Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  Above her touch or not, she was dying to try that bath. She’d bet Brett wouldn’t use it if he lived here until he was ninety. Unless, of course, somebody got in there with him. There was heaps of room, and, she was realizing, being warm and cozy and naked in a room with a fire blazing, while the snow fell outside, might be a sexy thing in itself. If she stood, for example, in front of those windows, looked out like she didn’t know he was watching, let her dressing gown drop to the floor, and lifted her hair to pin it for the bath, using the dark reflection as her mirror? If she did all of that slowly enough, he’d get in the bath with her. Possibly after a detour to the couch. Or just standing there, watching the reflection of their bodies pale against the dark glass as he touched her. He loved to look at her naked, and she loved watching him look.

  If she kept on like this, he was going to have to give her one of her fantasies for her birthday. He’d enjoy hearing them. He’d enjoy choosing one even more.

  Get serious. “You live on the water,” she said, instead of telling him about her naughty plans for his flash bath. She’d tell him over dinner, after she’d made him something he absolutely couldn’t resist, and got him to drink a glass of wine with her, maybe. She’d found a good shop in Portland with a very knowledgeable owner, and had hidden two bottles in her suitcase. Wine in that bath, in front of the fire? That would be a luxury, and he’d have candles for emergencies, surely.

  Focus. “This view can’t be comfortable,” she told him. “Why did you buy this house? I love it, but it’s mad, for you.” Considering that the entire end wall of this room, with its peaked, beamed ceiling, was windows, and nearly half of the side wall as well. There was an entire deck out there that, she’d bet money, he’d never set foot on.

  “I didn’t just buy it,” he said a little sheepishly. “I built it. Because it’s the best, that’s why, and it’s comfortable, other than the view. It’s my homiest house. I’m a little bit over stainless steel and floating staircases by now, to be honest. Besides, it’s going to appreciate. It already has.”

  “You’re seeing nothing but water in summer, surely.” He understood fears. Why did he insist on minimizing his?

  He picked up a remote on the most beautiful coffee table she’d ever seen, a sort of wave shape in a light cherry accented by pale inlaid strips, and pushed a button. Cream fabric shades rolled almost silently up from the bottom of all the windows, where they stopped halfway. “Lake view,” he said, “all gone. Very useful feature.” And smiled.

  She did go skiing after she’d dropped him off at his office, taking a lesson that he’d set up for her, and it was awesome. Not entirely like surfing, but not so different. The same rush, and the same way of balancing yourself, then swooping into what Nature had given you with all the confidence you could muster, carving out your path. Not so much colder than winter surfing, either, if you were outfitted well enough, and she was, thanks to that credit card. She didn’t even get snow down her back or her boots when she fell, and she fell heaps.

  On Saturday, she went again, on her own this time, and pushed it. Brett was right. Shoving off the mountain was a leap of faith, even more exhilarating because you’d wiped out last time you’d tried.

  Afterwards, she drove to Lily’s lingerie shop, picking up coffees and smoothies along the way, because it was always better not to arrive empty-handed. The shop was busy, which was surely good, so she spent a happy hour in the back room playing a board game with Lily’s daughter Bailey, with the goofiest, gangliest dog she’d ever seen snoozing at their feet, and tried not to feel like it was home.

  Rafe was off filming, transforming his sweet, sexy self into hard-man Delta Force soldier Matt Sawyer in a New Mexican approximation of the Middle East, but that didn’t affect Lily’s welcome, since she greeted Willow like the almost-sister-in-law she’d longed for all her life. She was so pregnant, she looked about to pop, even though the baby wasn’t due for a month, and she was glowing with it. Rafe’s absence clearly wasn’t stopping Lily’s shop assistant Hailey from treating Willow like family, either, because she took one look at Willow during a break in business and said, “Excuse me, hon, but that’s the wrong bra for you. I wouldn’t say it normally, of course, but here you are, and Brett did call and say that if you happened to come by . . . Well, he’s a man who’s been wishing he had a woman to spoil, that’s been obvious to me for a long time, and if I were you, I’d go for it. Heck, if I were thirty years younger and not married, I’d go for it. Since you’re here anyway, let’s find you something better. I can think of about five bras right now that’d be darling on you, with that beautiful slim figure.”

