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Brow cocked, I finally twist around to find I was right about the towel. Fuck. Of course she looks like a walking dick magnet in it. I hold up the Baphomet. “Satanism?”

“I found it. In the house. Along with the rest.” As she tries to swipe the bag up from the bed, I swing out my arm to stop her, knocking loose a pair of panties from the small pile of clothes in her arms, which she carried out of the bathroom. On a growl, she bends to nab it up from the floor, sending the hem of that towel up her thigh until it just skims the underside of her ass.

“So you stole it.” The towel continues to be a distraction, the certainty that the tiny knot she made at the breast would be so easy to loosen from over those round, fleshy globes that make my palms itch. A girl’s tits shouldn’t be so perfect, particularly when she doesn’t go out of her way to flaunt them.

She discards the clothes onto the bed and crosses her arms. “How is it stealing, when it’s left abandoned? Finders keepers, and all that.”

“You’ve convinced yourself that house doesn’t belong to someone.”

“If it does, they need a new decorator. And a serious landscaping makeover.”

“So, why keep them? These books.” Thumbing through the text on the bed lands me on a page of what appears to be a human sacrifice painting, with a guy slicing a blade across another man’s abdomen. Entrails spilling out all over. Nothing I haven’t seen before.

“What’s the big deal? Are you afraid I’m going to draw pentagrams on your Brazilian walnut flooring and perform seances while you’re sleeping?” She swipes the book up off the bed and sits down next to me. The scent of my soap on her body taunts me in ways that a man with my level of restraint and discipline shouldn’t be affected.

Abandoning my search, I push up from the bed and toss the remaining contents of the bag aside.

Eager to put some space between us.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, lips curving to a teasing smile as she slides over to the spot I just vacated. “Afraid you might catch cooties, if you sit next to me?”

It’s the way my body reacts around this woman that bothers me. As if I’ve lost control over myself.

“Maybe I should’ve stayed with Luc tonight. I’m certain he’d be a much warmer host.”

Case in point. The way my hand balls into a tight fist at my side, I’m certain my cousin would be laid out flat with my fist in his face, if he were standing in the room, clueless as ever. And I don’t even feel bad about that thought. “I can arrange that, if you’d prefer.” The words practically arrive on a hiss through my teeth.

After giving me a onceover, she smiles and leans back on the bed, her wet hair dripping over her skin and onto my duvet cover. She’s studying me the same way I’m studying her. It’s probably stamped across my forehead how badly I want to fuck this woman, in spite of my newly developed reservations. “Nah. I’m comfortable here. So, where do you want me?”

A loaded question. Against every wall in the place is my answer, but I don’t tell her that.

“You can have my bed.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“I’ve some work to finish up. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“That doesn’t feel right. You should have your bed. I’ll take the couch.”

“No.”

“I spent the last week sleeping on the floor of an abandoned house. Trust me, your fancy leather couch is going to feel amazing.”

The moment the words tumble from her lips, an unbidden, albeit welcomed, image of her eyes rolled back in ecstasy slips through my mind, and I don’t even realize I’m gnawing on my own tongue until the coppery tang of blood fills my mouth. Every word that spills from those pouty lips of hers is an unwitting invitation for sex.

Or perhaps not so unwitting.

“I’ll sleep on the couch. You sleep in the bed. That’s the arrangement.”

“The arrangement. How ceremonious of you.” After a sharp mocking salute, she smiles. “Aye, Captain. Or do I call you the Big Bad Wolf?”

“Where did you hear that name?”

“A couple of people. Is it because you pick up unsuspecting women who camp out in abandoned houses in the woods, er …”

“I believe I already explained that this is an unusual circumstance.”

“Well, if you try anything, just know that I may be knifeless at the moment, thanks to you, but I am definitely not helpless.”