She didn’t wait for him to respond before she slammed the door.
* * * *
The innocent steering wheel was the recipient of his displaced frustration, his hands banging on it with each angry syllable he yelled.
“Damn-bollocks-damn-fuck-shite-damn! What in hell were you thinkin’, man?” Gavan shouted into the cab of the truck.
The angst he’d endured over the thought of her spending the day with that European-sports-car-driving snake had built over the hours until he completely lost his senses. What was it about this woman that rendered him incapable of maintaining even a modicum of the self-preserving control he’d relied upon for so long? He swore, while standing alone at the altar that day years before, that he would allow no woman to be in the position to put him through hell, to be able to wrench the life out of his heart. But this tiny little lass had not only gotten under his skin, she’d invaded his mind and wiggled her way right into his heart in only a few days. How could this have happened?
It took only one second for him to answer his own question. She’s intelligent, fiery, beautiful, and sweet.
“Aye, she’s sweet when she’s no’ giving you hell, Murdoch,” he said with a wry grin, rubbing his hand across his face.
It was a long, cold, miserable drive home.
Chapter Four
Gavan pushed his hand through his hair, resisting the urge to turn the F-250 around, go home, and avoid the woman all together. That would be the smart thing to do. She was definitely the last thing he needed. He should just go home and never set eyes on her luscious little body and beautiful face again, but Jaime had asked him to do this favor, and he felt he owed him at least that.
Jaime had provided him with enough work to keep him busy from dawn until dusk every day and quickly became a good friend when Gavan arrived in America. Now, thanks to professional referrals and several collaborations on various jobs, Gavan had become one of the most elite, sought-after craftsmen in the area, creating custom-order masterpieces for those who could afford his talent.
Tessa’s career was a source of pride for Jaime, so whenever the guys were sharing a couple of beers after work, it was a frequent topic of conversation when her books started to sell. Out of curiosity, Gavan picked up a copy of Tessa’s first book when it released, even though he was more of a biography and nonfiction fan. The story was not only full of startlingly descriptive horror, replete with blood and gore, but the horror was interwoven with, and in many cases dependent upon, mind-bending, sometimes perverse, erotic passages. Jaime’s young sister wrote expertly about twisted sex of all kinds. In the single book he read, humans had sex with monsters, murderers, and demons. The details of those vivid scenes had led him to believe that the girl was writing from some amount of sexual experience. After that, whenever Jaime referred to his younger sister as a “handful” or a “spitfire,” Gavan assumed he was referring to Tessa’s wild lifestyle. He had no problem at all with anyone having a full and exciting sex life, but his experience with a free-spirited woman had ended very badly for him.
And that was precisely why he had to get these overwhelming thoughts he was having for the little hellfire under control. He’d simply go in, do the work that had to be done, and get out. Interaction with her would be kept to an absolute minimum, and everything would be fine. Even as he repeated that mantra to himself, he was unable to stop the image of his cock driving deep into her hot little cunt, his balls slapping against her ass with every inward thrust. He had to shift in his seat to adjust his growing erection to a less uncomfortable position. He’d put that out of his mind and stick to business. Business and nothing more.
Aye.
* * * *
He rang the doorbell and could hear Tessa approaching, loudly speaking in a tone full of mock chastisement that he realized was meant for her brother.
“Oh, so you decided to come and mooch some breakfast off of me instead of just returning my call about that big, arrogant ass you sent to my house.”
Unable to suppress it, he grinned when he heard this, but quickly replaced it with a scowl when she opened the door and stood before him in nothing but a man’s button-down oxford shirt, bunny slippers, and a smile.
“Wha—what are you doing here? I thought you were Jaime. I mean, I just assumed. I—Why did you come back here?” Tessa demanded, left bunny stomping on the floor, whiskers twitching.
“I’ve come back tae finish the renovations. I doona’ work for you, I was contracted by Jaimeson Danvers, so only he can fire me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, lass, I’ll be getting back tae what I started,” he explained with what he hoped was a finality that wouldn’t invite argument from her and the storm clouds he could already see gathering in her eyes.
