Lipstick on His Collar Read Online Free PDF Page B

feeling one damn bit. He was sorry he’d found her, all the intense sudden elation at seeing her again stripped away, leaving him raw. Her rejection was a rusty knife in his gut.
    That night had been… It was the stuff of fantasies. Now, her less-than-stellar greeting tarnished it, cheapened it, cheapened him. He felt used.
    He found two side-by-side machines not in use far away from the counter. Jerkily, he separated his clothes into two basic loads—lights and darks—and stole fast, angry peeks at her. Like an automaton, she moved with precision, no wasted efforts or motions, her face a mask of blankness. She pried open the rings and carefully realigned all the pages in the folder. Her hands shook and Bram took a miserly satisfaction in that.
    The bells over the door jangled but he barely heard them through his humiliation. A vending machine along a sidewall held an array of laundry products. He hit the buttons for a double package of liquid Tide laundry detergent in Renewing Rain scent. Rain .
    The image of wet trails along her breasts, the way the downpour had spiked her lashes and molded that sinful scrap of a dress to her body burst into his mind. A lump rose in his throat, a burning lump of salt-tinged ache that he swallowed with effort. He didn’t want to think about that now, not on the heels of her shoving him away.
    He fed the coins into the slots and slammed it into engaging with far too much angry force. The side-by-side machines filled and began their shake-and-shimmy cleaning dance, and he settled onto a hard plastic chair intent on ignoring her. For fifteen minutes, he tried to convince himself that whatever intoxicating aura surrounded her, surrounded them, last July was nothing more than a product of the sweltering heat and his severely limited sex life.
    It had been months since he’d had any type of sexual encounter. Work had been simply too demanding. He’d had to have been plain old horny and projected that onto his anonymous goddess. Sharing secrets and touches, dreams and kisses, fears and orgasms, nothing had been held back that night…except her name. No amount of cajoling could make her give up her name. He’d tried, finally accepting she was just lady .
    Lady. Did that make him the Tramp?
    Shame descended like a firestorm, scalding him. Damn, why was he torturing himself like this, lusting after some nameless bombshell? Why hadn’t he walked out, dirty laundry be damned? Because you are a masochistic asshole who wondered “what if” and, barring that, wanted to feed your vivid sexual fantasies, that’s why .
    The iron grip he had on the belief that night had meant more than just mind-blowing sex brought his gaze back to her. Her eyes were no longer filled with regret but shone with annoyance. A tall blond man gestured angrily, and his tightened lips said something that shot her brows upward. The braid along her shoulder rocked wildly as she shook her head. The man glared at her reorganized binder then knocked it off the counter with an irritated shove. She dove to catch it.
    The guy pointed his finger in her face, his frame shaking with fury. Bram’s eyes narrowed. She held the binder to her chest, defiance blazing from her eyes until they sparkled like gemstones. The masculine fist that smacked the counter made her jump and Bram shot to his feet.

    Jason was a bomb and his fuse was shrinking, so she kept the counter between them. He came down every night after work, trying to convince her they were meant to be. They were meant to be a closed case, he just didn’t get it. He hadn’t gotten it for months. He was an insurance broker, for God’s sake, he wasn’t stupid. What was so hard to understand about “goodbye, loser”?
    “There is no way in hell you’re taking that job.”
    “I don’t need your permission, Jason.”
    The glint of control she’d once mistaken for love flashed bright in his eyes. His lip curled over orthodontically perfected teeth clenched in fury. Anger