To Die For

The smell of coffee made me turn to the left, which led through the breakfast room and into the kitchen. Wyatt, barefoot and shirtless, was busy at the cooktop. I looked at that muscled back and brawny arms, the deep furrow of his spine and the slight indentations on each side, just above the waistband of his jeans, and my heart turned over again. I was in deep trouble here, and not just because some idiot murderer was after me.

“Where’s the laundry room?” I asked.

He pointed to a door that opened off the short hall leading to the garage. “Need any help?”

“I can manage. I just need to get the wrinkles out of my clothes.” I went into the laundry room and put my clothes in the dryer, then turned it on. Then I went back to the kitchen and took up the battle. Well, first I poured myself a cup of coffee, using the cup he had set out for me. A woman needs to be alert when she’s dealing with a man as underhanded and sneaky as Wyatt Bloodsworth.

“You have to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” he asked as he flipped a buckwheat pancake.

“The sneak attacks. I told you no.”

“You didn’t tell me no while I was doing it. You said some interesting things, but no wasn’t among them.”

My cheeks got hot, but I brushed that aside with a wave of my hand. “What I say during doesn’t count. It’s that chemistry thing, and you shouldn’t take advantage of it.”

“Why not?” He turned aside and lifted his own coffee cup. He was smiling.

“It’s almost date rape.”

He spewed coffee all over the floor. Thank goodness he’d turned away from the pancakes. Outraged, he glared at me. “Don’t you even start down that road, because it isn’t funny. Date rape, my ass. We have a deal, and you know it. All you have to do is say no and I’ll stop. So far, you haven’t said it.”

“I said a blanket no beforehand.”

“Those aren’t our rules of engagement. You can’t stop me before I get started. You have to say it after I’ve made a move on you, to prove you really don’t want me.” He was still scowling, but he turned to rescue the pancakes before they burned. He buttered them, then got a paper towel and mopped up the coffee. Then he very calmly went back to the skillet he was using and poured more batter into it.

“That’s the point! You keep short-circuiting my brain, and it isn’t fair. It’s not as if I can short- circuit your brain, too.”

“Want to bet?”

“Then why are you winning and I’m losing?” I wailed.

“Because you want me, and you’re just being stubborn.”

“Hah. Hah! Using that logic, your brain should be just as fried as mine if we were on the same footing, in which case you wouldn’t be winning all the time. But you are, so that means you don’t want me.” Okay, I knew there were holes in the argument, but it was all I could think of to sidetrack him.

He cocked his head. “Wait a minute. Are you saying I’m fucking you because I don’t want you?”

Trust him to immediately see the holes, and drive a verbal truck through the argument. I didn’t see anywhere to go with that, so I backtracked. “The thing is, whatever the reasoning, I don’t want to have sex anymore. You should respect that.”

“I will. When you say no.”

“I’m saying no now.”

“Now doesn’t count. You have to wait until I touch you.”

“Who made these stupid-ass rules?” I bellowed, frustrated beyond control.

He grinned. “I did.”

“Well, I’m not playing by them, understand? Flip the pancakes.”

He glanced at the skillet and flipped the pancakes. “You can’t change the rules just because you’re losing.”

“Yes, I can. I can go home and not see you again.”

“You can’t go home, because someone’s trying to kill you.”

There was that. Fuming, I sat down at the table, which he had already set with two places.

He walked over with the spatula in his hand, and bent down to kiss me warmly on the mouth. “You’re still scared, aren’t you? That’s what this is all about.”

Just wait until I saw Dad again. I was going to tell him a thing or two about giving information to the enemy camp.

“Yes. No. It doesn’t matter. I still have a valid point.”

He ruffled my hair, then returned to his pancakes.

I could see arguing with him wasn’t going to work. Somehow, I’d have to keep my wits about me enough to tell him no when he got started again, but how could I do that if he kept jumping me when I was asleep? By the time I was awake enough to think, it was already too late because by then I didn’t want to say no.

He took the bacon out of the microwave, divided it between our plates, then dished out the buttery pancakes. Before sitting down, he freshened our cups of coffee, and also got a glass of water for me and set out the antibiotic and a pain pill.

I took both pills. Though my arm felt better, I wanted to stay ahead of the pain.

“What am I doing today?” I asked as I dug into breakfast. “Staying here while you go to work?”

“Nope. Not until you can use that arm. I’m taking you to my mother’s house. I’ve already called her.”

“Cool.” I liked his mother, and I really wanted to see the inside of that giant Victorian she lived in. “I assume I can talk to my family whenever I want, right?”

“I don’t see why not. You just can’t go see them, and I don’t want them coming to see you, either, because they could lead this guy straight to you.”

“I don’t see why y’all are having such a hard time finding out who he is. He has to be a boyfriend.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” he warned. “She didn’t have an exclusive relationship going on. We’ve checked out the guys she was dating, and they’re clear. There are some other angles we’re exploring.”

“It wasn’t drugs, or anything like that.” I ignored his rude comment about telling him how to do his job.

He looked up. “How do you figure?”

“She belonged to Great Bods, remember? She didn’t have any of the signs, and she was in good shape. Not great; she couldn’t have done a backflip if her life had depended on it, but she wasn’t a druggie, either. It has to be a boyfriend. She came on to all the guys, so I figure it’s a jealousy thing. I can talk to my employees, find out if they noticed anything-”

“No. Stay out of it. That’s an order. We’ve already interviewed all your employees.”

Insulted that he seemed to be totally dismissing my views on the subject, I finished eating in silence. Typical man, he didn’t like that either.

“Stop sulking.”

“I’m not sulking. Realizing that there’s no point in talking is not the same as sulking.”

The dryer dinged, and I got my clothes out while he cleaned up the table. “Go on upstairs,” he said. “I’ll be up in a minute to help you get dressed.”

He came up while I was brushing my teeth again, because pancakes make my teeth feel sticky, and he stood beside me at the vanity, using the other basin while he did the same. Brushing our teeth together made me feel strange. That was something married people did. I wondered if one day I’d do all my tooth-brushing