Playing Dirty

by Tiffany Snow

  “All done,” the doctor said, taking off his gloves with a snap. “The nurse will give you something for the discomfort and an antibiotic to prevent infection. The stitches will dissolve in seven to ten days. You’ll have a thin scar, of course.”

  I thanked him as he left, then swallowed the pills the nurse gave me. The numbness was starting to wear off and it hurt something fierce.

  “The pain medication will make you sleepy,” she cautioned, “so no driving or operating heavy machinery, okay?”

  “But Thursdays are backhoe night,” I deadpanned.

  Parker snorted a laugh, but the nurse didn’t so much as crack a smile. Maybe she didn’t know what a backhoe was.

  Hands full of papers and pill bottles, we left the ER and Parker drove me to my apartment. It was pushing six o’clock and my stomach grumbled all the way, complaining about my lack of afternoon snack. It would’ve embarrassed me, but the medicine had taken hold and I dozed in Parker’s passenger seat.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead. We’re home.”

  I mumbled something, prying my eyes open. My hair was in my eyes, but even as I thought it, Parker was brushing it aside. His hand touched my cheek and my heavy eyelids fluttered closed again. I expected him to retreat, but to my surprise, he cupped my jaw. The warm slide of his thumb across my cheekbone felt like having a drink of water after running five miles on the treadmill (which I was just guessing at because I’d never been able to do more than three), and a small sigh escaped me.

  When I managed to overcome the medication-induced lethargy enough to open my eyes again, it was to see Parker quite close, staring at me. Gone was the lightheartedness he’d distracted me with in the emergency room. Now his expression was grave, his lips pressed together and his brow furrowed.

  “You’re looking grim,” I said, my voice soft in the quiet car. “Thinking of how much work you’re going to have to do tonight to make up for this afternoon?”

  “Thinking of how you were nearly taken from me. Again.”

  I was too tired and my brain was moving too slow to process how to respond to that, so I blinked at him. Once. Slowly.

  Parker didn’t seem to require a response, though. His fingers brushed my face, traced my brow, trailed down my cheek to my lips.

  Unable to tear my gaze away from his, I waited … for what, I didn’t know. The things he’d said the other night, the insinuations and hints that he felt more for me—wanted more from me—were confusing. I thought I’d finally “gotten over” Parker, sort of, and now he was reeling me back in with almost effortless ease.

  He was close enough to kiss, if I just leaned forward a few inches. It felt like a magnet was pulling me toward him, but something held me back and it took a moment for my sluggish brain to realize what that was.

  Ryker.

  Guilt hit and hit hard. I jerked back from Parker’s touch, my hand flying for the door handle. In my haste to get out, I nearly fell on my face in the parking lot.

  “Hey, slow down. I’ll help you,” Parker said.

  “I’m fine. I just didn’t expect the, uh, door to, uh, open that quick.” Gee? What did you think it’d do when you pulled the handle? Good lord, I was spouting inane bullshit, but he was already rounding the car to my side.

  “Here, let me take your purse,” he said, lifting the strap from my shoulder. “Lean on me.”

  No, no, no. Bad idea.

  “I’m okay,” I insisted, heading for the door to the building. And it would have been a good exit, if my vision wasn’t blurry and I missed the door handle by a mile when I reached for it. I heard a soft chuckle behind me.

  “Yes, I can see you’re perfectly capable when you’re drugged up,” he said, reaching around me to pull open the door.

  I chose not to dignify that with an answer, and not because I had to concentrate too hard on where I put my feet as I walked down the hall to be able to form a coherent reply.

  There were two sets of elevator buttons when I knew for a fact there should be only one. I hoped I was picking the real and not the ghost illusion when I pressed the button, and I let out a relieved huff of breath when I saw the correct circle light up.

  “See?” I said, leaning against the wall. “I’m fi—” The wall moved and I lost my balance, toppling back into the elevator as the doors opened. Huh. I’d thought for sure that had been a wall …

  Parker snagged me around the waist before I could fall, then helped me into the elevator the correct way … on one’s feet.

