She heard the squeaking of his wet body rubbing against the porcelain of the tub as he leaned forward to comply with her instruction.
“Done,” he said, his voice strained. Right then, this was the tricky part. She removed her cardigan and hung it neatly over the towel rail. She was wearing a sweet, knee-length, pink floral dress with pretty little capped sleeves. It was one of her favorite dresses.
“Lift your arm,” she instructed, keeping her voice as brusque as possible. He obeyed, lifting the heavy cast with a wince, and Lia ducked beneath the arm, draping it over her shoulders. She was bent at an awkward angle beside the tub. “Now bear down on the towel and use your other hand to push yourself up.”
He did as she said, and with a huff of surprise from him, he stood with almost effortless ease. He was so startled by the smooth movement that he staggered a bit and she grunted as she took almost the full force of his weight while he ungracefully stepped out of the tub and unintentionally engulfed her in what could only be considered a bear hug. Lia’s entire front was pressed up against his naked, wet chest and groin, and her cheek was pressed against his.
This time there was no escaping the dart of awareness, and now that he was safely delivered from his predicament, she knew he felt it, too. He tensed, and before he could move away, she felt the unmistakable stirring of his groin against her stomach.
“Did you miss me, princess?” His breath stirred the hair at her temple, and his voice rumbled in her ear, sending a delicious vibration through her body.
“Let me go,” she demanded weakly. He didn’t say anything more, just released her and stepped back. She couldn’t help it, her eyes darted down to his groin, and she swallowed at the sight of his very impressive erection, which arched upward beautifully and kissed his abdomen just below his navel. She almost immediately redirected her gaze to his face, but judging from the amused smirk on his too-perfect mouth, he’d noticed her little lapse. She felt her cheeks heating and stepped farther away from him before turning blindly and reaching for a thick, fluffy towel draped on the towel rack on the rung below her cardigan. She tossed it back at him without a word, and he chuckled.
“I’m decent now,” he said a moment a later.
She very much doubted that.
“I’ll leave you to it, good night.” She grabbed her cardigan and was halfway down the stairs when his voice halted her.
“Lia. Please don’t leave. I want . . . I have . . .” His lack of articulation and the frustrated groan were enough to make her turn around and stare at him. He was standing on the landing, a towel wrapped around his lean waist, his beautiful chest still gleaming with the moisture from his bath. “I’d like to talk to you about something. Please.”
She hesitated.
“Please.” Three pleases. She’d have to have a heart of stone to ignore the entreaty, and her shoulders sagged.
“Fine. But get dressed first.”
“Thank you,” he said, before turning away and limping toward the bed.
Lia made her way to the dark living room and switched on a lamp before curling up on the sofa and waiting. She listened to the rustling, interspersed with impatient swearing, coming from the loft, and a few moments later Brand’s breathless and harassed voice called out to her.
“I’m dressed. Do you mind coming up here? I don’t think I can manage the stairs again tonight.”
Calling herself all kinds of fool, Lia complied. She took the stairs slowly, feeling like a condemned woman on her way to the executioner. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed—if you could call it that—only in a pair of boxer briefs, with his legs spread and his forearms braced on his thighs as he contemplated the floor between his bare feet. He raised his blond head when he heard her tread on the landing.
“This is the best I can manage with just one arm,” he said wryly. “Hope it doesn’t offend your sensibilities, Miss Priss.”
As if she hadn’t just seen his penis.
She pursed her lips and said nothing at all in response to that.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“This, actually,” he said, his crisp British accent particularly noticeable on those two words.
“I don’t understand.”
“I need help, Lia, and right now I find your company a damned sight more tolerable than anyone else’s. I was hoping you’d be willing to assist me for just a couple of weeks until this cast comes off.”
His request completely threw her, and she wasn’t sure how to respond at all.
“You’re gawking, princess. Not an attractive look.”
“Why don’t you hire a nurse?”
