Wrong For You (Before You Series Book 3)

by Lisa Cardiff

  “What do you mean by really particular?” she asked, swiveling to face him.

  “I like to be in control so I probably wouldn’t have let you help anyway.”

  “Are you sure?” She smirked as her eyes swept the length of him with his faded gray t-shirt, dark jeans, and bare feet. He seemed so comfortable in his own skin, as though he didn’t care what other people thought about him. They could take him or leave, but he wouldn’t change for anyone. She liked that about him.

  His lips floated across her hair so softly, her body buzzed with possibilities. “More than sure.”

  Violet reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper folded into fours and handed it to Alec. “Everything you need to know is on that piece of paper.”

  Alec raised his eyebrows as he opened the piece of paper and scanned the directions. When he finished, he folded the paper and headed toward the kitchen. “The muffins don’t sound too hard to make. I think I’ll have to add a few things, but this is a good starting place.”

  “Oh good, because I’ve never made them before. I begged my mom to email me the recipe this morning.”

  His eyes darted back and forth between her eyes and lips and it’s possible that her toes curled at bit in response. After a few seconds, he walked around to the front of the sofa and held out his hand. “Ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “To watch the magic happen.”

  She giggled, and she never giggled. She was far too serious for that. What was it about Alec that made her act so un-Violet-like? “Maybe I could nap while you do the prep work. How does that sound?”

  “Not happening. If I have to spend my Sunday morning baking muffins for troubled teens, you’re going to be right there with me.” He wiggled his fingers, prompting her to move. “Now move.”

  “Ugh. You’re such a slave driver,” she said, rolling her eyes in mock displeasure as she grabbed onto his hand, allowing him to drag her to her feet. He pulled her into the kitchen never releasing her hand, his thumb tracing idle patterns on the inside of her wrist.

  “Sit,” he said, pulling out a chair at the table. He pulled out bowls and measuring cups from the makeshift kitchen in the basement apartment. Sometimes her mom stayed there and she kept it stocked with the essentials, but nothing fancy.

  “Sitting,” she responded, bracing her elbows on the table and cupping her chin. “Is there anything else you want me to do?”

  “I’ll let you know when I need your help.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alec tossed the flour, eggs, sugar and melted butter in a bowl. Turning around, he leveraged the bowl against his chest as he stirred. She watched as his arms flexed with every movement and his tattoos came to life, dancing on his muscular arms. Before Alec, tattoos weren’t her thing, but when they decorated arms like his, she understood the appeal. She couldn’t lie to herself; it was a nice view. No nice was wholly inadequate to describe Alec at that moment. He looked sexy as hell.

  “You know, this would be much easier if I had an electric mixer.”

  “But then I couldn’t watch your arms work and I really like that part.” Oh shit, did she really say that? She looked at his face. Most definitely.

  With a lopsided grin on his face and his eyebrows raised, Alec turned around and she wanted to swallow her tongue so she couldn’t say anything else so stupid. Alec probably thought she was some kind of crazy stalker who first pushed him to rent her basement apartment, then she practically twisted his arm to hike with her yesterday, and now she invited herself to make muffins with him. At that thought she nearly groaned. If she wanted to act like a stalker fangirl, at least she could be a little more creative and sexy than asking him to bake and hike with her, not that watching Alec bake wasn’t sexy because, who was she kidding? It was, but it would be infinitely more interesting if he had his shirt off and she could see where those tattoos ended.

  When he reached up into one of the upper cabinets, the hem of his shirt lifted ever so slightly and she could see a hint of his flat stomach. Her breath hitched as her eyes fought to stay on his face, the kitchen, the mixing bowl…anything except that tempting expanse of skin. He sprinkled a few spices into the batter, but she focused on the way his shirt stretched and pulled across his back than his attempts to modify the recipe. He looked so good it was almost obscene. Okay. No more ogling. She was drifting into restraining order territory.

  He walked toward her with the mixing bowl cupped in one hands. “Open up,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He sat in the chair next to her. “I want you to taste it. Let me know if you think it’s good.”

  She shook her head. “No. I have a strict rule against contracting salmonella poisoning on Sundays. It’s supposed to be a day of rest and reflection. Not a day of exercise.”

  He frowned, his brows knitted together. “I’m sorry. Did that make sense?”

  “Yes.” Her lips twitched at the blank look on his face. “I don’t want to spend the day exercising my digestive tract in unnatural and uncomfortable positions involving a toilet bowl.”

  “Oh please.” He rolled his eyes as he dipped his finger into the batter. “Just a little taste. You’ll be fine.” He dangled his finger dripping with batter in front of her mouth. She shook her head again. “If you get sick, I’ll take care of you until you’re fully recovered.”

  “Fine.” She opened her mouth and he slipped his finger inside. Before she could question her motives she snapped her mouth closed, her lips wrapping around his finger.

  Slowly he withdrew his finger, but not before she deliberately swirled her tongue around him, making sure to eat every last drop of batter from his finger. “Mm…that’s wonderful.”