  “My, what fast reflexes you have, Mr. Anderson,” I said, the words just popping out. I frowned. It seemed the medicine was not only making me groggy and see double, but had messed with the filter between my brain and mouth.

  “Now that’s one I haven’t heard before,” he said, helping me out of the elevator. His arm was still around my waist and I wanted to move away, but I also didn’t want to end up on my ass.

  “Comments about his speed usually aren’t something a man wants to hear from a woman,” he quipped.

  I let out a very unladylike snort at the joke, then tried to swallow my laughter. Parker had just made a sex joke. This day was just full of firsts. The first time Parker made a sex joke, the first time I’d been high on painkillers around my boss, the first time I’d nearly gotten run over by a truck …

  Okay, that last one wasn’t funny at all.

  By now, Parker was holding my purse up for me while I dug around in it for my keys. I’d yet to meet a man who wanted to brave the contents of a woman’s purse, no matter how justified. It was taking too long, but he just stood there, patiently holding the knockoff Michael Kors.

  At last, I triumphantly produced the keys. “Got ’em!” Then proceeded to immediately drop them on the floor. “Oops.”

  Parker grabbed them before I could contemplate how to bend over without falling over, and unlocked the door. I followed him inside, really glad to be home. Heading for the couch, I plopped down on it and kicked off my shoes while Parker turned on a couple of lamps.

  “You’ve got to be hungry,” he said. “What do you want to eat? I’ll go get it for you.”

  I tipped my head back on the sofa and looked up at where he stood behind the couch. He touched my hair again, moving it aside from my neck to my shoulder.

  “Aren’t I usually the one making the runs for take-out?”

  His features softened with a small smile. “I’ll make an exception. Just this once. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “That you’re really not a jerk?” I asked. Oops. Probably shouldn’t have said that either, but his smile only widened.

  “Is that what people say about me?” he asked.

  “Not everyone,” I hedged. “People know you’re very … dedicated to your job.” Which was true. Parker was respected at KLP, and most had a healthy fear of screwing up and getting on his radar. He dealt mainly with clients, so if Parker had to take time out of his busy schedule because of a personnel issue, it wasn’t pretty.

  “That’s why I have you,” he said. “You’re my human credential.”

  “I’m your what?” I’d never heard that before. I twisted around so I could stop looking at him upside down.

  “People know you’re as sweet as can be, always nice and helpful. So if you can work for me and not quit your job—or kill me—then I can’t be that bad, right? My human credential.”

  “Huh.” I hadn’t ever thought of it that way, but it was true. I’d had the impression people had feared Parker a lot before I’d begun working there, but now things were better, though everyone still came through me if they wanted to see him.

  “So what do you want to eat?”

  I thought about it. “Pizza. Lots of cheese.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’d changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt and Parker was handing money to the delivery guy. The smell of fresh-baked pizza wafted through the apartment. I went to get off the couch and winced.

  “Sore?” Parker asked, setting the box down on the coffee table.


  I nodded as he sat down next to me. “Yeah. Everywhere. I guess my whole body just tensed up when I saw that truck coming.” That plus getting kicked around in the nightclub last night, which I definitely wasn’t going to tell him about.

  He handed me a plate with three slices of pizza dripping cheese.

  “I can’t eat all that,” I protested.

  “Sure you can,” he said, grabbing another plate for himself. He’d discarded his jacket and loosened his tie, but still looked incongruous taking a bite of his own slice. Setting down the plate, he went into the kitchen.

  I watched him, wondering if I should daintily nibble on my pizza or scarf it down like I wanted to. Considering how much my stomach was growling, I decided I didn’t really care if it was ladylike or not and took a huge bite. My eyes slid shut.

  Heaven. Pure heaven.

  I had a whole slice gone and was halfway through round two when Parker returned, carrying two wineglasses and an open bottle of red. He poured himself a whole glass and me half before handing it to me.

  “Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass against mine.