  By the time Hailey was halfway done “finding a bra,” the hooks of Willow’s dressing room were crowded with hangers full of bras, undies, and nighties whose prices made her head spin. Right now, she was wearing a short ivory silk dressing gown with a very wide band of lace at the bottom that, when you turned around, ended halfway down your bum. Hailey said, with mischief in her eyes, “This style’s called ‘Love Me Forever,’ and that looks like it’s just about right, because, honey, that thing on you? He’ll take his time. It’s got a matching panty. Here you are. That’s going to be just gorgeous. Don’t you think, Lily?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lily said, taking a break from re-hanging stock. “That’s perfect with your hair. This look was Rafe’s idea, by the way, Willow. He said, short robe and thong, and any man would be all done. He pulls on that bow, and he’s got everything he wants. We had it in the window. He said it would make men want to shop, and he was right.”

  “That information is hardly off-putting at all, considering that Rafe’s my cousin,” Willow said, laughing at the same time she was smoothing her hand over the gorgeous silk, just to feel its lustrous sheen. Brett would love it. Innocent, and not. He’d love it. Especially if she dropped it to the floor in front of those dark windows in exactly the way she’d imagined. By firelight.

  She didn’t need any of it, no. But she wanted it.

  “We won’t tell him,” Lily said. “Your secret, mine, and Brett’s. And Hailey’s, of course.” She sighed. “I’m so glad. He’s a wonderful man.”

  “Not that you thought so at first,” Hailey put in. “I thought so. You thought he was pushy.”

  “Well, he was pushy,” Lily said, but she was laughing. “Always so smooth and polite, but so ruthless underneath. He intimidated me.”

  “That’s what he said.” Willow probably shouldn’t have shared, but then, she tended to do heaps of things she shouldn’t. “That you were beautiful and sweet, and that he’d have run you over. Basically.”

  Lily opened her mouth, but didn’t manage to say anything. Hailey, though, was laughing. “Well, he won’t run you over, hon,” she told Willow, patting her on the arm. “Take that off and try this one. I am enjoying this. Brett Hunter, off the market at last. Isn’t that satisfying.”

  Willow closed the velvet curtain and took the dressing gown off, then looked at the price tag and said, “Wait.” Then she looked at the price on the skimpy pair of undies, stuck her head around the curtain, and said, “Wait.”

  Lily smiled her sunny smile. “Like Hailey said—Brett asked us to get you set up. We were supposed to be spontaneous and casual about it, but Hailey charged right in there. Of course, that’s why she’s so good at her job. Let her show you more nightgowns, pretty please. He wants to please you.”

  “My fault,” Hailey said cheerfully. “How would you be spontaneous about saying—‘Hey, maybe Brett wants to buy you a new lingerie wardrobe! Let’s do it first and ask later!’ Better to just go on and tell you he does, if you ask me.”

  Lily said, “Well, you did it, so here we are. Don’t worry, Willow. He’s good for it, it’s good for my business, you could say that he owes me and Paige, and it’s a treat to see how beautiful you look in everything. That purple is definitely your color, though the bronze is gorgeous, too, and the black’s just devastating. And this white one? You’re going to make him so happy.�
�

  How did you argue with that? Lily might be sweet, and she might seem soft, but Willow was noticing a tough streak buried in there. A businesslike streak, too. She’d tried to keep track of the charges she was ringing up, but she still wasn’t any better at maths. The whole thing was making her lightheaded. She probably needed protein.

  They didn’t have dinner in Brett’s immaculate house, but in Lily’s little cottage on the mountain instead, which had to be the coziest spot in the world, all pale pinks and greens and scaled-down furniture, like the playhouse you’d always dreamed of. It was hard to imagine Rafe here, except that Rafe seemed as contented as a man could possibly be, so it must work for him.

