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thought should have outraged her. Instead heat pooled deep in her abdomen and throbbed between her legs. A fine time for her hormones to decide to do the cha-cha. Not that they hadn’t been practicing that little step for months now, since the first time she’d seen the handsome cop.
    She reached for the clothes and managed to get the panties on one-handed with maximum struggle. Exhausted, shoulder throbbing, she sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the shorts with their neat little zipper and button. No way.
    â€œNeed help?” Jack stood in the doorway looking impossibly handsome, one muscled shoulder propped against the doorframe. He was casually dressed in khaki shorts and a navy T-shirt with MPD emblazoned across the chest in bold white letters. His short dark hair was appealingly tousled.
    He watched her with that blue intensity she was becoming used to, but this time it was warmed by sympathy…and something more. Something that made her increasingly aware she wore nothing beneath the oversize tee but a thin pair of panties.
    She tried to give him her chilly look, to push him away, but she was so far from cold it wasn’t funny, so she glared at him instead and held up the shorts. “I suppose you know how to get these on since you took them off.” The thought of him peeling them off her had her hands shaking. She struggled to keep her voice even, struggled to meet his gaze.
    He pushed away from the door and came to kneel in front of her, inches from her bare legs, his face nearly on a level with hers. He held out his hand for the shorts. She handed them to him as her gaze roamed the strong planes of his face—his pronounced cheekbones, his strong, faintly stubbled chin. The firm mouth that even now tilted into a sensual smile.
    With effort, she tore her gaze away, but his warm scent wrapped around her, sending need rippling through her body.
    Damn hormones.
    â€œHow you feeling?” he asked.
    His words, the movement of those lips, pulled her gaze back to him and she couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have that mouth pressed against hers.
    How was she feeling? Like a woman who hasn’t had sex in eight years.
    She took a deep breath, struggling to find air, scrambling for an appropriate answer. “Hot. Sore. Definitely sore.”
    She caught a glimpse of laughter in his eyes before his mouth compressed with sympathy. He set the shorts on the floor at her feet.
    â€œStep in.” He rose and held out his hand to her. “Can you stand?”
    She wanted to say, “of course,” but she wasn’t sure. It annoyed her that she might need help, yet she took his hand. “Let’s find out.”
    He gave her a small, approving smile and closed his warm hand around hers. Pure attraction hit her hard. She struggled to keep her face impassive.
    â€œOkay?” he asked.
    Her bare feet sank into the soft beige carpeting. “So far, so good.”
    â€œThe room’s not spinning?” A hint of a smile lifted the words.
    Oh, yeah, it was spinning all right. Just not the way he meant. She had to get rid of that lethal smile of his before it caused her to do something she’d regret. Like smile back. He could not know what he was doing to her. He’d have power over her she desperately couldn’t afford to give him.
    She met his probing gaze with a glare. “I’m fine,” she snapped, pleased with the bitchy sound even as it extinguished the teasing light in his eyes. She felt only a twinge of regret.
    With swift, clinical movements, he pulled the shorts up and over her bottom. No lingering touches, no seductive fumbling.
    But it didn’t matter. Her body was like dry brush ready to ignite. The rough slide of his thumbs over her thighs and hips as he pulled up the shorts, the warm touch of his fingers at her stomach as he fastened the button, set up a throbbing between her legs just below the place he reached for the