Stirring Up Trouble (5 page)

She narrowed her eyes, her lashes drawing low in shadowy disdain. “That’s censorship, you know.”

“I prefer to think of it as a respect issue. No more
whatever,
otherwise the deal’s off the table.” Two could play at the not-budging game, and although Sloane really didn’t want Bree to recant, she also wasn’t going to let a thirteen-year-old push her around. No matter how much closer to greener pastures the money would get her.

“Then no more calling me
kid,
either. I’m not a baby.” Bree’s hands went to her hips in true I-mean-it fashion, and Sloane nodded. After all, she was right.

“Deal. But I don’t do freebies. Slip up at your own risk.” Despite trying to keep her poker face intact, Sloane couldn’t help the satisfied smile tickling her lips. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Bree measured her with a hard stare. “
Whatever
you say.”

“I say let’s get started.” She paused just long enough to let Bree think she’d gotten away with one before amping her smile to grin status.

“You’ve got a lot of work to do, and I’m not
kid
ding.”

 

 

At ten past midnight, Gavin gave in and admitted that the ache in his bones might be permanent. The fact that he’d been largely distracted by having sent his broody, moody sister home in the charge of a quick-witted child-phobe only added to his stress. He knew from his limited observations that Bree usually steered clear of Mrs. Teasdale, avoiding contact despite the sweet old woman’s efforts to make Bree feel comfortable and cared for. Sloane was different, though—young and sharp and openly brazen. Clearly, Bree saw her as a repeat performance of Caroline, although Gavin had to laugh at the thought. If ever there was a polar opposite of his ex-fiancée, Sloane was it.

Besides the child-phobe thing, anyway.

Gavin pulled his Audi A6 into the gravel drive next to a sporty little silver Fiat and coughed out a laugh. Jeez, the damn thing was more clown car than real vehicle, with just a tiny bench behind the two front seats and a mere bubble of space parading as a trunk. With the assistance of the three-inch heels on her boots, Sloane had stood eye level with him at the restaurant, which was no small feat at six-foot-one. How on earth she managed to fold her long, lean frame into such a tiny car was mind-boggling. In fact, it had to be the last damned car on the planet he’d expect her to drive.

Then again, surprise might be par for the course where she was concerned. This was a woman who laughed when strangers overheard her talking about her most intimate secrets. Although they couldn’t be that secret if she was willing to admit to them so freely. Take that orgasm thing, for example. Surely she’d been exaggerating. No way could she have meant
never
ever. She probably had her pick of men wanting to please her in bed.

Heat crept into a few long-forgotten places, lingering enticingly, and his eyes shuttered closed. The image of Sloane, with her sassy attitude and lips so full they were practically extravagant, hit him without remorse. The heat became a tingle, then a full-on tightening as he conjured what he’d do if it were him in her bed, tangled in her sheets.

That glimpse of exotically bronze Mediterranean skin he’d caught earlier flashed like a wicked temptation in his mind’s eye, daring his imagination to touch her. He pictured trailing slow, languid kisses from that hot sliver of her belly up to her high, firm breasts. He’d tease her nipples in seductive, slow circles with his mouth, daring her to dance on the edge of ecstasy before dropping past the indentation of her navel to taste the scorching heat of her—

“Jesus Christ.” Gavin barked out a tight, involuntary laugh. This exhaustion was seriously messing with him. What Sloane did in bed was none of his business, speculative or otherwise. Even though it was only temporary, she was looking after his sister, which was only the cherry on top of all the reasons it was a bad idea to entertain explicit thoughts about her.

Bracing himself against the dead-of-night January chill, he made his way up the walk, forcing his inner teenage horn dog to default to the reality of being an adult. He was impressed to find the dead bolt tightly turned even though Sloane was expecting him home, and he flipped the key in the lock with a firm twist.

“Hey. I’m back.” He stopped in the entryway to the living room, purposely keeping his distance so his overactive imagination wouldn’t get any more crazy ideas.

Sloane blinked up from her cross-legged perch on the couch, peering at him from beneath the brim of the same kind of floppy sun hat his mother used to wear at the beach.