Without waiting for her to respond, he stepped around her and moved into the kitchen to pick up where he had left off the day before. He heard her sigh and begin muttering what he knew had to be a string of curses directed at him under her breath.
He surreptitiously watched her storm up the stairs. Was it his imagination or did those bunnies, their little ears quivering with each stomp, now look kind of angry? When his gaze caught the tail of the button-down, he wondered whose fucking shirt she was prancing around in. Was it Mr. European’s button-down shirt? There was nothing sexier to him than a woman in a man’s shirt, but the shirt had to be his, not some other man’s. Goddammit. He was supposed to be keeping these thoughts out of his head, not letting them run rampant through his mind. He pushed his hand through his hair in frustration for about the twentieth time in an hour and tried to focus on work.
* * * *
While pulling off what had become her favorite nightshirt that she’d gotten in college as part of a Men in Black Halloween costume, Tessa couldn’t stop ranting to herself through clenched teeth.
“God, the arrogance of that man! ‘I was contracted by Jaimeson Danvers so only he can fire me,’” she said in a snarky, mocking neener-neener-neener voice. “Who does he think he is? This is my house! As soon as I get showered and dressed, he is so outta here.”
Twenty minutes later, freshly showered, she descended the stairs, organizing her thoughts in order to dismiss Gavan Murdoch, Master Carpenter and part-time Golden God, once and for all. Unfortunately, she was detoured by the ringing phone in her office. Knowing that it had to be either her editor or her publicist on that line, she had no choice but to take the call. But as soon as she was finished…
Before Tessa realized it, she’d been working for over three hours without looking up. It had been necessary to boot up her computer while talking to her editor to check on some e-mails, and she’d gotten absorbed in what she was doing. She’d been so focused that she didn’t notice right away when Gavan opened the door and walked in.
The metallic snap of the tape measure startled her from the workland inside her computer and back into the room. After several minutes of diligently trying to ignore him as he squatted and bent, muscles flexing, the worn, faded denim hugging that glorious ass, Tessa snapped.
“Excuse me, but could you wait till later to measure in this room?” she asked with marked irritation, tapping her fingers on the desk. At this point, she was hoping sheer meanness would drive him away.
“No I canno’,” Gavan mumbled distractedly without meeting her gaze. God, that was infuriating. The least he could do was look at her when he was dissing her.
“Yes, but you see, the problem here is that I don’t want you to be working here at all. And by here, I mean in my home. Like I said last night, your services are no longer required. Since you obviously hate being here, I would think that moving on to your next job and leaving me wouldn’t be a problem for you.”
While once again keeping his face turned away from her, he replied, “And like I said, Jaime contracted me for this job as a favor and I intend tae see it through tae its finish. I only need a bit o’ time in here tae check a couple of measurements, and I’ll be leaving for the lumber mill. You’ll have your precious quiet then.
”
Oh, that did it. Now he was going to get snarky with her? Tessa sprung from her chair and stomped around the desk with her arms crossed over her chest, stood directly in front of where Gavan was kneeling, and tapped her little, white, Keds-clad foot on the carved wool rug.
“Okay, if you insist on continuing to work until I can speak to Jaime and put an end to this, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it. But until then, you could at least do me the courtesy of turning in my general direction when you speak to me. For whatever reason, you find me so reprehensible you can’t even look at me.”
She was about to continue, her mad just getting good and warmed up, but the words simply melted on her tongue when Gavan turned his head up toward her from his kneeling position on the floor and looked at her. His amazing, deep amber gaze warm with an expression she couldn’t immediately identify. It looked like his eyes were pleading with her for something, and at the same time, there was just the tiniest bit of a smirk in the corner of his mouth, much like the one she thought she saw this morning when she’d first opened the door.
Oh, he was definitely lickable, but what a pain in the ass!