“Fuck that,” he dismissed, and she heaved a sigh at the language—the man really had no filter. Then again, he probably didn’t care about his crudity and how it offended her. “I’m not an invalid. I just need a bit of assistance, that’s all. And I don’t want strangers hovering around me all the time. You don’t piss me off, I don’t mind your company, and you don’t talk my ear off.”
“You barely know me. How do you know I won’t do those things?”
“Look, Mason tells me you don’t have a job at the moment. Well, I’m willing to pay you handsomely for just a little of your time.” That made her pause. A supplemental income would come in handy if she was going to rent Daisy’s house.
“How much of my time?” she asked and then regretted the question when his gaze sharpened. She would make a terrible poker player—she had no notion of playing her cards close to her chest.
“Well, I need someone to do some cooking for me. And I definitely need help shaving, as you can see I did a piss-poor job today.” He lifted his strong cleft jaw to indicate the patches of dark stubble emerging. His beard seemed to be a shade or two darker than his hair. “And driving me around when I need to go to my doctor’s appointments or just need to get the fuck out of here for a few hours. I don’t do well in one confined space for too long, I’d go crazy.”
“I won’t be available on Tuesday and Friday mornings,” she said, keeping her voice neutral.
“Why not?”
“I just got a part-time job at the preschool, they’ll need me from eight till noon.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine on those mornings.”
“This is just a job? Nothing else? No funny business or anything?”
Sam bit back a grin at the question. He had her exactly where he wanted her, and smiling now would make her suspicious. He kept his face neutral, infusing just enough curiosity and confusion into his expression to set her mind at ease.
“Funny business?”
“You know.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.” He added a faint frown into the mix, and she chewed on her luscious lower lip, looking uncertain. “You’ll have to elaborate.”
“I mean, you know? We have a history, and I just want to be sure that you don’t expect the same thing from me again.”
He couldn’t play dumb anymore, she’d be onto him. He allowed his expression to clear.
“Ah. You mean no fucking,” he said, and she winced. He covered his smile with his hand and pretend to clear his throat. “Of course not, princess. What kind of man would I be, offering to pay a nice girl like you for sex?”
She looked horrified by his words, as the connection clearly hadn’t occurred to her before he said it.
“I didn’t think you meant to pay me for it,” she gasped.
“I mean, aside from the fact that I don’t have to pay for it, never have, you’re definitely not that type of woman.”
“I didn’t mean that. I just meant there’d be no flirting and stuff.”
“I shall attempt to restrain myself. I know you’re looking for a husband, and I have to tell you, I’m not husband material. Flirting with you might give you the wrong impression. I would hate that. I’m not the marrying kind, Lia.” He kept his eyes level and his voice dead serious. This he needed to make absolutely clear to her, because he absolutely did intend to fuck her again. B
ut not before his cast came off—he would use that time to get her primed and ready.
Basically it amounted to a week or two of foreplay, and by the time the cast came off and he was himself again, she would be so damned keen to get back into bed with him, she’d take him on any terms. Meantime, he was ready for a bit of fun and games with this prissy little schoolteacher.
“I really need your help, Lia,” he said, injecting as much sincerity as he could into his voice. He meant it—he needed her help around the house, he needed her help with shaving and dressing, and he definitely needed her help to stave off boredom and keep him sane. Sam had a low threshold for boredom and was always busy doing something. This enforced rest was already hell, which meant he had to find ways to occupy his body and mind.
Of course, he would have been perfectly fine with having Spencer help him out of his ridiculous bathtub predicament. Sam had actually had the man’s number up on his screen and had been a second away from calling when the thought of contacting Lia instead occurred to him. At that point it had been a no-brainer—the potential entertainment value alone had sold the idea. And while waiting for her, he’d come up with this plan.
