Big Bad Wolf (COS Commando Book 1)

by Low, Gennita

  “There’s a lot more Mindy in you than you let on, Jaymee girl.”

  “Mmmmmph!” And that was all he allowed her to say as he tugged hard and her teasing mouth fitted against his demanding one. He kissed her with a leisurely thoroughness that zoned out the world, until they both forgot where they were, and how hot it was, until a passing truck honked. Some guys hooted as they drove by.

  “Ravish me too, lady!” one yelled.

  “Give him a heat stroke, babe!” another suggested with a leer.

  Jaymee surfaced, slightly out of breath. “What are you doing to me?” she demanded, still dazed from the kiss. “I’m standing on the bumper, at a job site, letting you kiss me!”

  “Umm, excuse me, boss,” Nick drawled, his own breath slightly uneven too. “I’m the one being ravished.”

  He pointedly opened his arms to show how helpless he was under her. His hair was sexily tousled by her roaming hands. His shirt was untucked, almost pulled off his shoulders.

  Did she do that? Jaymee jumped off the bumper. She must appear like a desperate woman, tearing at his shirt in bright sunlight!

  “That’s all I need! Get a reputation for shoddy work, then get another for running around with the help.” She pulled on a dry tee-shirt over her bikini. Why was she behaving so strangely? This wasn’t her at all, this bold, restless woman. She’d better get back to normal, dependable Jay as quickly as possible. She took a deep breath. “Let’s get this meeting with Anderson over with. I’ve a bad feeling about what he wants.”

  Nick sighed. He was so aroused, he’d have flipped down the tailgate and had her there, if they weren’t out by the road. He couldn’t recall a single time when a woman switched from kissing him to business with barely a blink of an eye. He must be losing his touch. He tucked in his shirt. His sanity, obviously, was a lost cause, what with his libido creating havoc every time this woman was around. He watched her behind as she climbed into the truck and grinned. This kind of insanity, he decided, was a lot more fun than the kind with which he usually dealt.

  The reminder of his actual life sobered him. Watching Jaymee smooth back those tempting curls, her cheeks still rosy from the sun and his kiss, it occurred to him there were other things, much, much more enjoyable in the real world than playing hi-tech games with mostly unseen enemies.

  *

  When they were on the way to the contractor’s office, Nick asked, “Why all this worry over the contractor? The inspector didn’t find any violations, so there shouldn’t be any problems, right?”

  Jaymee’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “You don’t know this area very well, do you? He’s going to ask me to cut my price.”

  “Can he do that? Didn’t you sign a contract with him?”

  “Where have you been?” Jaymee gave him a long stare at the stop sign. “Construction down here doesn’t work like that. If they want to fire you, they fire you.”

  “Can’t you take them to court?”

  Jaymee laughed. She pulled the truck in front of a building with a big sign that said “EXCEL CONSTRUCTION.” Leaning over, she pinched Nick. Hard.

  “Ow!” He rubbed the spot, frowning.

  “Just making sure you aren’t dreaming,” she smoothly told him with a mischievous smile.

  “I’m going to paddle your ass for that!” Nick promised, still looking at the mark.

  “Poor baby. I’m going to add this to that list about clues to not being a construction man,” she teased.

  “What’s wrong with going to court?” Nick demanded, when they were walking toward the office. “Broken contracts are litigable, according to tort law.”

  Jaymee stopped dead in her tracks and burst out into such hard laughter, she had to sit down under a decorative palm planted in the parking lot. As he continued to frown down at her, she went off into another round of chuckles. She held up a hand, asking for his help to get back on her feet. When he did, she wiped away tears with the heel of her hands, then cleaned them on her tee-shirt.

  “I’m not laughing at you, not really,” she said, in between gasps. “You know, the last time I heard talk like that, I was taking a college business law course.”

  Nick arched a questioning brow. “College, huh?”

