“Whoa!” she cried as the headboard wobbled. He’d almost dropped it.
Focus, Crowley. What happened to that little pep talk he’d just given himself downstairs? The name of the game was “professional” now. No jeans, no curves. No nothing.
He barely made eye contact with her as he brought the rest of her furniture in and then worked on reassembling the bed. He managed to show her how he’d put the slats together and reinforced the weaker points. But it was torture. If only he’d broken the legs of a table instead. Something neutral, that didn’t belong in a bedroom. Something that had nothing to do with sex.
But he couldn’t let on how rattled he was by what she’d told him—or how precarious his business was right now. He tried to be normal.
“It’s going to be better than new,” he reassured her as he slid the mattress on.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“If this bed breaks, you can sue me.”
She laughed. “I’m sure it’s not going to break.”
“As long as you know that you can do anything you want without…” He risked a quick glance at her. “Worrying.”
He was trying to be good. There were a million reasons why he had to pull away.
But the blush that crept up her face made it impossible to keep his word. He pressed on the mattress over the place where the weak spot in the wood had originally been. Pressed again, again. Pressed hard enough that the mattress began to…squeak. In a very particular rhythm. In a very particular way.
“I’m not going to break the bed,” she cried, obviously horrified.
“Test it,” he said. “Try your best. Nothing at CUBE is made this well.”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”
He grinned. “Go ahead and prove me wrong.”
He should run full speed in the other direction. But it was too much fun to tease her. And his resolve was only so strong. He walked over to his bag and reached inside. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to do this…but here he was, doing it anyway.
“I know you said these aren’t yours, but I thought you should have them.”
He pulled out the restraints. It was as if the air in the room suddenly vanished. It all must have been locked inside Rose with the force of her inhale.
He twisted them around his wrists and tugged. Unbreakable leather, unbreakable bed. She couldn’t deny it was a winning combination.
“I’m so. Not. Going to use that.” She was looking everywhere but at him. Or at the bed. Or at the restraints in his hands.
“I told you,” he said. “There’s no way you’re going to break the bed now.”
“You should take those. Please.”
“But I don’t have any use for them.”
Now he got her eyes on him. Only for a second, but it was something. “No girlfriend?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t found the right one.”
“Someone who’ll put up with your snoring? Trust me, I heard.”
She was clearly trying to joke, and he let her have half a grin. “More like someone I could actually be into.”
Not that he could let himself be into her. But he tossed the restraints on the mattress and looked at her anyway.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Try to break that bed.”
“You forget that I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said demurely.
“No, Rose. I definitely didn’t forget that.”
A beat, to let the flush bloom fully on her cheeks. Then he said, “I have to go.”
“What?” She couldn’t hide her surprise.
“Believe it or not, I have other work to get to.”
“But the headboard. It’s not attached.” She gestured toward the wall, where the headboard was still propped. He hadn’t put it on yet.
She sounded confused. But more than that, she sounded like she wanted him to stay. He couldn’t deny that he liked that note of pleading. Probably liked it way too much.
“I know it’s not attached,” he said patiently.
“But I don’t have a toolbox.”
“Relax,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
“Tonight?” she asked right away.
His eyebrow notched up. “Is that an offer?”
“Um—”
“Not tonight,” he said before she started seriously worrying. “I can’t. But I will.”
He should put it up now and be done with it. He had the commission and his dad to worry about—he didn’t have time to spend driving back and forth in traffic for something he could take care of now.
But what if he didn’t want to be done with it? What if he wanted to make another trip?
“Well, thank you,” she said. “For everything.”
Her voice was suddenly brisk. Like this was any other situation where she’d hired him for a job and he’d done it.
He smiled. “Don’t be so formal with me, Rose. I’ll see you soon.”
He may not have known what he was doing. But he sure as hell knew that.
Chapter Seven
Rose’s heart pounded when she closed the door. Thank God she was finally alone.
She wasn’t sure she’d have been able to last another second with Owen standing so close to her bed. Not with the way sweat dampened his T-shirt, making it cling to his pecs. Not when she could see every line of his muscles through the fabric.
It sucked having to tell him about CUBE. It sucked having to be so close to him without touching him. It sucked when he stayed, even after her unbearably awkward confession. And it sucked even more when he left.
She must have sounded so selfish, asking him to stay and put up her headboard. He clearly expected her to take care of that herself. He’d done too much for her already.
New Rose wasn’t supposed to be helpless. Or forget that other people had things to do besides attend to her and her minor crises.
Could she blame him for bolting as soon as he could? She’d literally just told him she worked on ads to bolster his competition. No way could he want to spend another second in her home. She was grateful he’d stayed to help her at all.
