by Isabel North
Nora retracted the tape with a whoosh and snap. “Huh. I’d say nine and a half.”
He burst out laughing and threw himself onto the couch beside her. “To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this visit?”
“It’s not supposed to be a visit. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“It’s my warehouse.”
“We thought you’d be out. You should take this back so it doesn’t happen again.” She tried to give him the key she’d used to get in.
Catching her wrist, he closed her slender fingers over the key and held her steady. “I have no problem with this happening again.”
“Are you—”
“Yes. I’m sure.” Gabe squeezed and let go. “Who was the other guy? Was it Vince?”
“What?” She looked startled.
“The guy you walked in on when he wasn’t naked, but he also wasn’t alone. Vince?”
“Yeah. Went in to water his ficus, found him with another woman, who happened to be his new wife.”
“Vince is an asshole.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but he isn’t. Not really. He fell in love.”
“Wasn’t he supposed to be in love with you?”
“And I was supposed to be in love with him. Turns out, we were both fooling ourselves. I’m grateful one of us came to our senses before we spent the next fifty years going through the motions. I will say, though, that he could have handled it better.”
“Sounds like you, at least, handled it in a mature manner.”
Nora went bright red and avoided his eyes. “Yes. I did.”
“You liar,” Gabe said in delight. “What did you do? You are telling me that story. You know I can make you.”
“Not today!” She leapt to her feet and held up the tape measure. “Today, I have work to do. Unless you want me to come back another time?”
“No need. Knock yourself out. What are we measuring?”
“I’ve got a detailed list in my Filofax.”
“I’m shocked.”
Nora pulled a face. “Anna needs wall and floor measurements, as well as pictures from a variety of angles to plug into her design software. We were supposed to take them before the meeting last time. You were here then, too. Why are you here, anyway? Hiding from something?”
Gabe kept his smile in place. “Where shall we start?”
“You’re helping me?”
“You’re welcome. Where’s the camera?” He peered into her open purse, spotted the camera, and took it out.
Hey,” she protested.
He waved her off. “No need to freak out, I didn’t see your tampons.” When he looked up from fiddling with the camera, he found her blushing again. “You are really easy to embarrass,” he told her, marveling at the deep color in her cheeks. “I wasn’t even trying.” He raised the camera and snapped a picture.
Nora blinked at the flash. “I dread to think what you’d do if you were trying to embarrass me,” she said tartly.
“Dirty talk.”
Her gaze tangled with his.
Gabe began to smile, slowly. “If I was trying to embarrass you, I’d talk dirty. I’m pretty sure I could make you burst into actual fire if I said something dirty.”
“You could not.”
He checked out the photo he’d taken. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes startled. Pupils wide and shining. He angled the camera for her to see the view screen. “Pretty sure I could make you burst into actual fire if I said something anatomical.”
Nora firmed her jaw. “No, you couldn’t.”
“Penis.”
The color rushed back into her cheeks and her mouth dropped open.
“Interesting reaction,” Gabe said.
She shut it with a snap of her teeth.
He winced. “Worrying reaction.”
Reaching out, Nora snatched the camera and stalked off, her Filofax under her arm and the tape measure in a white-knuckled grip.
CHAPTER TEN
They spent the next few hours measuring up, with Gabe holding the tape while Nora ran out its length in all directions. She took copious notes. Once Anna had the dimensions of the space, she’d be able to generate 3D models in her design software, and could order the correct amounts of carpeting, paint, wallpaper, tiles, and whatever other materials she required.
Once they’d finished taking measurements, they switched to the camera. To Nora’s complete lack of surprise, Gabe was a show-off. She ended up with hundreds of photos, and at least half of them somehow had him in frame.
Then again, maybe she wasn’t being fair. At least half of that half, she’d caught him unawares—no idea how that happened, her finger slipped, she couldn’t help it.
Shame she hadn’t been holding the camera when she’d walked in and he was naked.
This time, she’d gotten an eyeful. And then some. And she’d gotten a better look at his tattoos, before he’d covered most of them up with the gray Henley he now wore with black jeans. The tattoos were a chaotic mix of styles and color that probably, if you knew anything about design or color or even tattoos, you’d know didn’t work, but for Nora…? She sighed.
They really worked.
A massive eagle curled around his left bicep, one wing edging up and over onto his shoulder blade. A complicated abstract design in black and gray, swirls and jagged lines, crawled over his other shoulder.
The forest on his back that curled around onto his ridged stomach had been a surprise. Nora had seen forest tattoos once or twice, but never one like this.
Tall trees speared up his ribs, anchoring a whole tangled world of teeming life. It was whimsical and compelling. It reminded her of the darkest kind of fairytale, or a woodcut from an obscure medieval manuscript, and as she’d watched him walk away, she’d been hit with a powerful need to explore it.
“You’re doing it again,” Gabe said through a mouthful of pizza.
Somehow it was five o’clock, which was too early for dinner unless you were over seventy, but when he’d called for pizza and yelled to ask whether she wanted anchovies or not, what was she supposed to say? No? No to the good-looking well-endowed man who seemed more than happy to have her hanging out with him in his cool warehouse and, cherry on the top, wanted to feed her?