  “How’s the new addition working out?” was Brett’s first question when they walked through the door. “Did Travis do right by you?”

  “You must know he did,” Lily said with a smile. “I know you told him to prioritize it, as fast as they got it done. That was too sweet of you to insist on having your crew do it.”

  “I didn’t want it messed up, that was all,” Brett said. “And fumes wouldn’t have been good for the baby. Besides, you needed to close off that loft bedroom, and put in the new room on top of the downstairs addition. I had a pretty good idea how it should be done, after figuring out Bailey’s room with you and seeing the place.”

  “Yeah, right,” Lily said. “It had nothing to do with the goodness of your heart. Come see.”

  She took them up the stairs, then opened the door on the left and led them into a nursery that defined “serene.” Walls painted a pale blue-gray, a white crib with a mobile of ocean creatures hanging over it, a white wicker rocker and ottoman with blue-striped cushions, and gauzy white curtains covering huge windows on two sides, overlooking the valley and the mountains beyond.

  “I didn’t want to move,” Lily said, “and, look, Travis has made it so I didn’t have to. You’ve made it that way, Brett. The half-bath was a perfect idea. Thank you.”

  “We already have tons of clothes for Elijah,” Bailey said, opening a drawer of the white dresser and pulling out a blue cotton sleeper printed with jumping lambs. “We even have the diapers all unpacked, and wipes and everything. Lily says it’s better to get all done shopping early on, because you always think of something you need at the last minute, and plus, babies can come early. It’s super fun to fold everything up, because the clothes are really little, like for dolls, except I didn’t like playing with dolls very much when I was little. I think I’ll like babies better, because they’re real, and you have to be responsible. Rafe and I put the crib together ourselves. I read the directions and sorted the pieces all out, and he did the screwing-in parts.”

  Willow had slipped her hand into Brett’s. He’d gone wooden again. Lily was looking at him a little anxiously, too. “It’s beautiful,” Willow said. “Are Jace and Paige as prepared as you are?”

  Lily laughed. “Yes and no. Paige whined about shopping so much that I just bought double on the furniture and had one of everything shipped down to them. Except the clothes, of course, because—girl.”

  “You bought tons of clothes for Taylor, too, though,” Bailey said.

  “Shh,” Lily told her. “We’re being discreet about that, remember? I could have gotten a little carried away,” she told Willow. “It’s almost like having twins myself, and it was so much fun. Besides, Paige says clothes make her nervous. I don’t see how, but there you go. Guns make me nervous. I’d much rather think about clothes.”

  “Discreet’s when you kind of lie,” Bailey explained to Willow, and everybody, even Brett, had to laugh, so that was better.

  Willow had done her Moroccan soup for dinner, at Brett’s request, a salad, rye bread rolls, and a salted-caramel bread pudding for the sweet, with chunks of bittersweet chocolate melted in and a dollop of whipped cream flavored with vanilla bean to finish it off. Brett took the first bite and sighed, and she smiled and said, “It’s what I told you. The sin only happens when you take it that step too far. That’s how you go from ‘pudding’ to ‘magic.’”

  “Wait until you taste her Boston cream pie,” Brett told Lily. “I need to get this leg healed and haul myself up on skis again so I can work some of this off before I lose all my appeal.”

  “Not happening, mate,” Willow said, Lily smiled and looked absolutely satisfied, and Bailey said, “You’re really good at cooking, Willow. If you come to live in Montana, maybe you could teach me. Hailey taught me how to sew already, except I’m still getting better, because sewing’s complicated, except things like T-shirts, and Lily taught me how to garden and take care of animals. I only know how to weed and take pits out of cherries and things, though, because you can’t plant seeds until spring, and that’s still two months. Maybe I could learn how to cook instead. That would be cool, and it would be helpful,” she told Lily, “especially when Rafe’s not home, like now, and once Elijah gets born. I could take the school bus instead of going to the store after school. I bet I could make the whole dinner, if I knew how. I only know how to cook Hamburger Helper and macaroni and hot dogs and spaghetti,” she explained to Willow. “I thought that was a lot of things, but Lily says they’re not nutritious. So it would be helpful if I learned how to cook better. My grandma said you had to be helpful if you lived with people.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Lily said, and put her arm around her. “Maybe we could think about it a different way. That we’re all contributing, because we’re a family, the same way we take care of the animals together, and the same way you’re going to help take care of your brother. It would be great if you wanted to learn how to cook, but you’re nine. No need to take charge just yet.”

