Page 6 of Personal Disaster

Maybe you can chase her through the forest and convince her to let you peek up her skirt.

Not happening.

I slam on the brakes and jerk the truck off the path. She scrambles to hang on to her recorder, her skirt, her plan of seduction.

I don’t care. I point to her door. “Getout.”

“Excuse me?” She spins around, looking back up theroad.

Yeah, we’re a few miles from where she left hercar.

Not my problem.

“Get. Out.”

“You get out,” she says hotly.

Fine.

I leap out the driver’s side and stalk around to herdoor.

More thigh greets me as she holds up her hand—clearly, she’s figured out I’m serious, and she doesn’t want me to touchher.

Fine by me. I don’t want to touch her either. Not much, anyway. Definitely not in anger.

I actually want to touch her way too much for a stranger who’s poking around mylife.

I step back and cross my arms over my chest. “What are you playingat?”

She slithers to the ground and straightens her dress. “Nothing.”

“With your little display in the truck.”

“What display?”

“Letting your skirt ride up. Biting your thumb. Turning off the recorder.”

Her eyes go wide as I list what she did. She stares at me, stock-still, then gasps again and shoves her hands hard against my chest. “You… you… you…”

I step back, and she shoves me again.

“You… beast!” She laughs, and shakes her head, but when her gaze collides with mine, there’s no humor there. Just angry, pissed-off woman. “Okay, let’s start at the top. I’m wearing a skirt. Yes. I have legs, that’s a fun fact, too. And you saw part of them. Whoop-di-fucking-doo, Ranger Boy. Second, if I was biting my thumb, it was to keep from criticizing your reckless fucking driving. And finally, I turned off my recorder because this interview is a waste of my fucking time. And if you think for a hot second that I might use my feminine wiles to get a story out of you, you’re a fucking asshole who deserves to be hunted down by paparazzi. I’ll make sure that happens just as soon as I get off this fucking godforsaken mountain.”

“You’re going to give up, just like that?” I move forward again, crowding into her personal space. “Lose your story?”

“There’s no story here,” she spits, her jaw set and her eyes glittering. “Not one worth writing.”

“Because I barked atyou?”

“Because you leered atme.”

I had done that. Twice. Maybe three times. And I’d done it mostly to scare her away, but also a little bit because she itched at me. That itch now flares up, hot and red and annoyingly principled. “I was trying to scare youoff.”

She laughs again without humor. “It worked, you pervert. How the fuck am I supposed to get back to my car now? Because I’m sure as hell not getting back in your truck.”

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