by T. S. Ryder
"You like movies? I like the old, silent films the best. What's your favorite genre?"
Mack shrugged. "I don't actually really like TV. But it's cool enough in here that I don't feel like I'm going to faint."
Oliver's happy expression faded into concern. "Are you too hot?"
The sweat stain down the front of her t-shirt ought to have been enough to indicate that, so Mack just stared back at him.
"You wouldn't be so hot if you weren't wearing such heavy clothes. Don't you have anything else you can wear?"
As if she wasn't hot enough, blood rushed to Mack's cheeks. Crap. This was exactly what she was hoping to avoid. "I only have one tank top and one pair of shorts. I don't really like to wear revealing clothing."
Oliver glanced down at his naked chest. He wasn’t even wearing any shoes. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"
It wasn't what she expected, but she shrugged, not wanting to offend him. They were stuck together for three months, after all. "Not really."
"Then why are you concerned about your clothes?"
She shrugged again, not wanting to point out the obvious to him–her arms and legs were not meant to be shown in public!
Oliver picked a leaf off a nearby plant. "I like to keep my living space natural. It's your choice to wear what you want, but I'm not closing up my house for air conditioning. Most of my plants would die."
He plucked a couple of leaves off a bamboo tree next to him and chewed on them, staring at her. She stared back. She could deal with it for three months. Although she might need to cut up some of her clothes to give her a wider selection of what to wear. As long as she stayed hydrated, she ought to be fine.
"The request you gave the US marshals asked for someone with experience handling exotic animals," she said instead. "Do you have a menagerie or something that I'm to look after?"
Oliver shook his head, his lips curling back. He had surprisingly large teeth. "No. I don't think animals should have to live in cages, no matter how big they are."
"Then why am I here? Meyer said you needed a caretaker."
"To take care of me."
Mack's jaw dropped. "What?"
"I tend to live a bit… chaotic. I need you to enforce a strict schedule with me. Food, bathing, making calls. I have a few rather large companies that I'll forget about for several days if I don't have someone reminding me about it. Wake up is at six am, shower at six-thirty, then I need a high-protein breakfast at eight and to make calls to the board of directors of one of my companies. Lunch, high-protein, at noon. Two high-protein snacks at two and four respectively, supper at six. I also need to call my financial advisor once a week, and my lawyers twice a week."
Mack's jaw was almost to the floor by now. A caretaker for him? He was a grown ass man. If he wanted somebody to help him out with all that, he ought to hire a personal assistant, a maid and a cook. This wasn't what she had signed up for!
Three months, she reminded herself, gritting her teeth.
"Am I supposed to pick up after you as well?" she asked sarcastically.
Oliver cocked his head to one side. "Not everywhere. Just clean my room up once in a while and do laundry."
If she had known this was what was going to be expected of her, she would have pitched a fit and never come in the first place. Which was probably why Meyer hadn’t told her what type of a 'caretaking' position it was.
"Look, I'm not your mother—"
Oliver's gaze swept down her briefly and the blood rushing to her face cut her speech off abruptly. "No, you certainly aren't. But that's why you're here. I'll help with laundry, I just don't think to do that sort of thing by myself. When you've got spare time, you can do whatever you want."
Mack put her hands on her hips, but Oliver continued before she could speak.
"If you need or want anything at all, I'll have it flown in. I have a helicopter pad on the roof," he added, his eyes lighting up like a child's. "Flying is a lot of fun. I'll take you skydiving sometime soon. Maybe next week."
"Hold on," Mack interrupted, finally finding her voice again. Her head was spinning. "I'm not going skydiving."
"But it’s so much fun!"
Mack shook her head firmly, her mind going back to her list of responsibilities. "And I don't know exactly what you're expecting, but I'm not going to shower or bathe you! Sure, if you want reminders of when to do things I'll give you reminders, and I'll make your meals, but I'm not here to be a sex doll, got it?"
Oliver's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "What gave you that idea?"
Of course. She turned her gaze away. As relieved as she was that he apparently didn't want her to 'caretake' him that way, all of her insecurities rushed in at once. If he was looking for a sex doll, he'd have made sure that his caretaker was stick-thin, not somebody with her thick waist and meaty thighs. It wasn't that she didn’t have a strong body, it just wasn't shaped quite right according to pretty much everybody who had ever commented on it.
Not that it mattered. As attractive as Oliver was, with his rippling muscles and chiseled abs, she just wanted to get these three months over with minimal awkwardness. She didn't want some poorly thought out sexual encounter to ruin that for her.
On the other hand, no-strings sex might be just what I need. Mack had to resist the urge to slap herself. Stop that.
"Anyway," Oliver grunted, turning away from her, "you should know I have a mostly vegetarian diet. I've got high-protein insects that you'll be making my meals out of, but if you're not comfortable with crickets, or you'd prefer beef or whatever, you'll have to make a list of foods you want me to order in for you."
"No meat?" She eyed his massive body in disbelief. How could anybody with that amount of muscle survive on plants and bugs?
"Yep." Oliver turned back to her. "Oh, and every night before bed we need to have an hour of playtime."
