by Leslie North
Daniel laughed to himself, quietly unzipping his briefcase. If he moved quickly—and stealthily—Grayson wouldn’t have to even know he’d stopped to check his emails.
“Stay there. Take a load off. I need to find different shoes.” It was a white lie, he supposed. He’d change shoes for the hell of it, but he didn’t need to. What he needed to do was make sure the Korean banker he’d just wined and dined over the weekend was still a shoo-in for the business deal Daniel’s father had been pushing him toward for the past three months. If Daniel didn’t snag this, he’d never hear the end of it. From his father, and from himself.
Just as Daniel sat on the edge of the bed, laptop loaded and ready, he heard a strange clank from the bathroom. Or at least it seemed like it came from there. Daniel paused, listening more intently.
Silence permeated the room once again.
And then he heard the faintest sloshing sound.
Like water.
Like maybe a pipe had burst.
Anxiety streaked through him and he tossed his laptop aside, rushing toward the bathroom. Before he’d even pushed through the door, he’d already calculated a running tally of how much money a burst pipe inside the master bedroom would cost. He could exactly imagine the upcoming days of work, the ruined closet, the forgotten pair of Italian leather shoes in the back of his wardrobe that would be ruined from water damage and mold.
He scanned the master bath wildly as he stepped inside, finding the lights already on. The next thing to catch his eye: the very naked woman in his clawfoot bathtub looking at him with wild green eyes.
Breasts hidden by a layer of bubbles while she wielded a decorative vase, cowering in the corner of the tub.
“Don’t come any closer!” she shrieked, her short, punky hair sticking up at wild angles. Shock made him mute. He didn’t even realize he was stepping toward her until she moved suddenly, water sloshing over the edge of the bathtub and onto the tile.
“I told you, don’t come any closer!” she screamed, standing up, brandishing the vase like a weapon.
Daniel couldn’t believe his eyes. And he wasn’t sure what was more outrageous: the fact that there was a completely naked twenty-something with curves for days basically waiting for him inside his home, or the fact that she was about to spear him to death with a decorative Grecian urn he’d picked up on a work trip years ago.
It was when she kicked at him—coming nowhere close to reaching him, of course, but managing to fling water droplets across him like a warning—when he broke past the shock and found his voice, and his logic.
“Are you my house sitter?” he asked.
Her grip went tighter around the vase but some of the fire went out of her. Still, she kept it at ear level, like she’d swing it at him bat-style if needed. “Maybe. Are you Daniel Trent?”
“Yes.”
Finally she lowered the vase, her chest heaving. He knew the gentlemanly thing to do would be to avoid looking…but he was a billionaire, not a saint. Her entire body shimmered, like she’d bathed in oil prior to the bath, highlighting breasts that looked like perfect handfuls. Dark rose nipples standing at attention. It wasn’t an ideal time to be checking her out, but her standing buck naked in front of him didn’t offer many other options.
“How can I believe you?” she demanded through gritted teeth.
“Do you want to see my ID?” His heart raced, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he was finally putting a face—and a naked body—to the mystery house sitter who had been in charge of his penthouse during all his absences for the past six months. Sometimes, the notes she left behind seemed almost flirty, and he’d found himself wondering on more than one occasion what SitMyHouse.com’s Miss Jackie Stone, Accomplished House sitter and Aspiring Social Worker might actually look like.
And now he knew well enough. All the way down to the tightly trimmed patch of dark hair between her legs.
Jackie set her lips in a determined line, jerking her chin like she was beckoning him to step closer. “Let’s see it.”
As he dug his wallet out of his back pocket, he fumbled to find his driver’s license tucked into the folds. His fingers were shaking. This was ridiculous. Had it been so long since he’d been around a naked woman? This wasn’t even a sexy situation. This was an intrusion—him on her, since he was the one who’d hired her and forgotten to inform her that he’d cut his trip a little short.
