by Tara Sue Me
Orson grumbled even knowing Evan spoke the truth. He hated paperwork, but it wasn’t possible for him to repair anything in his current physical condition. Though he had an office staff, and they handled a lot for him, there were still items requiring his attention.
They drove in silence for a few miles until Evan broke the silence. “Kelly and I helped Kiara pack up a few things, and we got her settled in the main house.”
Damn. Kiara was already at his house? Not that he minded, he’d just thought he’d have time to prepare. Get used to the idea. Nope. He would jump in head first.
“I know you would never do anything intentional to harm her,” Evan continued. “But she is almost my sister-in-law, so I have to say this. Don’t fuck with her. She had a horrible relationship she’s still trying to recover from. Apparently this asshat is the one who got her fired. The last thing she needs is her new boss trying to get into her pants.”
Orson didn’t blame Evan for the don’t fuck with my woman’s sister speech. If their roles were reversed, he’d tell Evan the same thing. But that didn’t mean hearing made it any easier to take.
“When have you ever heard of me trying to get into an employee’s pants?” he asked his partner.
“Never,” Evan admitted. “But I’ve never seen you look at another employee the way you do Kiara.”
Orson couldn’t argue with him on that. “I would never hurt her or fuck with her.” He didn’t consider it a lie. He hadn’t promised not to fuck her, just not to fuck with her. Two different things from the way he saw it.
Based on the frown Evan now wore, Orson’s word play had not gone unnoticed.
“I’m just saying.” Evan kept his eyes on the road. “You’re my business partner and I’ve known you for a long time, but if you break Kiara’s heart, I’m breaking you.”
Chapter 5
Kiara
One week after arriving at the ranch, Kiara was close to going mad. She loved living at the ranch. The house was beautiful and comfortable, not to mention the breathtaking views through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Plus, she was surprised at how busy she was.
Caring for Orson didn’t take up too much of her time. She helped where she could around the house, and the few times a minor medical need popped up on the ranch, and she always made sure Orson did the physical therapy needed to ensure he recovered his full strength. She soon discovered the hardest part about taking care of him was how he attempted to do everything under the sun and getting him to stop.
No, he could not go finish harvesting the pears.
No, she didn’t care that no one else was available.
No, he then told her, she would not do it herself.
To be certain he didn’t sneak around her to climb up a ladder with his good arm, she called Evan and they organized employees to come and pick the pears after work. Orson hadn’t asked for help because he didn’t want to put anyone on the spot to feel as if they had to help. What he didn’t realize was that his employees genuinely liked him and jumped at a tangible way to help. They donated the crop to local shelters and the local news station did a feature on the ranch.
She had no trouble with either her job or her living quarters. Her biggest problem, dare she say, her only problem, was Orson himself. He watched her when he didn’t think she was paying attention. He let his gaze linger longer than what was polite. However, with anything physical, he withdrew. Even when she was assisting him with therapy, he would turn from her touch. When they found themselves alone in the house at night, she felt as if he went out of the way to avoid her.
It bugged her on several levels, but the main one was she didn't understand what his reasoning could be. She got the memo. Got it last summer to be exact. He didn’t mess around with people he paid. Understood and appreciated. Did that mean he had to act like she had the plague? Because she’d never noticed him acting toward other female employees the way he acted toward her.
She searched her actions over the past few days as well as the time she’d worked at the ranch over the summer, looking for anything, any action or communication she’d had with Orson to explain his behavior. Nothing came to mind. She found nothing.
She was in her room, across and down the hall a few steps from Orson’s, looking for a new recipe for pears when her phone rang.
Looking at the display, she smiled as she answered. “Kelly, what’s going on? I haven’t seen you in at least four hours.”
One of the best parts of her temporary position was being around her sister so much. Kelly had lived in Delaware for most of their adult life and only recently returned to Texas. They’d both enjoyed being close again.
“That man better be glad he’s not my sub because he’d have one sore ass, I’ll tell you that right now.” Kelly was the twin with red hair and though it rarely showed, the temper to match.
Kiara bit back her laugh. “What did Evan do this time?”
“You remember me telling you how something felt off between Evan and Orson?”
“Yes.” In fact, her sister had brought up several times over the last few days how strained their relationship looked.
“I confronted him with it tonight at dinner,” she said.
“And?”
“When he went to pick Orson up at the hospital, he decided to have a little chat with him. About you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Evan basically said he’d kick Orson’s ass if he touched you.” Before Kiara could respond, Kelly added, “I told him it was a shit thing to do, and he had no business talking to him about you.”
Wow. Out of everything she’d thought might be Orson’s problem, Evan giving him a hands-off talk hadn’t been on her list. That Evan had done so stunned her.
Kelly spoke again. “I remember at the end of summer you mentioned how if you and Orson had met under different circumstances, things could have turned out much different than they had.”
