Terry Spear - To Tempt the Wolf

Her heart lurching, she seized his free arm. He leaned hard against her, ready to collapse, and a new thrill of panic swept her. If he pulled her down with him, she'd be where she was before, trying to lift the veritable muscled mountain off the beach.

She hung her parka over his broad shoulders and wrapped her arm around his trim waist. "Okay, it's not too far to climb."

Although it was, considering the injured man's shaky condition.

They stumbled up the rough path, and she glanced down at his poor feet, taking a beating on the icy rocks. Every step could be his last, she worried, while he clung to her as if his life depended on it.

Which it probably did.

When they reached the short path to her back door, she intended to rush him inside, call for help, get him warm--not necessarily in that order--but instead, she froze in place several feet away from the edge of the small brick patio.

The back door was standing wide open, the wind banging it against the house.

"I locked it," she said under her breath. "I know I locked it."

Despite the overwhelming panic that filled her, she had to get the injured man into the protective shelter of the house. With trepidation, she walked him the rest of the way, and once inside, she led him through the kitchen. No sign of an intruder. But her spine remained stiff with tension.

The injured man lifted his nose and smelled. He tilted his head to the side as if he was listening for the same thing she was--sounds of the housebreaker.

She hurried the man to the velour sofa where he collapsed in a ragged heap, his expression slightly dazed. She had to get him warmed up. But she had to make sure no danger could threaten them inside the house. Glancing toward the hall and the three bedrooms, she listened. No sound of anyone rummaging through any of the rooms.

Sleet continued to pour on the roof, the sound a loud roar, which could hide the presence of someone moving around inside. She grabbed the wool afghan at the end of the couch and covered the injured man's lap, the parka still draped across his shoulders and pink ski cap stretched tight on his head.

"I'll turn on the heat and get some more blankets for you," she said to him, without taking her eyes off the hallway to the bedrooms.

First, she was calling 911 and getting a knife for protection. She patted his shoulder. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

She didn't wait for his response. Instead, she hastened to the kitchen, yanked open a drawer, and pulled out her largest carving knife, although it was about as dull as her butter knives. Too bad she couldn't get to her gun. With weapon in hand, she grabbed her phone, punched in 9-1-1, and lifted the receiver to her ear. No signal. She tried again. Same thing. Hell, what else could go wrong?

Shivering in her wet, icy clothes, she shut and locked the back door. When she turned, she gulped back a scream. The battered man was standing in her kitchen, looking even bigger, taller, nude again, and still blue. He moved as silently as the cat she had once shared the house with until it took off for parts unknown.

"My god, you need to rest on the couch and... and I'll turn the heat on and..."

His indomitable gaze lowered to the knife in her hand.

Mouth dry, her heartbeat quickened. "I... someone broke into my house. I think."

Without a word, he stalked off, his step more sure, although he had to be in terrible pain, as bruised and beaten as he was. She followed him, her gaze shifting to his butt, firm, muscled perfection with every step he took. He glanced over his shoulder with a glower, but when he caught her checking out his derriere, his mouth curved up a hint.

Her cheeks on fire, she raised her brows and stood taller.

Realizing he couldn't dissuade her from following him, he grunted and moved forward, checking out her brother's room first. The navy velvet curtains flopped in the breeze, framing the shattered window. She sucked in the chilled air and stared at the jagged window, now a gaping hole into the black void outside. A shudder shook her to the center of her being. He could return anytime.

She examined the carpet closer. No glass, which meant the intruder had broken it from the inside, not outside to get in. This further meant he must have entered through the back door and hadn't escaped that way like she was beginning to think.

The injured man crossed the floor to the window, peered into the dark, standing in the icy breeze as if he was made of pure marble and the cold couldn't touch him. Then he turned, shaking his head slightly.

Her gaze dropped from his furrowed brows, narrowed eyes, and the set of his grim mouth to his ruggedly sculpted abs, and then lower to the dark patch of curly hair at the apex of his sturdy thighs and his incredible... size .

Her eyes shot up. He was injured, for heaven's sakes, and probably suffering from frostbite and a concussion. Yet, she swore lust clouded his eyes.

Ha! More likely the onset of pneumonia.

"Let me, uhm, get you some of my brother's clothes."

She hurried into the closet, grabbed Michael's fleece-lined navy sweats and a pair of his sneakers, and exited. The man was gone. She glanced at the wind and sleet coming into the room, wetting the beige carpeting. Wishing she could tack something up in the meantime, she knew they didn't have a shred of canvas. Although even if she did, it wouldn't prevent the intruder from coming back in that way.

Clutching her brother's things to her chest with one arm, the knife readied in her free fist, she rushed into the hall and nearly collided with the naked man. A gasp slipped from her lips before she could hide her unsettled reaction.

"You're going to hurt yourself with that." His words sounded husky and wearied. His colorless lips lifted slightly. "Or me."

The way he said, "Or me," sounded suspiciously like he didn't believe she could hurt him. As wired as she was, her hands trembled with the notion she might have accidentally stabbed him.

His icy hand touched hers, almost reverently. Was he worried she was scared to be unarmed? She was more fearful that she might have caused him further injury.

Despite how cold they both were, his flesh sent a volley of warmth sliding through her, his eyes never straying from hers. Heat, passion, and a knowing look as though he could read the way she was feeling showed in the glint of his amber eyes. And then he slipped the knife from her grasp, his fingers leaving hers and the cold returned.

He had to be chilled to the marrow of his bones. She was and she wasn't even nude in the icebox of a house, although wearing wet clothes had to come in a close second for making a body cold under these inhospitable conditions.

"No one in any of the rooms," he assured her, his voice cloaked in darkness, his gaze steady, penetrating.

Something unspoken tied them together, although she couldn't sense what. The way he considered her as if she was important to him somehow--not as his savior exactly, but more like his... captive , his prey.

Before her frozen mind made anything stranger of her reaction toward him, she shoved the sweats at his chest. "Here, get dressed and I'll--"

"Turn on the heat?" He cocked an arrogant brow, his lips neutral.

One of her medieval romance novels could have featured him as a brooding, striking--albeit a bit battered--hero. Or the villain. What did she know about him, after all?

"I would have already," she said, storming back down the hall, "if an intruder hadn't been in the--"

"The electricity isn't working."

She stopped, turned, and stared at him. It would be dark soon. And even colder. Hell, she hadn't even gotten one load of firewood from the beach yet.

Now, she was stuck in the middle of the ice storm with no electricity and no phone... with a total hunk of a stranger still standing in her hallway naked.