by Alice Raine
‘You’re in my bloody house, who the hell are you?’ Ah, so he was the home owner. That was a marginal relief. As my eyes greedily skimmed over him again I decided I needed to rewrite my earlier speculation about what the owner would be like, because this guy was clearly neither old nor fat. Young, hot, and trim would be more accurate. I’d guess he was older than my twenty-six years though, probably mid-thirties, but not ‘ancient’ old like I’d expected. For some ridiculous reason I nearly found myself telling him about my earlier assumptions, but my inability to reel in my skittering emotions indicated that perhaps now was not the time to push this guy with my runaway mouth.
Keeping it short and sweet I tried to soften him with a small smile, but his face remained folded in a deep frown, his lips drawn into a thin line and his expression completely unchanged, as if my effort had no effect whatsoever. ‘Sarah’s ill, I’m covering for her. I’m Allie.’
Nodding once, he raised a hand and rubbed it through his short, dark hair, leaving it ruffled and messy and pulling my gaze to the tightness of his bicep as he moved his arm. Gosh, he was so well built it would almost be criminal not to look. From the lovely taut bulge in his arm, this guy must work out on a daily basis – either that or there were some seriously good genes in his bloodline.
‘Well, Allie.’ He pronounced my name sarcastically, as if it were a strange and irritating foreign language, which immediately irked me. ‘As I just said, I’ve been up for the last two days and I really need to sleep, so leave the bloody hoovering and just have a tidy up instead.’ The random attraction I was feeling was somewhat doused by that remark – he spoke as if I had turned the hoover on deliberately to wake him. What a grouchy, gorgeous bastard.
I might have been suffering from an unnervingly serious case of lust toward this man, but I wasn’t one to lie down and let people walk all over me, and his condescending tone had my annoyance quickly building. Narrowing my eyes at him, I straightened my spine to look as tall as I could. Not that it took me anywhere near his impressive height, but at least it made me feel a bit better. ‘You weren’t even supposed to be here today, so don’t have a go at me for trying to do what I’ve been asked,’ I replied tightly.
My snarky reply caused a brief flash of surprise to cross his face before he resumed that bloody frown. As hard as I tried to ignore it, I noticed that he was doing that lip-rolling thing again too, and in response I found myself slowly licking my tongue across my own lips. Realising what I was doing, I quickly whipped my tongue back into my mouth and slammed my jaw shut so hard that my teeth made a cracking noise that caused me to wince. What the heck was I doing? This guy was acting like a stuck-up idiot and I was here appreciating his good looks? Regardless of his handsomeness I seriously needed to get a grip!
‘Yeah, well, I’m back early and I need to sleep and eat, so just make some food and leave it in the fridge.’ As well as being stuck up he was apparently lacking in manners, so I raised my eyebrows at his rudeness like I did with the children in my class when I expected them to consider their wording, ‘… please,’ he added wearily, and I nearly smiled at this small concession. Watching him as he watched me, I briefly thought that perhaps he looked familiar, but couldn’t place where I would know him from. Shrugging it off, I decided it was probably just his good looks that were continuing to confuse me, because even if he was a moody bastard there was no denying that he was definitely a very attractive moody bastard.
With his minimal clothing there was no disguising the raw appeal of his well-muscled body either – the light covering of hair on his chest looked soft, filling me with an urge to touch it, and the angles of his stubble-covered chin were appealing and something I always found particularly sexy. All in all, it was a rather nice view. Apart from the frown, of course, but realising what a mess I already was it was probably safest that I didn’t see him smile. It would no doubt be devastatingly good.
In the space of two minutes in this man’s company I felt like I was well on my way to losing my mind, so drawing in a shaky breath I tried to clear my head before looking back at him. To my annoyance I found him watching my appraisal of his body with apparent amusement. It wasn’t exactly a smile, but he had a smug quirk to his lips that made me realise with horror that my staring – and no doubt goofy expression – must have made it pretty obvious what I was thinking.
Damn my traitorous body, damn this bloody job, and damn this man.
