Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

whole lot of sense when she turned the corner and found Mick bent over in front of the refrigerator's open door.

Oh, my, but the man had a fantastic ass, leaning over the way he was, his back stretched in such a way that defined every one of his muscles not covered by white medical tape. She crossed her arms, propped a shoulder on the doorjamb. "Patsy's not going to like knowing her potatoes don't stick."

She gave him credit. He didn't jump. He straightened slowly, a hand to his bare but bandaged middle and turned. "I was looking for juice or a soda. Though a sandwich did cross my mind. I've got this metabolism thing going on."

"Uh-huh." She couldn't see his face. He stood in the dark, backlit by the light from inside of the fridge. But she could see that he had on shorts that, when she flipped on the overhead light, were almost a match to hers.

He seemed to realize it at about the same time, glancing from the pair she wore down at his own. Then he met her gaze with a grin.

"Don't even say it," she said, pushing away from the doorway and into the room.

"Hey, I like a woman who shares my taste in things," hesaid, and she simply repeated, "Uh-huh," because until she got a better handle on her hormonal bearings, she wasn't sure what else to say.

Men weren't supposed to be beautiful the way this one was, standing in her kitchen in nothing but shorts that covered his, uh, attributes but did nothing to conceal them. He might as well have been naked, and for the first time in many, many moons, the idea of being alone with a naked man had her sizzling with an awareness that went deeper than her skin.

She'd undressed him halfway at Ed's clinic, but his bare body then, laid out flat on his back, was nothing compared to his bare body now. Yes, the black-and-blue bruises were all still there, the bandages in the way, but knowing to expect them allowed her to overlook them.

To see past them to his lean waist and tightly cut abs, to his biceps and pecs that bulged so nicely, to the line of his shoulders, a broad testament to the fact that he was a man twice her size, one she couldn't believe that she wanted to get her hands on—especially when she thought back to the way she'd frozen at his touch.

But it was more than that: a fear that she would forget the threat of who he might be in favor of how easily he had stepped up when she'd needed someone on her side. And so she waved him toward the table and told him, "Go. Sit."

It took her less than five minutes to make him a sandwich, to pour them both a glass of milk, cut them both a slice of sour cream coffee cake, and to join him.

"I hate being unable to sleep," she said, once she'd set-tled into the chair across from the one he'd chosen at the kitchen's square table.

"I can still hit the road. I don't want my being here to keep you awake." He wrapped his big hands around the sandwich and bit in.

"It's not you," she said, amending her statement when he raised a disbelieving brow while he chewed. "Okay. It's not only you."

He swallowed, took a drink of milk. "Honesty is always the best policy."

"So says the mule deer hunter," she quipped, and he laughed. The sound was a rich echo of pleasure, one she en-joyed too much. She didn't need to associate good times with this man she still didn't know and still didn't trust completely.

"Why can't you sleep? Besides the distraction of me?" He palmed the sandwich again, distracting her further. "It's not like you didn't have enough going on today to exhaust an iron man."

"I don't know about that." She rolled her aching shoulders. "Though I've got to think swimming a couple of miles would be a close match to hauling you into the bed of my truck. Metabolism or not, you are no lightweight."

"I've been meaning to ask about that."

"About what?"

"Where you got those muscles."

She sputtered her milk. "Please. Don't make me laugh. If I had muscles, I wouldn't be aching like I've been hauling freight one-handed."

He hissed back a breath. "That bad, huh?"

"It's nothing like what you're suffering, but yeah. I'm not in the world's best shape."

"Guess that depends on the judge." He paused, added, "I'd say your shape's a pretty damn good one."

"As long as this isn't leading back to that horse-size thing, I'll take that as a compliment."

"I meant it as one. Not many women could've managed that feat." He'd been talking about the shape of her muscles not, as she'd thought, her tits and her ass.

Didn't she want to crawl under the table and hide? "Well, it's not like I hefted you over my shoulder or anything. It was just your basic cable and pulley engineering."

"Clever. And effective. And deserving of a proper thanks."

The cake in her mouth seemed suddenly dry and tasteless as her nerves began to stir. "You thanked me. You brought me chocolate."

He reached for his napkin, wiped his mouth. "Which you didn't eat."

"Yet." She took a drink of milk. "I will."

"Besides, it was a single-serving size. It only covers one thank-you."

"Is that how it works?" She was nervous. Why was she nervous?

He nodded. "I still owe you for the use of the guest room. And now for the food. And I never did thank you for taking in the dog."

"Look. You don't need to repay me for every little thing. And I certainly don't need any more chocolate."

"What about sleep?"

"Sure, but unless you've got a pill—"

"I've got something better."

"I'm not sleeping with you."

He laughed, a sharp desperate sound. "What I was going to offer isn't that good."

No. She wasn't going there. Not even mentally. She narrowed her gaze. "What then? Hypnosis? Bad sitcom reruns? Shakespeare?"

Another laugh, and more of