Bared for Me

by Natalie Anderson

  Maybe he could help her see that all her family wanted was the best for her. Except he had the feeling she was right—and all they wanted was for her to be out of the way.

  “I’m sorry to dump her on you.”

  Rocco tensed, clenching his teeth together hard. Dumped? Dani wasn’t a piece of junk to be tossed from one location to another. He forced himself to relax. “It’s no problem. Sleep well.”

  There was a muttered imprecation from Logan before he rang off.

  He turned his phone off. No more interruptions. He needed to get through the night. One night defying temptation.

  But he’d just signed up for another few?

  What had he been thinking?

  The silence in the suite worried him. The television was switched off. The door to his bedroom closed. Had she really gone to sleep?

  Never. Not Dani, not when she’d planed to torment him for the night. She wouldn’t have let that idea go so easily. She had too much of a mischievous imp in her.

  He eyed his bedroom door like there could be a raging inferno on the other side of it. Doubt gripped him. He wanted her to be in there. Wanted her not to have let him down. She’d said she’d stay, that he could trust her.

  Bracing himself he turned the handle and opened the door.

  The bed was empty.

  Rocco stormed out of the room. He’d call security and review all the security footage of the corridor for the last hour. But he couldn’t cause a scene like that. No matter how discreet his staff. That he couldn’t keep tabs on his own woman?

  He screeched to a halt. Breathed in. Out. Resumed moving.

  She wasn’t his woman. Couldn’t be.

  He glanced around the lobby, then went to the bar. Surely not. Surely she wouldn’t—

  She would. She was walking through the middle of the mostly empty room. Stopped as soon as she saw him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Checking up on you.”

  And a good thing he was too—she was looking luscious in her skimpy tank top, her hair was loose, her eyes bright. His gut tightened. He wanted.

  “Don’t you have a crisis to manage?”

  She was his crisis.

  “Not anymore.” He walked to meet her. To get close. To make sure there was no one else getting close. There better not be.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” He gestured to the empty glass she was carrying. She’d downed that one already? Was onto the next?

  Why was she here? What—or who—was she looking for?

  “Just helping out.” She shrugged, frowning as she looked up at him. “Look, I didn’t run away. I didn’t leave before. Haven’t you learned yet that you can trust me?”

  It wasn’t her he didn’t trust. It was himself. Right now he was fighting harder than ever to stop himself from pulling her into his arms. He ached to feel her softness against him again.

  “Stop acting like I owe you something.” She lifted her hands in a wide gesture. “You’re not my brother. You’re not my lover. You’re not even my friend.”

  “Not even that?” Why did that hurt like a paper-cut? Way more than it should.

  “No.”

  “Well too bad,” he snapped. “I’m not going to let you get drunk and let some asshole take something that’s precious. If you’ve hung onto it this long… it’s not worth throwing away now in a fit of pique.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I’m not getting drunk. You know very well I’m not allowed to drink in here and anyway, I wouldn’t want to get your oh-so fine establishment in trouble. I’m helping out.” She tossed back her hair. “Did you really think I’d come down here to find some guy to fuck?”

  He winced at her words. That mental image killed him.

  “You think you’ve wounded me with your rejection? You think I’ve come out to drown my sorrows and that I’m going to end up in bed with some random?” She stopped to draw breath, staring at him—mad and sad. “You really do think I’m a kid.”

  She walked right up to him, fiercely whispering in his face. “Do you honestly think I’d still be a virgin if I acted that rashly all the time?”

  Uh. Yeah. Maybe he’d over-reacted a little. That didn’t make him any the less pissed off. Or ache any the less. “If you’re not drinking, or trying to find a guy, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I told you, helping out,” she sighed. “Although yes, it’s not like the barman really needs me to. There was me thinking this place was the ‘bomb’.”

  “It’s fifteen minutes past closing,” he pointed out. It was so late, she should be tucked up in her bed, alone and asleep already. “Dani, what are you doing down here, really?”

  The attitude dropped from her gaze. “You left me alone in a hotel room for ages and I was watching that scary movie.”

  Scary movie.

  He rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand and tried not to laugh. She was going to be the death of him.

  Her eyes narrowed, like she’d spotted his amusement. “I was creeped out. And there wasn’t going to be a happy ending to that movie.” She crossed her arms, a rueful smile curved her mouth. “Now you do think I’m a kid.”

  No. He didn’t. Impetuous, yes. But definitely not a kid. If he were to pull her into his arms, it wouldn’t be a comforting kind of embrace he’d be offering.

  So he had to stand back.

  “I’m used to living in a boarding hostel or a hotel,” she added. “Being near lots of people. Sometimes the noise is nice.”

  Yeah. Sometimes he liked the weird isolation that came with sitting in the corner of a crowded room. Just watching, knowing he’d helped provide the good time for them.

  He took the glass from her and pointed to the table in the corner. “Go sit. I’ll get you a drink.”

  He needed a drink. He needed something to get a grip on himself.

  As he approached, the bartender looked worried.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice as soon as Rocco got near enough. “She just wanted to help. I knew she was staying with you. She was bringing up glasses before I could stop her. I didn’t want to upset her.”

