"Get out,"

Chapter 5

Nate cursed violently and rolled away to hide the painful erection in the mattress.

The woman standing beside his bed was real, not an illusion. And she had seen his need.

Not your fault. This is your sanctuary and she just invaded it.

"I'm so, so sorry Mr. King," she said, her beguiling accent—the whisper of Ireland flowing through it—only infuriating him more. "I didn't mean to…"

"Get out," he groaned.

"Yes, sir," she said, her slanting emerald eyes widening to the size of saucers, then she shot out of his bedroom as if her butt was on fire.

He collapsed, burying his face in the pillow, his whole body zinging with fury and an erotic charge that refused to subside. One she'd caused. One he'd never believed he'd feel again. One he didn't want to feel again.

Once his breathing had returned to something resembling a normal rhythm, he climbed off the bed, exhausted now as well as annoyingly turned-on, and headed into the bathroom. Stepping into the glass-walled shower, he flicked the switch to frigid. It did no good, the arousal still pounding through his body at the memory of her lithe curves spotlighted beside his bed, the hard tips of her breasts showing through her T-shirt and the intoxicating scent of wildflowers and clean soap filling his lungs.

He was forced to take himself in hand and work the solid flesh. The first orgasm he had experienced in over a year rolled through him after one, two strokes. He grunted, the water slicking down his back.

He washed away the humiliating evidence of his loss of control. And tugged on a pair of sweatpants.

At least the humiliating episode might  have put a swift end to Brett's latest attempt to screw with his karma. The woman should have kept on running, right out the door—if she knew what was good for her.

But as he headed toward the central staircase, intending to take a swim in the lap pool on the roof, to work off the last of the energy still pulsing through his body, a sweet, buttery aroma hit him.

His stomach grumbled—the gnawing hunger something he hadn't felt in months. He padded down the central staircase toward the kitchen.

The aroma became so captivating, the newfound hunger began to claw at his stomach, painful in its intensity. But the renewed wave of fury wasn't far behind as he spotted a dark head—the flowing locks now tied in a knot—bent over the stove, the buttery scent like a siren call to senses long denied.

He could hear her singing in Irish—over the gentle sizzle of whatever it was that was creating the mouthwatering smell. His hollow stomach twisted into a knot, the fury pulsing through his veins.

He braced his hands on the cold marble counter of the breakfast bar, his temper building like a volcano, then spewing out of his mouth.

"What the hell are you still doing in my apartment?"