“It’s not a camera,” he felt obligated to point out as he angled the phone to the side so that he could catch the goo smeared glare that she was sending him. “It’s a---son of a bitch!” he shouted as a big handful of chalk white slime sailed through the air and nailed him in the shoulder.

“Put the phone away,” Tinkerbelle said, swiping up another handful of that slime that he was going to kill his cousin for.

Any other man would have accepted defeat, put the camera away and made a quick retreat, but he was a Bradford as well as a Marine, which meant that he was going to aggravate the shit out of her for the sheer pleasure of it. Chuckling, he ducked out of the way as the goop sailed through the air, snapped a dozen more shots, not really caring if they were good shots or not. The only thing that he cared about right now was pissing Tinkerbelle off.

“Damn it!” she snapped as she once again slipped in the goo, this time landing on her pretty little ass, causing the glob of goo in her hand to slide down her arm, adding an extra layer of slime to her skin and clothes that was going to be a bitch to clean off. When she let out a defeated groan, he couldn’t help but feel bad for her.

With a sigh, because he knew that he was going to miss out on some really good photo opportunities, he put his phone in his back pocket. “Do you want some help?”

“Not from you,” she bit out as she tried to wipe her hands off on her pants, but by this point it was hopeless. She was covered from head to toe in the nasty goop.

“Oh, and why’s that?” he asked, glancing at the garden hose and wondering if he should hose down this mess before the smell seeped inside the apartment house.

“Because I really just don’t like you,” she admitted as she slowly got on her knees to give standing another try.

“Now, you know that you really don’t mean that,” he said, knowing damn well that she did.

“Yeah, I really do,” she said, finally managing to get to her feet.

“Are you planning on tracking that shit into the building?” he asked, gesturing to the white slime that was slowly traveling down her body, applying another, more even, coat over her body.

“I’ll wash it off,” she said defensively.

“How?”

Her frown said it all. She had no idea how she was going to get that shit off and to be honest, he really wasn’t sure that water was going to do the job. At least cold water wouldn’t be able to get it off, he mused with a frown of his own when he felt a slight burning sensation on his shoulder right where the goop-

Chapter 5

“Stop moving!”

“It’s burning!” she snapped back, slapping his hands when he tried to push her hands away as she frantically tried to wipe off the white glop that felt like it was burning her skin off.

“You need to take this off,” he said, sounding calm and in control when all she wanted to do was scream, again, and freak out, again, but he wouldn’t let her.

As soon as she’d started screaming about her skin being on fire, Danny had snapped into action. He’d grabbed the hose and hit her full force with a jet of ice-cold water, which may have started another round of screaming. It also made the burning sensation a lot worse. Before she could tell him that, probably because he figured it out by her screams, he’d dropped the hose, picked her up and ran inside, straight into his apartment and had her in his bathtub before she could put up much of a fight.

“No, don’t turn the water on!” she screamed in terror seconds before a stream of hot water hit her.

“You need to get this off,” he said, still sounding irritatingly calm as she struggled against the urge to scream as the water caused the white slime on her body to heat up again.

When he grabbed the hem of her shirt and yanked it off, she didn’t even think about fighting him since she was too busy trying not to freak out over the likelihood that the gunk from the trashcan was nuclear waste. She barely noticed when he yanked off her shoes, socks and went for her pants, but she definitely noticed when he went for her bra.

“Hey!” she gasped, slapping at the offending hand.

“That shit soaked up into the material,” he pointed out as her mind registered the burning sensation seeping beneath the bra. “It needs to come off.”

She opened her mouth to……

To….

To………

“W-what are you doing?” she managed to choke out while she watched as Danny pulled his shirt off and tossed it out of the shower as he toed off his boots. Then he bent over and pulled off his socks and tossed them aside. He stood up and quickly undid his pants and shoved them down, revealing a pair of tight fitting black boxer briefs that left very little to the imagination.

When he stood up and ran a hand through his wet hair, her gaze raced to follow the move, taking in the puckered pink scar and the raised straight line that ran through it on an otherwise droolworthy set of abs, up to the Marine tattoo that he had on his chest, the one that she may have found herself thinking about a time or two, and finally up to meet his gaze and immediately regretting it. He looked serious, really serious, and determined as he sent her a hard glare.

“Your skin is streaked red,” he began, taking her by surprise.

She looked down and sure enough, her body was covered in angry looking red streaks and splotches right where her skin burned and itched like crazy. Swallowing nervously, she looked back up at him and found a matching red spot on his shoulder, right where she’d nailed him with a handful of goop.