She stood stupidly, staring down into his ruggedly handsome face with her mouth still agape, rant completely forgotten, when he reached up and, placing a finger under her chin, pushed up to close her mouth.
“You might want tae be careful o’ catching flies with that trap, lass,” he said, and his mouth curved into a devastatingly sexy smile, the tip of his tongue playfully caught between his teeth.
“Arrrrggghhhh!” she growled, and, throwing her arms up in the air, stormed out of the room mumbling curses under her breath—something about overgrown, presumptuous, and personal space issues.
* * * *
There was no denying it. He’d already come to the conclusion before he’d allowed himself to look into her eyes that day that she would be the undoing of him. As he’d lifted his gaze upward to her, fully intending to let her get all her frustration out before pulling her to him to kiss her hard, he’d resigned himself to the fact that trying to resist her was a losing battle. To hell with avoiding her in order to keep from feeling the pain he would be exposing himself to by falling for a wild spirit. He wanted her and would be satisfied with any part of her he could get, if only for a short while.
For over a week they’d been sniping at each other. He repeatedly found himself pushing her buttons just to see those beautiful eyes turn dark, her cute ass jiggle as she stormed about, and to hear her mutter her highly inventive and frequently very witty curses. But as much as he enjoyed getting her ire up, he loved discovering the sweetness she tried to hide. She thought she was some tough little cookie, but no matter how angry he made her over something stupid, a midmorning cup of coffee prepared just the way he liked it and some delicious homemade treat appeared for him every day. He’d overheard her on the phone several times discussing the details of making an appearance to raise money for animal shelters, playgrounds, and other community endeavors.
He walked through the house in search of her, with the intention to tell her how he felt. The sight of her retreating form caught his eye through the patio doors that faced the back acreage. Tessa was storming toward the barn, obviously intending to take out one of her horses since the Keds had been replaced by well-worn, black riding boots. He’d seen the pictures of her in the library, dressed in her riding habit as a little girl and teenager in various competitions and exhibitions. Having been raised on his family’s horse farm, Gavan knew that there were times that only a good, long ride would give a person the time and solace needed to sort things out and calm down.
Judging by her stride and the poker-straight carriage of her spine, one of those horses was in for a long afternoon.
Chapter Five
Gavan couldn’t look away from her. She rode away from him, and because she rode English, her lush bottom raised from the saddle, her lithe legs gripping the animal between them. A pang of envy at the horse, currently held between her delicious thighs, coursed through him. Her hair bounced and shimmered with her every movement making him long to wrap his fists in it and pull her to him. He watched intently as she put the horse through his paces, every movement of her body the source of a new aching desire in his own.
At the far end of the pasture, she turned the horse back toward the barn and once again he could see her face. Gah, she was beautiful. The icy weather had painted her high cheekbones a comely, pale pink against her light olive skin. Her eyes glistened and danced with excitement and she wore an expression of pure elation, her smile wide and unaffected.
“Gavan, you are in some serious trouble.” He sighed aloud to himself.
* * * *
Normally, Tessa would be more conservative in which mount she chose. She’d been working slowly with the high-spirited horse and had made a little progress with him, but today she was up to do battle with the huge, white beast who seemed to have a stubborn streak as long and wide as her own. After apologizing to Aladdin because taking out another horse felt like a betrayal somehow, she saddled Blanco and climbed up.
The proud, intimidating stallion trotted out of the barn, his high spirit held closely in check by his rider. Tessa nudged the great, white beast’s flanks with her heels to incite a canter, then again to increase the horse’s pace to a relaxed gallop.
Halfway across the pasture, Tessa nudged Blanco into a full gallop and directed him to the low spot in the fence, which the horse easily cleared. Exhilarated, feeling the cold wind in her face and the horse’s muscles moving between her thighs, Tessa guided Blanco toward the tree line for a long, therapeutic ride.
Once within in the trees, Tessa coaxed the animal to a walk and her mind began to swirl.