The bed now stood proudly in the room. It was beautiful—except for the headboard still on its side. And the two black restraints lying like dangerous snakes on the pristine white expanse of her mattress. Owen had left them just for her. What the hell?
She didn’t want to look at them. Or touch them. But she couldn’t very well sleep with them on her bed for the rest of her life. Gingerly, she lifted one up, inspecting it. The padded loop for wrists. The strong leather band.
She tugged—the same way Owen had done. Felt the give and then the tight resistance. Oh. My.
It made her think of…things.
Not what she’d seen, with Annabeth’s arms in those very straps and Jason above her. But Owen’s back, broad and muscular. Who would he be standing over? Who would he want to use them on?
Her heart tried to wrest itself from her ribs. She swallowed, forcing it back in. She didn’t want to think about who he might be with. What woman he’d want to drive out of her mind.
These weren’t for her. He wasn’t for her. She needed to remember that.
Even so, she didn’t march the two restraints to the trash like she’d expected. Instead, she put them in a box and slid them under the bed. Not to keep, obviously. But Owen was right: they were in good condition. It would be wasteful to throw them away.
It wasn’t until she was standing back up that she noticed the holes in the wood where the headboard was meant to attach.
And then she realized.
It would take two seconds to put it on. One second, with Owen doing it. That was how competently he worked. It didn’t even need any tools.
He could have put the headboard up, easy. But he’d lef
t it on purpose.
Maybe she hadn’t ruined everything with her confession about CUBE.
If that didn’t scare him off… She smiled.
One thing was obvious.
He’d be back.
…
Owen sat in his workshop, surrounded by sawdust, drawings, and plans. He should have been working on his commission. But he kept checking his phone.
Was it too soon to text Rose?
He shouldn’t have left her place with part of the job still undone. Or even hinted about seeing her again.
It wasn’t some abstract concern. Just a few weeks ago, he’d thought he was about to snag another customer. But then they backed out at the last minute, saying they’d changed their minds and were going in a different direction with their bedroom.
“We’re not ready to commit to something so permanent,” the woman had said. “We’re just buying our first apartment, and who knows how long we’ll stay? We don’t want to get something that won’t work in another space.”
“We’re so sorry,” her wife had added. “We think your work is beautiful. We’d love to call you again when the timing is right.”
Owen would bet every last asset of Crowley & Sons that if he set foot in that couple’s apartment, he’d find it furnished head to toe with CUBE. Everywhere he looked—every storefront, apartment, office, and home—it seemed there was no place left for the kind of work he did. Work his family had done for generations.
Rose may have been low on the ladder, but she was still part of it. She tried to figure out how to make people like that couple change their minds and buy from CUBE.
He’d seen the ads more times than he wanted to. In one, a young woman frowned over a bulky piece of furniture that wouldn’t fit in her apartment. Cut to a man stuck with a mountain of stuff from some dead family member he’d never known, stressed out from trying to sell it. The idea was clear. Get the look YOU want, the banners proclaimed on subway ads, Facebook pop-ups. All about you.
But this was what Owen was good at. This was what he loved. If he couldn’t make a living doing the one thing he loved…he didn’t know what he would do.
Not sit behind a desk all day in an ironed shirt and tie, that was for sure. But just thinking about the horrors of an office drew his mind back to something much more pleasant. Rose.
Rose in her sharp heels, her suit, the hint of skin under her blouse as she’d moved. Her hair falling in long, loose waves down her back. That she was so put together drove him wild. He wanted to make every part of her come undone.
Even if Rose wouldn’t slap him senseless for wondering what was under that blouse of hers and how she’d look with her arms spread across the mattress, her legs wide open for him…she couldn’t possibly be thinking about him the same way he was about her.
Then again, she wasn’t marrying into CUBE royalty, after all. And didn’t he still need to put up her headboard?
Fuck, he wasn’t getting any work done anyway. Not while he was so completely distracted.
He stood up from the desk—the one his grandfather had made years ago in this very shop—and picked up his phone. He debated for a minute. But he didn’t need to go overthinking everything. Sometimes, a person just needed to act.
Hey, he texted her before he could chicken out.
Women didn’t usually make him nervous. But Rose rattled him. It was that hair, that suit. That poise. The way she always seemed to try and stop herself from smiling.
It made him want to tease it out of her even more.
How’s sleeping on a bed instead of an air mattress? he wrote, telling himself to stop thinking so damn much and just talk to her. He didn’t have time for a relationship. He’d barely had time for a single date since his dad got sick. But this wasn’t a date. He was just being nice and checking in.
She might not respond. She was at work, obviously. That was what people did in the middle of the day. They worked.
Unless their businesses were slow. In which case, they had all the time to text hot girls and panic.