“Oh, crap. Is it midnight already?” She slid the blue and white striped hat from her head, and her tousled hair looked worse for the wear, like she’d spent the evening trying to tug it from its roots.

He nodded. “Quarter past.” Curiosity gave decorum a nosy shove, and he gestured to the fabric in her lap. “Kind of cold for one of those, isn’t it?”

She tucked her pencil behind one ear and frowned. “Writing ritual. Think of it like a lucky jersey. Only sometimes the luck is optional.” Crumpled sheets of notebook paper circled her like a failed-attempt force field, and she dropped the legal pad she’d been cursing from her fingers to her lap.

Gavin shifted his weight from one loafer to the other. “I take it the tutoring didn’t go so well.” He gestured to the scattered yellow papers, most of which had been deposited at the foot of the couch, and tamped down the urge to pick them all up and head for the garbage can.

Sloane stretched, treating Gavin to the exact snippet of skin he’d just managed to block from his mind. “Oh, yeah, no. Actually . . .” She riffled around on the cushions, milling through several sloppy piles of paper before choosing a stack to hand over. “She did three out of her four missed assignments, and caught up on all of her reading, including this weekend’s passages. She tried like hell to finish that fourth paper, but ended up falling asleep on the book so I cut her a break.”

Hiding his shock was a complete impossibility. “Wait . . . I don’t understand. Bree did
all
of her work? In one night?” In spite of Sloane’s matter-of-fact nod, his brain refused to accept the possibility. He’d barely been able to get a list of assignments from Bree, much less get her to sit down and work on any of them. “How did you pull that off? It had to have taken all night.”

“Almost five hours. And I’ve gotta tell you, the fact that she spoke to me as little as humanly possible didn’t make it a walk in the park. But I think she’s got the hang of it now. If what she did isn’t up to snuff with her teacher, then the woman’s crazy.” Sloane scooped up the rest of the piles from the couch and stuffed them into her bag, tossing the legal pad on top of the melee.

A question poked at his conscience, getting increasingly louder until he finally gave it voice. “Look . . . don’t take this the wrong way, but this is over three weeks’ worth of work. I’ve got to ask, how much help did you give Bree, exactly?”

Sloane made a less-than-dainty sound and rolled her eyes. “I already passed eighth-grade English, and I’m not exactly eager to do any of the writing on my own again. Bree busted her butt, I assure you.” She started to wad up the discarded pages at her feet, muttering a low oath as the ball got big enough to exceed her hand.

Okay, so that had come out more accusatory than he’d intended. He knelt to help her collect the crumpled pages. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you did it for her.”

“Sure you did. But like I said, you don’t have to worry. I helped her, but only as much as she’d let me. Once we got started, she really did most of it without even talking to me.”

Now there was something he could relate to. “Yeah, that sounds like her.” The ache in his bones migrated to include everything beneath his sternum, and Gavin let out a tired exhale. He reached for the last scrap of paper at the exact moment Sloane did. Unable to change his course of movement without making contact, his fingertips brushed against the top of her hand as she closed a fist over the page, and the sheer heat of her skin under his hand registered in a jolt.

“Whoops, sorry.” He withdrew his hand and looked up, only to discover his face about six inches from a pair of heart-shaped lips, parted in a look of surprise. “I didn’t mean to . . .” A quick gesture to her hand completed the sentence. Her skin was so soft, like a stretch of perfectly golden caramel, warm and sweet and utterly decadent.

For a hot, impulsive moment, he wondered if she tasted the way she looked.

“No biggie,” she murmured, not moving her eyes from his.

Up close in the soft lamp light, they looked even prettier, kind of a cross between a summer sky and gathering storm clouds, and the juxtaposition caught him square in the chest. His left knee pressed against her right thigh from when they’d both knelt down on the floorboards, and even through the wool and denim, heat coursed from her body in waves.

He meant to lean back, to correct the mistake of accidentally invading her space and just let her go. Gavin commanded himself to move, say good night, and give her enough room to walk out the door.

But instead, he kissed her.

The warmth of Sloane’s body was nothing compared to the rich heat of her mouth, and he fought back a groan as he brushed the surprise from her lips with his own. He traced the lush curve of her bottom lip with his tongue before drawing it in to savor it, and the softness hit him with a bolt of satisfaction.

