“A day or two,” she repeated numbly as she allowed her gaze to run over the destruction.

“Are you going to repeat everything that I say?” he asked teasingly with a sexy little smile that had her revisiting that whole brain injury idea.

“Yes,” she said, nodding as she allowed him to lead her to his apartment door. He was forced to release her hand so that he could grab the door and move it aside so they could go into the hallway where his cousins were still arguing with the cops and the manager from Black Jack’s, “And this wasn’t a date.”

“Yes, it was,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out-

“You stole my keys?” she demanded when he proceeded to unlock her door and open it wide for her.

“Of course I did,” he said, smiling down at her.

“Wow…….,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “And why exactly did you do that?”

“It seemed necessary at the time,” he said sheepishly.

“Uh huh,” she said, staring up at him as she tried to make sense of this man. After a minute she decided that it was simply impossible and gave up.

“I’m going to bed. Have a good night,” she said, suddenly feeling exhausted.

“Good night, Tinkerbelle,” came the response that had her shaking her head and resisting the urge to remind him that her name wasn’t Tinkerbelle, but she was too tired to argue with him right now.

She walked into her room, grabbed her favorite pair of sweatpants, a tee shirt and headed to her bathroom. She tore her clothes off along the way, tossing them aside as she headed for her sanctuary. Five minutes later she was soaking in a hot bath, savoring the moist warmth seeping into her bones and the scent of lavender surrounding her as she closed her eyes, and fantasized that she lived in a world where men didn’t ditch their fiancés the day before their wedding, destroy their credit, steal their life savings, humiliate them, leave them destitute and jobless and with no other choice but to move in across the hall from incredibly sexy ex-marines who went from getting a kick out of screwing with her head one day to undressing her with his eyes the next.

In this fantasy she still had her job at the museum. The promotion that Jerry had stolen behind her back was hers. Her credit was still perfect, her bank account healthy and her biggest problem was deciding between sleeping in on the weekend or spending the day reading, curled up on the couch. She’d never accepted Jerry’s invitation for coffee, had seen the prick for the jerk that he really was. Things were the way that they were meant to be, should be.

But all too soon, she was forced to come back to reality. Her bath water had long since gone cold, she was exhausted and all she wanted to do was to crawl in bed and pretend that getting up at six in the morning was her choice. Yawning, she reached over and pulled the drain as a slight shiver shook her. Freezing, she stood up and grabbed a towel, quickly drying off, eager to crawl into her warm bed.

Biting back another yawn, she got dressed and opened the bathroom door. She couldn’t wait to-

“Romantic comedy or a horror flick?” the bastard lounging on her bed next to a monster size bowl of popcorn asked as she stood there, staring dumbly at him while she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

This couldn’t be happening.

It just……..couldn’t……..

She closed her eyes, counted to ten and opened them only to close them again, counted to a hundred, praying that he would just take pity on her and take a hint and get out of her apartment before she opened her eyes again. Nope, still there, she realized as she opened her eyes to find him holding up two DVDs and sending her an incredibly sexy smile that had her shaking her head.

“You need to leave,” she said, ignoring his smile as she gestured for him to get his ass off her bed and get the hell out of her apartment.

He sighed heavily as he tossed the DVDs aside. “You’re canceling another date.”

“Another date?” she repeated back, realizing that she was starting to sound like a parrot thanks to him.

He nodded, looking boyish as he explained, “Our third date.”

“Our third date………….,” she repeated, wondering how’d she missed the first and second date, but she didn’t have to wonder for very long.

“Our first date last night when you kicked me out for work and earlier tonight when we had to call it an early night because of the………incident,” he said with a shrug as though that horrifying experience that she’d somehow survived was no big deal.

“Those weren’t dates,” she pointed out between clenched teeth. “And neither is this.”

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head as though he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing, “I can’t believe that you keep leading me on like this.”

“I never led you on!”

“It’s really not nice leading guys on, Tinkerbelle,” he said in a chiding tone as he climbed off the bed.

“Oh my God! Are you insane?”

“Probably,” came the unconcerned answer as he walked up to her and cupped her face in his large, warm hand and caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you’re scared of me?”

Chapter 15

“I-I’m not afraid of you,” Jodi argued, stepping away from him.

He tilted his head to the side as he considered her. “No, you’re not,” he murmured softly. “But you are afraid of what’s going on between us.”