Worry burdened Brad—burned inside him. Because he feared Mya was wrong—on several levels. ‘I do this job to make myself feel good. To pretend to myself that I have helped out in some way,’ he confessed. ‘But do I really?’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
‘Of course you do,’ she said vehemently. ‘You’re hugely talented and you give that talent to the most vulnerable. You’re generous.’
‘Mya,’ he muttered, trying to claw back some cool. To joke his way out of this intensity the way he always did. ‘I thought I only did counsel for child to score chicks?’
‘I don’t think you’re as selfish as you like to make out that you are.’
Oh, but she was wrong. He knew he was selfish. He’d been told it many times by women. And they were right. ‘I’m not very good company tonight.’ He felt uncomfortable—felt vulnerable with her this moment. He wanted to pull it back in. His chest ached. Maybe he was coming down with summer flu. ‘I don’t feel that great,’ he muttered, too tired to hold that last fact back.
‘I know.’
He turned and looked at her—beautiful, bright, sweet Mya, whom he wanted so much from and yet who couldn’t give it.
Wasn’t it ironic that the game-changing woman for him didn’t want the game changed? He’d positioned himself as her bed-buddy—painted himself into a corner as her ‘good-time guy’. And was that so bad? A few minutes of fun here and there in an otherwise hardworking life? He was the king of quick’n’fun, wasn’t he? With the same woman for once, yet what difference did that really make?
It made all the difference. Tonight it hurt.
Because he cared for her a lot more than he’d like, and the reality was he didn’t stand a chance. There was no room in her life for him. Her parents came first and that was fair enough. He’d played the playboy role too well for too long for her to see him any other way. He supposed it served him right. But this second he was so wrung out, he was at the point where he’d take all he could get. And so he tried to pull it back on again—his playful tease. ‘Is there something you wanted?’ he drawled.
But she didn’t respond with the same kind of light amusement. ‘Yes, there is.’
She didn’t tease him with her wishes or do a pretend strip to reveal her polka-dotted panties and mismatched cotton bra. Instead she looked serious. ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’
He coughed; it felt as if something were crushing his chest. A crazy, over-the-top reaction. This was hardly the first time a woman had asked him to reveal a sexual fantasy. But he didn’t want a fantasy tonight. He just wanted Mya. ‘I thought I made it clear you didn’t have to do anything other than just be for me.’
‘No. You’ve done what I wanted you to do so many times. Now it’s your turn. I’m yours. What would you like me to do?’
He didn’t answer. Frankly, he couldn’t think with the way she was looking at him with all the promises of the world in her eyes and the sweetness in that unique smile.
‘No ropes?’ Finally, she teased. And her laughter tied his tongue—and his heart—the way no real binds ever could.
All he wanted was for her to welcome him the way she always did. All he needed was to see how much she enjoyed being with him; her response told him she was as enthralled as much as he in the passion between them. He ached for that total embrace, the softness in her body. Yeah, her embrace alone was enough. Her absolute acceptance. He took her hand and pulled her closer.
‘Cover me,’ he whispered.
Deliverance finally came as she draped her warm limbs over his.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE never got back from the bar until the early hours of the morning. Brad loathed the thought of her walking home alone, but she refused to let him pick her up after work, arguing it was too late for him. She wouldn’t pay for taxi fares—certainly wouldn’t let him pay for them. According to her, her scream-in-a-can and night-school self-defence moves were enough protection. Not for Brad they weren’t. She didn’t know it but he’d paid Kirk, the bouncer, to walk her home these past couple of weeks. He’d even concocted the lie for Kirk to tell her—that he’d moved into the city and walking her wasn’t far out of his way. Mya hadn’t argued much, which made Brad suspect she wasn’t completely convinced about her self-defence skills either. It made his blood sizzle that he could only help her if he did it secretly.