  Rocco placed the glass on the bar. “Don’t worry about it. I know what she’s like.” She could get any guy to do anything if she put her mind to it. She just didn’t quite realize it yet. “Get me a whiskey, double. And a hot chocolate. Lots of sugar, lots of cream.”

  He took a second to try to calm the burn of adrenalin he’d felt in that insane moment of jealousy. The thought of her finding someone else? Touching someone else?

  Hell’s teeth. The sooner she was out of his space the better.

  He took a gulp of the whiskey his barman had poured for him and then turned back to take on his temptation.

  Chapter Eight

  DANIELLE STIRRED HER hot chocolate and watched Rocco down his drink. Then he called for another.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, after the bartender had refilled Rocco’s glass.

  “Drowning my sorrows.”

  “Your sorrows?”

  “My torment.”

  “What’s tormenting you?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

  She put her spoon down before she dropped it. “This is stupid, you should be asleep.”

  He shouldn’t be storming down here and looking so damn steely. So damn sexy—all shadow on his jaw, shadows in his eyes. He was her walking forbidden fantasy.

  “You’re the one wandering down to the bar at two in the morning.”

  “I can’t sleep.” It wasn’t the horror movie. Okay, yes, she’d been freaked being alone for a few minutes, but really it was all the energy building in her body just from being near Rocco. It was like being plugged into an emergency power generator and she was buzzing from the intensity.

  That one kiss could do this? Could set her alight—she had enough zing in her to power the entire state for all of the winter. And all she wanted, was more.

  “Nor can I.”
He glared at her. “Why didn’t you go all the way with the guy you fooled around with?”

  Whoa. That had been preying on his mind? Her sex-life was on his mind?

  She was so glad she was sitting down because her whole body just turned to jello. But she eyed him levelly. “The guys. Plural.”

  “Whatever.” He frowned and knocked back that next drink.

  “Well I had to try a couple of times,” she shrugged. “I wanted it to work out.”

  “And it never did?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t want him to ask more. The sad truth? Her heart had always been his. Her body had wanted none but his.

  Maybe he was right. She hardly knew him. Maybe she’d built him up in her head. Maybe she needed to have this time to get to know him. To smash the rose-colored glasses and get over him.

  Except the longer she spent with him, the hotter she became. And the more infatuated. Because it wasn’t just the raw sex appeal that oozed from him.

  It was his damn ‘do-right’ determination too. That he was so loyal? So strong?

  It made her want him all the more.

  “Come back upstairs,” he said standing and stretching in a way that melted her muscles more. “We need sleep.”

  Dani swallowed, trying to pull herself together as she followed. He lifted a bottle of whiskey from behind the counter and took it with him.

  “What’s that for—to render you incapable?” she asked with a sideways look as he guided her into the elevator. “So you can’t get it up?”

  He hesitated a second while the elevator doors slid shut. Then he wound his arm around her waist, turning and pulling her close, so her belly was pressed against him.

  “Honey, it’s up every second I’m near you.”

  It certainly was.

  Simmering heat uncoiled, spreading along her veins sending her temperature soaring, she leaned more heavily against him. Unable to resist offering. “But you’re not going to do anything with it?” she asked. “Seems a shame.”

  His arm across her back tightened, but the strain around his eyes deepened. “When did you get so sassy?”

  She wasn’t sassy. She was sweet on him and she wasn’t getting any better.

  She looked into his eyes. As the silence built, so did the heat between them. Desire whispered in her head—the urge to lean closer, to move against him. She needed more than this almost innocent touch.

  She gritted her teeth, wasn’t going to grind like the feral animal she felt herself becoming. Who knew want could be so all-consuming?

  And the way he was looking at her? All that intensity again, that internal debate warring in his eyes.

  “I’d kill to kiss you,” he murmured.

  “That’s the whiskey addling your mind,” she whispered. “You don’t need to kill anything, you can kiss me any time.” She curled her fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt. She didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want him to step back.

  His lashes lowered, his focus on her mouth. “No. I can’t.”

  He released her as the elevator doors slid open.

  Escaping the disappointment, she walked ahead to his suite, curling her fingers into a fist of frustration.

  “You get those calls at all hours?” she asked, purely to try to take her mind off the desire that was killing her. She wasn’t going to beg.

  “Often enough. I don’t mind. The promise of the hotel is that everything will be perfect. I like to ensure it is.”

  “You get a lot of repeat customers?”

  He nodded and let her into his room.

  Yeah, she bet he did. In terms of women as well as guests. “So what do you do for fun? Play the field with Logan? Party on?”

  Maybe it would help if she learned he was a total playboy sleaze.

  “Sometimes.” He placed the bottle of whiskey on the table. “But other times I just relax quietly. Take a look under the bed.”

  She turned a suspicious eye on him. “Are you sure? What am I going to find there? An inflatable Annie to help you relieve your problem?”

  “Just go look,” he groaned.

  Seriously? She went into the next room knelt beside the bed and lifted the white covering. There was a drawer built in.