His imagination had been spot-on. She tasted exquisite, and he didn’t want to stop until he’d tried the rest of her.

As if she’d crawled into his head for a direct read on his thoughts, Sloane angled her body against his, cupping the back of his neck with deft fingers. Gavin’s desire went from slow burn to liquid want as she parted her lips to deepen the kiss, searching his mouth with growing intensity.

He skimmed his teeth over her now-swollen bottom lip, and the hot sigh it called up from Sloane’s chest made him want to do it until her soft breath tumbled into a scream. Slipping kisses across the perfect swoop of her jawline to taste the sweet divot behind her ear, he coasted lower to sample the honey-colored column of her neck, then the tight juncture where her collarbone met it.

Damn, this woman was a delicacy. Burning with uncut desire, he returned to her mouth, turning her sigh to a gasp.

“Oh.
Oh
.” Sloane fisted his shirt hard enough to pull the fabric taut over his chest, and the click of a button hitting the hardwood registered in a vague corner of his mind. In one fluid move, her lap covered his, the heated seam of those infernally long legs notched over his aching erection in a way that left zero to the imagination.

The way her voice shaped his name, with equal parts promise and raw desire, smashed into him like a sucker punch, and the undiluted shock of where they were and what they were doing—hell, what they
could’ve
been doing—made him skid to a stiff halt under her ministrations.

“Sloane . . . Sloane, we’re in the living room.” Was he out of his mind? How the hell had he let lust hijack his common sense so thoroughly?

“Okay.” She lifted her head, fluttering her eyelids open as if she’d been knocked from a dream. Doing his best to ignore the sexy tumble of her hair and the throbbing protest in his pants, Gavin shifted her gently off of his lap.

“Wait, I didn’t mean you should stop. I just . . .” Sloane’s fingers flew to the bow of her lips, even more full from having been thoroughly kissed, and a flush crept over her high cheekbones. “Ah, I see. But you did.”

Without pause, she stood and put on her coat in one fluid motion, heavy footsteps thumping over the floorboards in time with her brisk strides toward the door.

“Sloane, wait. I should apologize. It was . . .”

He shook his head. “It was impulsive. I was out of line, and I’m truly sorry.”

She kept her back to him for just a breath before turning to look over one shoulder, throwing him a saucy smile that slapped the chagrin right out of him.

“A word to the wise, boss. If you’ve gotta apologize after you kiss a girl, you might want to rethink your strategy. See you tomorrow.”

And then she was gone.

Chapter Five

After her alarm went off for the third time, Sloane ran out of swear words and had no choice but to haul herself out of bed. Chucking a handful of sleep-mussed hair from her eyes, she plodded to the coffeepot, pausing just long enough to hit the auto-brew button with the back of one hand. The memory of Gavin’s scorching hot kiss slammed back into her conscious thoughts with all the grace of a stampeding bull, and she swiped a hand over her lips in an effort to get them to stop tingling.

Well, hell. It hadn’t worked for the two hours she’d spent twisting around in her bed last night before finally dropping off to sleep at three
A.M.
What on earth made her think it was going to work now?

“Hrmmph.” She directed the grunt at her cell phone, whose beep signaled an unread text message. Carly’s number flashed across the top of the screen, and Sloane palmed her phone with a bleary grumble as she trudged to the bathroom. Time was of the essence, and while she drew the line at texting and driving, she could text and brush her teeth with the best of them.

She made a sour face around her mouthful of toothpaste, and not just at the prospect of attending her best friend’s wedding rehearsal, an event that would likely send her mother into the stratosphere. If her sister Angela wasn’t ready to pop with baby number three any minute now, Sloane’s mother wouldn’t hesitate to attend the wedding and make her life a living hell in person.

She made a mental note to send her sister Angela a thank-you note and stuffed her mother’s disapproval down, knowing she’d have to cross the you-need-to-settle-down bridge again soon enough. Dwelling on the inevitability would only make it worse.

At any rate, Sloane thought as she rinsed her toothbrush, Carly was right. The money
was
good, and she needed it desperately. She’d tried like hell last night to get a workable idea on paper, or at least do a little legwork so she could dive right in once she got to Greece, but her muse had remained solidly unimpressed. So much for the possibility of tutoring being the light for her creative fire. Right about now, Sloane had all the spark of wet logs in the wilderness.