  Jaymee copied the gesture, lifting her brow in answer. “Yeah, except none of those things work like that. Small businesses like mine don’t have the money or the time to go chasing after contracts and small claims, Nick. We’re too busy trying to keep the business going. By the time you pay off the lawyer, you’re probably worse off, so why bother?” She started toward the building again. “Come on, I’ll show you how it is in real life, Mr. Programmer.”

  The off-handed nom de guerre almost made him trip. Jaymee didn’t notice the sharp look he gave her, already skipping up the steps to the office. She called over her shoulder, “Hurry up. I want to get back home to see what trouble Dicker and Lucky are in now. They’re still on the clock.”

  He grinned. The woman was cocky, confident, and damned arrogant when it came to her business. He couldn’t wait to see the softer side again, when he finally got her into his bed.

  *

  “You don’t seem disappointed about losing the subdivision,” Nick commented later, as they drove back to where his jeep was still parked.

  Jaymee shrugged. She was devastated, but that didn’t matter now. “That’s how it goes.”

  “Why didn’t you come down in price as Anderson wanted?”

  The competition, according to the builder was offering two dollars less per square for material and labor, and he wanted Jaymee to match or beat that price. A square was approximately a hundred square foot, and Nick calculated dropping two dollars for a forty-squared roof would probably eat up the little profit she’d make per job. He’d stood there and admired the way she’d refused to back down and give in, choosing instead to tell Anderson he should hire that other company, if they could give him the same quality of work at a lower price.

  “My price is very fair as it is, and he knows it,” Jaymee scoffed. “The competition’s Gregg’s Roofing, and I know Gregg’s. They’re a huge operation, with high overhead, and I know they can’t stay with this lower price without losing money.”

  “So, either Gregg’s will raise the price later, or Anderson’s merely gambling on the fact you might swallow the two dollars,” Nick concluded. There wasn’t much difference between price wars and covert wars, he surmised. Mostly a game of chicken.

  “Yeah. Even if I’d been crazy enough to give that price, I have no guarantee next month he won’t find another competitor with another lower price offer. How much cheaper can I go before I cut my losses?”

  “So you just walk away and find another subdivision?”

  “I have other builders that need roofers. Don’t worry, you still have a job, Nick. Here we are.” She stopped the truck behind his fire engine red jeep.

  Nick took her averted chin between his thumb and finger and gently tugged on it till she reluctantly looked at him. Her eyes were that dark, murky color again, the swirl of emotions tightly hidden in their depths. She was more upset than she let on, he realized, remembering the constant pressure of some debt she owed.

  Running his thumb across her obstinate lower lip, he asked, “After work, in the evening, what other job do you have?” At her look of surprise, he added, “You mentioned something like that last night, remember?”

  Did she? She couldn’t remember a thing about last night except...except.... She felt the telltale heat suffusing her face again. Her wandering thoughts brought out an answering heat in his eyes, and she hastily stammered, changing the subject to anything, anything, but that, “It’s nothing, really.”

  Nick wouldn’t let her chin go. “You said about your cramp last night too,” he told her in the same quiet voice. “You worked till your body gave out on you, Jaymee. Why?” His voice went lower, to a gravelly growl. “I want to be with you tonight.”

  A slow burn started at those direct words, an unfami
liar aching that pulsed inside her. Jaymee swallowed hard, trying to compose herself. “I...I have stuff to do.”

  “You’re a non-stop working machine, but unless you tell me what job you do after work, I’m going to stay and tire you out.” He leaned so close she could smell that intoxicating masculine scent that seemed to drive away all her common sense. “Babe, there are shadows under your eyes at night. You could barely stay awake when I worked with your files, and yet you still go about vacuuming and housekeeping. Now I find out you actually work somewhere else in the evenings. No wonder you’re always tired. No wonder your leg cramped up.”

  He made her sound so horribly ugly. Shadows under her eyes. Tired-looking. She must be so boring. When did she become like that? Jaymee impatiently pushed away her self-pity. She made a last resort to defend herself. “I like to work.”

  “Not till you drop,” he countered, but he didn’t sound accusing or mocking. “Look, I’m not criticizing you. I know how strong a person you are, but lean a little, damn it.”

