And hadn’t had sex in a year.
And she was the only woman available. Like, if they were stranded a deserted island with no chance of rescue.
Ruby decided she might as well take advantage of Caroline’s preoccupation and swipe her seat on the couch.
Jules nudged her. “What do you reckon, Rubes? Pretty hot?”
“Pretty hot,” she agreed.
“If you like that type of over-developed physique,” Alex said. “And his routine’s pretty basic. Not much dancing involved. Even I could do that. Not that I’d want to, of course.”
“Don’t be jealous, darling,” Jules cooed. “I’ll take you over him any day of the week.” She considered Kyan—or what she could see of him—through half-closed eyes. “Something’s missing in that man. He’s—”
“Incomplete?” Alex said.
“Yeah. Like an artificial thing created to be the perfect man. I feel sorry for him.”
“Harsh,” Alex said. “Maybe he just needs to find the right woman. Someone to humanize him a bit.”
“Mmmm.” Jules kissed her boyfriend on the cheek. “I knew there was a really sensitive guy somewhere under all the bullshit.”
“Right back at ya, babe.” He draped an arm around her and she snuggled into his side.
Ruby sighed. Lucky Jules. And lucky Alex, too, for that matter.
Kyan’s willing posse at last managed to peel off his trousers. One of Ruby’s female guests had scored the jackpot. She waved his pants around her head like a lasso before draping her trophy about her neck. From the way she kept stroking her hands down the leather, Ruby reckoned Kyan would be bloody lucky to get them back.
A couple of women hauled him to his feet. He stood there, women hanging off both arms, his only remaining clothing a pair of short pants with a drawstring waist. The cloth was thin and the fit was snug. The underwear looked like it might be made of silk. Sure didn’t hide much. Mr. Dreamy was completely magnificent and he knew it.
The thunderous, insistent beat of the music, overwhelmed the appreciative yells from Ruby’s guests. The bass beat thumped, resounding inside her so strongly that she felt nauseous. Her head pounded. When she closed her eyes, she saw tiny sparks, soaring and diving in a frenetic dance.
Thankfully someone turned the music down.
Awareness tingled down her spine. She slowly peeled open her eyelids and her gaze fixed on Kyan. He now stood right in front of her, denuded of women save for Caroline, who clung leechlike to his arm.
“Do you like what you see, Birthday Girl?” he said.
“Yes. Of course. Very nice. Thanks heaps.” Flustered, Ruby scrambled to her feet and held out her hand. Instead of shaking it, he turned it palm up and planted a kiss on her palm.
Whoa. Weak knees. Puckered nipples. Tingling in her unmentionable lower regions. Racing heart—talk about textbook reactions.
When he released her hand, she sat down again. Rather quickly. Before she collapsed in a little puddle of wanting and embarrassed herself further.
Caroline reattached herself to Kyan the instant he straightened. She nuzzled his neck and gave him the blatant come-on by sticking her tongue in his ear. He ignored her, his gaze intent on Ruby. “What is your name?” he asked.
Points to him for not being easily distracted. “I’m Ruby.”
He cocked his head to one side as he stared down at her. A frown furrowed his brow. “Ruby. That doesn’t…. That doesn’t sound right.”
Stung, she shot one right back at him. “Well ‘Kyan’ sounds pretty funny, too, if you ask me. Is it short for something?”
“Yes. ’Tis short for Kyanite. And yours?”
“Well, not that it’s any of your business, but the name on my birth certificate is Garnet Ruby Roberts.” She snorted. Talk about being disadvantaged at birth. Small wonder she’d turned out the way she had. With a screwball name like hers, she hadn’t stood a chance.
“But I can’t abide Garnet for a first name, so I go by Ruby—the lesser of the two evils, so to speak.” Not that her brilliant decision to change her name when she’d been younger had magically stopped the teasing, as she’d desperately hoped it might. She sighed, and her gaze dropped to her toes as she shoved away the painful memories.
