Guardian by Kaitlyn O'Connor (digital book reader .TXT) 📕

thought she’d seen and explain it away. Hethought it was his eyes, but how the fuck would he know? It couldbe anything.

Little snoop!

Not but what he didn’t admireeverything about her, that included—she’d make a hell of aranger!—but it was damned inconvenient.

He settled in his favorite chair aftera little bit and started mentally reviewing the reasoning behindhis decision, but he honestly could not see an option.

It might work.

It might not work.

It might end up just getting him indeeper, but as far as he could see he had nothing to lose andeverything gain.

He checked his chrono again andcalculated the time difference and decided he had plenty of time totry a little horizontal tango.

Getting up, he headed to the door, butbraked when he got there. Turning around, he headed to the bathroomand took out the damned eye pieces and used them to cover his eyesto make them look like human eyes.

They irritated the hell out of hiseyes, but he could not count on the damned sunglasses staying inplace if he got the chance to romance her.

He left then and strode down thehallway to her apartment and rapped on the door, cocking one ear tolisten for footsteps.

She did not call out in response andhe did not hear footsteps approaching.

He checked his chrono and decided heshould head back to his place and give her a few minutes just incase she was in the middle of something and had not heardhim.

While he waited, he scanned theapartment for any sign of anything in sight that was alien to herworld.

There was the food senthisizer in thekitchen, but he decided it looked enough like a machine they usedcalled micro wave that she probably would not notice.

And he would not allow her to use itso she would never know that it transported food for him when hewas in the mood for human food.

The bed linens were relatively clean.He sprayed them down for good effect to make sure they were freshsmelling and sanitized and then haphazardly straightened thebedding. He checked the bathroom next and then completed thecircuit in the living area by setting up service for a dinner onhis low area table.

An actual dining table would probablyhave been more welcome, but he had what he had.

Satisfied, he headed back down thehallway and rapped on Marilyn’s door again.

* * * *

Marilyn was still so jittery after herexperience that the hard knock made her jump and she nearly droppedthe pan she’d just taken from the oven.

She’d felt like she was crawling withgerms after she’d wallowed all over the floor and headed in to takea nice long hot shower with lots of soap and scrubbing. Feelingclean and relaxed once she got out, she decided to add a facial tothe ritual since she’d leached all the oils from her skin and itwas tight and tingling.

When she’d dried off, she’d thrown herrobe on instead of dressing right away and searched her fridge forthe makings of a meal.

Settling on meatloaf, she mixed it upand threw it into the oven and then headed into her bedroom tosearch for something loose and comfy.

The jogging suit she’d just gottenwould have been just the thing, even if she wasn’t going jogging atnight, but she hadn’t washed it yet and she didn’t particularlytrust the store to have cleaned everything they put out for resale.Instead she grabbed a well worn, very loose t-shirt and an equallyworn pair of loose knit slacks.

Padding barefoot into the kitchen areaagain, she’d just pulled her meatloaf from the oven to pour off thejuices when someone pounded on the door of her apartment in a rudedemand for attention.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she whippedher head toward the door, as if she could see through it,waiting.

When the pounding came again shedecided it must be the cops. Nobody pounded on the door like theywould break down except the cops.

“What the hell?” shemuttered, but she set the pan down, closed the oven and hurried tothe door. “Coming!”

She nearly passed out when shesnatched the door open and discovered Jarrod was standing in thedoorway, leaning on the frame.

He favored her with a slow, sexysmile. “Hello beautiful.”

The instant he said it, Marilynremembered the facial.

Not before. After she’d answered the door withmud all over her face.

Slapping a hand to her cheek, shediscovered that, yes, it was covered with goop, dried now, uttereda gasp of horror, slung the door toward closed, and took off to thebathroom.

Jarowd decided it must be aninvitation since she had not actually slammed it in his face.Pushing the door open, he strolled inside, carefully closed thedoor behind him and waited patiently while she was in the bathroom,splashing in the water.

She let out a gasp on the edge of ascream when she returned with a towel over her face and pulled itdown and saw him, jumping all over. “Oh my god! Jarrod!”

He favored her with another slow grin.“So … I’m thinking we should get better acquainted since we keeprunning in to each other. Maybe a providence thing. I came toinvite you to dinner … My place.”

Marilyn gaped at him, so thrilled bythe invitation that it took her several moments to begin to turn itover in her mind.

It sounded like a very straightforwardflirtation, but could she really believe it? Just take it at facevalue?

The truth was, she didn’t just thinkhe was drop dead gorgeous. She had been struggling with a nuclearattraction from the moment she’d first set eyes on him.

She desperately wanted to believe hewas as attracted to her as vice versa—or even a littleattracted—but doubt set in.

What if it was only that he realizedshe was suspicious and he wanted to invite her to his place andchoke her and dispose of her body?

Actually, he was standing in herliving room, she pointed out to herself. If that was his intentionthere wasn’t any reason he couldn’t do it in herapartment.

God! She’d let him in! In spite of thesuspicions she hadn’t been able to put to rest, he’d knocked on herdoor and she’d let him walk right in.

And her purse full of deterrents wasin her bedroom.

She went from hot and panting to coldand shivering and back again so