Annoyed at my own lack of control I refused to show him that I was bothered by his presence, even though I clearly was, so I turned in the direction of the kitchen without so much as a backward glance at him. ‘Fine, I’ll make you some food and leave,’ I muttered.
As I strode back to the kitchen I realised that I had unconsciously crossed my arms over my chest – clearly as well as being horny I was also a little bit defensive from my run-in with the nameless, and shirtless, handsome stranger.
TWO
Allie
As soon as my feet hit the tiled kitchen floor I became a human tornado, speeding through my jobs with focus and barely even pausing to draw breath. My haste was partly fuelled by the angry, lusty feeling that he had sparked in me, and partly because I was keen to escape before it started to rain. Or as I had predicted earlier – snow. Whatever it was I was running from, man or weather, I wanted to get the heck away from this house as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, I had been so distracted by thoughts of the handsome bastard that I’d left the pasta for so long that it was less ‘al dente’ and more ‘a sticky mess at the bottom of the pan’ and I had to start all over again.
When the food was finally complete I pushed my hair from my face and looked up to see thick, fluffy flakes beginning to fall outside the window. Snow? Damn it, I hated when I proved myself right. Cursing under my breath, I angrily shoved lids on the Tupperware containers and slid them into the fridge, grabbed my bag, and started to shrug my jacket on as I dashed through the house for my car. If I was lucky, I could escape the twisty country lanes and get to the main roads before the snow got too bad.
There was no sign of Mr Misery Guts as I made it to the front door, which was mostly a relief, but did also trigger a brief flicker of disappointment that I wouldn’t get a last look at his godliness. I was definitely going to ask Sarah about him, though. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t mentioned what a hottie he was, and knowing Sarah’s love of a fine male specimen there is no way he could have escaped her notice.
However, thoughts of sinfully sexy pyjama bottoms were abruptly pushed from my mind when I yanked the front door open and to my dismay found a flurry of white snow falling all around me. Shit! The flakes were already falling far more quickly than I had imagined, and judging by the eerily silent white landscape, it had been doing so for quite a while. I’d been standing chopping vegetables by floor to ceiling windows – how had I not seen it start?
Annoyed at myself for not noticing the snow earlier, I practically ripped the door off my car as I opened it, threw my bag onto the passenger seat, and slid inside. Shoving the key into the ignition I turned it, praying that it would start. Wincing as it pathetically coughed and turned over several times I finally heard the rumble of the engine kicking to life and blew out a relieved breath. Thank God for that. I’m not sure I’d ever been more relieved about anything in my entire life.
Ramming it into first gear before the engine could change its mind, I went to pull away when my front wheels immediately started to spin uselessly below me, the mixture of snow and gravel combining to become slippery and useless under my tyres. Lightening my touch on the accelerator, I muttered a small plea under my breath and tried again. And again.
Attempting to coax my car forwards with soft, gentle encouragement I even stroked the steering wheel in my desperation to persuade it to move, but nothing was working, and after five more minutes and several additional failed attempts, the only progress I had made was a marginal skid to the right. Scowling at the dashboard, all thoughts of gentle coaxi
ng went up in smoke as I instead began to hurl abuse at it. ‘Bloody bugger it!’ I yelled, banging my hand on the steering wheel several times.
Pausing in my tantrum, I calmed my panted breaths and stared miserably ahead of me at the tarmacked parking spaces a few meters away. The snow was thinner there because of the tree cover above, and this sight did nothing to brighten my mood, because there was no doubt that if I’d parked there like I was supposed to, I would have managed to get a good enough start to make it down the driveway. Thinking of the gravel beneath me, it suddenly occurred to me that all my wheel spinning had probably done a bit of damage to Mr Mean and Moody’s treasured driveway. Oops. Hopefully he was sound asleep by now and I would be able to escape before he noticed my property destruction. Briefly chewing on a fingernail, I realised that I probably should have felt a bit guiltier at this realisation, but I was far too busy feeling sorry for myself about being stuck in the middle of nowhere to dwell on it.