“Ho-lee crap! What the hell was that?” she asked Blanco. “I mean, come on. He ignores me for days on end, no wait, he provokes me constantly for days on end and is the rudest, most arrogant bastard I’ve ever had the displeasure to encounter, and then all at once he whips a charming sense of humor out of his pocket?”
She stopped talking to maneuver around a large stump and under a low-hanging limb before continuing.
“He actually smiled! Oh, yeah. I thought I saw one as soon as I opened the door this morning, but it disappeared so fast, I thought I’d imagined it. But, there in the library, I caught not only another smirk, but was lucky enough to have a full-on, dazzling smile bestowed upon little ol’ me. And, oh, Blanco, what that smile did to me! Who’d have thought the man had such a gorgeous smile? Whew!” She stopped talking and let her mind wander over his sinfully sexy lips and all the things she wanted to tell him to do with them as she leaned forward to stroke the horse’s smooth neck.
“Blanco, I swear, his sexy smile threw me for such a loop that when he actually cracked a joke, albeit at my expense, I couldn’t get it together fast enough to do anything but leave the room. Honestly, I don’t think I could have strung words together to form a sentence if my life had depended on it at that point. Until then, I didn’t think he was capable of anything more than grunting. Heck, I have to admit that I’ve been just the tiniest bit afraid of him. I mean, he’s all broody and huge.” Tessa giggled as she poured her heart out to her new “therapist,” who responded aptly with well-placed snorts, huffs, and ear wiggles.
“Oh, and do I even need to bring up that out-of-left-field kiss the other night? I mean talk about hot! I felt my body react more to that one kiss than all the times I’ve ever had actual sex put together. Whew! I just don’t understand what made him change his mind. Nothing was changing mine at that point. I just know those lips are capable of amazing things.
“Maybe he’s just really shy or something, right? I mean, what if I was just too forward for him at first and I put him on guard. Okay, seriously on guard. I suppose that doesn’t matter, though, right? He seems to be coming around. Maybe we’ll be able to work together. I guess when I get back to the house I’ll call Jaime and tell him I was mistaken when I left that message t
he other night. Then maybe I’ll work on being a little nicer to Mr. Murdoch.”
Feeling like she had a firmer grasp on the situation, Tessa grew silent and enjoyed wandering aimlessly through the woods, letting her mind have its way with Gavan’s gorgeous body.
* * * *
Silently cursing the amount of time he’d had to waste going from one lumber yard to another to get just the quality he required, Gavan was surprised when he entered the house hours later to find that Tessa hadn’t returned from her ride yet. A protective swell moved through him and he began to worry when he noted that the sun was sinking in the winter sky. As he stood at the sliding patio door to look out at the forest that lined the back of the property she’d disappeared into earlier, debating on whether or not he should saddle up one of the other horses and go looking for her, Tessa burst out of the woods, kicking the great white stallion into full gallop. Immediately, Gavan could see that something was wrong. Very wrong.
As he reached for the handle to slide the door open, the danger at hand came into his full view. Three feral looking dogs were fast on the hooves of the horse. Tessa was standing in the stirrups, leaning forward over the horse’s neck, urging him to run faster, but the dogs were gaining. Her sandy-colored mane whipped behind her, a look of determination laced with pure fear on her face.
Seeing her in danger propelled Gavan into action. He ran to the barn to grab a shovel he spied leaning outside and turned to run toward Tessa and the danger closing in behind her.
That’s when it happened.
One of the dogs leaped and grabbed the big white steed’s right rear leg. The horse bucked and kicked out behind it, catching two of the dogs, sending them reeling, loud yelps of pain cutting the air. As though he realized that his pack size had dwindled, the third dog turned tail and ran back toward the woods. Being out of immediate danger didn’t quell the horse’s distress, though, and he continued to buck and rear. Just as the two momentarily dazed dogs rose and ran to the woods to join their turncoat friend, Tessa lost her mount, flew through the air, and fell to the ground, landing with a thud and a cry of pain.
Lovell, Cooper - Tessa's Highlander (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 4