Her face heated remembering that conversation. Kiara had left the ranch to return to her job in the school system and she’d been down about not seeing much of Orson again. Kelly had come over to take her out to dinner, and Kiara had confessed all. She’d hoped her sister had forgotten that conversation.
Apparently not.
“Fat chance of anything happening now,” Kiara said, unable to get her mind off of Evan's chat. She truly liked her sister’s boyfriend. They’d talked about getting married and Kiara was all for it. But seriously?
“That’s the thing,” Kelly said. “I don’t think all hope is lost.”
Kiara sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean if you want to explore that crazy chemistry anyone with eyes can see between the two of you, I think you can.”
Kiara doubted that. “How?”
“Make the first move. Go to him. Tell him how you feel and that he should ignore Evan because he isn’t the boss of you.”
Kiara laughed. “You made it sound so easy.”
“It is. Trust me. Now hang up the phone and go get your man.”
They said their goodbyes, and Kiara was still shaking her head when she hung up. Just that easy, Kelly said, and Kiara was sure that for Kelly it was that easy. But that wasn’t the case for Kiara. She’d always been the quieter sister. Some people thought she was extroverted, but that was only her acting like an extrovert. Deep down, she wasn’t the person she portrayed, and no one knew how much it took out of her to pretend.
To hear Kelly say it was easy to walk up and tell Orson how felt made her want to scream back that of course it was easy. For her.
But as she sat there, fuming over how Orson wouldn’t come to her, she asked herself why it had to be that way. If she could pretend to be an extrovert, why couldn’t she pretend to be the type of woman who would walk into Orson’s room and tell him how she felt?
She picked up her pillow and buried her head in it so she could scream. Because. Because. Because. Because.
Because she was scared.
Why?
Because of Randy.
That thought gave her pause. She didn’t remember being scared of anything before him. Now she felt as if everything scared her. Taking a stand. Being brave. Reaching out for what she wanted.
Fuck that.
She got out of bed and stepped into the connecting bathroom. Randy had dictated enough of her life when she’d been with him. She’d be damned if she would allow him to do the same after she found the courage to leave him.
Taking her hair brush from the top of the vanity, she looked at herself in the mirror. She’d never been one to wear a lot of makeup. There had been no point when she worked for the school system or the hospital before that. Needless to say, she’d never wore it around the ranch either. If she had, she’d be putting it on now. It helped with the pretending part.
She pulled her hair out of the ponytail it’d been in all day and brushed it out until the light brown waves bounced around her shoulders. Next came her toothbrush to ensure minty breath and remove all evidence of the spicy peppers she’d used with dinner.
One last look in the mirror and she stripped down. If she was truly brave, she’d march down the hallway naked and knock on his door, like it was something she did every day. But she wasn’t brave, and it wasn’t something she did every day. And she knew if he rejected her, there was no way she’d be able to stop her tears, and the only thing she could think of being worse than walking back to her room, crying, was being naked and crying while walking back to her room.
The sheer green silky wrap she slipped into truly wasn’t any better than being naked, but her brain thought differently. Even when she turned toward the mirror and verified that the see-through material hid nothing, her brain still whispered, better than naked.
Stupid brain.
She would put the entire blame on it if the next ten minutes blew up in her face.
Chapter 6
Orson
Orson readily admitted Kiara living in his house was a nightmare he created. Looking back now, the idea of how easy it would be to walk into her room at night was clearly contrived by a man pumped full of painkillers. Not that he wouldn’t do the same thing if he had the chance to do it over again. Hiring Kiara had been one of the smartest decisions he’d ever made. Everyone loved her, and she fit in seamlessly around the house. No, if given the chance, he'd hire her again. But he would have done so with his eyes open, realizing the likelihood of getting “the talk” from Evan.
Kiara had flitted away to her own room an hour earlier. He’d done his damnedest not to be alone with her while they were both in the house. Though it had been unintentional, he’d ended up hurting her. He saw it every time he put distance between them. Damn, Evan.
A week after the fact, he still couldn’t say he blamed his partner for the things he’d said. Evan had known him for a long time. Since college, to be exact. Likewise, he knew Orson’s record of long-term relationships was, at best, sparse.
But that didn’t mean Orson wasn’t capable of being in a long-term relationship. He just hadn’t found the right woman yet. Or that's what he told himself at least. Evan was also aware of Orson’s strict rule not to date employees. Though technically, he wasn’t sure Kiara fit into that category. She wasn’t a permanent employee.
Not that Evan cared. For Evan it didn’t matter if Kiara was Orson’s employee or not. That was beside the point. She was Kiara, his girlfriend’s sister, and that was all he saw. All that mattered. Which meant Orson needed to realize that he and Kiara would never happen. Maybe he’d sit down with her tomorrow and explain.
The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Kiara had noticed his distance, and he needed to explain why he'd put it there. They would have a calm and rational discussion and everything could go back to the way it should have been from the start.