Jumping from the car, I slammed the door as hard as I could and vented some of my frustrations through yelling a further stream of fiery expletives at my useless hunk of junk. My mouth was worse than a sailor’s as I dredged up every single swear word I’d ever encountered and flung it at my poor unsuspecting Fiat. I was seriously tempted to kick the car, but thankfully, common sense told me that I would only end up damaging myself more than it, so instead I hurled another tirade of abuse and abruptly stopped as my shoulders slumped in defeat and my head hung low.
Calming myself for a few seconds I watched as my breath steamed in the cold air. I sighed heavily and shook my head; I knew I should have had the tires changed at the last service, but the mechanic had told me they still had a bit of life in them yet. It seems he had been wrong.
Not willing to let the weather beat me without a proper fight I spent a good ten minutes getting cold and soaking wet as I tried to build ramps in front of the tyres from larger, nearby pebbles, hoping that they might help me get some grip, but the snow was falling so quickly that they were covered and useless by the time I climbed into the car to try. Bugger.
What should I do? Chewing nervously on the inside of my lower lip I glanced back at the house and grimaced so hard that my eyes scrunched up. No matter how stuck I was, there was no way I was asking him for help. The miserable git could wallow in his cosy warm bed and catch up on his sleep for all I cared. I’d be just fine out here.
Turning purposefully towards the rear of my car I popped open the boot and rooted around in the multitude of junk. With a pleased yelp I produced my sleeping bag and thermal survival blanket. Thank God I’d been too lazy to clean out my car since my camping trip in September. This sleeping bag was warm, not arctic standard perhaps, but definitely thick enough to help me out today. I’d just nestle down and wait it out. It couldn’t snow forever, could it? Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity. Of course it couldn’t, it would probably just be a short flurry. I’d be fine snuggled in my sleeping bag and then as soon as I saw it start to clear I’d make another attempt at moving the car.
With my plan sorted I settled down into the driver’s side again and wrapped myself up as best I could in preparation for a rough few hours ahead. I usually really liked snow, but only if I was safely tucked up in a nice warm house looking out at the pretty, sparkly crystals. Sitting in it was not on my favourites list, mostly because I bloody hated being cold. On the plus side, at least I had a fairly full petrol tank, so I could keep my car running to keep my decrepit heater turned on.
Unfortunately, my optimism about my ‘warm sleeping bag’ was soon quashed, because after ten minutes I had pretty much lost all feeling in my toes. After fifteen I was shivering uncontrollably, and by twenty minutes my wet, gloved fingers were stinging so much they felt like they’d been stung by a thousand wasps. I was also starting to feel a bit claustrophobic because the snow had covered my windows and windscreen so much it felt like I was sitting in a giant ice cube. Or a not so giant ice cube – my Fiat wasn’t exactly a large car.
Huffing out a frustrated breath that steamed the air, I suddenly yelped loudly as someone knocked on my car window, sending snow cascading to the ground and clearing the glass so I could see out of my icy cocoon.
As I looked out through the frosted glass I saw the owner of the house standing there in a snow jacket, waterproof trousers, and snow boots, looking annoyingly warm and dry and holding a mug of something which was temptingly sending plumes of steam into the air. Even clothed, he still looked magnificent. He now came across all outdoorsy and competent, which stupidly seemed to appeal to my inner fragile female who was apparently clamouring to be rescued by him.
Grumbling my annoyance at my complete inability to rein in my thoughts, I grouchily looked up at his face again. The brightness of the falling snow seemed to make his dark hair look almost black, and his eyes stood out like charcoal against the white. Frustratingly, I still couldn’t tell if his eyes were brown or dark blue, but yet again they seemed to be trying to pull me in, so I hastily dragged my gaze away, looking anywhere and everywhere except at his eyes. No doubt he was amused by my neurotic behaviour, because there seemed to be a smile threatening to break on his lips for a second or two, but he never let it fully emerge. It was almost as if he wouldn’t allow it.
Disliking him even more now that he was dry and warm and I wasn’t, I reluctantly forced my frigid fingers to draw the window down a few inches.
