorway to her kitchen was jump so violently she accidentally sprayed the kitchen with mini marshmallows, swiftly followed by some blurted words.
“I don’t have anything normal to eat.”
She’d blown her own cover. The amateur lying Olympics were not going to be calling any time soon. Luckily, however, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter for two very important reasons—the first being his response, as sweet as anything she’d ever heard.
“I gotta be honest, I’d have been disappointed if you did.”
And the second beingthe thing he was wearing.
She hadn’t taken into account that he didn’t have any clean clothes to put on. She’d somehow imagined him coming down in a fabulous outfit live from the red carpet, as though his skin spontaneously grew tuxedos. At the very least she’d pictured him in his own underwear, with the same t-shirt up top.
But he hadn’t done that.
He’d put on her robe. He’d put on her robe, and it was weird even though she knew it shouldn’t be. The tuxedo-growing thing was the crazy option. This was perfectly normal and perfectly reasonable, for all sorts of reasons. The robe fit him very well, for a start. She’d bought it from the men’s department because she’d liked the way it swamped her. But it didn’t swamp him.
It wasperfecton him—not too tight across the shoulders or too short in the leg, everything all cozy and comfortable-looking. He’d even put his hands in the pockets, as though to underscore exactly how at ease he was. It could have been bought for him by his assistant. He could have been wearing the damn thing all his life.
Andthatwas the problem.
He looked too much like he belonged. He looked so much like he belonged that for one heart-stopping second she could only think one completely insane and absolutely terrible thing. It forced itself into her head then flashed over and over, despite her best efforts to oust it. She had to oust it.
She couldn’t think things like that about him, after a day and a bit. Not about Holden Stark, not about a movie star, not about anyone. It was embarrassing.