Dry humping in the living room notwithstanding.

“Oh, forget the kiss, girl! And anyway, a deal’s a deal.” Adding a temporary nanny gig to her résumé might not have done much for her creativity, but at least the job got her one step closer to packing her bags. Still, the rest of the cash wasn’t going to simply appear via Fairy Godmother, and she was going to have to come up with one hell of a fallback plan in order to get herself to book-writing Nirvana.

Sloane made her way back to the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee with one hand while dialing her cell phone with the other. Just because she’d dismissed her misgivings about playing Mary Poppins for a couple of weeks didn’t mean she couldn’t dish out a little well-placed attitude. After all, Carly had all but offered her up on a platter.

“If you’re calling to give me a hard time, save your breath. You need the money, and I can’t run a restaurant without a general manager.” Her best friend’s sleepy voice murmured over the line without the benefit of a hello, and Sloane bit back a laugh in response.

“Your preemptive strike will get you nowhere. I can’t believe you threw me to the wolves.”

“It was only one wolf, and besides, it’s a perfectly workable solution.” Leave it to Carly to be so matter-of-fact.

The dark, piercing gaze Gavin had sent right into her bones just before he’d kissed her last night shock waved through Sloane’s memory, sending an electric hum through her blood like she’d been slapped upside the head with a tuning fork. “There is nothing workable about me and your GM. He’s wound tighter than a Salvation Army drum, I swear to God.”

She tucked the phone to her ear and flattened her palms over both forearms to give the goose bumps that had sprouted there a vigorous rub. After all, the kiss he’d planted on her had no sooner moved from oh-yes to oh-
hell
-yes when Gavin not only snapped out of it, but fell all over himself to make a formal apology. The whole thing had left Sloane in a moment of rare embarrassment, wondering if she’d conjured the sizzling passion out of thin air. Hell, she
had
been grasping for romantic ideas all night. She’d probably just been projecting on the nearest available male body.

Never mind that it had been the first male body to ever stir a potential orgasm between her thighs, and that she’d wanted him so badly, she’d climbed him like a tree.

At least her fight or flight instincts hadn’t dallied in getting her out the door. Thank God some things still worked flawlessly.

Carly chuckled, yanking Sloane’s sizzling thoughts back down to planet Earth. “Just because he takes his job seriously doesn’t mean Gavin’s a bad guy. Look at it this way, babysitting his sister is less painful than selling your eggs to a fertility clinic, right?”

“Marginally.” Sloane headed down the hall to her bedroom with her cup in hand and the phone still tucked to her ear, shaking off the last of the weird ripple coursing through her. Arriving at her dresser, she set her hands to work in a flurry of motion, tugging a few things mercilessly from the drawers. “You know kids and I don’t mix.”

“It’s only for two weeks. And besides, if anyone’s tough enough to handle a thirteen-year-old, it’s you.”

Sloane made a disdainful noise and paused to slurp her coffee. “Please. The first and pretty much only thing the kid said to me was that she didn’t need me.” She hesitated before admitting, “And I have to be honest. She’s basically right.”

“I thought Gavin said she was having trouble in school,” Carly said, sounding confused.

“Oh, she’s failing. Or she was.” Sloane sent another slosh of coffee down the hatch, cradling the mug in one hand while snapping up more clothing with the other. “But as soon as I started working with her, it became pretty clear she’s no slouch in the smarts department. She had an F because she didn’t do the assignments. Not because she couldn’t.”

The bewilderment in Carly’s voice grew even thicker. “I don’t get it. Why would she intentionally flunk a class if she knows it’ll land her not just with a tutor, but in Gavin’s poor graces too? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does if she’s trying to work him down to his very last nerve. Now
that
is something this kid excels at.” She threw back the last of her coffee and stuck the empty mug on her dresser next to two partially drained water bottles and a handful of Post-its bearing scribbled book notes. “Anyway, you’re right. The gig isn’t that bad. If I’m tough enough to stand up and give a toast at your wedding, then I am indeed tough enough to handle the next two weeks with a cranky eighth grader.”

