Page 2 of Tight Spaces

"What kind of repairs?"

"Man, you’re as bad as my brother." They hadn’t even made it out of the entry, and she was already getting the third-degree.

Really as bad as her brother and maybe taken up a notch. Roman might have let her get her stuff put out of the way before he started asking the probing questions. Then again, maybe not.

"I’ll take that as a compliment." Then Max just waited, like he had all the time in the world to wait for her answer.

Like it never even occurred to him she might refuse to do so.

Knowing there was no use in attempted prevarication, she sighed. "They’re replacing the front door."

"Why?"

"Does it matter?" Sheesh.

He leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms, muscles bulging everywhere. "I won’t know until you tell me."

"Someone broke it." She was proud of herself for getting the words out considering how difficult she was finding the simple process of breathing right now.

This man? Was lethal.

"Who?" he demanded, frown firmly in place.

Oh, crud, even his not-so-happy face was sexy, yummy, heart palpitatingly delicious. "I don’t know."

"A break-in?" he asked in that tone her brother got sometimes, the one she secretly called his work voice.

"An attempted one, yes. Whoever it was didn’t expect the crazy loud alarm Elle installed the last time she visited."

Neither had she. It had woken Danusia from an exhausted sleep after too many hours going over research data. If her heart wasn’t so healthy, it would have stopped.

She only hoped whoever had tried breaking in and disturbed her sleep hadn’t been so lucky.

"You don’t talk like a professor."

"That’s because I’m a student." Sort of. She was an Assistant Professor during the school year, but it was summer, and she was firmly in researching student mode.

"Roman said you’re getting your PhD."

She shrugged. Playing down her academic accomplishments was a long-held habit for her.

He looked her up and down. "You’re pretty young to be going for your doctorate, aren’t you?"

"Not if you consider I started college when most of my peers were starting high school." When even being reminded of how out of step with her peer group she was didn’t dampen his effect on her libido, she was in serious trouble.

"That’s my point."

"Point?"

"Don’t play dumb, professor. We both know you’re smarter than that."

"Don’t call me professor."

He just gave her a look.

"Being younger than my peers is bad enough, I don’t need to talk like a total geek, on top of it." The normal college student speak was something she worked diligently on. It was too easy to let five-syllable words slip into the conversation when she wasn’t thinking about it.

"Why not? You should be proud to be so intelligent."