  “Told you,” he said softly, his dark, hooded eyes burning her up with their intensity. The tension between them ricocheted around the room; she couldn’t have looked away if she wanted to and she didn’t.

  “Yes,” she said so softly she didn’t know if he heard her.

  Then he leaned forward, his lips only inches from hers, desire singeing the air between them. His citrus cologne mixed with sugar and flour engulfed her, enslaving every one of her senses. She didn’t know whether he wanted to kiss her, but at that moment she wouldn’t push him away if he tried. In fact, there was nothing she wanted more than for him to brush his lips across hers, even if it wasn’t for a full-blown kiss. She’d settle for anything he was willing to give.

  Dark blue eyes tracked every movement as she tittered forward another inch, unable to resist his magnetic pull. With her lips tingling in anticipation, she licked her lower lip and her eyes closed, heavy from the unadulterated lust rioting in her veins. He released a sigh and his warm breath flitted across her face like a sugary balm.

  And then…she heard his chair scrape across the floor and he was gone. Survival instinct alone allowed her to suppress the groan of humiliation scaling the walls of her throat. There’s nothing as cringe-worthy as totally misreading an incoming kiss and allowing her eyes to flutter closed while the guy flees. She rubbed her hands over her face and then stood up.

  “It looks like the muffins are in good hands. I really need to check on Dean’s sister and get some sleep.”

  Alec didn’t turn to look at her. He busied himself looking for something in his kitchen cabinets. He was really good at the dodge and weave thing, but then again with the way he looked, he probably had to dodge and weave often. “Do you think I can make huckleberry bread instead of muffins?” he asked, setting a loaf pan down on the countertop.

  “I don’t see why not.” She shifted back and forth on her feet a couple times. “I guess I forgot about the whole pan thing when I came up with this idea yesterday.”

  “No worries.”

  “Do you want me to stop by later to get it?”

  “No,” he blurted out, turning around to look at her for the first time since the aborted kiss incident. “I’ll bring the bread with me to the Foundation tomorrow.”

>   “Great. Thanks for your help.”

  He smiled, but it was laced with regret or maybe that was just her imagination and she read emotions into a situation where there were none. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t get the opportunity to cook very often anymore. I like it.”

  She nodded. “All right, then. See you tomorrow.” She turned and left before the heavy air of awkwardness caused her to say or do anything else she’d regret when she saw him tomorrow in the real world, where men like him didn’t hang out with women like her.

  Chapter Seven

  Violet held a pillow over her head to block out the noise of her alarm as it streamed loud music into her room. She didn’t finish working at the Foundation last night until almost midnight and it seemed as if she had crawled into bed less than twenty minutes ago, not five hours ago.

  At least she didn’t have any meetings with potential donors today, so she could throw her hair into a ponytail and wear one of her many cotton athletic skirts and a t-shirt. Changing light bulbs and cleaning out old storage rooms was really difficult in a suit and heels. She learned that lesson a week and a half ago. She should have gone home and changed at some point, but after her latest potential benefactor for the Foundation turned her down, she was too angry to care and she threw herself into getting work done.

  Initially, she didn’t like the idea of handing the fundraising portion of her job to Alec Reed, but after six months of barely raising three thousand dollars, she needed a break and he couldn’t do any worse than she had. She’d been failing miserably for months.

  The world had conspired against her and the Foundation from the minute the new owners of the Foundation’s building took control. Almost immediately, charitable donations to the Foundation dried up and she’d only managed to squeeze money out of her parents and one of her friends, Annette. Out of all her high school and college friends, Annette was the only one she kept in touch with. Annette was a bulldog about their friendship, refusing to let more than a week or two pass without doing something together.

  Unable to stand the sound of her alarm for one more second, she rolled out of bed, mentally preparing herself for another day at the Foundation. Funny, she used to love her work, but these days no matter how many hours she invested there, she was always behind, struggling to keep in front of the next problem that dropped in her lap, because for the last six months or so there was always another bigger problem right around the corner for each one she solved.

  Just as she finished brushing her hair and teeth, her doorbell rang. With the rent money she received from Alec, she paid her car payment and the utility bills, so at least it wasn’t someone coming to repossess her car.

  Without looking through the peephole, she flung the door open.

  “Alec?” She had only seen him a handful of times in the last five days since their hike and the muffin incident—when he arrived at the Foundation around nine in the morning and when he left at three forty-five every day. He never stayed until the Foundation closed and he pretty much kept to himself in the office that used to be hers, not even leaving to eat lunch. Instead, he had lunch delivered for both of them. For the most part, he was like a ghost working behind the scenes, but she had caught him watching her… and the kids from the hall outside the gym on a couple occasions. She never acknowledged his presence. It didn’t seem as though he wanted to be seen, but for some reason she felt it in her bones any time he came within twenty feet of her.

  “So I have some good news for you,” Alec said, holding two bags of groceries.