Have her help him out around the house, butter her up, make her want him so badly that she’d be hot to trot for a blazing sexual adventure with him. By the time his cast came off, before they sealed the deal, so to speak, she’d definitely have no illusions about him being her Mr. Right. So she wouldn’t be fabricating any happily ever after fantasies about them in her prissy little head when they wound up in bed again.
She still looked uncertain, so he sweetened the pot with an amount of money that would make most people sit up and pay attention.
“That seems excessive,” she surprised him by saying. Okay, weird. If anything, the exorbitant amount had made her look a little more doubtful.
“It’s a fair amount,” he said, and she shook her head.
“It’s daylight robbery.” He blinked. What the fuck? “I can’t take that much from you, Brand. You’re in pain, you need help. To take all that money from someone so clearly in need would be unconscionable.”
She shook her head and gave him a different number, half of his original offer. Was this chick for real? Seriously, she was unemployed and probably needed the money. He’d casually asked Mason to give him the rundown on the family last night. And had impatiently waited as his friend rambled on about his newfound sister, Charlie, then Daff and Spencer. Dr. and Mrs. McGregor. Lia had been last on the list, and Mason’s information on her had been perfunctory at best.
“Lia, she’s sweet. Very sincere, always wants to help people. She’s been in a bit of a rut since her wedding fell through. Her asshole fiancé persuaded her to give up her job and she’s been unemployed since then. A shame, really—according to Daisy, she really loved that job.”
Mason had left it at that, and Sam didn’t push the man for further information, knowing that to do so would alert Mason to the fact that he had more than just a passing interest in Lia.
“Right. Okay,” he said in response to her last comment, still a bit at a loss after her refusal of his initial compensation. “Thanks.”
“I’m just happy I’m the one you approached about this. Anyone else wouldn’t have thought twice about fleecing you,” she said with a sweet smile. “You have to be more careful.”
“Yes.” He felt a little wrong-footed and couldn’t quite get his bearings. He cleared his throat, striving to regain control over the situation. “So I take it this means you’ll do it?”
“I’ll help you. I’ll come around first thing in the morning to fix your breakfast and we can take it from there, okay?”
Just like that. She just took his word for it that there’d be no “funny business,” asked for less money than he’d been willing to pay, and was willing to cook for him, shave him, and be his gofer/chauffeur for the next two weeks? It seemed too good to be true.
“Do you . . . uh . . . do you have any conditions or anything?”
“What do you mean, conditions? Like allergies or illnesses?” He stared at her, flummoxed by her bizarre turn of thought.
“No, of course not. I mean caveats to our agreement?”
“Oh.” She laughed at her assumption, the delightful sound ending on the tiniest of snorts, and shook her head. “Sorry, that was a weird conclusion to leap to, wasn’t it? No conditions. I just wanted to be sure there wouldn’t be any, y’know . . .”
“Yeah. Funny business,” he completed. And she nodded, flushing slightly.
“But it was silly of me to even think that. I mean, you’re with Laura Prentiss now. And you know that I’m looking for something else, something you’ve already claimed to have no interest in whatsoever. So with that in mind, I think this arrangement will work out fine.”
“You really think so?” he asked, fascinated, and his question made her pause and eye him in concern.
“You don’t?”
“Well, we do have some mad chemistry between us.” Pointing that out probably wasn’t in his best interests, but he couldn’t help himself. How could she just dismiss the overpowering sexual attraction between them?
“I’m sure we can overcome our baser urges. After all, I’m hardly your type and vice versa.”
“So what’s your type?”
“Not you.”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
“So anybody else but me? That’s a little insulting, princess.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant not someone like you. Someone so clearly not interested in commitment, or in settling down and having kids. You’re the proverbial rolling stone, right? Well, I’m looking for a rock. Someone steady, reliable, interested in establishing some roots. And definitely not someone who gets stabbed for a living!”
“I don’t get stabbed for a living,” he protested. “I try very hard to do the exact opposite of that.”