  I’d slowed down by the time I got to the third slice, and my toes caught my eye. “Crap,” I mumbled around pizza.

  “What?”

  “The asphalt scraped my polish,” I explained, wiggling my toes so he could see what I was talking about. “Now I have to redo them.”

  “You’re not going to be able to bend enough to paint your toes,” Parker said, taking his fourth slice.

  Well, shit. I hadn’t thought of that, but he was right. I couldn’t move off the couch without groaning. No way could I paint my toes. I’d just have to go around with them looking awful.

  For some reason, this was the thing that broke me. Not the slice in the shoulder, not the scrapes and bruises from last night, not even the stitches. I was bawling because I couldn’t paint my toes.

  Parker took the glass out of my hand and the plate from my lap. I covered my face with my hands, embarrassed beyond belief that I was sobbing in front of him. He had to think I was insane.

  But he didn’t say anything, just put his arm around me and pulled me into him until my head rested against his chest in the crook of his neck and shoulder. He rubbed my back as I cried.

  I didn’t know if it was because the impending terror of seeing that truck had shaken me so much or what, but it seemed really hard to let this incident go. Months ago, Viktor Rowan had held a plastic bag over my head, nearly suffocating me, and that had been pretty damn scary. Or maybe it was that I’d had one too many near-death experiences in too short a span of time. Whatever the reason, it took several minutes for me to calm down.

  Finally, when my tears had subsided and I was doing the weird hiccup thing you did after crying too hard, Parker said, “If you wanted a mani/pedi, all you had to do was ask.”

  A bubble of laughter escaped, in spite of the crying jag. He handed me a tissue and I wiped my eyes.

  “So where’s your polish?”

  I waved his question aside. “I’m fine. It’s just one of those things.”

  “No. You always have your toes painted. It’ll help you feel more normal, more in control. Just tell me where your stuff is. In the bathroom? Your bedroom?” He was already heading down the hallway.

  “Parker,” I called. “Really, it’s fine …” But he’d disappeared into the bathroom. Oh geez, if he found my polish …

  “Wow.”

  I cringed. Yep. He’d found it all right.

  I liked nail polish. A lot. The last time I’d counted, I’d had over fifty bottles, and that had been at Christmas, nearly a year ago. I’d probably added twenty more in the time since.

  Parker poked his head out the door. “You’re going to have to help me out. What color?”

  Like I was going to have him dig out a specific color. Please. They were organized by mood. Colors that made me happy, colors that made me feel sexy, colors to wear when I was feeling depressed, colors specific for certain holidays … no way could I explain that to him. “Um, whatever. You choose.”

  He returned bearing polish remover, cotton balls, and two bottles. “Okay,” he said, sitting down again. “I have …” He looked at the bottom of one bottle. “Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It.” He looked at the other bottle. “And … A Good Man-darin Is Hard to Find.” Glancing at me, he asked, “Which?”

  I shrugged, unable to stop a smile. It was surreal, Parker eating pizza on my couch and picking out polish for my toes. Maybe I should have a near-death experience every day, if this was how Parker reacted.

  He reached for my leg and propped it on his thigh so he could get to my toes, then began assiduously removing the scraped remains of I Don’t Give a Rotterdam. His tie caught my eye and before I could think twice, I reached for it, loosening the knot and sliding the length of silk from underneath his collar. He paused while I did this, looking at me instead of my toes, and the air grew charged between us.

  “I don’t want you to get anything on your tie,” I blurted, deliberately not following the path my mind was leading, where I was taking more off him than his tie. “Your dry cleaner hates me enough as it is.”

  Parker’s lips twitched, then he returned to his work, removing the polish from one set of toes, then the other before choosing A Good Man-darin Is Hard to Find. I wondered if he knew that was the same polish I’d worn when I’d interviewed for the job as his assistant. Probably not. It wasn’t like men noticed that sort of thing.

