NFH 03 Checkmate (8 page)

"Get the hell out of my chair," Rory snapped
as she walked around the desk and glared down at him. Perhaps he
shouldn't have stolen her hot cocoa since the little addict seemed
on edge. Then again, he did enjoy ruffling her feathers so to
speak.

"I'm sorry. Did you want to sit down?" he
asked innocently.

"Yes," she hissed out as her hands clenched
and unclenched into fists.

With a shrug, he reached out and grabbed her
hand, giving it a good yank and taking her by surprise. With an
adorable little squeak, her beautiful ass landed on his lap. Before
she could move he had his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled
tightly against him so that her side was pressed up against his
chest and her legs hung over his.

"Now, I think we should probably go over
your duties, don't you?" he asked brightly, loving the murderous
scowl she sent him.

"The only duty I have at the moment is to
kick your ass," she bit out, practically shaking with rage that he
of course ignored as he settled more comfortably in the chair.

"The most important thing that you need to
remember is that I take two sugars in my coffee and just a splash
of half and half," he explained as he allowed his eyes to roam.

Was it just him or did she look hotter when
she was pissed? His eyes ran from her beautiful neck with a few
tendrils of damp hair plastered against it, down to the beautiful
tanned skin of her shoulders to the pair of large breasts that
stretched the shirt's material to perfection. She truly was
magnificent.

"My eyes are up here," she pointed out.

"Uh huh," he said, not bothering to look
up.

With an exasperated sigh, she cupped his
chin and forced him to look up and meet her eyes. "Stop pissing me
off or I'm going to have to kill you," she said in a low even tone,
sounding as though she meant it and he knew that if she could
figure out a way to hide his body that she probably would do it.
Then again, she'd been saying that same damn thing to him since
they were six years old so he really wasn't too concerned.

"That's nice," he said absently as he
shifted her on his lap and pulled her closer. "I tell you what,
Rory. If you do a really good job and stay away from my site, I
might just give you a special bonus when this is all done. How does
that sound?" he asked in his most patronizing tone, unable to help
himself even though he knew that he was pissing her off.

"This is my project, too," she said, glaring
daggers at him through narrowed eyes.

He nodded in agreement as he continued,
"Which is why you should be a good little girl and stay the hell
out of the way so that we can get this project finished on
time."

She tried to climb off his lap, but of
course he wouldn't let her. Not when he was comfortable and well,
that's all that he really cared about, but apparently she couldn't
give a damn about his comfort. Kind of selfish of her, he thought
as she went for his nipples. With a curse, he released his hold on
her so that he could protect his poor little nipples before the
vicious woman could tear them off.

"Do the rules mean nothing to you?" he
demanded, feeling like an idiot with his hands plastered against
his chest. He dropped his hands away as he came to his feet and
moved so that he could glare down at the woman.

"As long as I'm stuck with you on this
project and you try to get in my way, anything goes," she said,
stepping into him as she met his glare and he just barely bit back
the groan that was threatening to escape as her large, warm breasts
pressed tightly against his chest.

Somehow he forced himself to ignore them and
focus on the little problem at the moment, Rory. He leaned down
further until their noses were practically touching. "Is that a
fact?" he demanded evenly.

"Yes," she practically hissed as her eyes
narrowed on his.

"You're only here because of
my generosity, Rory. Push me and you might just find yourself
locked in the trunk of a car and on a ferry headed off to Nova
Scotia......
again
," he said softly, loving the way she practically shook with
rage against him.

"I knew that was you, you bastard!" she
snarled, looking torn between going for his nipples again or just
outright killing him.

"You deserved it," he felt obligated to
remind her.

She scoffed. "I was twelve!"

"You superglued my shorts to my ass!"

The smile that teased her lips transformed
her face from beautiful to breathtakingly beautiful in a matter of
seconds. He was damn thankful that she didn't know the effect that
had on him or she'd do it to bring him to his knees and god help
him, but he'd love every fucking second of it.

She chuckled softly as she moved to put a
little space between them. "I actually forgot about that."

"I hadn't," he bit out tightly, pissed off
that she moved away from him and had taken her warmth with her.

"I'm sure you deserved it," she said with a
shrug like it was no big deal that it took a month, five
specialists and about a hundred experimental procedures that took a
pound of flesh from his ass before they were able to remove every
last scrap of his basketball shorts off his ass.

"I didn't," he snapped, unable to remember
exactly what he'd done to piss her off enough to break into the
boy's locker room and squirt superglue into his shorts, but he was
sure that he hadn't done anything to deserve it. As far as he was
concerned, the move was unprovoked and he was the innocent party in
all of-

"Now I remember why I did that," she said,
looking angry once again. "You snuck laxatives into my food and
then locked all the girl's bathrooms in the school with bicycle
locks so that I was left with no choice but to use the boy's
bathroom where you and your stupid friends locked me inside without
any toilet paper or paper towels, you jerk!"

Huh, he'd actually forgotten about that one,
he thought with a careless shrug. "Whatever. The point is, Rory,
this is my project. I've busted my ass to get it and I'm not about
to let you fuck it up for me."

"This is
our
project," she said, getting back
in his face where she belonged, "and as long as you remember that
we'll be fine, but the next time you try to stop me from doing my
job I will kick. Your. Ass."

He leaned in closer. "Your job is to fetch
my coffee, food and whatever else I need and as long as you
remember how I like my coffee everything will be fine."

"You can shove your coffee right up
your-"

"There's a problem," Rory's assistant said
as he burst through the door.

* * * *

"We're not finished talking," Connor
said.