“Show me the ID first,” she commanded, her tone hard. He finally managed to rip it out and held it up so she could see. When she indicated that she wanted a closer look, he stepped forward.
But some of her weapon-wielding had gotten the floor wet. And Daniel noticed too late when his foot connected with a slippery patch of tile. He shouted as he pitched forward, headed right for the bathtub.
Jackie shrieked, lunging for the vase again. Daniel caught himself on the edge of the tub before plunging headfirst into the water, but Jackie’s flailing caused her to slip.
She tumbled on top of him, knocking him backwards. He connected with the bathroom tile in a solid thunk, landing on his back, with Jackie’s small, damp hands immediately finding his neck.
“I told you not to touch me!” she said, her thumbs pressing into the sides of his neck.
“I fucking slipped!” he hissed out, grasping at her hands and struggling to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him. All the water from her body was bleeding into him now, soaking his pants, his shirt, everything. He didn’t seriously think that she would do him any harm, but he was impressed, if anything, that she knew exactly where to strike his pressure points to get him to pass out.
She watched him intensely for a few moments, chest heaving while her gaze skated back and forth across his face. Meanwhile, Grayson ran into the bathroom.
“Daniel! Whoa, what the—” Grayson’s eyes went wide, an expression somewhere between shock and amusement tugging at his lips. “Is everything okay?”
On top of him, Jackie squeaked and started to pull back, but Daniel slid an arm around her to hold her in place. As long as she stayed on top of him like this, Grayson wouldn’t get a free show.
“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Daniel said, trying to wave him away. “Sorry, we got excited.”
“Holy shit. My bad. I had no idea that you had a visitor waiting for you…” Grayson’s shit-eating grin was fully activated. “Sorry, miss. I hope I didn’t ruin your surprise. But maybe you were expected—that would explain why Daniel was so eager to get here…”
Daniel pinched his eyes shut, not sure where to begin with the story corrections. “It’s, uh…you know…”
“How about this? I’ll head to the diner now, in your car, and then tell your driver he has the rest of the night off. I’ll let Blake know that something else…came up and you needed to stay home tonight after all.” Grayson tapped a knuckle against the doorframe. “Sound like a plan?”
“Yep. Great.” Daniel waved him off again, everything inside him burning with embarrassment and confusion while Grayson retreated. Once the front door shut, heard only faintly from inside the master bath, Jackie rolled off of him.
“I’m so sorry.” She offered a hand, searing him with those pretty green eyes. “I didn’t mean to cause such a mess.” She gestured to the water all over the floor. “Or give your friend the wrong idea.”
Daniel grunted as he took her hand, allowing her to help him sit up. He rubbed at his face, still unsure whether all of this was real or a jet-lagged hallucination, while Jackie snatched a nearby towel and wrapped it around her.
“It’s my fault,” Daniel said, feeling some clarity return now that she was no longer naked and showcasing the wispy lines of a scripted tattoo on her ribcage. Even though he was dying to know what it spelled. “I wrapped up my business meeting early and then I had to rush so much to get on my new flight that I didn’t even think about alerting you. Honestly, I’ve been so busy at work, I totally forgot that you’d be staying here while I was in Seoul.”
> Jackie nibbled on her bottom lip, some of her mascara collecting beneath the rim of her eyes as she rested against the edge of the bathtub. “You were just in Seoul?”
Daniel nodded, scratching at the back of his neck. After what just happened, Seoul seemed like a lifetime ago. He couldn’t even remember what he was doing ten minutes ago.
“That’s so cool,” Jackie said softly, her gaze bouncing across bathroom floor. “I’d like to go someday. Let me get this place cleaned up. I really didn’t mean to try to attack you.”
“You wouldn’t have gotten far with those karate moves,” Daniel cracked.
Jackie grinned, a dimple flashing. “What are you trying to say? You were scared. Don’t act like you weren’t.”
“I was something, but scared wasn’t it,” Daniel teased back.
