Page 33 of No Cap

In my purse right at that moment was a Glock 43 in Tiffany Blue—no, I didn’t go anywhere in downtown Dallas without carrying—a handful of granola bars, a couple of spare magazines, a small bottle of water, deodorant, my lunch for that day, and a lot of other odds and ends.

That was why I still had my head down searching for the key when I got the door open.

My fingers had just closed on the cool metal when I backed out of the door ass first.

Placing the bag down nicely right outside the door, I was just reaching up and moving Zilla’s tail out of the way to close the door when a deeply amused voice said, “An iguana?”

I froze, Zilla’s tail in my hand, and tried not to involuntarily give a full body shiver at the deep tone of the man’s voice.

I didn’t have to turn around and look to know who was behind me.

If the voice hadn’t alerted me, the way my body reacted to his close proximity would have.

I’d had my share of boyfriends—though only a very select few sexual partners—but none of them had made me feel like this. It was like some raw, magnetic, animal attractiveness to the man that I had no hope of controlling.

I could, however, hide the reaction my body had to him.

Luckily today I was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt, a bra, and my scrub top.

It may have been one hundred plus degrees outside during the hottest part of the day, but it was like Antarctica in the freakin’ hospital.

Quickly moving Zilla’s tail, I closed the door very gently, then locked the door without saying a word.

Then came the moment that I had to pick up my things and turn around.

I chose to pick up my things first, bending down to do so.

And, of course, that was when I felt the man’s solid warmth behind me.

I swallowed hard and stood up straight again, bag solidly in my hand, and acted for all the world like I wasn’t affected in the least.

Turning slowly, I was met with the most mouthwatering sight.

The man may be an ass, but man did he know how to fill out a pair of pants.

Dressed up for the day in ironed blue jeans that fit him like a glove, a long-sleeved dark gray shirt with barely visible white dots and a tiffany blue Ariat emblem on the left pocket tucked into his pants, and a dark brown western themed belt, he looked downright mouthwatering.

But that wasn’t the best part.

No, not even the cowboy boots covering his large feet were.

Nope, it was the black cowboy hat that fit snugly on his head, blocking out the beautiful blond waves of his hair.

His face was cleaned up a bit, no longer sporting the messy five o’clock shadow look. But he still had a beard, though a much neater one.

His eyes, dark tourmaline green, shone like jewels in the harsh lighting of my shitty apartment complex hallway.

He was also wearing glasses.

Wow. Now that was sexy!

I was the only one on this floor.

There were four apartments total on this level, but all of them were vacant but mine. Why were they vacant, do you ask? Because we were in the really bad part of downtown Dallas where there was a gang member on every corner. Not to mention there were a couple of drive-by shootings in this area every year.

But honestly, some people might’ve braved it like me if it wasn’t for the run-down building. Rent was cheap here, but there was a reason rent was cheap. The building was falling apart around our ears.

Over the years, all of my neighbors had dropped off from my floor. There were two on the floor below me, one below that floor, and one on the bottom floor.