  “On whom? My dad?” she shot back, one corner of her mouth lifted in disgust.

  “On me.” Nick’s hand slid from her chin to her shoulder and he pulled her even closer. “For now. You’re an amazing woman, Jaymee, but give yourself a break.”

  Amazing? Strong? She stared back in confusion. Did he just praise her?

  “Your eyes say you don’t believe me,” he remarked, when she didn’t say anything.

  “It’s difficult to jump from being told you’re tired-looking and owl-eyed to you’re amazing and strong in less than a minute,” she pointed out.

  Nick grinned. “Women,” he complained. “They always zero in on the wrong things first.”

  Jaymee’s eyes were green and suspicious. “And how many women have you been telling they’re strong and amazing?”

  He gave the query a long enough consideration to see her small eyes narrow into warning slits. She looked like a cat about to pounce, he thought, amusement rising. This new switch was unexpected; he hadn’t realized he could make her jealous.

  “Not any who looked tired or owl-eyed,” he finally drawled out, then kissed her on the lips hard before she could respond. “I think it’s safer for me to be in my Jeep now. I’ll be a good worker, but you’re going to talk to me after work—” He opened the door, and added, “—boss.”

  *

  Not that there was much work to do for the rest of the day. “The day just isn’t meant to be,” she said to no one in particular, as she stood in her driveway staring at the looming dark clouds descending like angry warlords.

  “Where do you want us to meet tomorrow, Jay?” Dicker asked from under a tree in her front yard.

  “Do we have any job, seeing that Excel’s fired you?” Lucky wanted to know, scratching the back of his neck with a twig.

  Jaymee didn’t correct the wrong assumption, that she was fired. Still looking at the ominous sky, she said, “I’ll line up a few jobs. We were supposed to do a roof this Friday for another builder, but I’ll see whether it’s ready for us tomorrow. Meet me here in the morning.”

  The two men moved toward Dicker’s truck. “Who did Excel get to replace us, do you know, boss?” Dicker asked.

  Jaymee shrugged. “I think it’s Gregg’s, but I don’t really know.”

  “Say, that’s where Chuck and Rich said they were working now,” Lucky commented.

  “Mighty good timing, if you ask me,” observed Dicker, as he closed the big toolbox mounted behind his truck. “See you in the morning, boss. Bye, Nick.”

  Nick nodded as he adjusted the hood that protected his Jeep from the elements. “Yeah. See you, Dicker.”

  Jaymee watched him for a moment. “Need help?”

  “No, I’m almost done.”

  “I’m going inside for a late lunch. Hungry?”

  He gave her a look that sent her scrambling toward the back of the house with his laughter following her. How did he do that? She nervously rubbed her hands on her pants. One look, and she felt like a tar kettle on fire. Where were her well-practiced rebuffs? A few weeks ago, she’d have squashed such blatant come-ons like a gnat, and the poor man would have left her alone after that. But of course, Nick was a humongous gnat, and she laughed at her silliness. Another thing—where did this silliness come from?

  Big plops of rain came down just as she climbed up onto the back porch. She waited for a minute or two, but he didn’t turn the corner.

  “Nick?” she called over the rush of wind that usually signaled the beginning of a Florida summer storm. It was suddenly dark outside, all sunlight curtained off by rain-swollen clouds.

  “Get inside, Jaymee. I’ll be there,” she heard him answer. Satisfied, she went into the kitchen to prepare a quick snack.

  Finishing his task, Nick glanced around the front yard, ignoring the fast falling rain. He had an uneasy feeling he was being watched, and he scanned the terrain carefully. With the wind picking up, he couldn’t really see anything among the moving clumps of trees in the acreage. Big sheets of rain descended suddenly, ferociously, and he hurried to the back of the house. Too late, he was instantly drenched to the skin.

  Jaymee took one look at him and shook her head. “What were you doing out there?” She put away the bread and screwed the cap back on the jar of mayonnaise. “Guess I’ll get you a towel first, and something dry to wear.”