Kyan shifted, drawing Ruby’s attention to him again. She couldn’t help it, she glanced up to see the expression on his face. And then wished she hadn’t. She wriggled beneath his intense stare but she couldn’t look away. He was too compelling. And as she stared at him, her eyes widened at the shadows flitting across his face, the empathy in his eyes—as though he knew exactly what she’d been thinking and understood it on some deep personal level.
Nah. Surely not. What on earth would a demigod like Kyan have been teased about? Ruby would bet anything he’d been a really gorgeous little boy.
She sought to lighten the mood. “Not that Ruby’s much better than Garnet. But since my mum’s favorite color is red, I suppose I should consider myself lucky she didn’t call me Scarlet Crimson or some other nightmarish combination.”
“Like… like… Cherry Tomato!” Caroline laughed so hard at her own wit she let go of Kyan’s arm, overbalanced, and ended sprawled across Alex’s lap.
“Yours, I believe, Kyan?” Alex said, as Jules dragged the still giggling Caroline off him.
To Ruby’s surprise, Kyan completely disregarded Alex’s kind offer. “I am pleased to meet you, Garnet—” He grimaced in pain. “Ruby Roberts,” he finished with a ragged whisper.
“Nice to meet you, too, Kyanite,” Ruby said.
Kyan clutched his head, groaned, then keeled over like he’d been poleaxed.
Before Ruby had time to even comprehend that he was now lying unconscious on her lounge floor, a staggeringly sharp pain bloomed inside her head… and the room went black.
~~~
Chapter Three
Ruby awoke the next morning feeling like death warmed over. Her hangover was so ghastly she felt like she’d drunk two entire jugs of cocktail mix instead of only two glasses or so. She stretched. Every muscle she owned, plus a few she didn’t know she had, ached. The couch wasn’t the most comfortable piece of furniture but she didn’t remember it being this bad.
Hang on. The couch? Why the heck had she been sleeping on the couch?
Logical next thought: there’d better bloody not be anyone sleeping in her bed or there was so gonna be trouble.
She tossed aside the blanket some kind soul had been thoughtful enough to tuck around her, and lurched to her feet.
“Jeeeeesus!” She moaned, clutching her head. As she staggered across the room she sent a prayer of thanks to whoever had removed her high-heels. If she’d had the misfortune to still be wearing them, she’d wouldn’t have managed more than a couple of steps without doing a face-plant.
The door to her bedroom was closed. She flung it open with more force than strictly necessary, and winced when it hit the wall. A shaft of bright sunlight pierced a gap in the curtains. Typically, it headed unerringly for her eyes.
A few whimpers later, she managed to pluck up enough courage to peel open her eyelids again. And when her vision finally settled down, she gazed at her bed. Or to be precise, the very large lump in her bed that was currently emitting snoring noises fit to wake the dead.
Great. One of her guests hadn’t gone home last night after the party and—
The party.
Omigod, her birthday party!
The stripper had kissed her. Then he’d stripped. Then she’d passed out at her own party, in front of all her guests.
Ah crap. She was never going to live that down. Never. Her friends were going to dine out on it for the next year or ten. Her life was over. Not that it’d been that shit hot to begin with.
She checked the lump again. It hadn’t moved. Which unfortunately meant she was going to have to exert herself to wake it up and request that it leave.
It’d better not expect breakfast before it left, either, ’cause she was so not in the mo
od for being polite to uninvited guests.
She clumped over to the bedside and gave the lump the evils. From the size of it, and the deep timbre of the snoring, the lump was definitely male. He’d pulled the duvet over his head until only a shock of his dark hair could be seen.
She tweaked the cover down and bit back a gasp. Mike!
At some stage last night, her brother had arrived to join her birthday celebration. Of course, with Birthday Girl inconveniently unconscious, he’d probably missed any actual partying because everyone would have taken off not long after she’d crashed. That was the polite thing to do, wasn’t it? Depart when the guest of honor passes out? Then again, knowing her friends, they’d probably shrugged and partied on. And only gone home when the copious amounts of booze she’d provided ran out. Rotten sods. It was a given the carnage left behind would be be substantial. She’d know for sure when she plucked up enough courage to investigate the kitchen.