His blood sizzled more because of the intensity with which he wanted to help her. It was crazy. And even crazier was that here he was, awake way beyond midnight, waiting to hear the sound of the key in the lock. Since when had he ever given a woman a key to his home?
He’d seen how tired she was today. She’d had two coffees for breakfast this morning. He knew she’d get something to eat at the café—and more coffee. Then she’d gone straight into her shift at the bar. She’d get more sustenance there too. But what the woman needed was some sleep. She needed to take better care of herself. He needed to take better care of her. He hated how hard she worked. And he hated how it had been his fault she’d had so little sleep last night—and not from energetic bedroom games but talking. Off-loading all his troubles about Gage. He didn’t feel comfortable about that either. It was time to ease back a bit, get them back into the playful groove. Lighten it up the way he liked it. But his mood was bleak—worried about Gage, worried about Mya, and, frankly, worried about himself and his ability to handle it all.
Eventually he heard her arrive, her heels clipping along the hallway. He rolled onto his stomach and closed his eyes, feigning deep sleep—too late to switch the light off.
‘Brad?’
A stage whisper that he ignored. He counted his breathing, trying to keep it deep and regular.
She touched his shoulder, and he braced to stop the flinch as her fingertips stroked. She had a soft touch, but not shy. He made the counting in his head louder so he wouldn’t smile. The thing she needed most right now was sleep, not an hour getting physical with him.
‘Brad?’
He was asleep; hadn’t she got that already?
She sighed. The edge of disappointment nearly broke his resolve. He’d make it up to her tomorrow. He’d disable her alarm and let her sleep late. Then he’d wake her slow—morning sex was the way to start the day, and they’d never yet managed it in any kind of leisurely fashion. And Christmas morning meant the café would be closed.
She walked a couple of paces away. He carefully opened his eyes and saw her back was to him. He could see the weariness in her shoulders, in the way she rubbed her forehead as if there was a residual ache there before she began to undress. He wished she wouldn’t work as hard as she did. He wished she’d damn well let him help her out. She could drop one of her jobs; he’d see to it that she didn’t starve.
He was so busy thinking he didn’t notice that she’d turned around. Or that he was supposed to be out like a light.
‘You’re awake.’
He snapped his eyes shut but he knew it was too late.
‘Brad!’
Busted. ‘I was asleep.’
‘You were pretending to be asleep!’ She sounded outraged. ‘Why were you pretending to be asleep?’ She supplied the answer before he could even open his mouth. ‘You didn’t want to have to perform tonight? You’re lying there feigning sleep like some unfulfilled spouse trying to avoid duty sex?’
‘Mya—’
‘Are you bored already?’
It was the hurt behind the indignance that got him moving. He shot out of bed. ‘Does it look like I’m bored?’
His erection was so hard it hurt, his skin pulled tighter than ever before. All he wanted to do was bury himself deep in her heat and find the release. He wanted those sensations that only she could give, to steal away all the thoughts that tormented him, to be as close as they’d been last night with nothing between them.
‘If you didn’t want me to come tonight, all you had to do is tell me.’ She ignored his evidential display.
‘I want you to come.’ And yes, he meant th
at in the teenage double-entendre way.
‘Then what are you doing pretending you’re asleep?’ Arms folded, foot tapping, she waited.
He sighed. He was a condemned man. His answer would annoy her but she wouldn’t let him get away with not explaining himself to her. ‘I thought you needed some sleep.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘You’re exhausted.’
‘The shadows beneath my eyes are a turn-off, is that it?’ she queried—not hiding the hint of hurt. ‘You’re not doing a lot for my ego here.’
‘Mya,’ he said coaxingly and reached for her.
She pulled back out of reach. Totally put out. ‘I work two jobs and study on top of that, so exhaustion is normal. I’m sorry if I can’t live up to the high-gloss appearance of your usual lovers. Maybe you need to stick to ladies of leisure.’
‘Mya.’ He tried to laugh it off, gesturing at his erection. ‘It’s perfectly clear your appearance is still lethal for me.’
