Katee Robert - In Bed with Mr. Wrong

A list she wasn’t sure why she was clinging to so fiercely.

No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. She knew all too well why she held it so closely. This wasn’t a romance novel. Just because she didn’t dislike him as intensely as she had when they first met didn’t mean a single thing about their overall compatibility. Love wasn’t the glue that held a relationship together. It was something that came from hard work and commitment and a thousand other things people in relationships often took for granted.

She wasn’t interested in love when it came to Ryan.

Love? Bri took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. No one had said anything about love. What would a relationship with him even look like? He was a pararescuer, which meant he’d leave on regular tours overseas. Tours she had no guarantee he’d ever come back from. It was in his job description to charge into situations most people fled from. Maybe he’d come home from this one, but it was only a matter of time before he’d have to go in to save a wounded soldier and wouldn’t make it back. Their motto—which she’d looked up when Drew first bragged about his little brother—was That Others May Live . He’d always be more concerned about the soldiers he rescued than his own well-being.

She might very well be left waiting for him to come home from a mission for the rest of her life, nursing yet another scar on her soul because she’d taken a risk on someone she knew would hurt her in the end.

No way could she handle losing another person. Not like that.

She fell asleep still contemplating the potential future, which was probably why she woke up the next morning with a sense of unease and vague memories of nightmares. She adjusted her clothing and winced at the realization that she’d been wearing them for over twenty-four hours.

A shower was definitely in order. And she’d be a whole lot more confident about that plan if she could work up the courage to leave the bedroom and walk the three steps down the hallway to the bathroom door.

It’s not like he’s going to jump out of the shadows and drag you back into the bedroom . Her entire body heated at the thought, which just went to show sometimes people were really foolish when it came to sex. She’d always known that, but things hit a little bit closer to home now that she knew what all the fuss was about.

She made it to the bathroom with no appearance of Ryan and breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped into the shower. Bri stared at the handful of condom packets shoved into the rack between jumbo-sized containers of shampoo and conditioner. Exactly how much sex had Avery and Drew thought they’d have?

The only warning she got was a strange cranking sound, and then the water turned from pleasantly warm to heart-stoppingly cold. She screamed and scrambled for the faucet, screaming again when Ryan pounded on the bathroom door.

“Are you okay?”

“ Fine .” Just shaking like a leaf with goose bumps covering her entire body. “Just…go about your business.”

“Not until you come out.”

He was an impossible pain in the ass, and he’d no doubt be content to sit outside the door until she did just that. Then she realized—entirely too late—that she didn’t have any clothes to change into.

Ryan still wasn’t ready to face Bri, especially after the way things had gone last night. But then he’d heard her scream and reacted. It was becoming a nasty habit when it came to her, but it was a little late to worry about it now. Not when she was slipping out the door with a bath towel clutched to her chest that didn’t cover nearly as much as she seemed to think it did.

It was an effort to keep his gaze glued to her face, but he managed. “There are some clothes in the closet.”

“Thank you.” She started inching down the hall toward the bedroom, and he had the sudden thought that if he let her go without saying anything else, it was entirely possible she’d spend the next two days locked behind that door.

“Bri—”

“Let’s just pretend it never happened, okay? We can’t get out of this cabin for the rest of the weekend, and I’d rather not spend it screaming at each other.”

No, there were definitely better kinds of screaming they could be doing. He shook his head, pushing the thought away. It didn’t matter how much he wanted her. He was serious last night—if she didn’t make up her goddamn mind about this thing between them, he wasn’t having sex with her again.

He realized he was staring. “Yeah. Of course.” He stepped back so she could walk down the hallway unimpeded and told himself it was for the best. As soon as the door closed behind her, he hopped in the shower and endured a five-minute freezing scrub-down. He made it out in time to hear Bri muttering up a storm. Ryan rounded the corner and froze at the sight of her scrambling to clean up the remains of three broken eggs on the floor. How the hell had she dropped so many? She glanced up, caught him standing there, and shot to her feet, her elbow smacking the spatula and sending it spinning across the counter to join the eggs on the floor.

“Would you like some help?”

“I’ve got it, thanks.” She turned around and went back to wiping the egg mess up. She should have looked sloppy in her oversize sweats and T-shirt but, fresh-faced and with her hair pulled back, it was everything he could do not to come around the island and strip her naked.

Good to know his resolve not to touch her was holding on.

“I’m not exactly a great cook, but I figured I could get breakfast started without too much trouble.” She motioned to a carton of eggs and a pan she was in the process of breaking them into.

Ryan choked as she dumped what must have been half the saltshaker into the eggs. “That’s great. I can take over if you want to use the bathroom to finish getting ready.”

She frowned. “Why would I need to ‘finish getting ready’?”

Well, shit. He glanced at the fridge, the stove, and the kitchen island, but none of them gave him a way out of the hole he’d just dug himself into. There was no safe answer to that question, but the line between her eyebrows was getting deeper by the second, so staying silent wasn’t an option either. Since he didn’t particularly want to fight, he tried to change the subject. “I make a mean breakfast scramble. I think I saw hash browns in the freezer.”

Bri moved forward, blocking his way. “You think I should go put makeup on or pretty myself up, don’t you?”

This was exactly the conclusion he hadn’t wanted her to jump to. Truth be told, she looked more edible than the eggs burning in the pan behind her. “You look fine without makeup.”

Instead of calming down, her eyes flashed. “ Fine . You mean fine for a mousy librarian surrounded by books, right? Why would I bother with makeup since no one expects me to be pretty?”

Christ. He took her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “That’s not what I’m saying and you goddamn well know it. If you weren’t determined to be so fucking difficult, I’d have no problem dragging you to the bedroom right here and now.” But he wasn’t some sex toy, here for her enjoyment. Ryan let her go and stepped back. “Since that’s not going to happen, why don’t you sit back with your book or something while I toss those eggs and make a scramble?”

She backed toward the stove, like she thought he was going to jump around her and grab the pan. “What’s wrong with my eggs?”

“For one, they’re burning. For two, I just watched you dump a day’s sodium intake onto them.”

“They’re fine .” She wielded the spatula, her chin up as if daring him to contradict her.