Biting back on the urge to point and yell pervert, she sought a way to sanitize her suspicions. She didn’t want to frighten Finn—god knew, she was shaking hard enough for both of them—nor did she want to aggravate the situation or the significantly larger man if she could defuse things. After all, he hadn’t made a lunge for her, and, given he was looking at them like they’d just landed from Mars, he didn’t appear ready to, either.
“This nice man came into the wrong house,” she said evenly as Finn’s hand hooked around her leg, making her aware she was only wearing her leopard-print panties and a tank top.
Crap. Still…it was one more item of clothing than he was wearing.
“But he’s leaving now. Right?” Jane waggled the pliers at him.
“Or what?” His voice was gruff as he regarded her weapon. “You going to pinch me to death with those things?”
Jane narrowed her eyes as his gaze dropped to Finn, who’d moved closer to her leg. She forced herself to stay calm, despite the belt of her heart and the roaring mamma bear gnashing her teeth on the inside. “If I have to.” If he came anywhere near Finn, she’d rip his jugular out with this pair of pliers without thinking twice.
As if he was just too damn tired to compute anything, the guy scrubbed a hand across his face. “This is Wade Carter’s house, isn’t it?”
What? “Yes.”
“Well, I’ve been invited here, so maybe you’re in the wrong house?”
Oh yeah, right. Good try, buddy. “CC never mentioned they were expecting a houseguest.”
“Wade never mentioned there’d be someone else staying here, either, so right back at ya.”
“I’m going to call them and check.”
“You do what you gotta do, lady, but I’ve been travelling for twenty-four hours and through so many time zones my jet lag has jet lag. I am beat. So maybe before you wake a heavily pregnant woman in the middle of the night you could”—he swung his legs over the bed with a grunt and a wince—“point me in the direction of an empty bedroom where I can crash? I plan to sleep for at least a week.”
Jane watched as he reached for a cane with a fancy silver handle that was propped against the table on his side of the bed and leaned heavily on it as he hauled himself off the mattress before turning to face her. He did look beat. Weary lines etched his face; his eyes were bloodshot. He also looked in pain as his hand absently massaged a thigh sporting a long, thick scar that didn’t look so old.
She didn’t think he was capable of lunging, given that rising seemed difficult enough. And he was right—she wasn’t going to wake CC at two in the morning when it appeared there’d been some miscommunication.
She lowered the pliers slightly. “Go out, turn right. Fourth door down is a free bedroom.” They were all free, but Jane wanted to put space between them.
He grunted in acknowledgment, nodding briefly before turning away again and slowly heading to the door. She imagined it was difficult to make a dignified exit in the middle of the night in underwear while leaning on a cane, but somehow this guy managed.
Jane’s fight-or-flight instinct fell quickly the closer her intruder/surprise houseguest got to exiting the room. That she noticed the width of his shoulders and the taut globes of his ass in his black boxer briefs was testament to how much her internal threat level setting had diminished.
Jane blinked. What the hell? Do not crush on a stranger who got into bed with you, dumbass.
The door opened, and he limped through it, disappearing from sight without a backward glance as it clicked shut. Her breath expelled on a rough pant as she absently slipped her hand onto Finn’s shoulder and hugged him closer to her leg.
“Is he staying, Mommy?” Finn asked in a still-hushed voice as he, too, stared at the door.
Not if she could help it. “I don’t know, Finny. Maybe.”
Then, on wooden legs, she crossed the room and firmly locked the door.
…
Cole didn’t know how long he’d been out when he was roused from his sleep. All he knew was that he’d been pulled from the deep, black abyss of fatigue to bright sunshine by a series of little stabs to his chest. Murky visions of the woman from last night—in her underwear, wielding pliers—came to mind, and his eyes flew open.