Her eyes narrowed, and she slowly pulled away. “Somewhere between an axe and a drill.”
“Go sleep it off, Roxie. She’ll be here in the morning.” He glanced at the bathroom door. “In worse shape, but here.”
For a solid minute, she stood watching him.
“Go,” he said. “I won’t hurt her, either.”
He didn’t know who was more surprised when she obeyed. She’d taken two steps before she stiffened and looked back over her shoulder. Her lips flattened. “Hatchet.”
“Your Evilness.”
Moving a bit more gingerly, she returned to the bedroom. She left the door open, and eventually he heard the squeak of the mattress.
Letting out a long breath, Cam stared at the bathroom door. Just how much had these two had to drink? Too much, but he couldn’t really blame them. If he came face-to-face with himself, he’d probably imbibe a little too.
He heard water running again, and he knocked softly. There was no answer.
One thing about Roxie, she called them like she saw them. Lexie would want to be alone. She had a thing about control, about always presenting the perfect picture. She was at her most vulnerable right now, and she didn’t really know either of them.
But he knew enough about her to want to get closer. He wanted to see what existed behind that perfect façade. He had a feeling it was a lot more interesting.
The door squealed as he opened it. The room was so tiny, the door nearly hit her. “Lexie?”
She was standing at the sink with her head bent and her hands gripping both sides of the porcelain as if it were the only thing supporting her. The toothbrush package had been opened, and an empty glass stood nearby along with a big bottle of Scope. “Go away,” she said hoarsely.
He stepped into the small space, shrinking it even more, and awareness lit up his nerve endings. They always did that when she was close, but this time the intimacy was different. He could sense how much she was hurting, feel the biting embarrassment…and see how little she was wearing. “Are you all right?”
“My toenails hurt.” She shuffled around the sink away from him. “Leave me alone, Rowe. Please.”
She was so soft, so vulnerable. Unable to resist the protective instincts roaring inside his chest, he gently cupped the back of her head.
“Ow.”
“Hair too?”
She bit her lip. With her dark hair a cloud around her, it made her skin look ashen. Her toes curled into the floor as if digging in for purchase, and her fingers turned white around the sink.
He moved quickly to the toilet and lifted the seat.
She shook her head carefully. “There’s nothing left in my stomach.”
But the alcohol was still in her system, probing for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He watched her closely. The barely there number Roxie had given her to sleep in was playing Twister with his brain, but she was shaking.
“Come on.” He wrapped an arm around her back. Bending, he swiped the other under her knees. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
Her breath hitched when he picked her up.
He stopped. “Okay?”
Skin on skin. The awareness bit deeper. Her curves were cushioned against his chest, and luscious skin weighted his bare arms.
Her eyes drifted closed. “What are you doing here, Cam? Why won’t you let me be?”
“If that isn’t obvious, then you’re still drunk.”
Turning so as to not bump her head, he carried her through the bathroom doorway and straight for the opened sofa. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything. Her eyes were closed, and she was rubbing her fingers against her temple.
He lowered her onto the thin mattress. She settled onto her side gingerly and sighed when he tucked a pillow under her head. Her chest rose and fell with each careful breath she took. The motion pressed her breasts against the soft nylon top she wore.
As sympathetic as he was to her condition, Cam was a man. Her breasts were full and firm and shaped in a way that made his range of vision darken around the edges. In the light from the bathroom, he could see her nipples outlined against the soft fabric. He pulled his gaze away when he felt his mouth water, but it just drifted lower. Her legs were bent in the fetal position, and her shorts rode high on her thighs.
Really high.
Crouching down beside her, he brushed her hair back from her face. She didn’t even stir. She was awake but, for once, she wasn’t fighting him.
“Aspirin?” he asked.
She started to shake her head no but then thought better of it.
“Cold rag for your forehead?”
Her eyebrows lifted, even as her eyes remained sealed tight.
He could see the idea appealed. He tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ll be right back.”
In the bathroom, he grabbed a washcloth off the towel rack and turned on the faucet. He glanced out towards the makeshift bed as he waited for the water to cool. He should have found a way to stop that ambush this morning. Roxie was right, that was what had initiated this whole sequence of events. He worked as a consultant for the firm. It was his job to move the company forward, and that damn billboard had put them ten steps back. Still, he should have done more to defend her when he’d seen how the Underhills had treated her. The pompous asses.
Had it always been this way for her?
He ran the washcloth under the cold water and twisted it so tightly, it nearly dried off. He’d just started to wet it again when a moan hit his ears. Lexie had shifted positions and was holding herself dangerously still.
He grabbed the wastebasket from beside the sink and hurried back to her. “All right?”
“Better…not…to…move.”
“Here.” He set the wastebasket on the floor beside the bed. Folding the washcloth into thirds, he carefully balanced it across her forehead.
For a moment, she braced herself. Then she whimpered and relaxed.
“Better?”
“Thank you.”
She was killing him. Crouching bedside, Cam watched her, his fingers itching. All he wanted to do was gather her up and hold her until the pain went away.
But that would probably send her lurching out of the bed.