She considered waking Mike so he could help with the cleanup, but decided to do the sisterly thing and let him sleep. Doubtless he’d caught the late flight from Christchurch and then had a forty-five minute drive from the airport to her North Shore home. He was probably knackered. When he woke, then she’d decide whether she was thrilled to see him or not speaking to him ever again over the recipe book incident.
She caught sight of her panda eyes and lipstick-chapped mouth in the mirror. Yikes. Not pretty. If anyone saw her now, still wearing her very wrinkled red dress, they’d probably have nightmares for a week. She grabbed her dressing gown from the wardrobe and, leaving Mike to his beauty sleep, snuck off for a much-needed shower,.
In the bathroom, she downed two paracetamol tablets for her pounding head, cleansed off her makeup, and brushed her teeth. Better. All she needed now was to wallow under a hot shower for ten minutes or so and she might feel almost human again.
Ruby’s bathroom had one of those shower over the bathtub contraptions. But at least it boasted a decent-sized bathtub, long enough for her to lie full-length and have a good soak when she felt the need for some pampering. The shower curtain was already pulled around the bath, but the fact that she never left it like that barely registered. She reached behind the curtain and turned the shower mixer on full blast—
And just about jumped out of her skin when someone let rip with a bellow.
Omigod. This couldn’t be happening. Her hand shook as she yanked back the curtain. Primed by years of watching horror movies with Mike, even before she registered what she was seeing, she screamed.
The guy who’d dossed down in her bathtub and was now struggling to his feet, yelled, too. Not that she could blame him. Being woken by a steaming hot faceful of water must have been more than a bit shocking.
They both stood paralyzed, chests heaving, sucking in deep breaths and goggling at each other. Then the door to the bathroom crashed open.
Ruby shrieked again.
It was Mike. He crouched in the doorway, clad only in satin boxers and waving a cricket bat. His eyes skittered wildly about the room as he prepared to wallop the intruder who had scared the bejesus out of his sister.
Kyanite stood there in all his almost-as-good-as-naked glory, dripping water like a drowned cat. The pillow and duvet that had been put in the bath for him to sleep on were also sodden.
Ruby could only thank all the stars above that she hadn’t taken off her dress before she’d yanked open the shower curtain. That would have been far more humiliating than mistakenly thinking Kyanite was some psycho killer.
“Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize it was only your stripper.” Mike yawned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Some birthday present, Rubes.”
“Beats the one you gave me,” she muttered, averting her eyes in a big hurry as her brother stretched and scratched his unmentionables.
“What’d you say?”
“Nothing. What are you still doing here, Kyanite?” She shut off the shower mixer.
He blinked water from his eyes. “Kyanite is my true name but I would prefer you call me Kyan. And I do not know how I came to be here in this… this….” He waved a hand at the bathtub.
“Bath?”
“Yes. Bath. The last thing I remember is saying your true name aloud. And then I awoke here. In your bath. When the hot water came out.”
“Alex helped me cart him in here last night, before he and Jules left,” Mike told her. “No one ’fessed up to booking him so we didn’t have a clue what agency to call. Couldn’t just turf him out on your front lawn.”
She glared at her brother. “Granted that would have been a bit rude. But didn’t it even occur to you two supposedly intelligent guys to, gee, I don’t know, load him in a car and dump him off at North Shore Accident and Emergency? And maybe, since I’m your sister for God’s sake, you might have even called a doctor for me? To make sure I was okay? Since I fainted for no apparent reason?”
Mike shrugged. “I checked him over. He seemed fine. You, too, by the way. Jules assured me you hardly had anything to drink. And Kyan had no alcohol whatsoever from the time he arrived, so you were both probably just overcome by the heat and the, er, emotion of the evening. Good call, as it turns out. You both seem to have recovered from whatever it was that laid you out last night. You can thank me later for saving you a heap of money for an after-hours call-out charge.”
Since Mike is a St John’s Ambulance medic, she couldn’t refute that. But—
“You left a strange man sleeping in my bathtub. And then you left me on the couch while you slept in my bed. How come you didn’t take the spare room?”