Rory didn't even bother slowing her pace or
looking back as she shot him a one finger salute. His deep chuckle
that followed did not send a delicious shiver throughout her body
that had her fighting the urge to lick her lips.

It didn't.

She sighed heavily as she adjusted the tool
belt around her hips. It really wasn't her fault that her body
betrayed her the way it did when Connor was around. He might be a
life ruining bastard, but he was a hot life ruining bastard and her
poor neglected body didn't realize that it should hate him as much
as her heart and brain did. One day her body would be on board, but
until that day came, and she prayed that it came quickly, she was
just going to have to ignore her body's response to him.

"What's going on?" she asked as they stepped
outside.

"Work has come to a halt," Jacob announced
as he gestured with his clipboard towards Strawberry Manor.

One look and she knew that the man hadn't
exaggerated. There were no men manning the equipment, the
scaffolding that was supposed to be completed by now was left
incomplete against the outer walls of the manor, and it appeared
that every single one of her and Connor's employees were in the
middle of the yard, having a shouting and pushing match.

Great, she thought dryly, just what they
needed.

When she spotted the familiar beat up red
pickup truck parked near the coffee truck she nearly cried. Why did
he have to come here today of all days? Why couldn't he have come
when she had this situation under control? The last thing she
wanted him to see was this or the fact that Connor was treating her
like some weak woman.

"You planning on handling this?" her father
asked as she stepped past the coffee truck.

She looked to her left to find her father
leaning back against one of Connor's trucks with his impressively
large arms crossed over his standard black tee shirt covered chest
and a hint of annoyance in his blue eyes as he looked past her
toward the men arguing.

"Just give me a minute, Dad," she said,
wondering when all this nonsense would end so that she could go
back to focusing on Strawberry Manor. Right now she should be
inside assessing the water damage in the attic, but thanks to
Connor, she was stressed and needed a hot cocoa fix soon or she was
afraid that she was going to kill someone. If that wasn't bad
enough it seemed as though all hell was breaking loose among her
and Connor's employees. Having her father around to witness it was
just the icing on the cake.

He nodded firmly as he pushed away from the
truck. "I'll be in the building looking the old girl over when
you're finally ready to get down to work," he said, making her
inwardly cringe at the unspoken criticism. She wasn't handling the
job right and her men were not only wasting her money, but they
were also wasting time and that was something her father taught her
never to do.

Relieved that he was going to let her handle
this without an audience, she walked around the crowd, stole the
bullhorn from one of Connor's men since the man was just standing
around looking useless, and moved to stand between the manor and
the large crowd of men. As she turned the bullhorn on and scanned
the large crowd she couldn't help but wonder where her brothers
were. They should have handled this.

"You have exactly sixty seconds to go back
to work or you're fired," she announced, keeping it simple and
direct.

Her men noticeably startled amongst the
large crowd. Not even ten seconds later they were shoving Connor's
men aside as they rushed back to work. One thing she made sure of
was that everyone that worked for her understood on the first day
that they were hired was that she always backed up her word.
Whoever wasn't working in sixty seconds would be fired. She didn't
play games and she definitely didn't have time for her men to screw
around.

With an annoyed sigh, Connor took the
bullhorn from her hands and made his own announcement, "Get back to
work or leave," he said before tossing the bullhorn back to his
supervisor, who was still standing around looking useless.

"Try to keep your men in line, okay,
cupcake?" Connor drawled as he walked past her.

"Don't call me that," she bit out as she
yanked out a pair of pliers from her tool belt and walked past him,
careful to wait for just the right moment and when that moment came
she didn't hesitate.

"Son of a bitch!" he snapped as she
sauntered past him, whistling a jaunty tune as she returned her
pliers back to her tool belt.

She sighed contently as she made her way
past the men hustling to get back to work. It never ceased to amaze
her how torturing Connor always seemed to calm her down. It wasn't
as good as a hot cocoa fix, but it would do.

When she saw her father waiting for her in a
half-gutted room with his arms crossed over his chest and his lips
drawn into a frown she was tempted to hit Connor with the
sledgehammer that was close by. Her fingers literally twitched with
the need to get one good hit in. But that went against the rules.
They weren't supposed to do anything that left permanent damage,
pity.

"Rule ten," Connor said, chuckling as he
walked past her.

She glared at his back even as she wondered
how he knew. Then again, they'd been at each other's throats since
they were kids so he probably could sense these things.

Now that she thought about it, she realized
that perhaps the sledgehammer was a bit of an overkill. The only
thing he was guilty of today was annoying the hell out of her, she
realized as she pulled her needle nose pliers out of her tool belt
and walked towards her father, loving the startled little groan
Connor let out as her pliers accidentally pinched him on the ass.
He didn't say anything as she walked past him and she didn't expect
him to, but she would have to keep her guard up for the rest of the
day, because if there was one thing that she knew about Connor, it
was that the man liked immediate retribution.

Chapter 7

First his poor defenseless nipples and now
his ass, Connor thought with disgust as he barely resisted the urge
to rub the sore spot on his ass as he narrowed a glare on Rory's
retreating back. If that wasn't bad enough her men were already
causing problems for his men and cutting into the work day with
their bullshit. Not only was he going to have to find out what her
men did to interrupt his work day, but he was going to have to find
a way to get his trailer brought onto the property. There was no
way that he was going be stuck doing his paperwork in his truck
while Rory had a large comfortable trailer to work in.

Oh, she was going to pay for this shit.

When his eyes landed on her old man he knew
exactly how to get the little brat back and out of his hair. As
long as he had the use of her men and equipment he'd be able to get
this project done on time. What he didn't need was the little pain
in the ass getting in his way and he knew just the man to help him
with this little problem.