Jackie hefted with a laugh. “I’m sorry I accused you of breaking into your own apartment. I guess it would have helped if we’d ever met over the past six months, huh? Just to see what we look like.”
“Yeah, could have saved me a naked bathroom attack,” Daniel said, pushing himself to standing. Once he headed for the towels beneath the sink cupboard, Jackie stopped him.
“Don’t. This is my fault. I’ll clean up. You don’t worry about a thing.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s mostly my fault.” He handed her a towel and grabbed one for himself. “See? We can both do it.”
She smiled wryly at him, knotting her towel in the dip in her breasts before heading over to the bathtub. She pulled the drain, the bubbles creating a vortex as they swirled away.
“I don’t mean to keep you from whatever you have going on,” Jackie said, glancing at him shyly. He thought he caught the faintest tinge of pink in her cheeks. So tough girl Jackie was secretly embarrassed beneath the façade. Somehow, it all added up to an impossibly sexy equation.
Not just because she was all woman, with enough tattoos to make him want to spend a few hours scrutinizing them. But because she’d somehow managed to attract him through little notes over the past six months…and then wasn’t afraid to defend herself in the nude with a Grecian urn.
Little things like that made him think Jackie was the type of woman he could enjoy spending some time with.
But it was a non-option.
Daniel was smart enough to know that he didn’t have the time for anything more than a fling. And Jackie, well…
Jackie was his house sitter. And that’s how she needed to stay.
2
Jackie wasn’t sure her heart would ever stop pounding.
It was the worst mixture of everything. Shock at being found in the most vulnerable position—nude in the water—combined with humiliation at the person finding her being her technical boss. What made it all worse—like extra super double worse—was the fact that Daniel Trent was easily the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen from within a hundred-foot radius.
And that was even counting the time she saw Trent Reznor, her girlhood crush, from the fifth row at a concert.
Every inch of her tingled with awareness the longer Daniel wiped up the floor at her side. And dammit, she was still technically naked. It was like Daniel had read her thoughts, because he got to his feet and tossed the towel in the wicker laundry basket nearby, saying, “I’ll let you get dressed. You must be wanting to put some clothes on.”
Not unless you’re willing to take yours off. She rolled her lips inward, like it might help prevent the thought from escaping in spoken form. She shouldn’t think of her employer like that, but his handsomeness made it hard not to. His business look, with rumpled khaki dress pants and light blue button up under sexily tousled dirty blond hair, spoke to her in a way she didn’t entirely understand.
As a full-time house sitter and a full-time student, she didn’t have time for dating or romance. And it was not like Daniel would ever want either of those things with her. He was the type of wealthy that meant he probably wiped his ass with people like her—the unfortunate souls who had to house-sit to make ends meet. People who, in fact, had to house-sit just to have a place to lay her head at night. Since it was a full-time job for her, there was no point in paying for an apartment. She just had to schedule things carefully so that she went straight from one job to the next.
But now that Daniel was home early, well…she was formally homeless, yet again.
“I guess I’m just glad you burst into my bath time at the tail end as opposed to the beginning,” she said, trying to feign a level of casual she absolutely didn’t feel. “Then I would have really felt slighted.”
Daniel laughed as he left the bathroom. “I’ll be out in the living room. Just come find me whenever you’re ready.”
“Sure thing. Thanks.” She waved at his retreating figure, then scolded herself as he tugged the door shut. What is your problem, Jackie?
At least that was done with. Now she could definitely say she had a new worst moment of her adult life. Being walked in on during a luxurious bath wasn’t bad enough—no, it had to be the bathtub’s owner, who she’d nearly attacked with a vase. She was lucky he was giving her time to get dressed before kicking her out. But he would be kicking her out, and even if he did it nicely, it wouldn’t change the fact that she had nowhere to go.