Nora didn’t make good life choices, but she wasn’t dumb enough to say no to this one.
She didn’t even bother asking what he meant by you’re doing it again. She was thinking about him naked, and he knew it. Whatever her face did when she replayed that eye-popping scene, it tipped him off every time.
Gabe finished his slice and leaned into the forearms he’d laid along the counter. They were at the breakfast bar, with him standing on one side and her perched on a stool on the other side. The way he’d positioned himself put them at eye level.
“Are we having another staring competition?” he said softly.
Nora loved it when his voice got like that. Low and gentle, at odds with the energy he threw off. There was something dangerous about it, too, but she didn’t care. “Do you wear contact lenses?” she asked.
He blinked. “Yes.”
His eyes were beautiful. A deep dark green, so clear it was like looking into bottomless water.
“Knew it.” Nora took a sip of her Diet Coke. “They’re tinted, aren’t they?”
“No!” For a man who adorned himself with that many tattoos, he was pretty indignant.
“Okay,” she said. They’re tinted.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “They’re real.”
“Sure. I believe you.”
Holding her gaze, he licked his fingers clean, wiped them on a napkin, and then grossed her out when he opened his left eye wide and used his thumb and index finger to pinch his eyeball.
Nora dry-heaved.
Gabe glared at her, a large contact lens balanced on the tip of his finger. It was clear and untinted. “Believe me now?”
“That was horrible,” she said. “Give a girl a warning before you
peel your eyeball in front of her.”
He blinked rapidly, and held the contact out toward her. Kind of toward her. It veered a little to the left. “Check me out.”
“Okay.”
“Lean in.”
“Okay!” She leaned in and checked his eyes.
“They match,” he said.
Yes, they matched. The color hadn’t changed, his left was the same as the right. “I believe you. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
His left pupil had grown larger in size as they talked. Now, it was bigger than his right. He was having an issue focusing. As Nora watched, his eye started to drift to the side.
“Is that normal?” she asked. His right eye was looking at her. His left was…doing its best, she guessed. Reaching up, she closed a gentle hand over his left eye. She didn’t like to see him struggling. “How bad is your vision?”
“Atrocious. Can’t see a damn thing without my contacts or glasses.”
“You wear glasses?”
“When I can’t avoid it.”
The brush of his eyelashes against her palm reminded her she was still cupping his eye, you nerd. She lifted her hand. His eye crossed immediately, and she covered it back up, ignoring his smile. “You ever think about getting laser eye surgery? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about contacts or glasses.”
“Baby, I don’t even like going to the barber. If I don’t like a guy standing behind me with scissors, you think I’m going to let someone shoot me in the face with a laser?”
“They don’t shoot you in the face. They shoot you in the eye.”
“Why the hell are you saying that like it’s better?”
“Who cuts your hair if you don’t go to the barber?” Nora said.
“I do. It’s not that hard. I watched some videos on YouTube. Bought myself some clippers.”
“You cut your own hair because you’re scared of barbers, you can’t handle the thought of a second or two of light in your eye, but you’re happy to let someone stick you with a needle over and over?”
“Yes. And I’m not scared of barbers. I’m wary.”
Nora felt something warm expand in her chest. “You are a complicated man.”
“You are not the first person to tell me this.”
“Are you going to put that back in?” She nodded at the contact still balanced on his finger.
“Sure.”
She moved her hand away and he did it right there in front of her. Opened up his eyelid with finger and thumb, and poked the lens back in.
Nora dry-heaved again.
“Quit fussing, woman,” he said, blinking. “Ow.” The contact fell out and stuck to his cheek. He plucked it off. “It won’t stay in. My eye’s dried out.”
“Go and do it in the bathroom!”
“Good idea.” He bumped into the breakfast bar as he came around it, the one eye still crossing.
How the hell could the man look sexy bumping into furniture? He should look a complete idiot. He didn’t.
Nora hopped off the stool and caught his hand. “Come on. I’m not going to stand by and let you walk into the walls.”
“I can see the walls.”
“Let’s be on the safe side.”
Gabe followed close behind, his long body brushing against hers as they walked into his bedroom. Every nerve ending she possessed lit up. At least she managed to swallow the accompanying gasp.
“Are we in a hurry?” he said into her ear, sounding amused.
“No.”
“Then why did you start running?” He tugged and pulled her back against him. Stepping in to her, he controlled their pace.
“I wasn’t running. Here we are.”
They’d made it to the bathroom and once again she found herself crowded in, except now she was trapped between him and the sink.
Nora didn’t often feel dainty. She wasn’t all that interested in feeling dainty when she’d much rather feel strong, but standing in front of Gabe with his low-slung jeans and his long-sleeved Henley, with his wide shoulders framing her, she felt…dainty. And feminine. Hot. Bit lightheaded.
“Go on, then,” she said, breaking the silence. “What are you waiting for? Put it in.”
“No.” Instead, he took the other lens out, and dropped both of them on the back of the sink.
“That’s unhygienic,” Nora said as he grasped her hips and turned her.
