Who’d been sleeping in Kason Rhodes’s bed?
The left fielder for the Richmond Rogues had returned from six weeks of spring training in Florida to find someone had moved into his mobile home.
That person was presently in his shower. The bathroom door stood cracked and steam curled into the hallway.
The peach scented shower gel cast the intruder as female.
Kason took a moment and looked around his bedroom.
Unmade bed, tossed brown comforter, rumpled beige
cotton sheets, the imprint of her head on his pillow.
Lady was an uninvited sleepover.
A vintage Guns N Roses T-shirt, a pair of stonewashed
jeans, a pale blue bra and panties lay across the foot of his bed. Black Converse sat on the floor.
Kason’s jaw locked. Damn he hated intruders. He valued his privacy. No one came on his land without his
permission. He had No Trespassing signs posted throughout his thousand acres, yet this woman ignored his warning.
Con or prank, reporter or baseball bunny, Kason wanted her gone. None of his team members knew where he lived. He used a post office box for his mail. Most thought he lived in the woods with wolves.
He hated the fact she’d tracked him down.
He was about to send her packing.
Within seconds he heard the shower shut off and the
plastic curtain draw back. The medicine cabinet creaked as it was opened and closed, then silence as she stepped into the hallway.
Wanting to see her before she saw him, Kason backed
behind the window air conditioner and faded into the late afternoon shadows. The woman wouldn’t immediately spot him when she entered his bedroom.
He’d positioned his eight month old Doberman by the
front door. Cimarron was well trained and wouldn’t allow an escape.
The lady had acute senses. Wrapped in a white towel,
she stopped by the dresser, cocked her head, and listened.
She knew she wasn’t alone. Casual, yet cautious, she looked into the mirror. She spotted him in two heartbeats.
Their eyes locked.
His narrowed, and hers went wide.
Amazingly, she didn’t scream.
She turned around slowly, and in the blink of an eye,
went bat-shit on him.
Nothing surprised or shocked Kason. He’d lived life
hard. Yet unease settled bone deep when she scored her hair brush, bottle of perfume, can of soda, paperback novel, box of Kleenex, porn star vibrator, and goose-neck lamp off the top of her nightstand and fired them at him. He barely had time to duck.
Lady had the arm of a tomboy. The items came fast and furious and forced him back against the wall. She hit him five out of seven times. The perfume squirted on impact, and he smelled fruity. The base of the lamp bruised his shoulder. The vibrator smacked his thigh and the switch turned on, a low, slow buzz.
Son of a bitch.
“You’re trespassing,” she shouted at him. “Get out or
I’ll call the police.”
Call the cops on him? No way in hell.
“This is my trailer,” he grunted, barely managing
to intercept an alarm clock aimed at his groin.
“No, it’s mine,” she bit back. “I found it abandoned.”
Abandoned? The woman was crazy.
She showed no fear, only irritation, as she grabbed
a tire iron off the floor. The tomboy was prepared for a burglar or home invasion. She was all threat and focus as she slapped the tool against her palm, her message clear: his head was about to roll.
Kason pushed off the wall and put on his game face.
Mean and intimidating came second nature. He crossed to the bed, faced off with the woman over his mattress. He held up his hand, “Put the tire iron down before someone gets hurt. Let’s talk this out.”
The hard swing of the iron held up her end of the
conversation. She had power. The whish blew by his ear, stood his hair on end.
She gripped the tool low. Each swing loosened the knot
on her towel above her right breast. The cotton fabric
shimmied down her C-cups.
A fourth flick, and the towel hung on her nipples.
Pink nipples, puckered and pointed right at him.
Kason nearly got his brains knocked out for staring.
The woman pulled a face, then took her eyes off him
for less than a second as she tugged up the towel.
The distraction was all he needed to make his move.
He lunged low across the bed and tackled her. She twisted and the tire iron went flying. A flip of her body and Kason had her pinned.
Lady was all slick skin, spread eagle, and spitting
mad. Wild brown hair and watercolor blue eyes registered as her shriek deafened his left ear. He blocked the jerk of her knee, but couldn’t stop her bite to his shoulder.
He groaned, swore she’d drawn blood through his gray
pullover. She’d scarred him with her teeth.
She was strong for a woman, yet he didn’t want to hurt her. It took several attempts to secure both her hands with one of his own. Tomorrow tattooed her right wrist and a man’s waterproof watch wrapped her left. The black leather band looked old and well-worn.
She squirmed and bucked as he straddled her fully,
then gnashed her teeth a second time. Damn if she didn’t prove slippery. Kason tightened his thighs against her hips, squeezed until she exhaled.
“Get off me.” She fisted her hands above her head,
wanting to blacken his eye.
He tightened his hold. He enjoyed fiery women, yet
the one beneath him would as soon unman him as draw her next breath. Tomboy was aggressive.
He might have considered her cute had she stopped
screwing up her face. Her cheekbones were as sharp as her chin. A tiny crescent scar curved one corner of her mouth. Her lips flattened against her teeth. She was all snap and snarl and flashed a lot of bare skin.
Her towel had parted, exposing her full breasts, a
gold-studded navel, and one pale hipbone. She dug in her heels, pushed up, struggled against his weight.
Kason was a big man. At six foot three, he tipped the
scale at two twenty. He had three percent body fat, the
remainder solid muscle. The lady would fight, but she’d soon tire. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not until she explained her takeover of his trailer.
He leaned low, until their noses nearly touched.
“Who are you?” he growled.
“I could ask the same of you.” She tried to head butt
him. “Breaking and entering is a felony.”
A felony? It was his trailer.
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