She had no idea what to say once she finally went out there. The truth wouldn’t hack it—Hey, all my housing plans were sort of depending on this monthlong house-sit you booked with me—and she wasn’t sure how much room for casual conversation a situation like this required.
But one thing was certain. She needed an emergency backup plan, immediately. Once she was back in her black skinny jeans and a silky black tank top—standard fare for attending classes, which was all she did anymore—she hurried to call one of her best friends, Geri.
Geri picked up on the third ring, but Jackie’s hurried and hushed plea—"Please let me crash at your house tonight and possibly for the next three weeks, pretty please?”—was met with a negative: Geri’s boyfriend’s brother was already sleeping on their couch after some sort of eviction crisis, and they didn’t have the space for another couch surfer.
Jackie was determined not to freak out. Yet. She called another friend, Marie.
No answer.
She called another friend, Leslie.
Another negative. Leslie’s new roommate refused to have random people spend the night.
By the time the last name on her ‘closest friends in the world’ list was called—Tiffany, a classmate she’d connected with during freshman year of undergrad—she still had nowhere to go for the foreseeable future.
And hell if her bank account had any wiggle room. A hotel was definitely out of the question.
Jackie scooped up the rest of her things and started packing as quietly as she could. She’d gotten so used to house sitting that it no longer felt awkward to be in spaces that weren’t hers—but it was a whole different story when the actual owner was within a twenty-foot radius. She felt uncomfortable and out of place, like she’d intruded where she wasn’t meant to be.
Poor homeless girl, pretending to belong everywhere you go.
Daniel was lounging on his huge black sectional—a couch she had independently verified as the most comfortable thing in the entire world—when she came out of the master bedroom, backpack slung over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” she called out, feeling slightly more put together now that her pussy wasn’t on full display. Still, though, the darkly curious part of her wondered if he liked what he saw. “I got all my stuff packed up now. If it’s okay, I want to do a final sweep around the house. Just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
Daniel’s face fell slightly, though she wasn’t sure why. He nodded. “Yeah. No problem.”
Jackie swallowed a knot in her throat and headed for the kitchen. For sure she had some soy milk in there, as well as a random handful of almost-too-ripe avocadoes she’d picked up on sale the other day. Just as she was checking the pantry, her phone rang.
Mari
e was calling.
“Hey, girl!” Jackie tried to sound chipper. “Thank you so much for calling me back.”
“No problem, I heard your voicemail, and man, that sucks!”
“I know.” Jackie heaved a sigh. “It was a surprise, trust me. And hey, it’s okay if you can’t take me in for the whole next month, even just a week or two would be fine—”
“Girl, I’m looking for a place myself right now,” Marie said with a groan. “My apartment has an infestation.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Some sort of wild insect problem. They’re going to begin fumigating for this Friday. Less than a week’s notice for us to pack up our shit and find a temporary solution. I don’t even know what I’m going to do myself!”
Jackie gnawed on her bottom lip as she tried to cheer Marie up. Now they were both up shit’s creek, and Jackie felt like she should dedicate her time to finding Marie a place to stay too. As soon as she hung up, she snatched the soy milk from the fridge and turned to leave.
And ran right into the hard wall of Daniel’s chest.
She gasped so hard she choked. Her hand shot to her mouth as a cough rocketed out of her. She doubled over, Daniel rushing to her side.
“Jesus, that’s twice now that I’ve spooked you,” Daniel said, gripping her by the sides of her arms as she coughed a few more times. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she finally croaked out. “You just surprised me, and I swallowed all that surprise down the wrong pipe.”
Daniel grinned, searching her face. From up close, he was even more handsome. He looked like the grown-up version of those Abercrombie models she always used to secretly fawn over in high school, even though the punk pixie she was back then technically shouldn’t have liked guys like him. A hint of his cologne reached her—sandalwood and musk, mixed with something that made her ovaries jolt. It was too good. It probably cost a thousand dollars a drop. And maybe it was actually worth that, with how immediately her senses reacted.