She wasn’t buying it. ‘You can’t tell me you didn’t pull some all-nighters when you were studying. It’s normal student behaviour.’
‘Not every assignment, I didn’t.’
‘Well, bully for you for being more organised than me.’
‘No one can be more organised than you. Your problem is that not only are you studying, you’re working two jobs. That’s not a normal workload.’
‘In my world it happens all the time. You do what you have to do.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t have to do that much.’
‘I do if I need to eat.’
‘Why not let me help you?’
She whirled away from him. ‘You don’t need to help me. All I want from you is—’
‘Yeah, okay. I got it.’ He didn’t want to hear what little she wanted from him. He’d made the bed. But now the bed wasn’t enough for him.
What was wrong with him? He’d never turned down sex. Ever. If a pretty woman was offering, he was on it. Easy come, easy go and a good time had by both.
She’d wanted to ravish him, and he’d lain there like a log. And ironically harder than a piece of petrified wood. He’d definitely come down with some kind of mind-altering fever. And now she was halfway down the hallway again.
‘You’re not leaving,’ he stated, striding after her.
‘I’m not staying where I’m not wanted.’
‘You’re wanted. You know you’re wanted. All you have to do is look at me to know you’re wanted.’
‘That’s just a normal state of being for you.’
White-hot fury ripped through him because this was not normal for him.
She turned in time to read his expression and suddenly shook her head. ‘Don’t make this complicated.’ She kept backing up the hallway. ‘I think I’ll spend tonight at my place. Catch up on my beauty sleep.’ A pointed look. ‘And I need to get to my parents’ place early in the morning. We can get together next week.’
He caught up to her in a couple of quick strides. He pulled her against him and kissed her until she was panting. And so was he.
‘You couldn’t look more beautiful than you do right now,’ he said.
When her attention was riveted on him. When desire filled her eyes and blood pounded in her lips and she was seconds off breathing his name.
But that hurt look in her eyes grew—dimming that light. ‘You just don’t like me walking out on you right now. But you started it.’
‘What I don’t like is how hard you’re working. Why not work smarter instead of harder?’
‘What is that piece of management-mag speak supposed to mean?’
‘Get just one job. A better job. Get an internship at a firm.’
She shook her head.
‘You could clerk for me over the summer.’ It was the worst thing to suggest; he knew it before he’d even opened his mouth but he couldn’t stop the words.
‘I’m not a charity case. I’m tired of charity. I want to do it myself. I want to deserve it myself.’
‘You do deserve it,’ he argued, his volume lifting along with his frustration. ‘You’re super smart. You’ve got amazing grades. Any firm would want you.’
‘You only do because of this … connection,’ she said. ‘It’s the sexual equivalent of the old boys’ network. Only because you know me. I’d rather send my CV out and get a job on my own merit.’
‘Okay, fine. Will you send your CV to my firm?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So you’re doing the opposite. Because we do know each other, you won’t work with me?’
‘We couldn’t. I couldn’t.’
‘Why not? We’d make a great team.’
She just stared at him.
‘Everybody makes connections, Mya,’ he said, his body clenched with frustration. Wanting to shake sense into her some way or another and knowing already that he was doomed to failure. She was so damn obstinate. ‘That’s why they have networking groups. Young lawyers, young farmers, young fashion designers. People have mentors. It’s normal.’
‘You set up on your own,’ she argued. ‘You turned your back on any help your father could offer.’
He drew a hard breath. ‘You know I had my reasons for that. And I still had help. I might have turned my back on my father’s help, but I still had his name.’ He sighed. ‘And to be honest I know that helped. It helped that I had money.’
‘It helped more that you’d won all the prizes in your year at university. Your own merit, Brad. I want to do the same.’
‘I still had help,’ he ground out through his teeth, hating to have to admit it, but knowing it was the truth.
‘Well, I’ll get my lecturer to write a reference or something.’