But to his surprise, Rose did write back. Hey! I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.
Never. He added a wink then wrote: You could have texted me first.
I didn’t think this was that kind of relationship, she said.
I didn’t know this was a relationship. Followed by another wink. He hoped that wherever she was, she was blushing—and trying to hide it. He liked the way she fought herself. It was even better to watch her willpower lose to her desires.
Did you break your bed yet? he asked.
Very funny.
I wasn’t kidding.
She sent back a series of eye rolls. He could picture the exact expression on her face. Even her frustration made him smile.
It either held up because you haven’t tried, or it held up because my work is that good.
You really want me to go out, find some giant dude to smash the bed with, then tell you about it? Hmm.
Oh hell no. No way did he need that image burned into his brain.
No, he pounded out on his phone. That’s not what I want. His jaw clenched at just the thought of Rose with another guy.
She sent back a string of question marks.
His jaw relaxed. A smile stole across his face.
I want you to use the bed, he wrote. I want you to enjoy it.
I did use it. I’m sleeping better than I have the whole time I was using that crappy air mattress.
That’s not what I meant.
Yeah, I know. ;)
That little winky face. Goddamn it. He laughed out loud.
The sound surprised him, the only noise in the quiet shop. It had been a long time since he’d laughed in there. It made him feel lighter, somehow. Like the walls weren’t closing in around him quite so fast.
How could one innocent little emoji start to make him hard, thinking about that sweet smile on her face, the way she’d brush her hair over her shoulder and give him that look like she was daring him to go on, do something? Go ahead and put his money where his mouth was and come on to her.
My guess is you don’t like breaking things, he wrote, shifting on his work bench. Beds… Hearts…
He waited for a long pause and then texted: Rules.
LOL, she said. What rules have YOU broken?
Only the ones I don’t like.
Why does that sound like it means all of them…
You should try it sometime, he wrote. Do something you’re not supposed to.
Ice cream for breakfast?
Perfect, he said. Promise me you’ll have a giant bowl first thing tomorrow morning.
Chocolate? she asked.
As long as it’s not vanilla.
He didn’t even need to add a winky face to that one.
But then it’s a slippery slope…
To what? he asked, his eyes resting on that perfect word, slippery. Thinking about slickness, how impossibly soft she’d be to touch…
There was a long wait. His mind raced in a million directions, his dick straining against his fly as he thought about what rules Rose might break, what buttons she might let him undo…
But when his phone finally vibrated, it was like being doused in the face with cold water.
Shit, work beckons. I have to go!
He put the phone down. Dammit. She had things to do. He’d better get to work, too. And not on that hard-on she’d given him.
She was all kinds of off-limits to him.
“Keep it together, Crowley,” he said out loud to the empty room.
But the sawdust and power tools didn’t say anything back.
Chapter Eight
A door opened, and male voices drifted down the hall. Rose froze with her phone in her hands, as though she’d been caught doing something wrong.
Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to be texting at work. But this wasn’t just anyone. This was a guy on the Crush List she was talking to. And not about furniture.
It was new. Forbidden. Exciting in a way that had never happened to her before. A whole new Rose, with none of the old.
This wasn’t a boring dinner date, having the wine chosen for her, a man’s hand on the small of her back as he steered her around. This was…fun. It was teasing and playful, and she had no idea what it meant. But she didn’t care. She’d been trying to smother her laughter the whole time she and Owen were texting.
It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like she’d actually do anything with Owen.
But it was called harmless fun for a reason, wasn’t it? Because unlike in a relationship, nobody had to get hurt.
When she heard Jason tell a client, “I’ll walk you out,” she frantically opened a million files on her computer so it would look like she was concentrating on all sorts of important tasks. As opposed to, say, discussing the pros and cons of fucking so hard that it broke a bed.
His footsteps came down the hall. Don’t look up. Don’t look up. There was a time when she would have been sure to catch his eye as he walked by, just to exchange a private glance and reassure him he’d done a great job.
But that felt like a hundred million years ago. There were dinosaurs roaming the earth when she was in love with Jason Harris. She pulled up an Excel file and started inputting numbers, going through the maze of data on their new ads. Nothing to see here.
She heard a rap on the cubicle wall. When she looked up, as though startled out of some deep thought, there was Jason. His voice said, “Rose, I’m walking Mr. Waterford to the door and then I’d like a minute of your time.” But his eyes shot daggers straight at her, saying everything the words themselves hid.
“Of course,” she said, smooth as could be. Like she was any other ordinary employee and would be so happy to do his bidding.
As though she’d never worn his ring.
Or been so utterly desperate, she’d had no choice but to pawn it as she cried.
Wrong Bed, Right Man Page 4