  “Open it.” He leaned against the doorframe.

  “I’m not sure I should...”

  “Dani,” he laughed. “There’s no monster in there.”

  She pulled the drawer open. “Oh, wow.”

  It was a library. A lying down library. Rows and rows of neatly placed books in specially built compartments in the wide drawer. All the spines faced up, to be easily read.

  “This is fantastic.” She glanced up at him. “Why don’t you have them on shelves on the walls? Why keep it secret?”

  “No secret. But I like my bedroom to be minimalist, just the bed. Rest easier that way.”

  He didn’t rest easy? “But then you like to read in bed?”

  He nodded and flicked on the lamp on the small beside table. “And it’s cool, don’t you think? In a closet-book-worm kinda way?”

  She was so tickled that he was a closet book-worm. “You’re the sort of person who’d like a hidden doorway behind a bookcase, right?”

  “Or a bookcase behind a door. Sure.”

  She laughed.

  “Find one.” He nodded at the neatly shelved books. “Read it. Sleep.”

  He switched off the main light. The lamp cast a warm glow that was so much kinder on the eyes. She smiled. Everything about the hotel was stylish yet comfortable. It was unique, ornate, discreet. Everything so many of his guests wished to be themselves. No wonder it was so popular.

  “Do all the suites have secret libraries?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Not as big, but one shelf, yes.”

  How freaking cool was that? “I read all Logan’s books when he was away skiing,” she confided. “Did you know he had a million of them stashed in his room?”

  “Sure,” Rocco sat on the edge of the bed and picked a book from the drawer. “I read them too. Where do you think I got the idea?”

  Yeah but Logan’s weren’t stylishly hidden like this. They’d just been piled up on the floor by his bed.

  “Really?” She laughed a little sadly. “I thought it was one thing that connected me to him. I thought that seeing I liked his books, we must think in common or something. How wrong could I be?”

  “Don’t think badly of him.”

  She didn’t really. She didn’t expect much.

  “You actually do have a bit in common.” Rocco reached forward and tousled her hair. “He doesn’t want you to make the same mistakes he did.”

  Yeah, well. She hadn’t. So far.

  She studied the books again. “I can’t believe you have them broken down by genre and then alphabetically by author.”

  “Uh, yeah.” He looked a little sheepish.

  “You come across as this so-cool success-story, but really you’re totally uptight,” she teased him.

  “I am not uptight.”

  “You are. This is so Type A personality. Is it going to bother you if I put this back in the wrong place?” She dropped the book she was holding into a different slot and watched him wince just that little bit. She laughed. “I bet you have everything filed away just so at work too. Your email inbox has no more than ten emails in it, right? The rest are in neat folders.”

  “How else do you expect me to get things done?” He didn’t deny it.

  “So everything has its place? Everything is just so?”

  “No need to look like you’ve discovered the secret of the universe.” He grumbled.

  But it was a little secret. She liked learning more about his style. She looked down at the books. “Which is your favorite?”

  “I have particular favorites here.” He pointed to a row, picking one out and opening it at a random page.

  Oh she knew that one. “There’s a really great sex scene in that book.”

  Logan slammed it shut.

>   “See,” she murmured. “You are uptight.” She reached for another book. “I have a scene for you.” She flipped the pages open. “You listening?”

  “Always.”

  She glanced up at him, saw his intense focus on her, felt her heart skip.

  Yeah, so not getting over her crush.

  She drew in a deep breath and moved to sit cross-legged on the bed, finding the page she wanted. It was a seriously shit-scary scene. That’s what she needed—to get her mind of all thoughts of getting closer to him.

  He got on the bed too, stretching out to lie sideways at her feet and propping his head up on his hand to watch her. When she finished she peeked over the top of the book for his reaction.

  “You like watching horror, reading crime... but then you get too scared?” he teased.

  “That’s the point, right?” She stretched out her legs and scrunched down the bed, getting more comfortable. “Your turn to read me something.”

  He hesitated for a moment. “All right.” He leaned down to his little library. “But it’s not gonna be scary,” he warned. “And it’s not gonna be sexy.”

  He picked a British classic—a comedy of manners with gentle, old-fashioned humor. She laughed softly as she listened. He moved up the bed, taking the empty place beside her, but was careful to leave a suitably chaste space between them. She rolled to her side to face him and watch him read. She was so aware of his big body, his heat.

  So gorgeous.

  But as she listened to his deep voice, the thread of humor so evident in his tone, her eyelids grew heavy. She longed to snuggle close and lean on him.

  So dreamy.

  “I’ve never slept with anyone before,” she confessed sleepily, interrupting him midsentence.

  He shot her a pained glance. “You already told me.”

  “No I mean actual sleeping.”

  He cocked his head. “Not even with those guys you just fooled around with?”

  “Guys went a little cold when they realized I wasn’t going all the way,” she murmured.

  He put the book down and shifted on the bed to mirror her position, rolling to his side so they lay face to face. “They hassle you about it?”

  “I soon got a rep for being the frigid ski resort princess.”

  His jaw clenched.