  “She’ll probably let you coast until you’re twelve or so,” Brett said with a twinkle in his eye. “After that, though? Look out, Cinderella.” Lily looked surprised, like she wasn’t used to Brett joking, which was probably true. She laughed, though, and so did Bailey, and Willow thought yet again that Brett was right. Lily probably was the kindest woman in the world. Fortunately, Rafe had that gooey caramel center himself. He’d already rung tonight to talk to both Lily and Bailey, and it was easy to imagine how much he was itching to be home. His shooting schedule ran until two weeks before the due date. Willow was positive that was making him more than nervous.

  “I’m not sure how much I’ll be here,” Willow said, not looking at Brett, “but if I am, we’ll do lessons, Bailey. I came to live with new people when I was twelve, myself, so I know about being helpful.”

  “Really?” Bailey asked.

  “Yep. With Rafe and Jace, in fact, and their parents, after my own parents died. I wasn’t Cinderella, either, because my aunt couldn’t have been kinder, but it did feel better to help. I helped with the garden, and then I learned to cook. Sewing’s beyond me, though, so you’ll be better at that.”

  “It’s just practice,” Bailey said. “That’s what Hailey says. You have to keep trying, that’s all. If you make a mistake, you can always rip it out and start again. She says nobody’s perfect the first time.”

  Tuesday night, and Brett was in the States for another week, but at least Willow had him on the phone. Better than nothing, but not nearly as good as him being here.

  How could you miss somebody so much after a month? She kept jotting notes in her book of recipes, ideas of dinners he’d like and sweets that would make him close his eyes. How would he be getting his leg massaged when it knotted up and hurt him too much, especially once his back got into the act? Who’d tell him when he was pushing too hard? She wondered if he was lonely, taking a shower by himself instead of a bath with her. You didn’t use both ends of the tub, she’d found. You lay back against him, in his arms, and he loved holding you there.

  Who was seeing the man underneath the suits and the polish? Who was loving him? If he felt half of what she was, he wasn’t feeling good at all. She wanted to see his smile, and the warmth in his gray eyes that was just for her. She wanted to fall asleep with his arm across her chest, pull
ing her back against him, warm and solid and safe, and to know that she was making him feel exactly the same way.

  What she needed, of course, was to get a bloody grip. She was tired, that was all, and the bloke was coming back in a week.

  She needed to stop thinking about that anyway, and focus on what he was saying, which was, “I want you to look at a few of these events with me, when I get there. I have some questions. This might be sloppy bookkeeping, and it might not, especially not after the mushroom thing. One issue is a coincidence. Two issues start looking like they could be a pattern. Remind me—who knew those mushrooms were on your menu?”

  “Uh . . . Amanda, of course. And the supplier, though it wasn’t him. The electronic version of the menu would be in the . . . whatever you call it. The file? The thing you’re looking at, so her husband, Tom, would know, I guess, if he cared to look. Other than that . . .” She rested her elbow on the kitchen table and her head on her hand, while Azra poured boiling water into a mug for mint tea, the soother of all ills.

  Jet lag was a thing, even if you had had a “bedroom” on Etihad Airlines, same as Azra’s mum had done—although no butler this time—and a private jet on either end. After almost thirty hours, and if you’d gone straight to the kitchens to start cooking upon arrival, without even stopping at home? It was definitely a thing. Her body had no idea what time it was, but it knew it was tired. She needed to go surfing in the morning to be in the right head space for the meeting. The thought of waking at five-thirty wasn’t sounding brilliant, but once she got out on the water, she’d be all good.

  “Other than that,” Brett prompted.