‘So it’s just me you won’t accept help from?’
‘I’m not using our personal relationship for professional gain.’
‘So we have a relationship.’ He pounced.
‘No,’ she denied instantly, swallowing hard. ‘This is a fling. Stress relief.’ Mya stared at him in all his naked glory. What was the man thinking? Why was he changing the rules—why was he offering for her to work with him? As if that were possible? What did he think would happen when he decided he’d had enough of sleeping with her? No way could she take this from him.
‘Look, I made the mistake of going for one job based on a relationship already. I’m not doing it again. James had suggested I apply for an internship at a particular firm last summer.’ She’d been thrilled when they’d both been accepted. ‘But then he found out some of my grades and I took him home to see my parents … and it was like he turned into a different person overnight.’ It wasn’t until later that she learned how average James’s grades really were. ‘But his grades didn’t matter because he was getting a job at the most prestigious accountancy firm in town anyway because his dad was a partner there. Meanwhile I spent my first pay packet in advance buying clothes that might possibly be acceptable to work there, but after he broke up with me, and just before those exams, the company withdrew the offer, saying they had no need for so many interns. So no, I’m not trusting any job offer based on any kind of connection other than merit. I’m not having any kind of relationship interfere with my future.’
‘So you have to earn everything yourself? You can’t accept a gift? I only have money thanks to chance at birth. You can’t take anything from me?’ he asked, completely frustrated.
‘That’s right.’ She wouldn’t take anything from him. Because what he was offering wouldn’t ever be enough. ‘I need to earn it myself.’
‘You have to be so independent, don’t you? You have to be the best,’ he said bitterly. ‘So insanely competitive you’re on the brink of a breakdown from the sleepless nights and caffeine overdoses. Well, why don’t you go ahead and study yourself to death? Then work yourself to death and become a corporate lawyer.’
‘Is that such a crime?’
‘It is when you have huge talent in another area.’
&
nbsp; She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t go there.’
‘You should make time for your wearable art. It’s important to you. You should be happy as well as successful.’
That wasn’t what was going to make her happy.
‘It’s something you’re so good at,’ he continued. ‘You should take the opportunity. You should put your work out there.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You’d rather not compete at all rather than come second?’ He shook his head. ‘Is being the best so important to you?’
‘Success requires sacrifice,’ she said firmly. ‘What would you have me do, Brad? Give up all I’ve worked so hard for, to try and scrape a living selling some recycled tat? That’s not realistic. It’s not going to happen. Yes, I love doing that but I also love the law.’
‘So strike a balance.’
‘I can’t yet.’
‘You won’t ever,’ he said, going quiet. ‘There’ll always be something else you feel you have to achieve. Your parents wouldn’t want you to live like this. Your parents want you to be happy.’
‘Don’t talk to me about what my parents want. I know what they need.’ And she was the only one who could help them.
‘You don’t. You can’t face up to what you need, let alone anyone else,’ he argued. ‘You lie to your parents. What’s worse is you lie to yourself. You’re so scared of failing you can’t take any kind of real risk.’
‘And you can?’ So hurt, she poured it all back on him. ‘You’re the one who constantly has to be the epitome of charm. You’re as bad as your parents. You project this perfect façade—all funny and capable and unable to admit to anything being wrong or needing anything. You’re the one who’s scared. You’re the one who can’t take any kind of support.’ She paused and saw he’d gone pale.
He drew in a deep breath but she didn’t give him the chance to try to argue—because there was no argument. ‘We want different things, Brad,’ she said sadly.
He didn’t answer. And she turned and left.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AS DAWN broke on Christmas Day, Gage Simmons pushed his blistered feet and aching back onward. He knocked on the door. She opened it in less than a minute—the woman he wish, wish, wished were his mother. The one he’d walked miles and miles to get to. The one he wanted to stay with. The one who’d shown him more love and compassion and simple fun than any of his blood relatives.
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