“You seemed quite comfortable snoring away there, so we decided to leave you. And your queen-sized is more comfortable that that saggy old double in your spare room.”
Sheesh. She supposed she should be grateful Mike hadn’t stated the obvious: she was too bloody heavy to lift any great distance without someone putting their back out, so it’d been easier to leave her on the couch. She gritted her teeth, swallowing the torrent of hurt she wanted to spew at her brother.
And then there was Kyan. She wished with all her heart he wasn’t hanging ’round to disturb her peace of mind.
And other things.
Her head hurt. Her back hurt. Hell, everything—including her brain—hurt. “Just— God. Just bugger off out of here. Both of you. Now. I need a shower. Followed by a very strong, very large dose of caffeine before I tackle the clean up. You have been warned.”
“I’ll make us some breakfast and help Kyan look for his clothes,” Mike said, taking charge.
Good. Thank God someone was.
Kyan stepped out of the bath and dripped forlornly on the bathmat. His long hair was plastered to his head, and he had the hangdog expression of a man completely out of his depth. He looked like a crestfallen angel. Ruby handed him a towel and he squelched over to the door to stand next to Mike. Male solidarity in the face of the wrathful female, and all that manly crap.
“Bacon and eggs?” Mike asked.
“Fine.” Ruby bent over the bathtub to wring out the wet pillow.
“Scrambled or poached?”
“Scrambled.”
“Anything else? Toast?”
“Please.” How many more monosyllabic answers was it going to take for Mike to get the message?
“Shall I undo the zip of your dress so you don’t dislocate your shoulder trying to do it yourself?”
Her temper flared. She reared upright and flung the sopping pillow at her brother’s chest.
“Oof! What’d ya do that for? Now we’re both bloody dripping wet.”
“Out.”
“Make sure you wipe the floor properly or you’ll slip over. Do you have any idea how many accidents happen from people slipping on wet bathroom floors?”
“Out. Now!”
Both men decided to make themselves scarce, leaving Ruby to wring out the pillow and the duvet, and mop up the mess as best she could.
After what turned out to be the complete opposite of
a relaxing shower, she dried her hair and wound a towel turban-like around her head. She wriggled into her dressing gown, then cautiously opened the bathroom door to peek out.
All clear.
She dashed back to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Just to be on the safe side, she fished a jandal from her wardrobe and wedged it under the door. With two men in her house, there was no way she was risking either of them walking in on her to inform her breakfast was ready while she was dressing.
Yeah, yeah. She’d read enough romance novels to know that a hero coming across a half-naked heroine could be really sexy. That whole copping an eyeful of the woman bending over thing could really up the sexual tension if done well. But if that half-naked woman happened to be her? Not so much.
Ruby couldn’t think of anything remotely sexy about being surprised while stepping into granny panties. And pair them with a majorly reinforced bra and all her wobbly uncovered bits showing in between? Whoever surprised her would likely require therapy for the term of his natural life.
Mike’s travel bag, overflowing with clothes, had been dumped beside her bed. If he hadn’t already grabbed something to wear then tough. He’d have to be extremely careful not to splatter himself with hot bacon fat.
She dragged on a pair of navy track pants, an old white t-shirt, and a pair of sports socks. As she pulled back her hair into a ponytail, she eyed herself in the mirror. She almost looked the part—a woman ready for a morning jog. Only one thing missing. Running shoes. If she wanted to begin training tomorrow, as she’d planned, she’d have to go and buy a pair today. And a bike.
How exciting! Well, not the actual riding a bike once she’d bought one part, because that was just a wee bit scary, but the buying stuff part. A valid excuse to increase what she owed on her credit card. Maybe she’d splurge on some running socks and new t-shirts, too. And she also needed a swimsuit….
Ick. She cringed as she contemplated the horror of a shopping expedition for that last item—so fraught with possibilities for humiliation and shame. It was almost enough to put her off breakfast. Then her stomach rumbled, giving lie to that brief dietary flirtation.
The Crystal Warriors Series Bundle Page 34
