The Beast in Him by Shelly Laurenston Page B

pressed the button on the elevator and checked her e-mail from her phone. The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. She pressed the ground floor button and went back to her phone. A rude reply from a rude client had her seeing blood red, and she immediately began typing a seriously vicious reply. Once she hit send it suddenly occurred to her the doors hadn’t opened. She glanced up and realized the floor numbers didn’t seem to be moving either.
    “Took you long enough.”
    Startled by the low voice—and damn him that sexy slow drawl—Jess snarled and slammed her back against the opposite elevator wall.
    “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Don’t sneak up on me like that, Bobby Ray!”
    “Sorry, darlin’. Didn’t mean to startle you into blaspheming. Though I’m never quite sure how you don’t know when someone’s standing right next to you. We’re supposed to have enhanced skills.”
    “I was taking care of something.”
    “So I could see. Man, those little fingers move fast.”
    “They’re not little.”
    He grabbed hold of her right forefinger and lifted her hand. “Like a leprechaun’s hands.”
    Trying not to notice how good his rough fingers felt on hers, she snatched her hand back. After all these years—and with her at a cool five feet nine inches—Smitty still called her small. Of course, compared to those linebackers he called She-wolves...
    “They are not like a leprechaun’s hands! Now, is there a reason you stopped the elevator?”
    “I see you still have your allergy to flowers,” he said, stunning her that he actually remembered after all these years. “Is that why you left the room without talking to me?”
    “Talk to you?”
    “Yeah, remember? I told you I wanted to talk to you.”
    “Okay.” Resigned to her fate, Jess waited for him to say something. After a good three minutes of mutual staring, she realized that wouldn’t be happening. “And what would you like to talk about, Bobby Ray?”
    “First off, feel free to call me Smitty. Everyone does now. And second, I wanted to talk about you.”
    “What about me?”
    “I’d like to know what you’ve been doing all this time. Where you went. How you got here.”
    Truly perplexed, she asked, “Why?”
    “’Cause I’m interested.”
    Jess gave a short shake of her head. “No.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    She hit the elevator button and the doors opened on the same floor, but Bobby Ray—Smitty—hit it again and the doors closed.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Trying to talk to you.”
    “I said no.”
    “Why not?”
    “Is your sister in town with you?”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “And Ronnie Lee Reed?”
    “Yeah, she is—”
    “Then I have nothing to say.”
    She hit the elevator button again and so did Smitty. “What do they have to do with anything?”
    “They made my life hell. For all I know, you guys are just setting me up for some cruel joke. I’ll end up walking down the street like in Carrie, wearing a prom dress and covered in pig’s blood.”
    Smitty shook his head. “I don’t understand anything of what you just said.”
    “Yeah, I know. We’ve never spoken the same language.”
    “You mean English?”
    “No, geek. Now if you’ll excuse me... ” Again, she hit the button. And again, so did he. “Would you stop doing that!”
    “Then stop trying to rabbit away from me.”
    Frustrated and getting kind of worked up being trapped in such a small box with one testosterone-saturated male, Jess crossed her arms over her chest and braced her legs apart. “What do you want, Smith?”
    He stared at her for a long moment before finally saying, “I thought we could hang out.”
    “Hang out?”
    “Jessie Ann, we were friends. I’d like to continue that.”
    “Friends?” Now Jess stared. “You are setting me up. Did your sister put you up to this? Little more torture for the dog. For Spot?”
    “I didn’t know she called you that. And just leave her out of this. I’m talking about you and me spending