"Playtime?" Mack's voice was sharp at that–did he mean sex? After his reaction to her outburst, would he really want that?
"Playtime." He grinned at her, and before she could stop him, his spade-sized hand was on her head, mussing up her hair even more than it already was. "We're going to have a lot of fun together."
Mack pushed away his hand. "Don't touch me without asking first," she snapped. "I hate it when people touch me!"
Oliver's eyes widened again and he backed away. "I'm sorry."
He folded his hands behind his back like a child in a candy store after being chastised by his mother. The downturn of his lips and the sad look in his deep, dark eyes was so apologetic that Mack instantly regretted her tone. Funny, if anybody else she knew had done that, she'd still be giving them a piece of her mind. Oliver looked too much like a wounded puppy to scream at, though.
"I just don't like to be touched, okay?"
Oliver hesitated but nodded. "I have been told that I have issues with personal boundaries. Please believe that I don't mean any harm by it. I just like touching and physical contact. I always have. I'll try to do better, and don't hesitate to tell me to back off."
Mack nodded, accepting that. "Now, as for this 'playtime' that you mentioned—"
The chastised look disappeared. Dimples flashed at her, catching her by surprise, as he grinned. "I hope you brought a sports bra."
Seriously? Mack put her hands on her hips. "We're going to have to have a talk about what's appropriate to say to me and what's not."
***
"You have got to be kidding me."
Mack stared at the huge jungle gym. It was like every children's playground she had ever seen had merged into one and then grown three times, making it the perfect size for a man as massive as Oliver to swing around on. It was in a glass-roofed room like the atrium, only this one was closed up and had the distinct chill of air conditioning. Thick rubber grips covered every surface, and the floor was a pit of tiny paper balls. Like gravel, only these wouldn't mess up your face if you tripped and fell into them.
"Playtime," Oliver said, striding past her. He s
crambled up a rock climbing wall with a grace that belied his size and grinned down at her. "It's vital for social development that primates play together."
"You are nothing more than an overgrown child, you know that, right?" Mack put her hands on her hips. "Social development my ass."
"I thought I wasn't allowed to talk about your ass."
Mack repressed a smile at the almost-suggestive way Oliver raised his brows.
The eccentric billionaire raced to a set of monkey bars, for all intents and purposes giggling as he did so. The sound was bizarre coming from a man with arms the size of barrels. "Come catch me, Mack! If you do, I'll turn on the air conditioning in your room tonight."
Mack glanced down at what she was wearing. Even though this room was cooler than the rest of the house, her thick jeans were designed to squeeze her thighs smaller, not to allow her to climb all over a jungle gym. "I need to go change first."
"Nope. Now, before I get bored."
Mack looked up at him, swinging from one hand above her head. The promise of air conditioning was too powerful to ignore. She yanked off her jeans, biting back a sigh of relief as her legs were freed from their tight confines, and ran for the nearest ladder.
Oliver hooted as he returned to the main jungle gym, waiting until she was on the same level as he was before he took off towards the slides on the other end. Mack's breasts bounced and plopped all over the place as she crossed a swaying bridge to go after him.
Yep, she thought, using one hand to grip them in place as she moved as quickly as she could. I need to wear a sports bra for this.
Chapter Three
Mack was surprised at just how much she enjoyed being Oliver's caretaker.
For the first few days, she felt like a mix between an animal keeper and babysitter, but the eccentric billionaire was fun to hang out with. For the most part, he liked to lounge in the atrium, sitting on a tree branch or napping in one of the many hammocks that were scattered through the room. He sometimes had bursts of energy where he would tear through the house, whooping and hollering, but for the most part he was surprisingly lazy.
At first, his constant state of near-undress was awkward to be around, but after a few days of constant sweating she followed his example and lounged around wearing only her tank top and granny panties. For once she was thankful that she never had the confidence to buy sexy underwear–if she had lace and thongs instead of sensible black or white cotton briefs, she'd never experience this kind of freedom. It wasn't like it was any more revealing than a swimsuit, anyway. The only downside was that she had had to start applying deodorant to the insides of her thighs to keep them from chafing when they rubbed together.
A couple of weeks in, Mack rolled out of bed, not bothering to brush her hair as she left her nice, cool room and padded down the hall to Oliver's open door. A breakfast of frozen fruit sounded good today.
"Time to get up," she called, but stopped dead in the doorway.
The bed was neat, the way she had made it the previous morning–Oliver never made his bed, so he couldn't have slept in it last night. And given that there weren't trails of leaves all over the carpet, he might not have even come to his room at all.
Frowning, she hurried down the ladder that connected the bedrooms to the rest of the house. He wasn't in his office or the kitchen. As she approached the atrium, the most inhuman screeching noises caused her heart to jump to her throat.
A shudder ran down her spine, making her breath catch in her throat. It reminded her of when she worked at the zoo and one of the gorilla mothers had lost her baby. The pure grief in the mother's voice as she screamed and clutched at her dead baby had been utterly heartbreaking.
Mack rushed towards the atrium. What if an animal had gotten into the building, or Oliver was hurt? What would she do? What could she do, hours away from any sort of help? There was a first aid kit in the kitchen, but if Oliver was badly hurt, there was no way she could carry him anywhere!
