Turning his head, Jack saw a crumpled piece of black fabric on the floor.
It was a soft, silky blouse, and it smelled like lavender and vanilla.
One stray shoe might be understandable, but a blouse too, that couldn’t be a coincidence.
Jack turned, surveying the room. Another stiletto lay on the opposite side of the carpet. He stepped deeper into the living room. Amid the large pillar candles and silk flower arrangement on the coffee table stood an open bottle of tequila and an empty wrapper.
What the hell was going on here?
He strode toward the sectional to grab the bottle, then stopped short. There, on the sofa, lay an exquisite, nearly naked, and definitely unconscious woman. She was tucked in the corner of the sectional on her back; her head lifted just slightly. Her chest rose and fell in an easy rhythm under her cherry red bra, which, he was ashamed to admit he’d noticed, perfectly matched her panties.
The disparate pieces clicked together in his brain. The car in the driveway. The lights on the porch and in the house. Snacks in the kitchen. The overturned bag in the closet. Clothing items strewn around.
He had his very own Goldilocks.
Except this glorious interloper was all grown up, with curves in all the right places. With her rosy glow and dark brown hair, she looked a hell of a lot more like Snow White waiting for Prince Charming to come and kiss away her curse.
Too bad that he was the villain.
Fuck off with that thinking. You’re just biding your time until you’ve got the power to turn all of this around.
Jack gazed at the woman on the couch and considered his next move. He had every right to wake her and demand to know why she was in his rental, even to toss her out on her very pretty ass. But if he disturbed her now, considering her state of undress, she’d likely freak, especially when she sensed his size, looming over her on the sofa.
Women were often overwhelmed by his brawny frame. They’d talk a good game, make jokes about the size of his feet and hands, fantasize that he’d beat up other men for them. But when it came down to it, most women were scared by his strapping, six foot four frame.
There was a quiet violence to being so huge, a vast reservoir of potential energy just waiting to spring. Bigger muscles meant bigger movements, more force, harder impacts. He’d lost count of the number of women who were attracted to the inherent danger of simply being with him.
And then there were the mundane, inconvenient realities of being with someone so tall. The sheer volume of sound a body as immense as his could generate. The mass that it took up in a bed or car. The shadow it cast. The strength it held—or sometimes couldn’t hold back.
What people didn’t realize was that being this large required constant vigilance and attention to other people’s concerns. Ever since he’d hit his growth spurt at thirteen-years-old, Jack had been conscious of the need to hold back his potential. It was like tiptoeing through an ant farm and trying not to squish any of the ants.
So while Jack had every right to rouse Snow White and demand some answers, it was late. After his day from hell and the drive from whatever-was-worse-than-hell, he was beat. All he wanted was to find a bed. He’d put off his interrogation until the morning.
He spotted an afghan draped over an armchair. His lengthy legs got him there and back in two seconds flat. Standing behind the sofa, he leaned down and unfurled the blanket over her body. She moaned softly, and her hips shifted appreciatively under the weight of the soft chenille fabric. Andre would be so proud that Jack even knew what that was.
Jack drew the blanket up over her chest and covered her shoulders. He should stop looming, leave her a note in the kitchen, then lock himself in a bedroom until the morning, but he couldn’t pull himself away.
She was so goddamn pretty. Delicate features, long luscious lashes, bow-shaped lips. Together with that peachy pink skin, she looked like a porcelain doll.
The mystery woman beneath him drew a deep breath, and then those gorgeous lashes fluttered open, revealing alluring, deep brown eyes. They were pools of melted fudge, and he was a spoon longing to dig in.
Jack froze, anticipating her scream.
Instead, a smile bent her lips. “It’s you.”
He nodded, stunned. “I’m . . . me.” How could she know him when he’d never laid eyes on her before? If he had, he’d have remembered. This woman’s image would’ve been indelibly branded into his brain.
She propped herself up on her elbows. “You have no idea how much I need this.” Her words were as grateful as they were urgent.
She reached for the lapel of his suit jacket and pulled his upper body down toward her. Her mouth closed on his. The kiss was instant heat and passion, need, and want. Under her power, all reason and thought left him, and he gave in, yielding to her spell. Her tongue swept across his lips then into his mouth. She tasted like frosting and an edge of something bitter and flowery at the same time—the tequila.
Snow White arched her back to edge even closer to him and fisted her hand through his hair.
Alarms blared in Jack’s head. He didn’t know this woman. He shouldn’t be kissing this woman. But he didn’t care. He wanted to kiss this woman. After the shitty day he’d had, he needed to kiss this woman.
Just this one kiss.
His arms reached for her. One hand cradled her head while the other held the small of her back. She felt so good in his touch. As soft as a peach, and she smelled even better. He broke the kiss and ran his tongue along her neck, placing a trail of kisses behind her ear. From the sound of her breath catching and the way her nails dug into his shoulder, she was enjoying this as much as he was.
Her fingers slid down his arm and squeezed the muscles through his suit sleeve, inching their way around to his triceps first, then clawing at his biceps. She slid her hand inside the jacket and nudged it off his shoulder. She seemed to want him. Badly.
This was wrong. He had to put on the brakes. Snow White was clearly drunk and had mistaken him for someone else. A kiss was one thing, but he couldn’t let this go any further.
Jack peeled himself away from her luscious neck.
Snow White purred. “This is the best sex dream I’ve ever had.”
What. The. Fuck. She wasn’t just drunk. She was half-asleep.
Jack lurched away from the sectional. “Whoa.”
Snow White reached for him. “What are you doing? Don’t stop. Come back.”
Jack’s hands shot up defensively. “This isn’t a sex dream.”
“Of course it is, you’re Mr. Perfect, and I’m horny as hell.”
“Lady, you are definitely horny, but I am not Mr. Perfect. Trust me on that.”
Snow White’s expression shifted from dark lust to dazed confusion to abject horror as the situation appeared to crystalize in her muddled brain. Her brown eyes shifted into focus. “What the hell is going on?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Jack said, his hands still up to convey he wasn’t a threat.
Snow White sprang off the sofa. The afghan slid to the floor as she staggered backward, then knocked into the coffee table and the laptop on it. The screen awoke, and a video started playing. A frat boy and a co-ed in pigtails were getting down and dirty.
“Shit!” Snow White slammed the laptop shut. At that moment, she must have registered her near nakedness because she uttered a strangled sound and snatched the afghan from the floor and held it up to her chest. Then she grabbed one of the pillar candles from the coffee table and held it out toward him.