  She disappeared in the direction of her bedroom. Opportunity knocking, he quoted his favorite saying under his breath, and promptly followed her.

  Jaymee had a suspicious inkling she was walking into a trap of her own making. He didn’t make a sound as he casually walked behind her, past the sofa in the living room, round the corner, past the spare bedroom. Her room at the back of the house was down a long corridor and it usually only took a minute from kitchen to bedroom door. Today it appeared to last forever as she trotted down seemingly narrowing walls.

  She stopped outside, turned around and firmly said, “You can’t come in here. I’ll get the towel and a shirt.”

  “I’ve been in there before,” he reminded her and came closer.

  Was that thunder from outside or was that her heart? “Nicholas...you’re not making this easy,” she breathed out.

  Nick gently reached behind her and opened the bedroom door. “Easy is laying shingles in the summer. Easy is working till you drop.” He backed her into her own room, drops of water trickling onto her dry clothes. “Handling me should be a piece of cake, Jaymee.”

  Despite the precariousness of her situation, she couldn’t resist a small smile. “So you compare yourself to a job for me to handle?”

  “Don’t you take care of every detail in your work?”

  His drenched shirt contoured the muscles of his chest and stomach. His long hair, dripping wet and blown by the wind, looked like a mane. She could see the tic under his ear again, the sudden flair of his nostrils, the tightly-drawn passion on the plains of his face.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Don’t you make sure everything is perfect when it comes to your work?”

  She couldn’t deny her obsession for getting things right. “I...try.”

  “Don’t you remember everything there’s to know about every one of your roofs? The color, the square footage, down to the day you were on it?”

  She stared into those blue-gray eyes, drawn by their seductive power. “Yes,” she said again.

  Nick’s eyes became intensely, fiercely demanding. “That’s how I want you to handle me, Jaymee. As easily as you handle your perfect roofs.”

  He didn’t have to tell her her time was up. He’d waited and patiently let her get used to him, as he had so arrogantly told her. It must be magic. He’d brought out the Jaymee she’d desperately tried to hide and now, he summoned her like a pagan witch calling for a spirit under his power. The rain outside drummed on the roof and danced against the windowpanes, like some incantation that rendered her powerless to this man. His foot kicked back, and the door behind
him clicked shut.

  Chapter Six

  The bedroom was darkened by the storm outside, and Jaymee couldn’t see Nick’s face. In the shadows, his words coursed through her veins like warm brandy, and she felt hot and out of breath, like she’d been running fast. Except she couldn’t run any more. She realized he’d stalked her all this time, allowing her to move away only because he wanted to.

  Now, with her bed behind her, the door shut, the rain a steady rhythm outside, and no job to finish, there was nowhere she could hide, no work for her to use as an excuse. With small, jerky movements, she backed away. Nick’s hand snaked out and held her arm, pulling her inexorably closer.

  “Easy,” he repeated softly, as if she was a nervous mare. “Easy, sweet Jaymee. We’ll do it slow and easy.”

  “You’re all wet,” she said belligerently.

  Of course he was all wet. She was going to get him a towel and that was what got her into this situation. Her mind fought for control over the internal storm muddling through her system, as she allowed herself to be backed all the way into her bathroom.

  “Dry me,” he murmured in that soft, gravelly tone of voice. The look in his eyes made her gut clenched. She swallowed.

  Without thinking, she automatically pulled the towel hanging on a hook, then stupidly stared at the wet clothes on him. Her eyes followed the heaving motions of his chest, moving up to study with fascination the droplets of water that were still running down his strong neck, and still higher, all the way to the wet lock of dark hair curled over his forehead.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “You have to take off my clothes first,” he whispered back. “Take care of me, Jaymee.”

  She opened her mouth but words wouldn’t come. Instead, she pushed the toilet seat down and gestured at it. He sat, opening his long legs and pulling her between his thighs. She gave him a desperate look, mutely begging him to release her, but he only took the towel from her and then placed her hands on him, near the waistband of his jeans.