Page 10 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

But he had really nice legs.

“Good news, this barely looks swollen at all,” she told him.

“Is that good news?” he muttered under his breath.

“Most people would think so.” She had to stop staring at his ankle. Right. Now.

She looked up into his face instead, and that was worse.

She was kneeling between his legs. There wasn’t enough room for her to kneel anywhere else, but there it was. He was sitting with his legs apart, this huge dark crow of a man with eyes like splintered glass, whose expression of frustration only made him more goddamned attractive to her, somehow, and she was on her knees in front of him. His coat had fallen open over his legs. She followed the seam of his pants up to a telltale bulge.

The bag of frozen vegetables in her hand wouldn’t last a second, pressed against her blazing cheeks.

Deep breaths, Peony.

She inhaled, and Mordecai’s glittering eyes dropped from her face to her chest.

She was still wearing her party dress. It didn’t show much, but apparently that didn’t matter.

Hell, no one had looked at her like that before, even when shewasn’twearing clothes. Which hadn’t been often—she kept to a catch-and-release policy when it came to kissing frogs—but… still.

Mordecai’s throat worked. His eyes were back on her face, and something hungry passed behind them. “Miss Fisher—”

“Don’tMiss Fisherme. The least you could do is call me by my first name as you ruin my life.”

“I have no intention of ruining your life.”

“You could have fooled me!” His ankle wasn’t justbarelyswollen. It wasn’t swollen at all. Was he even hurt?

“You clearly don’t want to hear it, but regardless of your own feelings on the matter, I will not pretend it doesn’t exist.”

What was he talking about now?

“You won’t be left homeless. I have other properties around the city. You can have your pick of apartments.”

“Is this an offer you’ll be making all the residents or only the ones kneeling between your legs?”

His face went white, with a slash of red across his cheeks. “That isn’t— I don’t—Whatother residents?”

Peony’s jaw set. He wanted to play dirty? Remind her that she was practically the only person who still rented here?

Because even the promotion to manager didn’t come with enough of a raise to move anywhere else,a treacherous voice in her head said.Because you thought living here was some grand romantic adventure while you waited for your real life to begin, not a place you’d be stuck into your thirties while everyone else moved on.

Her chest ached, and suddenly she wasn’t upset—she was angry. Why did he have to come here and turn her life upside down? Why had she gone after him, of all stupid ideas, and brought him back to her room like an injured bird?

An injured evil crow,she thought.Or… or a bat. Something big, with wings and… scales…

She shook her head. What shereallywanted was to put him off-balance again. To provoke that expression of shock—and had she imagined the moment of naked longing before he locked himself away again behind that prissy scowl?

That. More of that.

“If you don’t want any special treatment, that can be arranged,” Mordecai said. Through gritted teeth.Actuallythrough gritted teeth. “I’ll offer everyone the same terms.”

“That’s very fair of you.”

“Let me make one thing clear.” He leaned forward, his broken-glass eyes piercing her. “I amnotdoing this out of a sense of fairness.”

It was like she was in a play but had forgotten her script. She had no idea what was going on. But the heat in his eyes left her breathless, and her body was making little encouraging noises—okay,bigencouraging noises—and everything else had gone wrong, so…

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