Tall, Dork and Handsome

by Remy Richard

  Suddenly, in that darkened car, wrapped in nothing but a robe and his hand on her knee, she wanted to put her head on his chest and tell him everything. But this was a moment of weakness and she didn’t allow those anymore. She shook his hand off of her skin and put her hand to the door handle. “I want you to leave me alone.”

  Not exactly true, she thought as she exited the car and hurried to the front door, but infinitely preferable to the truth. Better to make him angry than to invite pity.

  But she should have known that Sam wouldn’t give up so easily. He followed quickly on her heels as she entered the house.

  “As soon as things are safe, I’ll give you all of the alone time you could ever want,

  he said. “But until then, you stay here with us so we can keep an eye on you.”

  Sam as a disinterested babysitter was the last thing she needed. “How about I go stay at a nice, quiet hotel until you give me the all clear?”

  ***

  Sam faced the most annoying woman in the world with a scowl and a hard-on. As if he hadn’t been through enough that night, what with the skimpy robe, unrestricted touching and the crying, he now had to put up with Lila stomping her foot in anger. A motion that he had seen from her plenty of times. The key difference here was that she was not wearing a bra this time. Funny how a little scrap of fabric could mean the difference between following the thread of the argument and completely losing track of his very valid point.

  But that was always the way with Lila, just when he thought that she was going to be calm and reasonable she came out of left field with the request, no the demand, to be taken to a hotel to hide out. Like she didn’t trust him to keep her safe. Like she couldn’t stand to be around him.

  “There’s no reason for you to stay in a hotel. You’re safer here than you could be anywhere else.”

  “It’s not about safety!” she raged. “It’s about the fact that you can’t just pull me out of my home and then order me to stay here.”

  Sam crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What you call ‘pulling you out of your home’ I call ‘saving your ass’. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  He saw her eying his shin and moved out of harm’s way just in case. Not that he thought her tiny bare feet could do much damage but touching from her in any form could be dangerous to his control at this point. Touching her naked leg earlier had almost sent him into the stratosphere. He didn’t know how much more provocation he could take.

  Lila gave him the meanest glare he’d ever seen on her face and opened her mouth. Luckily whatever she had been about to say was stopped by the arrival of her brother. He had a feeling it wouldn’t have been complimentary to him though.

  “Lila.” Holden came into the kitchen where they were arguing with a relieved smile that quickly dissolved when he saw his sister’s state of undress. “What happened to you?”

  Lila threw up her hands in a way that he was pretty sure meant to imply “Men are idiots” and stomped her foot again. God he wished she would stop doing that. He’d already pulled the tail of his shirt out to cover his slacks but even that wouldn’t be enough soon.

  Sam stepped in to answer Holden’s question. “Shortly after I got to Lila’s, a man tried to break in. It seems like Sabrina wasn’t lying about that at least. I’m confident that he was attempting to kidnap her.”

  Holden instinctively moved closer to Lila and put an arm around her shoulders. Sam fought off a wave of jealousy as she leaned into her brother’s side, as if exhausted. “What happened?”

  “Luckily we had enough time to go out of the back. I would have loved to have a little chat with him, but with Lila there I couldn’t risk it.” Lila made a sound in the back of throat that could have been a grunt. Sam pinned her with a look. “Your sister was very cool under pressure. She agreed to come back here without any fuss.”

  He dared her to contradict him with his eyes. Lila stuck her chin out in response and turned to her brother. “Yes, Sam was very helpful, but now I’d like to go to a hotel please.”

  Holden looked startled at her request. “What? Why a hotel? You’re safe here.”

  “And I’ll be safe in a hotel under an assumed name as well.”

  “Lila,” Holden began carefully, “I know that you want to be independent and you are. But can’t you see that this is a different situation? You moved out because we thought it would be safer for you away from the house and the threat. That’s clearly not the case anymore.”

  “I disagree,” she argued. “Sam got me out of there and no one even followed us. He can do the reverse and take me to a hotel.”

  Holden looked like he wanted to argue but he got a thoughtful look on his face. “I guess you’re right.” Sam wanted to launch himself across the room at his employer turned friend. Over his dead body was Lila moving into a hotel alone and unprotected. Holden continued, “But for my piece of mind, I’m going to send Sam along with you.”

  Lila spluttered, “I’m not sharing a room with that—that—”

  “Man,” Sam supplied, once more confident that Holden was on his side.

  “Oh, you won’t have to,” Holden replied. “He’ll just take the connecting room next to yours and keep an ear out for you.” He turned to Sam. “Do you know of any security guys who could guard this place while you go with Lila?”

  Sam pretended to think about it for a moment. “I have a couple of guys who are competent enough I guess. They’re security though, not exactly the detectives that we need to piece together what’s going on here.”

  “So you’re the one in danger and you’re going to send the best security with me?” Lila interrupted. “Now who’s being stupid?”

  Holden took her by the shoulders and bent his knees so that he was looking her straight in the eyes. “Honey, I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. So yes, Sam would go with you.”