  “Uh huh,” she said absently, trying to ignore the small part of her that had secretly hoped to see much more of Alec during his month living in her basement. Unlike her last few tenants, she hadn’t heard any noise invading her house from his apartment, not even music. He was the perfect tenant. She couldn’t invent a single complaint. He paid his rent. He never took her driveway parking spot. He didn’t have guests. He didn’t leave a trace of anything, but something about him drew her in and the more secretive he acted, the more she wanted to know about him.

  He was one of those dark, brooding, mysterious types that women lost their minds over. She’d never been one of those women. Open, carefree men captured her attention, or at least she thought so until she met Alec. Maybe that was because no man, in her limited experience, had ever done the brooding, dark, and sexy thing as well as him. He mastered it with his dark blue, heavily lidded eyes that spoke of sin, sex, and a whole lot of wickedness she couldn’t even imagine.

  “Am I that boring?” he asked, cocking his head, a full-blown smirk on his face.

  Oh crap. He asked her a question and she’d been…daydreaming about him. “Uh, I’m sorry. I was…thinking about eyes.” No, her mind screamed, knowing she sounded like a total idiot. “They’re the windows to the soul,” she added, horrified at the words falling out of her mouth. Good god, she needed a piece of duct tape to slap over her mouth before she started telling him even more embarrassing things like how sexy he looked on her front porch and how she wanted to lick his tattoos.

  He raised one dark eyebrow ever so slightly. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” She opened the door wide, pressing her body flat against the door as he came in.

  “Purple, huh?” he said, pausing as he took in the color scheme of her house.

  “Lavender,” she corrected.

  “What?” He turned to look at her.

  “My walls are lavender.”

  He chuckled. “Right.”

  She needed to stop being an idiot around him.

  “Do you live her alone?” he asked, taking in the sparsely furnished living room. Besides, a white slipcovered sofa and a cluster of three end tables, pushed together to give the illusion of a coffee table, the room was more or less empty.

  “My brother lives here on occasion.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ryder thrives extreme sports, so he only stays here as long as it takes to save enough money for his next adventure.”

  “Does he pay rent?”

  “My parents inherited the house from my grandmother. They let us live here as long as we do the maintenance.”

  “Does your brother help?”

  “When he’s in town.” She cleared her throat, trying to change the subject. “How’s fundraising going?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  Her stomach sunk. “Giving up already?” She walked toward the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. She needed caffeine for this conversation.

  Dropping two bags of groceries on her kitchen counter, he pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked as she scanned the numbers detailed in the spreadsheet.

  “One hundred thousand dollars in donations. How’s that for a couple weeks of work?”

  She blinked. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Did you say one hundred thousand dollars, as in US dollars?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I said. I’m glad I was able to say something to get your attention.”

  Her mouth dropped open and she shook her head. “No way. How’d you do it?”

  “I told you. I have lots of contacts and they were more than happy to donate to the Foundation.”

  She dropped her coffee mug on the counter and flung herself toward him, wrapping her arms around his waist before kissing him on each cheek. “Please tell me you know more people,” she said, smiling up at him.

  His body stiffened under her hands and his eyes darkened, the dark blue of his irises nearly merging with his swollen pupils. Then it hit her. She practically wrapped her braless, pajama-clad body around this man she knew next to nothing about except that he can raise money like it’s falling out of the sky.

  “Plenty,” he answered, his voice thick like velvet.

  As she stepped back, his hand moved to her lower back, pulling her forward again, his body pressing into hers, his heat seeping through the thin co
tton of her white tank top, his spicy citrus scent filling her lungs. It was way too personal and intimate and that thought alone caused her heart to drum against her ribs.

  She should step away, but his fathomless eyes held her captive and she couldn’t do anything but stare back at him, taking in every detail of his face—his slightly crooked angular nose, the light scar that ran through his left eyebrow, his full lips that begged to be touched. No part of him was perfect, but taken as a whole, he was the epitome of perfection, and as much as she tried to convince herself otherwise, she liked the feel of his hard body next her, his big, warm hand pressing into her back sheltering her from God knows what, but damn it felt amazing.

  For long, combustible seconds, neither of them moved, the sound of their breathing echoing in the sudden silence of the room. His fingertips whispered along her jaw line, more of a suggestion than a real touch, and even with that little contact, her skin was on fire wanting more of Alec than any woman with half a brain should.

  “Sorry,” she finally said, dropping her hands from his waist as her eyes bounced around the room, trying to find safety from his soul-searching gaze. “I don’t know. I got a little excited and I just—”

  “Threw yourself at me,” he finished for her, a mocking smile tainting the beauty of his lips.

  “Something like that,” she mumbled as she closed her eyes in horror, certain that thirty shades of pink colored her hopelessly pale skin.

  He dropped his hand from her back and took a couple steps away from her. She immediately missed his touch. “Don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.”

  She believed him. Everything about Alec Reed, from his walk to his velvet voice and his angry tattoos, screamed of sex and sin, and there was no doubt in her mind that most women would die to give him anything and everything he wanted. She couldn’t let herself be one of them. She turned her back to him, adding a teaspoon or two of sugar to her black coffee, stirring it, tasting it, trying to ignore Alec because she felt like a fool, no—an unoriginal fool.