When she settled deeper into the thin mattress, he pushed himself to his feet. The pull he felt for her was as strong as an electromagnet. Her hair was spilled all over the pillow where his head had just rested. She was snuggling into the sheets that still held his body heat, while the other side of the foldout bed looked wide and empty.
He backed away and scowled when he saw the only available chair in the room. Nothing oversized and plush for Roxie. No, the damn mod piece was curvy and misshapen. Muttering under his breath, he walked to the bathroom and turned off the light. He spread his long frame into the chair and tried to find a comfortable position. The stupid thing was more torturous than the foldout.
Lexie shivered. Leaning forward, he pulled the sheet over her.
“No more bourbon,” she whispered.
“I’ll pour it down the drain,” he promised.
“All of it?”
“It’s gone.”
Settling back, he watched her in the moonlight. The apartment went quiet but for the humming of the refrigerator in the kitchen. The bass tones from The Ruckus had drifted down to a feel more than a sound. Lexie’s breaths deepened. After a while, her body relaxed into sleep.
But then she shivered again, and Cam’s steel willpower crumbled.
To hell with social decorum.
He unraveled himself from the chair and headed for the empty space on the bed. She was cold, and he had warmth to spare. It was time to make them both feel better.
Chapter Six
Laser beams shot through Lexie’s eyes, making the back of her eyelids glow red. The bright color ran through her optic nerve straight to the center of her brain and set it on fire. She winced. Oh God. Light.
She rolled away. The move wasn’t a smart one. Her head spun, her stomach jounce
d and her back screamed. She went still, holding herself uncertainly. Oh Lord. What hell was this?
Someone cupped the back of her head and guided her back down. Warmth awaited her. Strong, comfortable warmth. She rested against the heat and held herself very, very still.
She hurt all over.
The touch at her head slid down and rubbed the tight muscles of her neck. She sighed. As if they knew just where the pain was centered, the fingers skimmed lower to the spot in the middle of her back. She was afraid to move, afraid to breathe too deep, but that touch coaxed her aching muscles to relax. Bit by bit, she found a more comfortable position. She rested her aching head on a strong shoulder and laid her hand against a hard chest. Her legs tangled with others, and she rubbed her toe against a muscled calf experimentally. He was warm and solid.
He?
Her eyes popped open, and she froze—partly because the morning light reflected off the pale yellow walls and partly because she was in bed with somebody. A male somebody. A male somebody with a body that rocked.
She squeezed her eyes shut, the light too bright. Gradually, she managed to open them to slits. Still afraid to move, she looked across the chest with which she was so up close and personal. It was sculpted with muscles that had no give under the light touch of her fingertips. She glanced down, careful not to move her eyes too fast. There was nothing soft down there either.
Her face heated. She’d been looking at the corrugated six-pack of the man’s abdomen, not the hard bulge pressing against the sheet. The very hard, very big bulge. Her pulse started to race. She wanted desperately to move but knew if she did it would draw more attention to their position. She was cozied up way too intimately against a man she couldn’t even identify.
Unless…
Her face went from hot to burning as fragmented memories returned. She remembered a hand on her leg…a hand that had been under her skirt. She remembered being picked up and carried to bed. She remembered a kiss. Her breath caught in her throat. She remembered a kiss that had made her toes curl in her shoes and her nipples dig into the cups of her bra.
She’d made out with…
Oh God!
She looked up and found dark eyes watching her, dark hair that was mussed, lips that looked ready to kiss her again…
Rowe? She was in bed with Cameron Rowe?
She surged upright, sitting straight up on the…foldout couch? Pain rocketed through her head, and she gasped. She pressed her hands against her temples in a vain attempt to hold her skull together.
“Easy.”
It was Cam, all right. She recognized the voice, and she recognized her reaction to it. Shivers danced across her skin, but this wasn’t right. Where was she? Her headache rang. How had she ended up on a foldout couch with this man? The world’s most uncomfortable foldout couch, nonetheless?
“What happened?” she groaned.
“You had too much to drink.”
Drink? She didn’t drink.
He rubbed her back in comforting circles. Half of her struggled to move farther away, but the other half was in too much pain. Besides, the warm touch was the one good thing she was feeling, even if the hand was connected to the arm connected to the shoulder connected to…him. She couldn’t believe she’d slept with the hatchet man.
They had just slept, hadn’t they?
Her sluggish thoughts ping-ponged around in her hurting head. She couldn’t remember doing anything more. She’d remember doing something more, wouldn’t she? With him? Her lungs began working hard as the kiss in the bar became clearer. She could still feel the press of his body. She could taste his hungry lips and sense the responding ache low in her belly.
“Stop thinking so much.” His morning voice was low and sexy. “Everything’s all right.”
All right? As desperately as she tried to remember last night, it remained fuzzy. She peeked open her eyes. She was still dressed…or half-dressed. The sleepwear her sister had given her didn’t leave much to the imagination.
Her sister?
Roxie!
The billboard. The Ruckus. Her twin.
Lexie’s head snapped towards the bedroom, and the wall wavered before coming into focus. Memories started flooding back in—at least she hoped they were memories. Alcohol couldn’t have caused such vivid dreams, could it? She couldn’t have made up such an outrageous story. She listened carefully, but she didn’t hear anything coming from the bedroom. She couldn’t sense anyone else in the place but her and Cam.