  “Then come with us,” she pleaded. “If it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for you.”

  “I can’t. I have to stay here with Sabrina. There’s no way we could risk moving her.”

  Lila pulled back from his grasp slightly. “Sabrina? Oh my God. Is that the woman who broke in here? Why haven’t the police arrested her yet?”

  Holden looked uneasy and flashed a glance at Sam. “We haven’t exactly called the police. Once I found out that you were involved I thought it would get us more information to work with her without law enforcement.”

  “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Lila looked back and forth between the two men. “So we’re harboring the woman who threatened to kidnap me?”

  Holden winced. “That’s not exactly how it went down.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she told you some sort of sob story.” Lila’s eyes glowed with amusement. “Put me in a room with her. I’ll have the truth in twenty minutes. You guys are probably too gentlemanly to hurt a woman. I don’t have those qualms.”

  Sam was about to step forward when Holden found his outside voice. “No!” At Lila’s look of surprise, he modulated his tone. “I don’t want you anywhere near her. She’s in the extra bedroom where the safe used to be. It’s the only room with a dependable lock on it.”

  “So you locked a burglar in a room with the safe?”

  “No, some of Sam’s guys moved it out of there after the first break-in attempt. All of our valuables are in a safety deposit box.”

  Lila put her hands up to her head like she had a headache. “You know what, guys? I’m way too tired for this. I’m going up to my old room to stay for the night. One night only. We’ll talk about the rest of it in the morning.” She turned on her heel and strode from the room before either man could answer.

  It was Sam’s turn to try to rub his headache away. Unfortunately it seemed like the source of it would be staying in the same house for at least a few days.

  Holden turned to him. “You don’t think she’ll try to sneak out, do you?”

  “Nah, besides the whole house alarm will be engag
ed. We installed it after she moved so she can’t get out without setting it off.”

  Holden nodded with relief and moved to the refrigerator. “Do you want a beer?”

  Actually Sam wanted a beer more than he wanted his next breath. Preferably two or three and then a bed for the next eight hours. But he needed to be alert and focused. Lila was depending on him. Oh, and Holden too. He shook his head and sank down on a bar stool.

  Holden leaned against the kitchen counter across from him and popped the top of his beer. “She’s going to be even tougher to deal with tomorrow after she’s had some rest and time to think. Can you keep her occupied while I work with Sabrina?”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the easy task.” Holden laughed and saluted him with his beer bottle. “I thought you were going to talk to Sabrina while I was gone.”

  “I did. I just feel like she’s holding something back.”

  “She’s a con artist. They usually are,” Sam pointed out wryly.

  “I know I can get more out of her.”

  Sam grunted. “I’m sure you do.” He’d seen the way Holden had stared at her when they’d questioned her the first time. The man was fascinated with the criminally attractive criminal.

  Holden glared at him. “It’s not like that.”

  Too tired to argue with a man in denial, Sam held his hands up in surrender. It seemed that for the time being the four of them were stuck together in the house. One very unhappy family.

  It was going to be a long weekend.

  Chapter Six

  Sabrina held her breath as she turned the handle on her room-slash-cell door. It turned without interference, and she pulled it open to find the hallway dark and silent. Slowly letting out her breath, she made a mock bow to an audience of zero.

  Good breaking and entering, or breaking and exiting as the case may be, was like performance art that no one saw.

  Of course she couldn’t take too much credit for this particular exit. Earlier in the evening, she had pretended to be asleep when Holden had come to take the tray he had left with her. As she had concentrated on leveling her breathing and staying still, she had felt his eyes on her for long minutes. His silent regard had made her skin itch and she had longed to sit up in bed and ask him what his deal was. But thankfully she had managed to keep it together. And when he had left, he’d forgotten to punch the code into the electric lock. She’d barely kept herself from a victory cheer.

  Several hours had passed while she had kept the bedroom light off and laid awake in the dark listening to the sounds of the house settling. The peace had been broken when Sam had returned with someone who could only be Lila. Those two had nearly brought the house down with their arguments. It would take a fool not to see that Lila had the hots for Sam, but men were often foolish.

  She’d also heard Holden ask Sam to keep her away from Lila. Dangerous and more, her fanny. Lila was only safe because of her and now they wanted to keep her locked away like the plague.

  Hours had passed before she had decided that everyone was asleep and slipped out of her cell. A quick glance at the alarm pad had proven that there was no way she could beat it without accidentally setting it off a time or two. She had never practiced with that particular model.

  Since she judged that she had at least two hours before the household woke up, she amused herself by taking a tour of the house. She would be in a much better position to escape if she knew where everything was.

  Finally she had been inexorably pulled toward Holden’s bedroom. The interest that had begun when she had first researched him had only grown with every conversation they’d had. She craved learning more about him while she realized that she should distance herself for her own safety. Her practical side didn’t seem to be listening though. Which was how she found herself sitting in his armchair and watching as he slept.