“And yet, if it comes down to it, you’d take the bullet or the stab wound for your client, right? Which, while commendable and brave as heck, is definitely not what I’m looking for.”
“You’d rather have a coward?”
“I’d rather have a guy who’d put me, our kids, before any client. Who’d think twice before jumping in front of that bullet or placing himself in harm’s way. I’d rather have him around than in an early grave.”
“I’m trying to avoid an early grave, thank you very much,” Sam said.
“Of course you are, but with what you do . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head regretfully.
“Your perfect cowardly man could walk in front of a bus and still wind up in an early grave. He could get some dread disease or electrocute himself making toast. There are no guarantees in this life.”
“True. But his odds of living to a ripe old age are still better than yours,” she said before wincing. “I’m sorry. That sounded really harsh.”
“I’m really fucking careful,” Sam said. He could hear the defensive heat in his own voice and tried to tone it down. He wasn’t sure why he was letting this get to him. The Laura Prentiss job was never meant to be a permanent arrangement, and Sam had already admitted to himself that he didn’t want to be in the field anymore. He could tell Lia that, but the more cynical side of him acknowledged that it was better if she thought he was the wrong man for her—it meant she’d have no expectations of more from him once they resumed intimacies. “I’m a professional. None of my officers, or I, go into a job prepared or willing to die. That fatalistic bullshit makes for a piss-poor CPO.”
“CPO?”
“Close protection officer.”
“I would just have gone with bodyguard.”
“Yeah, well, you’re wrong on a lot of fronts.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said quietly. He shrugged.
“Since I’m quite clearly the exact opposite of everything you’re looking for in a man, I’m surprised you fell into bed with me in the first place.” Why was h
e pushing this? Sam wasn’t sure. He was just stupidly and unexpectedly offended that she thought everything about him was wrong. He took snide satisfaction in the uncomfortable blush that lit up her face and kept his challenging gaze level.
“Well, I didn’t say I don’t find you attractive,” she said carefully. “Most women would. You’re very handsome and—and . . . charming when you choose to be. I was attracted to you and I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”
“At least not until baby Delphinium’s christening,” he mused and bit back a smile at her startled look.
He remembered that? People rarely paid attention to—much less remembered the details of—her weird little tangents, so for Brand to remember the exact name she’d used was a little unprecedented.
“Uh, that’s right. So I thought why not—just once—do something a little out of the box and exciting before settling down into my normal, expected life?” Although nothing had really been going as expected in her life for the last couple of years. “I mean, you’re a good-looking, experienced man, so obviously as a healthy, heterosexual woman, I’d find you attractive and intriguing.”
“Good for a quick roll in the hay and nothing more? Why, princess, I feel cheap and used now.” Did he? His voice was light and mocking, but there was an underlying seriousness in his face and eyes.
“That’s all you wanted, a quick roll in the hay—you were quite clear on that. You’re all for meaningless hookups, remember?”
His beautiful mouth quirked at the corners as he recognized his own words. He really was a very attractive man. He had dirty-blond hair, just a shade lighter than golden brown. Six months ago it had been clipped military short, but it was longer now and wavier than she’d expected and looked so thick and silky she itched to run her fingers through it. She liked how it fell over his broad forehead. He kept impatiently shoving his free hand through it to keep it out of his eyes. He had straight, intense eyebrows darker than his hair, slanted over piercing ice-blue eyes. He had creases—from laughter or the glare of the sun, she couldn’t be sure which—radiating from the corner of his eyes that gave his rugged face a lived-in, masculine appeal. When she’d first seen him all those months ago, she’d concluded that he wasn’t as handsome as the Carlisle brothers, but in her opinion he was much, much sexier. He was only about three or four inches taller than Lia’s five foot seven inches, and before his injuries he had sported the spare, muscular build of a triathlete. Naturally he’d lost some of that muscle mass, but he could ill afford to lose the weight and she meant to help him regain some of it with her cooking.
The Wrong Man Page 8