by Ally Blake
“I don’t much care what you think you need, Miss Bloom, so you’re going to have to put up with me.”
“Aren’t you meant to be at work?”
“I’m the boss. I can be wherever the hell I want to be.”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled.
“That’s more like it.”
“Ha! Don’t get used to it, buddy.”
“Hmm, the day I do will probably be the day we’re done.”
She flinched as if he’d slapped her. Then schooled her face as if nothing was wrong. He wanted to slap himself.
He couldn’t help himself. Since the blow-out in his conference room, when he’d had the perfect chance to end things amicably and hadn’t, he’d been all over the shop. Wanting her with a ferocity he couldn’t contain, while at the same time constantly reminding her, and himself, of their imminent demise.
He peeled her hand from the door handle and slammed the door. Then he led her past the newly painted hallway—where did the woman find the time?—into the kitchen, to find a disaster area.
Bits of vinyl torn up all over, bits still stuck, a few gouges out of the floor as if she’d taken to it with a mallet and a chisel.
He looked over his shoulder to find her frowning at the floor. “We seem to have met an impasse.”
The magnitude of the job hit him. Along with the fact that she ran her own business, and that he’d been stealing every spare moment she had, while hampering her work by refusing to help her out by being her lab rabbit.
He’d thought he worked hard, but the woman didn’t rest. And as he watched her frown at the floor, as if her entire self-worth was wrapped up in whether or not she could strip vinyl, it occurred to him why. The loser boyfriends, her distant father and getting things done were all she thought she was good for.
It put his own reasons for working his ass off to shame.
“It’s a big job, Saskia. Maybe you should call a tiler—”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can,” said Nate. “I get the feeling you’ve done just that your whole life.”
Looking into those big bedroom eyes, over that soft pink mouth, twisting sideways as she tried to deny the undeniable, Nate said, “Today it’s my turn.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a promise. And after only the slightest of hesitations Saskia nodded, her eyes melted and she let him.
* * *
With a tear in the front pocket and a stain that might or might not be dog food on his knee, the pants of his lucky suit were officially ruined. But the vinyl was gone—every last dot of the damn stuff—and, covered in the sweat of a job well done, Nate felt amazing.
He’d ditched his shirt an hour before. Saskia’s overalls hung from her waist, leaving her in a tank top. Her hair was plastered to her neck and cheeks with sweat and her cheeks were smudged with dust.
When she realised they were done she brushed her hands together and let out a great sigh. She looked up at him and grinned.
“Happy?” he asked.
“Delirious! Thank you,” she said, shaking her head as if she was amazed at herself for having let him help at all.
He ran a thumb over a smudge on her cheek. “Partners in grime.”
She laughed again, the sound husky. Her big, dark, sooty-lashed eyes blinked up at him. Filled with more than thanks. Filled with so many things he’d barely pinned one down before it floated dreamily to the next. And even while he was smart enough to understand them, and hard enough not to want them, using a finger to tilt her chin he kissed her.
Her hands fluttered to his bare chest, the soft touch searing him. And like that they kissed—gentle, sweet, exploring kisses—for so long he lost track of time.
Her hands slid over his shoulders, deep into his hair, and she lifted onto her toes, taking the kiss deeper. He lifted her, desire pouring through him like a relentless waterfall, and pressed her back till she hit the bench. He tore her overalls down her legs, lifted her tank top, fell to his knees. He kissed her belly. Her salty taste hit the back of his throat and he groaned. Her fingers drove tracks through his hair as his teeth found her hipbone. His tongue her belly button. His mouth her centre.
With such sweet sensuality she melted in his arms, coming with a shudder he felt mirroring his own.
Then he lifted her into his arms, her slick skin sliding against his as he took her into her bedroom. He peeled off her damp clothes. Pressed her hair from her face. Wiped away the grime with her tank, leaving her clean and glowing. So fresh and beautiful he felt it pierce his heart.
“What will you do when you don’t have me around to do that to you?” he asked, steeling himself against the sensation, against her. Brutal as it was, he wanted to know she’d miss him. Needed to know she’d feel it when he was gone.
Her eyes narrowed. Glinted. And then her hands began a slow trek down her naked sides, dipping into the dips, curving over the curves, driving him into near insanity.
“I can take care of myself,” she said, her voice low and clear. “Been doing so my whole life.”
Nate’s smile came from deep within. “Today it’s my turn.”
This time there was no hesitation. Saskia lay back on the bed, her arms behind her head, her eyes cloudy with desire as she let him take her to oblivion and back.
Her eyes, those gorgeous brown depths, lit with passion and need and bone-deep tenderness, looked right into him as he buried himself inside her slick heat, and he came harder than he remembered coming his entire life.
* * *
Nate lay in Saskia’s big soft bed, staring at the rainbows shifting across the pale pink ceiling—moonlight glinting off the chandelier of colourful plastic discs. Her smooth, lean leg was entwined around his, her breath was shifting the hairs on his chest, the soft heat at her centre pressed against his side.