And she sensed everything about him.
He continued stroking her back. “Are you all right?”
“I feel like I’ve been steamrollered.”
“That would be the bourbon.”
She risked looking over her shoulder at him. The sight made her belly squeeze in an uncomfortably pleasant way. Oh, damn. Sex on a stick was right.
He was wickedly inviting, lying back against the white sheets. His one hand was reached out to touch her, but the other was tucked behind his head on the plump pillow. He looked big and tanned, muscled and lazy—like a hunk you’d find on the centerfold of a naughty magazine.
Or a naughty billboard.
Oh this was not good.
Lexie pushed at the covers.
He sat up so smoothly it made her envious. “Slow down. Don’t make it worse.”
Her breath shuddered. He was sitting so close, she could feel his heat. His naked heat. His chest bumped against her shoulder as he settled his hand on the mattress by her hip. He was dangerous enough in black Armani suits. Stripped down, he was lethal.
“Is it your head?” He brushed her hair over her shoulder, and shivers raced down her spine.
“My head. My joints. My back.”
He rubbed that spot in the middle of her back again, and she nearly moaned.
“Mine is crying too. It’s the support bar on this damn thing.”
She clenched the sheet beneath her. What had she done last night to get in such horrid shape? And how could he be sitting there, looking so good, while she felt like the dregs of the earth? “How…how bad was I last night?”
He hesitated. “I caught you dirty dancing atop the bar.”
Her eyes popped open, and the yellow walls glared. He had not! Although… Bits and pieces filtered through her cluttered brainwaves. Foghat’s “Slow Ride” struck a chord, and her entire body flashed hot.
He rubbed lower on her back. “Relax. I got you down from there.”
Somehow, that made it even worse. “Was I that awful?”
The teasing look left his eyes. “I didn’t say that.” His lashes dipped, and he focused on her lips. “You should let Sexy Lexie out to play more often.”
Lexie was off the sofa in a flash, her heart pounding, yet that left her feeling almost more exposed. The shorts she wore were too short, and the top was way too skimpy. Meanwhile, he was still lounging there half-naked on the bed. Ruthless Rowe. Dear God. She’d gotten all warm and cozy with the enemy.
“Excuse me.”
She made her escape to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She nearly groaned when she saw her reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t that she looked bad. For as horrible as she felt, she should have looked worse. It was that she looked vulnerable. Her hair was soft and rumpled, and her lips were bare of lipstick. Knowing that he’d caught her like this…that she’d slept in his arms…
“Oh, Lexie.”
Not wanting to think about it, she used the facilities and wasted more time brushing her teeth. Snooping through the drawers, she found a brush. She quickly gave up on using it. The roots of her hair were just too tender. She glanced at the shower and then back at the door that separated her from the living room. A shower would have been nice, but she didn’t have anything to change into. Parading around in front of him wet would be even worse.
Definitely worse.
Lexie braced herself. She couldn’t hide forever, and her clothes were in the bedroom. She needed those clothes.
She
opened the door a crack, afraid she’d find Cam still sprawled out on the bed.
What she saw was so much more.
Her breath was like that pinched balloon again. He’d flipped back the covers and was reaching for the dress pants he’d hung over a nearby chair. All he wore were briefs—black briefs that fit snug and smooth. Her eyes widened, letting in more light, and pain drilled into her gray matter. He stepped into the legs of his pants and stood to pull them up over his muscled thighs. And tight butt. She watched it all unblinkingly until he zipped them closed and headed for the kitchen.
“Oh, Lexie.” She was in trouble.
Tugging self-consciously at the spaghetti straps of her top, she walked back into the living room. She did her best to walk lightly, hoping she could make it to the bedroom before he saw her. Her luck wasn’t so good. He glanced up from behind the breakfast bar, and their gazes locked.
Her stomach gave that funny little squeeze again.
“Better?” he asked.
Suddenly, box springs creaked in the bedroom and there was a thud against the floor. Footsteps rang out, and Roxie bolted into the living room with her eyes as wild as her hair. She skidded to a stop when she saw Cam, but her gaze flitted over him and kept on going. Lexie literally felt it when it clicked onto her.
“Oh, thank God. You’re real. I thought I’d dreamt it all.”
“I’m real.” Lexie folded her arms uncomfortably. “Although I wish I’d dreamt some of it.”
“I hear you there.” Roxie winced and walked to the breakfast bar. She found a perch on a barstool and lowered her head onto her arms. “Holy buckets. Grab some aspirin from the medicine cabinet.”
Lexie bit her lip. Nobody seemed concerned about clothes but her. She looked longingly at the bedroom where her suit was lying crumpled on the floor. A moan from her twin had her turning back to the bathroom instead. She found the pain reliever and carried it across the living room. She felt Cam’s gaze with every step she took, but moving faster wasn’t an option. She climbed onto the barstool next to her sister, but Roxie didn’t budge. Lexie stroked her hair.
“What did you do to me?” her twin grumbled. “I haven’t gotten that drunk in years.”
Lexie Page 8
