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He frowned in confusion.
Gun at the ready, he made for the bathroom, his free hand reaching for the knob.
The door swung open on its own.
“Freeze!” he bit out.
Four things happened pretty much at the same time.
The woman screamed, jumped backward into the door, slamming it against the wall behind her, and dropped a pile of clothing to the floor.
And then the towel she wore around her chest came unknotted and swung open, baring every inch of her.
“Jesus fucknugget, Billy!” the woman screeched, her hand going to her heaving chest just above her breasts. Her bare breasts. Full with pink nipples that tipped upward. She had a heart-shaped watercolor tattoo on her right hip. And her hair was red everywhere…
Oh. Oh hell.
In a heartbeat, Billy whirled away and lowered his gun, his mind racing as he reholstered the weapon. “Shayna? How the hell…”
Small brushes of fabric against fabric sounded out from behind him, as if she was resecuring the towel. Over her body. Which he’d just seen naked. “You were late. So…”
“So…?” He went to turn back and reconsidered, bewilderment morphing into regret of the holy shit I just pulled a gun on Ryan’s sister variety. “You, uh, decent?”
“As decent as I get,” she said with a kind of hysterical humor in her voice. Her footsteps retreated toward his office—her room, now.
And that little bit of humor had his regret morphing yet again into somewhere north of pissed off. Billy turned just as she d
isappeared inside the bedroom. He stalked after her. “How the hell did you get in here? I thought you were a burglar and nearly shot your ass.”
Picking clothing from the exploded disaster that he assumed had once been a packed suitcase, she gave a rueful chuckle. “Number one, my ass was the only part of me you didn’t nearly shoot. And, B, would a burglar seriously take the time to close the door while they were using a stolen bathroom? And three, my brother’s a Ranger.”
A Ranger who’d taught his little sister to pick a lock, because of course he did. Billy nailed her with a glare as the rest of what she’d said sank in. “You said number one, B, and three.”
Her laughter, even a little nervous as it was, was like the sun cresting the horizon—it brightened the whole fucking room. “That’s what you want to talk about right now?” she asked, peering at him with those blue-green eyes as she pulled a pair of black underwear from the jumble. A blush still colored her cheeks and chest. And the waves of her wet red hair set off the pale creaminess of her skin, as had the reds and oranges of the watercolor heart.
None-the-fuck-of-which he should be noticing or thinking about. Billy crossed his arms. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m a little funny,” she said, coming to stand right at his side. She knocked her arm into his. “But I am sorry for scaring you. Also, hi. Nice to see you again.”
He inhaled a deep breath meant to calm, but it was a mistake. A big one. Because he got a lungful of peaches and a sweetness that was all Shayna.
Shayna, who was Ryan’s kid sister. Except…nope. Not one goddamn thing about the woman standing next to him belonged to a kid. And he would know since he’d seen nearly the whole beautiful package.
“Hi,” he said. “Welcome to D.C. Sorry I nearly shot you.”
She grinned, and it was crooked, with one side of her mouth drawing up higher than the other. “No harm, no foul,” she said, and then she held up the ball of clothing in her arms. “I’m going to go get decenter.”
Between the smile and the sarcasm, now he was thinking about her mouth… “You do that, Goldilocks.”
Her brows cranked down, and then she chuckled. “Ha ha. Except I didn’t try out your bed, just your shower.”
And. Now. He. Was. Thinking. About. Her. In. His. Bed. “Don’t you have some clothes to put on or something?” Which was not something he typically said to a woman. But Shayna Curtis wasn’t any woman.
She was one of his best friends’ sisters. A best friend who’d asked him to watch out for her. And therefore she was ten kinds of off-limits.
“Yup,” she said, nearly running back to the bathroom.
Billy just stood there and dropped his head forward. He was so fucked.