She sighed and he tilted his head to look at her.
“What’s up?” he asked, his voice barely a croak.
“I will miss this,” she croaked back, her fingers playing with the hair on his chest.
“Don’t blame you.”
“Though I’m not sure why I ever thought you charming,” she said with a laugh.
She snuggled closer. And he let her. He’d miss it too. For a while. Then he wouldn’t. That was how it went. Though when he tried to imagine going about his days without her in them, his nights without her warm body melted against him, he didn’t like what he saw.
For a split second he allowed himself to imagine an after. A few more dates, a few more DVD sessions, a few more drinks with friends, a few more nights like this. Then he stopped himself.
He might be selfish, but he hoped he wasn’t a selfish bastard.
He knew this was getting harder for her. He knew her feelings for him weren’t purely sexual. She just wasn’t that good a liar. But, while he’d be happy with a little more contentment in his life, she wanted happily-ever-after. And that wasn’t something he was willing to deliver.
Start as you intend to finish, he told himself. Be honest, friendly, and most important be resolute. It was past time to begin the great unwind.
“The charm thing,” he said. “It’s all an act.”
She moved onto her elbows and looked into his face, her eyes fierce as she said, “Don’t you believe it.”
He took her hand and held it at his chest as he tried to find the words he needed. The words he knew she’d need, which somehow mattered more.
“After my father died,” he began, his eyes on the ceiling again, “after the effort of the following few years, I was running on empty. If I was ever going to run a business without being attuned to every employee’s emotional up-and-down I had to...stop caring. It worked. I did what I had to do to—charmed, led astray, hedged, profiteered—to carve a life for myself. The life I wanted. An
d I have that. And it’s enough.”
“You need to give yourself more credit.”
“I think I’m awesome. How’s that for credit?”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted to one side. Cutest woman he’d ever known, he thought. He stroked his thumb across the corner of her mouth and her eyes closed dreamily.
He let his hand drop, kicking himself for undoing any headway his little speech might have made. But he’d get there. He had no choice.
“Promise me something?” he said. “When this is all said and done...”
“Anything.”
“You’ll give yourself more credit.”
“I can do that. Promise me something.”
Anything. It hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t offer that. “Hit me.”
“Stay ruffled.”
Then she lifted a hand and ran it through his hair gently, fondly, with an intimacy he wasn’t sure he’d felt since he was a kid.
“Unruffled, you’re pretty cute. Ruffled, you’re just plain irresistible.”
She was ruffled, soft, pink-cheeked. Her hair mussed, her eyes hot and wanting. She was the definition of irresistible. This precocious creature, this spark in his day, the laughter in his thoughts, the wild cat in his bed, with her pushy little digs she was the incitement to spread his wings.
He lifted his hand to her cheek, waited till she looked him in the eye, and said, “Resist.”
She breathed deep, her shoulders lifting, and said, “I’m trying.”
And then, belying her words, she slid over him, her softness melting into him, turning him hard as a rock.
She lifted to her knees, holding her hair from her neck as she sank over him. Arching her back, she lifted, nudged again and again. The touch sent her head rocking back on her neck, her mouth open, her skin pink all over.
He gripped her hips, took control, stroking her even while he throbbed with pressure that beat to the point of pain.
“There,” she said on a gasp. “Right there.”
“Bossy.”
Her eyes focused on his and her cheeks came over all rosy as her eyes dropped to his mouth. “You like it,” she realised, letting him an inch inside before pulling away.
“Yeah,” he said through gritted teeth, “I really do.”
And with that she slid over him, all silken and gorgeous demand, and pleasure tore through him like liquid heat, twisting him inside out. She rocked, making his whole world spin, till it imploded where their two hot bodies met.
As exhaustion and completion dragged him to sleep Nate knew. Helping her pull up her kitchen floor clearly wasn’t enough. He had to do more. Make her understand how grateful he was. Know that she meant something to him even as he told her goodbye.
NINE
Nate wasn’t sure how long he sat on the edge of Saskia’s soft bed early the next morning, watching her sleep, remembering how he’d held her in the night, her head beneath his chin, his hand on her hip. But at some point she’d curled into a little ball on the edge of the bed. He wondered if she always slept that way or if she’d been making room for him.
Figuring it was too early for philosophising, he padded down the hall and into the main bathroom to splash water on his face.
And there, amongst the stash of pens and paint samples on her bathroom bench, he saw a yellow legal pad. Even at a glance he recognised the Dating By Numbers study, the questions he’d managed to avoid answering. Though apparently at some point somebody had—many had notes against them in a different-coloured pen, some with something that looked a heck of a lot like the words Pub Crawl scrawled in the margin.
Intrigue and a healthy dose of jealousy—because some other man had given her what he wouldn’t—made him read on to find questions about intimacy, love, attraction, fear and faith. The kinds of things he’d rather eat dog than talk about at length.
And yet seeing her happy, curly scrawl racing all over the page it seemed to him a small thing she’d wanted—a few simple truths in exchange for all he’d asked of her.
