Free Sweet Revenge by Katherine Allred Page A

about thirty minutes.
    It felt like she was smothering. Jessie kicked the light blanket away from her. Her cotton nightshirt, damp with sweat, was glued uncomfortably to her body. The damn air conditioner was at it again, she realized. There was no middle ground with the thing. You either fried or you froze. First thing Monday she’d try to find someone who could fix it.
    Pushing the blanket farther down, she slid out of bed and headed for the window, making a detour to turn on the ceiling fan. The night air had to be cooler than the air inside her room.
    The wooden frame on the window was partially stuck. She was wondering if she were going to have to break the glass to get any relief when there was a sudden give and it slid all the way up. She sighed as the cool air washed over her and her attention wandered to the house behind her own. There was a light on in the room directly across from hers, and the blinds were slit just enough to give her a clear view of the interior.
    She stared in fascination at what had to be Chase’s room. The distance across the two backyards was small. From where she was standing, the foot of a bed was clearly visible. It was a four-poster in a dark wood, possibly cherry. The spread was an Indian design, its colors in blocks of blue, maroon and white. A gainst the wall was a dresser that matched the bed, a huge mirror rising above the main body.
    The only thing that seemed to be on the dresser was a wooden tray a few shades lighter than the surface on which it rested.
    A t least her curiosity was satisfied. His room was as clean as his car had been. She was about to turn away when movement caught her eye. Suddenly Chase appeared, a hanger in his hand. He’d already removed his tux jacket and his shirt was unbuttoned, hanging loosely on the outside of his pants.
    He put the hanger on the foot of the bed and moved to the dresser, his hands going to the cuffs of his shirt. Jessie watched, her breath caught tight in her lungs, as he removed his cuff links and tossed them into the tray.
    Turning back to the bed, he let the shirt slide off his shoulders and deposited it next to the hanger. Bare from the waist up, he lifted both hands and rubbed them back and forth through his thick hair, tousling it into a ragged mop. If she’d had false teeth, there was little doubt she would have swallowed the chattering set whole.
    In the flesh, he was even more perfect than her dreams had led her to believe. Bronze skin covered the muscles of his broad shoulders and arms. Muscles and sinew that bunched and relaxed with his motions, creating an answering echo low inside her. His chest was sprinkled with dark hair that tapered into a vee over his flat stomach, mimicking the shape of his upper body.
    Oh, God. She shouldn’t be standing here in the dark watching him. She had sworn that she was going to be very careful where Chase Martin was concerned. Yet, after little more than a week she had been reduced to a Peeping Tom. A nd she couldn’t even fool herself into believing that the heat running through her had anything to do with the room’s temperature. It was all due to the man she was ogling like a love-starved teenager.
    She had to stop. She’d almost convinced her reluctant body to move when he reached down and unfastened his belt. Her feet came to a halt as though someone had nailed them to the floor, and her heart quit beating.
    Casually, he unzipped the black trousers and let them drop over his slim hips. Jessie’s breath whistled in though her parted lips. Dear lord, the man couldn’t even wear plain cotton boxers like she’d expected. Instead he was wearing a pair of navy blue silk boxers that left little to the imagination. A nd she didn’t need her imagination to see there was nothing little about him. That couldn’t possibly be real, could it? But the outline was there in plain sight.
    Her heart started beating again, making up for lost time by doubling its speed. He stepped out of the pants