Everything But Perfect Read Free Page B

Cairo, you will never have to see me
again, sweetheart.” Giving her a lazy grin to eat away at the very core of her being,
he added, “Perhaps you find my irresistible charms too much for your delicate
sensitivities.”
    Ugh . Trying hard not to let him ruin
the rest of her day, she quickly rummaged through her duffel to pay him back
for her meal. Now was as good as any to dispose of an association with this man.
    “You needn’t bother,” he said.
    Her head rose. “Bother with what?”
If she could not get this over with, she doubted she would have the courage to
speak civil to him at any other time. She was still fuming over a man who could
not properly accept an apology. Nevertheless, there was something about him
drawing her in, making her think and react abnormally.
    “Consider it a gift for my unruly
behavior of earlier.” His mocha eyes then darkened and narrowed in on her.
    Was he actually apologizing to
her for being a rude ass? Did the earth tip off its axis?
    “I don’t want to owe you,” she
said, as a full grin put meaning behind these words. She would rather die than
owe this man for her meal.
    Somehow, her smiling at him triggered
the muscles in his jaw to twitch. He had yet to release his grip on her wrist
and it was getting painful. He was hurting her, yet did not seem to notice. The
fierceness of his grip drew her eyes down to her wrist.
    No matter how good looking, or
how much the human body wanted contact with another of the opposite sex, sound
advice was to heed to the warning of ‘stranger danger’. “Please let go?” She nodded
at her wrist, expecting he’d cooperate.
    He did drop her wrist, but he
would not apologize for this latest incident.
    Large red fingerprints surrounded
her tender flesh. For it, a temper possessed from little on was about to
explode. “Think of your buying my meal as payment for this,” she ground out,
holding her wrist in his face.
    His eyes roamed over the bruising
marks, but he spoke nothing of it.
    As the train began to slow, Cheyanne
thrown off-balance, she fell into the seat next to her. He offered not one bit
of help to her. He did bend down to her level to whisper in her ear again.
    “They match the claw marks on my
inner thigh from your fingernails, sweetheart. Consider that, when you want to
rip a man to shreds by mere words.”
    Heat flooded her face as she
realized what he meant—exactly. The humiliation was a definite presence clouding
her thoughts.
    Not only had she used his
shoulder for a pillow, she used his leg for the buried treasure always out of
her reach.
    Oh God!
     
    ****
    Mitch picked up his leather case
on the sidewalk and headed into the hotel. He was certainly in no mood to waste
time sweating in this heat. A man in need of a cool drink and cool bath, he stepped
inside, was shown to a room, and tossing his things on the bed, headed to the
bathroom.
    One more day in this godforsaken
place of dust and desert and hauntingly mysterious women, his fears were turning
swiftly toward whichever came first to kill him, he would accept.
     
    ****
    Six hundred seventy million
people in Africa and she could not get away from just one? The sooner she was
in New York, the better.
    Shamefully ignoring his tiresome staring
from across the room, she tried in vain to find something far more interesting
inside the restaurant than him. Nothing captured her attention.
    A swift wave of regret hit her
hard. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Why would it bother her so much to
have him staying in the same hotel, then , disappear from the restaurant the
moment she turns her head—when earlier, wishing him to find a painful demise at
the end of a long rope.
    She set the long stem glass down,
very carefully, her fingers betraying her, the glass almost tipping over. God,
how awful the feeling of reproach was.
    Glancing at the bruising around
her wrist reminded her of how his gentle touch had turned on her. He’d done her
an injustice—perhaps a favor, in