“They’re disposables. I won’t use them again.” He reached over her shoulder to the cabinet above the sink and took out a pair of glasses. He didn’t put them on, though. He set them alongside the contacts and returned his hand to her hip.
Then slid it up to curve at her waist.
He wasn’t having any trouble focusing on her now. Being nearsighted didn’t matter when he was this damn close.
Nora’s center of gravity shifted as his hand tightened, drawing her against him and up on her toes as he leaned down to—
Someone pounded on the front door.
Both of them turned their heads in the direction of the noise. Gabe’s breath hissed out with annoyance. He straightened. “Knew it was too good to last.”
“Want me to get it?” Nora asked.
“No. Leave it. He’ll go away.” He put his glasses on and ran a hand over his hair in a brisk, agitated movement.
The knocking continued. Gabe’s face tightened, and suddenly Nora was looking at a stranger. It wasn’t because of the glasses. All the humor, the intensity, the softness that she’d been enjoying, disappeared.
“I could tell whoever it is that you’re not here,” she offered.
He stared into the mirror without replying before he nodded. “All right. Thanks.”
Nora slid out from between him and the sink. The knocking had devolved into a steady, rhythmic banging that set her teeth on edge. When she opened the door and found herself face-to-face with a well-groomed fiftysomething in a three-piece suit, she was astonished. Based on the thumping, she’d been expecting something else altogether.
A toddler, maybe.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello. I’m looking for Mr. Sterling. I’m Bill Anderson. I’m the nanny.”
Okay. Were things about to get weird? “The nanny?”
“I can see that I need to work on my delivery,” he said. “That was a joke. I’m the lawyer.”
“Ah. Um, Mr. Sterling is not in at present.”
“Right.” He kept it polite, but the man assessed her. Whatever conclusion he came to made his bristling attitude drain away. “I thought he was hiding out here and distracting himself with the latest in a long, long, long, long, long line of lady friends. I guess I was wrong.”
That was a lot of longs.
“Would you like to leave Mr. Sterling a message?” Nora asked.
“I’ve left Mr. Sterling twenty messages on his voicemail already, so I can’t see the point.”
“Perhaps he didn’t get them. You know how unreliable technology is. Can’t trust it.”
“Riiight.”
“I’m not a phone, though. I’ll make sure he gets it.”
Anderson’s sharp gaze swept the room behind her. He made a move as if to step in. Nora shifted to block the way.
They sized each other up.
“I would like to come in,” Anderson said.
“Sorry,” Nora said. “You’ll understand my hesitation. What with me having no clue who you are, and you trying to break the door down.”
“Yet you answered. A stupid move for a woman who is concerned for her safety. You don’t strike me as stupid, and you don’t seem concerned, just got your feathers ruffled.” He pointed at the apartment behind her. “He’s back there, isn’t he?”
“No. He’s out. He’s at the gym. Perhaps you should try there.” She gave him the address of the sex shop Anna had recommended.
Anderson’s eyebrows drew together. Then he leaned around her, first to one side and then the other.
“Hey!” Nora said.
He spotted the
pizza boxes. “Is this a working session?”
“Yes.”
Anderson brightened. “Makes a lot more sense. Although why he’d hire outside the company for secretarial support is beyond me. Shit. He made you sign a non-disclosure agreement, yes? You signed an NDA?”
“No. I’m the one working. He’s helping me.”
Anderson stared. “Now I’m stumped.”
“I’m the interior designer.”
He assessed her again, making it obvious, with one bushy eyebrow raised.
Nora blew out a breath. “Assistant. I’m the interior designer’s assistant.”
“Are you kidding me?” His voice rose to a furious yell. “That little prick is having pizza with the interior designer’s assistant in his secret fucking bat cave hovel or whatever the fuck—”
Nora’s appalled reaction registered, and Anderson clenched his teeth around a fake smile. He held up his hands. “Forgive me. I apologize. I didn’t intend to startle you. It’s been a long day. Not an excuse, I know, but most of that day has been spent tracking Sterling down and this is not what I wanted to find him doing. You know what he should be doing?”
Nora opened her mouth, but Anderson steamrollered on.
“He should be in his goddamn office like a grown-up, doing his work, sticking to the project timeline, and not freaking everyone out.”
“I’m sure he—”
Anderson yelled over her, “I know you’re back there, Sterling! Come out here and face me like a man.”
“That’s enough—” Nora tried to shut the door on Anderson as Gabe stalked out from the bathroom and positioned himself behind her. He braced one hand on the edge of the door and the other on the doorjamb, his heat a solid line against her back. “I’ll move, shall I—” she started.
They both ignored her.
“There you are,” Anderson said.
Awkward. Nora shifted a couple of times but Gabe didn’t budge. All she was doing was rubbing against him. She sighed and held still.
“Take a hint, Bill,” Gabe snarled.
“I can take a hint. This isn’t a hint. This is a slap in the face.”
“You want a slap in the face?”
“I’m sure no one wants their face slapped,” Nora said. They both scowled down at her. “Could be wrong. Carry on. Or, how about I move out of the way first…?” Gabe wound an arm around her waist. “No? Okay.”