  She watched in fascination as he started to awaken. Blinking his eyes in the dim light and yawning wide. Stretching first one muscle-corded arm and then the other over his head to grab the top of the headboard and stretch. Sabrina shook herself and tried to remember what she was there for. Oh yeah, to throw him off his game.

  “You seemed like you were having a pretty good dream. Did you dream of me?” she asked in a low voice.

  He froze where he was and slowly lifted his head off the pillow in the direction of the chair where she was seated. “Sabrina?”

  “In the flesh.”

  He was silent for a few seconds before pushing himself into a sitting position and flicking on the bedside lamp. They both squinted and winced against the bright light in the previously dark room. Sabrina was glad for the light once she had adjusted however.

  If his arms were drool worthy then his chest and abs were nothing less than awe inspiring. He wasn’t a bulky guy. She imagined it would be difficult for him to put on any meaningful weight with how tall and lean he was. Clearly he was a man who spent time working out, although she wouldn’t have believed it without the evidence in front of her.

  He stayed quiet while she looked her fill and then brought her eyes up to meet his. Briefly she wondered if she was blushing and if he could see it with just the lamp on. He didn’t make any mention of it so she just stared back at him, refusing to be the first to speak.

  “Fancy meeting you here. In my bedroom,” he rumbled, his voice still roughened with sleep.

  “Don’t pretend like you didn’t imagine me here last night.”

  To Sabrina’s everlasting pleasure, it was very easy for her to make out his blush in the light from the lamp next to him. “So you did.” She waited while he spluttered for a second. “No need to be embarrassed. I would have imagined me here too if I had known you were hiding all of that behind your button down shirts. You must work out like crazy.”

  Holden shrugged and the muscles in his chest distracted her again. “The body is nothing more than a functioning piece of machinery. My cars get oil changes, my computers get security scans. Why would I do less for the one piece of equipment I have that’s not replaceable?”

  Sabrina chuckled softly, knowing that it was dangerous to keep up the line of conversation but somehow loathe to give up the intimacy of dim light and whispered words. “That’s very sensible of you, Mr. Reed. We should talk more about your equipment.”

  Apparently tired of the conversational thread, he abruptly changed the subject. “Not to sound ungrateful, but how did you get in here?”

  Sabrina shrugged, pulling her legs in tighter to her body. “Through the door, same as you I imagine.”

  Holden ran his hand through his hair and visibly struggled for patience. “Okay, let’s try it this way. How did you get out of your locked room?”

  Sabrina was pretty sure that if he thought about it long enough, he would remember not resetting the lock on her cell. She wasn’t just going to willingly offer the information without making him work for it however. Pretending nonchalance, she studied her fingernails. “You’re dealing with a master here. Locks can’t hold me. It’s only a matter of time until I get out of this house altogether.”

  He eyed her with amusement. “You can’t be that good. You know, since we caught you in the act once already.”

  “You’ve mentioned that several times already, but it’s not a reflection on my skills.”

  “How so?” He leaned back against the headboard as if settling in for a long conversation.

  “You do something enough times and you’re bound to come up against inequalities every now and then.”

  “The law of averages.”

  “Exactly. If you consider the fact that I’ve been working since I was sixteen and I’m now twenty-six, that’s ten years. You’ve got three mug shot pictures and let’s count your ‘capture’ as a fourth. So basically, every year and a half I make a bad bet. Pretty good odds when you look at it that way.”

  “Not when the payout could be years of your life spent in prison. That’s an awfully big bet.”

  She rolled her eyes like that t
hought was too trivial to be discussed. “I guess it depends on if you think the risk is worth the reward. Look at you, you’re risking incarceration here yourself. For all intents and purposes, you have kidnapped me and are keeping me here against my will. The fact that I came here on my own doesn’t mean that you can’t be charged with not letting me leave.”

  Holden nodded as he thought about her words. “Sixteen is pretty young to start a ‘career’ like that.”

  Sabrina felt her heart freeze for the space of two beats. She wasn’t going to talk about this. “You know what they say. Girls mature faster than boys,” she said breezily with a wave.

  He pinned her with a look that she found difficult to face. Her eyes wavered until she had to glance away from his stare. Wisely, he decided to let the matter go. He pushed the light blankets off and stood up next to the side of the bed. He was wearing only enough to keep the essentials covered. A pair of jockey shorts hugged his thighs and covered some intriguing territory.

  He came to stand by her chair and she had to tip her head back to see his face, half covered in shadow. He seemed to be struggling with what he wanted to say, but finally just gave her a small smile. “Are you hungry?”

  She smiled back. “Starving.”

  “Can you sit still right here for ten minutes while I take a shower?”

  “Of course I can.”

  Holden clenched his fist, and she wasn’t sure if he did it to keep from shaking her or touching her. He sighed. “Why can’t you make anything easy on me?”

  Sabrina wished he wasn’t holding her face so that she was forced to look him in the eye. It was hard to lie while looking into those deep gray orbs. So she didn’t. “How about let’s say that you can trust me to stay here until you get out of the shower.”

  He considered her for another moment before he chucked her chin. “I’ll take it.”