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“You did that on purpose,” he growled as he continued to rub his eyes.
“No, I swear I didn’t! A fire ant bit my leg.”
“What the hell is that stuff? It’s not pepper spray—my eyes feel…minty.”
“Um, it’s Binaca.”
He uncovered his eyes and glared at her. “You were out here jogging alone in the woods with a bottle of breath freshener as your only protection?”
He made it sound so stupid when he said it like that. “It worked, didn’t it? I also have a deadly tube of lip balm in my pocket that I would have used as a last resort.”
“If I were a real attacker, that would have incapacitated me for all of three seconds.”
“I keep forgetting to buy pepper spray.”
Luke lay back on the ground and covered his eyes with one arm. “I’ll just stay here. You go on home before I strangle you.”
“I’m not leaving you incapacitated in the woods.” She knelt beside him. “Or are you even hurt? I mean, how bad could a little spray of breath freshener be?”
Luke uncovered his eyes again and glared at her. They were bloodshot and watering. She doubted a tough guy like him would produce tears just for the sake of drama.
“Okay, you’re not faking. Sorry.”
Jane let her gaze fall to his legs, sprinkled with dark hair, muscled like a soccer player’s.
Yow.
He was one fine specimen of a male. And she was overloaded with misguided sexual urges brought on by the adrenaline rush. That was the only way to explain why she was getting hot and bothered over a guy who was not at all her type—she preferred thoughtful and sensitive, not forceful and intense.
Luke sat up and exhaled noisily. “Let’s get out here before I go blind. I need to flush my eyes out with water.”
He stood up and Jane took him by the elbow.
“I’m really, really sorry. Just tell me what I can do to make this up to you.”
He peered down at her hand curled around his bicep and then up at her. “I’m not blind yet.”
Jane jerked away, embarrassed. “I just thought you might be a little unsteady on your feet.”
He started walking back the way they’d come. “Okay, here’s what you can do to make it up to me. When I ask you to do something that has to do with your personal safety, do it—no questions asked.”
“I can’t just behave like an automaton,” she said, hurrying to keep up with him.
“Then I can’t work for you.”
Here was her chance to get rid of Luke. Even if he was a hunk with a decent sense of humor, he’d already proven to be unnerving, unpredictable and unmanageable. If she was smart, she’d tell him to get lost. But he was supposed to be the best….
And she’d really been looking forward to seeing the looks on the faces of her family when she showed up at the shower tonight with Luke as her date. They’d never believe without witnessing it that she could bag such a hottie.
“Okay, I’ll try to do as you ask.”
Luke glared over his shoulder at her, then turned his attention back to navigating out of the woods. She took that as his acceptance of their new agreement.
They made it out of the woods, and Luke asked her to drive his SUV back to her house. She was climbing into the driver’s seat when she spotted his copy of The Sex Factor. She noticed Luke saw it at the same time, as he opened the passenger-side door. He looked up at her and flashed a sheepish grin.
“You have excellent taste in reading material.”
“Just doing a little research.”
She started the car, flattered that he would even bother. “Trying to figure out how you’re going to prove me wrong?”
“Something like that.”
She pulled away from the curb. “Good luck.”
“It’s not going to be very difficult. You don’t know a thing about men.”
She glanced over at Luke, who was still rubbing his left eye. “I know enough. The book is written to help women understand what they want from men.”
“Uh-huh.”
He was just trying to rile her up, so she backed off. In a matter of seconds they were in her driveway.
She took him inside and led him into the kitchen where she found a water bottle and filled it with warm water. After digging a towel out of a drawer, she took it and the water bottle to Luke, who was sitting at the table.
“You can rinse your eyes out yourself, or I can help.”
Luke squinted at her and then the water bottle. “I’m probably going to regret this, but you’d better help.”
He leaned his head back, and she stood behind him so that he could rest it on her torso. The intimate contact put her body on alert, and she tried not to think about the fact that her nipples were standing at attention. She aimed at the more irritated eye with the water bottle and squirted a stream of it in, then caught the runoff with the towel pressed against his temple. Once she’d rinsed out each eye several times, she stopped.