Someone knocked on his bedroom door. Though as he stood to answer it, that statement seemed off. It wasn’t someone. The only other person in the house at the moment was Kiara. She was the one knocking. This was good. Maybe they could have the necessary conversation tonight, allowing him to sleep better than he had been.
He opened the door to find a might-as-well-be naked Kiara standing on the other side, and all thoughts of sleep flew out of his head.
“Kiara?” he finally asked, forcing himself to keep his eyes above her neck.
She bit her bottom lip and glanced away. “Um…. I was hoping we could talk for a bit.”
“Don’t you think it’d be best if you had clothes on before we talked?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Probably, but that’s kind of what I wanted to talk about.” When he didn’t say anything, she frowned but continued. “Well, not really that.” She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “Can I come in?”
Against his better judgement, he stepped aside to let her pass. Something had her bothered based on the way she’d stuttered and fidgeted when he opened the door. Plus, it wasn’t like her to walk around his house wearing a little scrap of nothing.
Thank goodness.
His bedroom was huge, and other than the bed, he had a comfortable sitting area with two overstuffed chairs. She took a seat in one and waited for him to take the second before she started.
“Kelly called me not too long ago,” she said.
He nodded. The sisters were close, that Kelly had called wasn’t newsworthy.
“She told me what Evan said to you last week when he brought you home from the hospital.”
That, however, was something else entirely. “What about it?”
“It’s utter and complete bullshit.” Anger flashed in her eyes.
“How do you figure that?” Just from looking at her, he couldn’t tell if it was the fact Evan spoke to him concerning Kiara, or his message making her angry.
“Because he doesn’t get to pick who I do what with. It’s none of his business.”
“He seems to think differently, and to be honest, he made some valid points.”
She pressed her lips together, obviously displeased with his response, though he imagined it would be difficult to get her to say why.
He lowered his voice when he spoke next. “You clearly have something you want to say about that, you might as well tell me what it is. You’re the one who wanted to talk.”
“I thought you’d feel differently.”
So had he. At the moment, he couldn’t recall why he decided Evan was right, only that he had. Leaning forward, he cursed the oversized chairs that wouldn’t let him nearly as close to her as he wanted. He let his fingers trace the edging of the silky collar of her robe, still not letting his gaze drop. “Is that why you came to my room dressed like this?”
She dropped her head. “For all the good it did me. You haven’t even looked. I’m surprised you noticed.”
Fuck. Now she thought he was rejecting her, and that was the last thing he wanted. “I noticed, girl. Trust me. That’s why I haven’t looked. Because I know if I look once, I’ll want to look twice, and after that, looking won’t be enough.”
Finally, she lifted her head, and he saw her eyes. Tears threatened to fall, but more than that, he sensed her determination to have what she wanted. Him. Damn every thought he’d had telling him to leave her alone. If she offered, he wouldn't turn her down again.
Her voice was soft, but fierce. “If I wanted you to stop at looking, I wouldn’t have put it on in the first place.”
Chapter 7
Kiara
“Damn it, Kiara,” he growled and then crushed his lips to hers.
She’d known Orson would know how to kiss, but in her experience a kiss was just a prelude. Not to Orson. He knew exactly what he was doing. His lips teased hers before he ran his tongue across the seam of her mouth. She opened to him, and he wrapped his arms around her and walked her backward until she hit the wall.
Pressed between the hard planes of his body and the wall, she gasped as his uninjured hand tugged the flimsy belt of her wrap.
“Take it off,” he said. “I
don’t want anything between me and your body.”
He pulled back long enough for her to untie the belt and slide the silk garment off her shoulders. It fell to the floor.
“You’re gorgeous.” His hand cupped a breast, and he lowered his head to nibble along the side. “Damn fucking cast.”
She arched her back in invitation. Hot holy shit, but his fingers knew what they were doing. “More,” she panted when he stepped away.
“Trust me.” He turned her around. “I’m nowhere near being finished.”
He walked her backward until she found herself with the back of her legs against the bed.
“Get up and on your back,” he commanded, and she scurried to do as he asked.
He followed, looming over her, not touching, simply looking. Then, as if he had all the time in the world, he ran a hand down her side, and lowered his head. She moaned as his lips did the same.
“You taste like sin,” he murmured against her shoulder. “So damn good.”
He nipped the sensitive area at the junction of her arm and torso and, hell, no one had ever done that before. How did she not know a nibble there would shoot straight to her clit?
“Oh, fuck.” She clutched his hair in her hands as he did it again to the other side.
He lifted his head. “Hold on to the headboard.”
“But then I can’t touch you,” she protested.
“Now.”
She wanted to whimper, to whine and pout, to tell him no. Which was odd, she’d always been a compliant sub. His gaze told her it would be in her best interest not to test him. Fine. With a deep sigh, so he would know she was doing it but didn’t really want to, she lifted her arms and grabbed on to the slats above her head.