‘What’s the problem?’ he asked conversationally, as if it wasn’t screamingly obvious what the issue was. If I could have felt my legs, I swear to God I would have jumped out of the car and kicked him. Hard.
As stupid as his question was, I found myself answering anyway, politeness winning out over grouchiness. ‘The snow is heavier than I thought and my car can’t handle it; I just keep skidding. I’m going to wait it out, I’m sure it’ll pass soon enough.’ Although judging from the colour of the clouds, that might be wishful thinking on my part.
Watching as he sipped his drink I felt my mouth begin to water with the almost desperate need to taste whatever was in that cup. God, the things I would do to get my hands on that drink right now. Narrowing my eyes as I looked at his wide stance I felt my heart leap in my chest again. Forget the drink – the things I would do to get my hands on him right now. I bet he was really toasty beneath all those layers of clothing.
Mmm. Solid, warm skin and hard, protective muscles … he could no doubt heat up my chilled body in just a few minutes. It vaguely crossed my lust-filled mind to tell him that the best survival technique was to get naked and share body heat, but thankfully sanity prevailed and I held back. The mere thought of sharing some skin–on-skin action with this man sent a shiver running through my body that had nothing to do with my chilled bones. I then had to firmly shake my head to try and clear my wandering thoughts. This man was dangerous for me. I just couldn’t control the way my body responded to him; it was crazy.
‘If you had parked in the proper parking space you probably would have been fine,’ he commented mildly, casting a glance across the driveway to his bloody perfect flipping parking spots which were still mostly untouched by the snow. ‘The tarmac would have provided a far better grip. As it is, you’ve dug trenches in my otherwise perfect driveway with your wheel spins and now you’re stuck.’
My mouth briefly hung open. Smug, irritating, self-righteous bastard. But I couldn’t say anything because he was right, and basically saying exactly what I’d been thinking myself just a few minutes earlier. My hands clenched into balls in my lap – I really hated that he was right. I also felt slightly guilty about the damage I had no doubt done to his precious driveway, but in my current state I didn’t feel like apologising so I simply chose to ignore him and rolled my lips shut while I stared defiantly at my fisted hands instead.
‘You can’t stay out here, you’ll freeze. Come inside,’ he told me, in a presumptuous tone that rubbed me up the wrong way, but simultaneously made me feel all pathetically melty inside too.<
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Sneering at my pitiful hormones I dug my icy body deeper into my rubbish sleeping bag and turned away from him to avoid the temptation of further ogling. Seeing as I seemed to have a strange sort of attraction to this equally strange man I was decidedly unwilling to go back inside with him. God knows what I’d do or say if I had to spend any more time alone with him. He made my insides feel warm and gooey when my brain was telling me that he was a rude, pompous prick. It was an unfamiliar imbalance that I didn’t like at all, so I decided to play it safe and stay away. ‘I’m fine here, thank you.’ Although I still really wanted him to offer me whatever was in his cup.
‘Have it your way,’ he murmured, then took another teasing sip of his drink, briefly licking his lips and humming in appreciation before turning and walking back to the house, leaving me staring at his broad, retreating back in disbelief.
What a bastard! I was completely stunned that he was actually going to leave me out here in the cold. Although I reluctantly had to admit that that was exactly what I’d told him I wanted. He wasn’t supposed to listen to me! He was supposed to talk some sense into me with that lovely, raspy voice of his. Huffing out an irritable breath I flopped back in my seat with a scowl. So he was a chauvinist pig and ill-mannered? My treacherous mind was midway through trying to remember his good points, like his muscular build and startlingly handsome face, when the door to my car was wrenched open and I was suddenly dragged from my sleeping bag as I found my world rapidly turning upside down.
What the heck? It took me a second or two to actually realise that he had tossed me over his shoulder like a rag doll, and once my new reality had sunk in I literally couldn’t believe it. Talk about being manhandled. Gripping him at the waist to balance myself I took a brief second to note just how toned he felt under his clothing, before I grasped what I was doing, and instead began to pummel him with my fists whilst yelling at him to put me down.