  The touch of his hands on my skin was a decadent torture. His palm wrapped around my ankle as he steadied me before carefully applying the bright peach lacquer. Each nail was painted with a sure hand, then he set aside the bottle and blew warm air across my toes.

  A shiver went through me and he must have felt it, because the hand circling my ankle loosened. His palm slid a few inches up my calf underneath the hem of my pants, just touching me in a gentle slide of his fingers against my skin. The warm air blew in a steady stream over my wet nails and my hands curled into fists.

  This wasn’t sexual. This was just Parker being nice. He’d seen me fall apart over my stupid toenails. What was he supposed to do? Say, “Well, have fun with that. See you tomorrow!”

  Yeah, because bosses painted their secretaries’ toes all the time.

  Okay, maybe that little voice in my head had a point, but even if he was thinking it, and I was thinking it, we weren’t actually doing anything, so the guilt gnawing at my conscience was completely absurd, right?

  The little voice was conspicuously silent.

  The rattle of the lock in the door had me guiltily trying to pull my legs off Parker’s lap, but his grip was suddenly strong around my ankles and I couldn’t budge.

  Which was why when Ryker walked in, he saw his girlfriend sitting on the couch with her legs in another man’s lap.

  Ryker stopped right inside the door, his gaze resting on us.

  “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, and I winced at the thinly veiled accusation in his voice.

  I tried to take back my feet, but Parker held firm.

  “You’re going to ruin the finest pedicure I’ve ever done,” he said to me.

  “It’s the only pedicure you’ve ever done,” I hissed back. My face was hot and I knew I was blushing under Ryker’s scrutiny.

  “What’s going on?” Ryker asked. “Sage?”

  “I brought her home and she was a little high on painkillers,” Parker explained. “So I fed her some pizza and was polishing her toes.”

  Ryker’s eyebrows flew upward. “You were what?”

  “Relax,” Parker said, carefully setting my legs aside and standing. “She was upset. You weren’t here. I was just doing what I could to help.”

  Okay, so I guess the sexual tension I’d felt had been entirely one-sided. Good to know. Now to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. Stupid, stupid, to get sucked back in.

  Ryker blew out a sigh, then to my relief, he let the matter drop. “Well, I have b
ad news,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over a chair, though I had a hall tree right there to hang coats on. “The video footage showed exactly what you said. A man walked behind you, shoved you into the street, then disappeared into the crowd.”

  I’d been afraid that that’s what had happened, but to hear it confirmed was just sad. I felt a little like my parents, wanting to ask, “What’s the world coming to these days?” for a complete stranger to try and kill me for no reason.

  “Any luck on finding out who it was?” Parker asked, but Ryker just shook his head.

  “Not yet. We’re trying some facial recognition programs, but that takes time. If we get a hit, they’ll let me know.”

  Ryker dropped down on the couch beside me. “You can find your way to the door, I’m sure,” he said.

  Parker just smiled in a bland sort of way, then picked up his jacket.

  I rolled my eyes and got painfully to my feet. “I’ll walk you out,” I said, following Parker to the door. He’d already opened it and stood in the doorway, waiting, by the time I got there.

  “Thanks for taking me to the hospital,” I said. “And for dinner. And the pedicure.”

  His answering smile wasn’t so much on his lips as in his eyes. “You’re welcome,” he said, uberpolite but with a gentle undertone that inexplicably made me blush. “You don’t have to come in tomorrow, if you’re not feeling up to it. Take a day off.”

  “Thanks,” I said, knowing I’d go in to work anyway. It was a nice gesture. “I’ll see how I feel.”

  “Okay. Good night then. Don’t forget to take your meds.”

  I nodded and he headed down the hallway. He was nearly at the stairwell before I remembered.

  “Parker?” I called. He paused, glancing back at me.

  “Yes?”

  “Your suits from the dry cleaner’s …” I hesitated.

  “What about them?”

  “The truck kinda … ran over them.” I winced, thinking of how much it was going to cost to replace those. Parker didn’t dress cheaply.

  But his lips just twitched. “Better the suits than you,” he said, then he was gone.