When she reached the atrium doors, Mack stopped dead. It wasn't an animal making the noise.
It was Oliver.
He was half-crouched, running back and forth on bent legs, supporting himself on his knuckles. His head jerked from side to side, mouth wide open as he howled. Hands shot out, ripping roots from the ground, throwing foliage into the air, and he beat his chest. Mack stared, transfixed. If the sounds he was making were gorilla-like, his actions were even more. Even the shape of his body looked exactly like the barrel-chested silverback at the zoo as he ran on all fours.
"Oliver?"
His screeching died away, but he turned his back to her, his entire body going rigid. Mack's heart pounded as she inched forward. For an instant, she was tempted to make the same gentle grunting noises that the female gorillas made for the silverback when he was upset, which always seemed to calm him down. She dismissed the idea–Oliver was not a gorilla.
"Hey," she said, keeping her voice low, soothing. "Wanna talk to me, Oliver?"
"Mack." His voice was strangled, hoarse.
"Yeah, it's me. You weren't in your room." Rather than approaching him dead-on, Mack inched around to the side, so that he could see her approaching. "I got worried."
"Is it morning already?" He turned towards her. Tear tracks ran down his face, and his expression was dazed and unfocused.
Mack nodded. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, her nerves tingling, but she made sure to keep her body language open and non-threatening. There was something about him that looked trapped and ready to spring into flight or fight mode, and she just wanted to show him he was safe. It was odd, because if he did decide to fight, there wasn't a whole lot she could do to hurt him.
He's not going to hurt me, Mack thought, and she knew it was true. She continued to move cautiously, but she wasn't afraid he'd come at her–more afraid that he'd run and she wouldn't be able to help.
Damn. I care about him more than I want to admit. When did that happen? It took her months to connect to people, yet with Oliver it had happened in a matter of days.
"Want to tell me what happened?" Mack bit her lip. "I've never seen you like this."
"Today's the day my parents died."
Mack crouched, arms folded over her knees. "How long ago was that?"
"Ten years. I was seventeen. It was a car accident. A head-on collision with another car."
"I'm sorry," she whispered, shifting forwards. "That's horrible."
"It was my fault. I was fighting with my dad. I distracted him." Oliver's gaze locked on hers and he shivered, his immense chest heaving, sweat coating his arms and face. "We were always fighting. I can't even remember the last time we had spent time together when I didn't turn it into a fight."
"You were seventeen."
Oliver shivered again.
"Kids that age fight with their parents. They're almost adults but are still children, and parents don't always get that. I remember when I was seventeen, I was constantly getting into battles with my mom over the stupidest things. But really I was just trying to figure out who I was and where I fit in the world. I remember one time, my mom suggested that I braid my hair, but I didn't think it was long enough and I screamed at her." Mack shook her head. "I was a little bitch."
Oliver's lips twitched. "I wanted to look into my adoption records. I guess my dad thought it meant I didn't really think of them as my parents. My mom was trying to calm us down. She was always the calm one, always able to get us to think things through. I remember suddenly seeing headlights…"
Mack was close enough to touch now, and she cautiously pressed a hand to his chest. His heart pounded against her fingers, and slowly she wrapped her arms around him. "It's not your fault."
Oliver remained stiff in her arms for a moment, then his arms went around her as well and his forehead dropped to her shoulder. The sweat on his skin suctioned them together, and his colossal shoulders trembled.
"I miss them. I've looked for my birth parents since then, but I was left at a hospital
as an infant. There isn't even any security footage of the person who left me."
Mack thought of her own family, her annoying but endearing brothers, her down-to-earth father who always helped her find the most practical way of doing things, her fanciful mother who always encouraged her to find her dreams. Tears burned in her eyes and, without even being aware of it, she started talking again.
"Gedge, the drug lord I saw murder my boss, he never went after my family. But I'm afraid every day that he will. They're going to be moved into witness protection, too, but right now I can't even talk to them. We were always close."
"At least you have them. I'll never have a family again."
"Of course you will." She pulled back and smiled at him. "You're going to have a family again. You're going to find a wonderful woman, fall in love and have kids. It's going to be great."
His arms tightened around her and she suddenly became aware of just how close their bodies were. Her breasts were mashed against his chest. Their faces so close that she could smell his breath–it smelled like oranges. Her knees were on either side of his hips, her skin stuck to his. Her heart increased at the intimacy of their position.
Oliver's gaze flickered to her lips and she held her breath–was he going to kiss her?
To her disappointment, which was so strong it startled her, Oliver released her. He straightened, backing away from her. His movements were cool, calm, his face expressionless. She couldn't bring herself to stand as well, but stayed crouching where she was, staring up at him.
"No. I'll never find a woman who will accept everything about me and even if I did… I can't ever have children."
"Why?"
"I just can't." He ran a hand through his hair and marched past her. "I'm going to go shower. Please have my breakfast ready when I'm done."
Mack straightened, pressing a hand to her chest as he strode away. Her whole body felt tight, her brain dizzy. What had that been? I must be dehydrated, she told herself firmly, trying to ignore the tingling in her arms that felt like he was still in her embrace.