Present Danger by Susan Andersen Read Free Book Online Page B

of my importance in his life, huh? I envy you Otis so much, Lola.It’s obvious he’s crazy about you, and he doesn’t strike me as a man who would love a child any less just because that child wasn’t created from his own seed.”
    She left Lola’s apartment a short time later and returned to her own. It wasn’t until she entered the bedroom and flipped the switch on the bedside lamp that she recalled her original reason for going downstairs. Damn. If she wanted the thing fixed anytime soon, she was going to have to ask James Ryder to help her.
    She’d really rather not.
    On the other hand, she’d also rather not wait for the four days or a week or whatever it was that comprised one of Otis’s rotations at the fire station. That was a long time to be without her lamp, and she had not yet reached the point where she could once again sleep in the dark. She sometimes wondered if the night would ever come when she would be able to.
    Feeling like an idiot for the way her heart was beginning to pound over what was basically a minor request, she walked down the hall and tapped lightly on James’s door. Relieved when there was no answer, she tapped once again just so she could tell herself she wasn’t really a craven coward. Then she turned away.
    “What’d y’do, call me from a phone booth on Broadway?” Aunie jumped to hear his voice through the closed door and reluctantly turned back. “I told you to come in a half hour!” The door was yanked opened. “Oh. Sorry,” James said, startled. “I thought you were my brother.”
    She didn’t reply; she couldn’t. She was too busy staring at the sight that greeted her.
    Her eyes were at chest level when the door opened and they widened with surprise, then refused to moveany higher. He must have hastily donned his clothes when she knocked on the door. He was wearing a shirt and a worn pair of jeans, but neither garment was fastened. The shirt hung open, framing a broad, lightly furred chest and hard stomach The zipper of his jeans was unzipped and once Aunie’s eyes had bemusedly tracked the sparse stripe of blond hair down his muscular abdomen to the loose, open waistband that rode low on his hipbones, she couldn’t seem to drag them away. She could practically feel the strain she was imposing on her eyeballs trying to get a peek into the shadows beyond that gaping fly.
    As in the black-and-white photographs on her bedroom walls, the sensuality was more in what was hidden than in what was revealed. Only this was no photograph. This was three-dimensional, warm, alive, and smelling of damp, healthy male.
    It was more exciting altogether.
    She licked her lips. God. She’d never seen anything quite so sexy in her entire life as this tantalizing, close-up glimpse of James Ryder’s half-clad body.
    Which just went to show how barren her own sex life was, she supposed. Gawd, girl, get a grip, she admonished herself and slowly dragged her eyes upwards. “Uh, I’ve got a lamp that quit work …” Her voice trailed away and she felt her jaw literally sag when her eyes finally reached his face. There was a bloody hatchet sticking out of his forehead.
    It wasn’t real, of course. It took her a moment, however, to remember that today was Halloween and to realize that the hatchet was obviously a prop. But a clever prop … Lordy, it was clever. Her lips were just curling up in appreciation, when he wagged one eyebrow at her, making the hatchet shift.
    “Don’t s’pose you’ve got any aspirin on ya?” heasked in a hopeful voice. “I’ve got a killer of a headache.”
    Startled laughter exploded out of her. Then she laughed again, harder, and it was all downhill from there, for once started she couldn’t seem to stop. Finally, tears running down her cheeks, she slid loosely down the hallway wall and flopped over on her side, still gasping with laughter as she clutched her stomach. Every time she thought she was finally getting a handle on what was turning into a