He gazed down the hall to where she slept.
She’d put herself out there with his family, his friends, risking exposure, putting up with his irascibility. The woman had had her faith in people trodden on time and again, and yet her generosity was so hardwired she’d do the same thing all over again if he asked.
While he’d thrown a few bloodless titbits into the damn dossier as if they were some kind of gift. Because without thought, without care, he’d hardwired himself to resist anything remotely intimate.
He gripped the legal pad tighter in his hand as he was hit with a wave of disappointment. In himself. He was a selfish bastard. A wholly self-made one at that. Independence was one thing—grudging self-interest quite the other. That wasn’t the kind of man he’d hoped to be one day—not even within spitting distance.
He found a pen, then, taking a deep breath, went through the list, jotting down notes, sometimes paragraphs, giving her the answers she was missing, moving on to the next before he had a chance to think about the one before in an effort to outrun the horror.
When he’d finished he let go a shuddering breath.
Then he padded into her room and kissed her on the shoulder, leaving the pages on the pillow beside her.
She still didn’t budge. Sleeping the sleep of the content. Of someone whose life was just as it should be.
He ran a hand over her shoulder, feeling the innate warmth that flowed just below the surface, like the crushed petal of a rose. In touching her, a soft milky scent rose up to him. The tattoo on her shoulder brushed rough against the pad of his thumb. He traced it distractedly. And then not so distractedly.
She deserved better. More. He wanted her to know it. Needed to know she was as amazing as he knew she was. And there was only one way he could think of to tell her. To show her. To make her see.
Spurred, he pressed himself to standing, pieced together his clothes, threw them on only as decency demanded, and headed out through her door, closing it softly behind him.
* * *
The following Tuesday evening Saskia brought a hot chocolate into the lounge and sat, curling her toes beneath the skirt of her maxi dress.
Ernest padded in from wherever he’d been foraging and turned three times before settling on his doggy bed. The fire crackled softly, now she’d got the hang of it, and her new second-hand lounge chairs were gorgeous: red-and-white checked, with pale green and baby blue and soft yellow floral cushions—a riot of spring colour. Busy, her dad would have called it, and frowned, thinking of her mother, claiming it gave him a headache. Saskia would have exchanged it for something less lovely. Less her.
She’d added touches of riot everywhere the past few weeks, fancying up the relatively blank canvas until it looked to her like the very image of happiness.
Thanks—very much—to Nate. He’d not only given her the opportunity to get out from under the weight of her debt, he’d pulled her from the even more debilitating hit she’d taken to her self-esteem after Stu. And those who’d come before.
She picked up the slightly rumpled pages of yellow legal paper covered in her swirly writing and Nate’s sexy scrawl—rumpled because she’d rolled over on them when reaching out for him to find not him but this gift.
She couldn’t for the life of her fathom what had changed his mind about answering her interview questions, but he had. He’d written about his interactions with women—the respect, the intrigue, the unashamed temptation. But she could feel his desire to be better. Do better. To become the man he hoped to be. And giving her this he’d given her himself.
No wonder he was always rubbing his temples in frustration, she thought, with all he had in his head. No wonder he worked himself to distraction. No wonder he’d come looking for her.
And Saskia couldn’t have loved him more for it.
It had been coming, brimming, easing, falling, pressing in on her from every angle. Her love for this man who had no clue that he gave so much and took so little for himself. This man who knew his strengths but couldn’t see his worth.
How could she know him and not love him? And she’d be so good for him. Take care of him. Relax him. Show him contentment. Make him happy. Love him all his days and nights. If only he’d let her.
Never having been there before, she had no idea what came next. So she sat in the middle of it, feeling it, living it, revelling in it, till her backside turned numb from sitting in the same spot too long.
Ernest leapt from his doggy bed and took off. A moment later a knock sounded.
By the time she reached the door Saskia’s heart was thumping through her chest at the thought that it might be Nate. What would she say about what he’d given her? Would he even know what it meant to her? Could it be why he’d done it?
“Earn your keep, Fido, and learn how to open the door!” Lissy called from the other side. Then added, “Men suck!” as she spilled through the door, arms laden with grocery bags—hence the non-use of her key. She gave Ernest a perfunctory cuddle with one foot as she trudged in.
Not all of them, Saskia thought, the bliss riding high again.
“More than usual?” Saskia asked, padding into the kitchen to make another hot chocolate.
“Bamford dumped me.”
Wow. Lissy, of the glorious mane of blonde hair with its now hot pink tips, the big blue eyes and curves for the ages, was a bombshell. Crazy, for sure, but men didn’t seem to care. As if they couldn’t use their brains while their tongues lolled out of their mouths.
“Did he say why?”
Lissy waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder. “Something about compatibility. A lack of seriousness. Blah-blah-blah.”
As Lissy upended her bag of groceries on the kitchen table Ernest thought he’d died and gone to heaven—caramel popcorn, butterscotch ice cream, boxes of Oreos.
“You disagree?” Saskia said, plopping a mound or two of chocolate powder into a mug.