Betrayal of the Dove (Men of Action) Read Online Free Page A

her throat. “This is where you’ll be, and of course you’ve seen the store. That’s all there is to it.”
     
    “There’s a backdoor;” he stated, not asked.
     
    “Yes, um…okay, let me lock the front and we’ll go.” She locked up the front door and flipped the Be Right Back sign to the facing out position. “Come with me,” she went to a door just down from the cash register. “Through here,” she pulled open the door and he followed her. “There’s no dress code really,” she said. “So you can wear whatever you want, just please don’t come in here with your pants hanging down around your thighs,” she shook her head to shake the image from her mind. “Not that you look like the kind of guy who would go for that sloppy, I forgot my belt and my pants are three sizes too big, look.” He was quick to assure her she didn’t need to worry about that look on his body at all. “Down this hall, that door back there is the backdoor for the store.” When they reached the door, she watched him survey the lock as he looked up at the miniature light bulb lighting the hallway. He shook his head. Great, he wasn’t happy with that either. She knew the light wasn’t perfect. It had a tendency to give off that Hollywood horror flick feel, but short of getting an electrician in to rewire the place there was nothing she could do about it.
     
    “This is all you have?”
     
    She sighed an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, that’s all I have,” she nearly snapped. She watched him take a small file from his back pocket and fiddle with the lock for all of two seconds before it easily gave way. He opened the door, looked at her and then closed it back, turning the lock back to close. Yes, she saw the problem now, but that didn’t mean she was going to tell him that. If he kept pointing out everything that was wrong with her store she was going to need a mountain of paper for the list.
     
    “And that’s your place up there,” once again he stated, not asked.
     
    “Yes, that’s the door to my place.” She turned. “Are you ready to go back out front now?”
     
    “No,” he said simply before walking up the stairs without her. If he jimmied the lock to her door she was going to flip the little light bulb he didn’t seem to like to the off position and leave him to find his way out of there on his own.
     
    He looked back down at her before performing the same action on her house door that he had on the backdoor. It gave way and he pushed the door open. “Not even a squeak,” he said. “And this is a flat so there’s nowhere for you to run.”
     
    “The bathroom,” she said without thinking.
     
    “Let’s check it out.”
     
    “No!” She ran up the stairs as she noticed he wasn’t listening to her. She didn’t stop until she caught up with him. He was already inside her bathroom. She felt her cheeks flush and she was sure she was at least five different shades of red. She had washed her underwear, panties, bras and stockings out by hand and they were hanging over her bath and in her shower to dry. She felt so embarrassed knowing her undies were out there for him to survey. Little peach, yellow, rose pink and fire red mixed with midnight blue lace, satin and cotton sweet nothings were just dangling there for him to see.
     
    “I just washed those,” she said. “It doesn’t normally look like this,” she felt the need to explain that she was not a total mess when it came to her place. He just nodded and took one more look at her bathroom before looking at the lock.
     
    “This lock isn’t going to keep anybody out,” he slapped his palm against the door. “Neither is this door. One kick and whoever wants in is getting in.”
     
    “Great,” she mumbled as she tried to take any of the dry pieces of clothing down. She realized now that she was actually drawing attention to her underwear—more attention than she needed to—just by her own actions.
     
    He walked back out into the main