Carly’s voice sparked with excitement. “Hey, speaking of which, did you pick a dress yet?”

Sloane shook her head even though Carly couldn’t see it and padded into her closet for a pair of jeans. “I still can’t believe you’re not picking the bridesmaids’ dresses yourself. Seriously, you’re the most laid-back bride on the planet.” At last count, Sloane had been in six weddings over the last ten years. She had the battle scars and the bad wardrobe to prove it.

“Are you kidding? We’re lucky I picked a dress for me. No way am I picking yours too. Just wear black to go with the guys’ suits, and you’ll be fine.”

Sloane turned, doing a ten-second run-through of the dresses in her closet that were fancy enough to pass muster. She stopped at a dark red garment bag, trying not to shudder as her fingers passed over the plastic. “Yeah, I’ll probably just go with that satin A-line dress my sister Rosie had us wear at her wedding.”

“You hate that dress.”

Sloane bit her lip to keep from agreeing, heading down the hall to the bathroom. “It’s not so bad.”

A muffled snort filtered over the line. “You said it made all the bridesmaids look like statuary.”

Sloane’s laugh shot out in a quick burst before she clamped her teeth over it. “I don’t suppose you’ll buy that I meant it as a compliment?”

“Ho-hum and fading into the background isn’t a compliment,” Carly accused, albeit jokingly. “If you wear that dress, you’ll be miserable.”

Sloane opened her mouth to argue, but she couldn’t. The dress was so freaking boring, it didn’t even put the
fun
in
functional
. But most of the gowns in her closet were total showstoppers. And while that was a perfect fit for her outgoing personality, her best friend’s wedding was a different story. The only head-turning gown at this blessed event should be on the bride, period. For once, Sloane was determined to blend in to the wallpaper.

The leftover bridesmaid’s dress from her sister’s wedding should more than do the trick.

Carly interrupted her thoughts. “Why don’t you wear that gorgeous dress you got in Madrid? It’s black, and it looks so pretty on you.”

Sloane snorted and cranked the shower up as hot as the dial would allow. “I can’t wear my tango dress to your wedding.”

“Why not? I love that dress.” Carly let out a breathy sigh, but Sloane was unconvinced.

“I love it too, but come on. That dress is . . . well, it’s . . .”

“It’s perfect,” Carly finished for her, her tone brooking zero argument.

Okay, fine. So the delicately beaded dress was a definite stunner, but it didn’t earn any marks in the subtlety department. As a long, flowing column of ebony silk with a strategically placed slit up one side, it had come by its nickname honestly. Sloane had broken it in as she tangoed her way across Spain, gathering all the sexy fodder for her third book.

Maybe putting it on again was just the jump start she needed to begin getting words on the page.

“Come on,
cucciola
.” Carly went in for the I’m-the-bride kill. “You have to wear it. It’s so
you,
I can’t imagine you standing next to me wearing anything else.”

A smile tugged at the edges of Sloane’s lips. The slinky, black sheath really was one of Sloane’s favorite garments. If ever she’d felt comfortable in something, that dress was it.

“Fine. But I draw the line at walking down the aisle with a rose between my teeth.”

“Deal. Now please get your ass to work. The last thing I need is for Gavin to be crabby because you were fashionably late.”

“I’m always fashionably late,” Sloane said, eyeing the clock. She hustled back into the bathroom, pulling her tattered New York Yankees sleep shirt over her head as she went.

“Not today, please. Now go.” Carly’s laugh echoed over the line for just a second before she ended the call, and within thirty seconds, the rest of Sloane’s clothing had hit the floor in a jumbled heap. She closed her eyes, letting the near-scalding water roll over her shoulders.

Maybe today she could get something on the page. Just a sketch or a glimmer would be enough, an image of something that would spark the rest in her mind’s eye. She shook her head, scattering a stream of warm water and scented suds down her back as she washed her hair and let her thoughts wander.

Sexy . . . sexy . . . she needed something sexy, but not obviously so, kind of like her dress. Sure, it was beautiful on the surface, but it was only when it was off the hanger and on her warm body that it felt truly sensual. Sloane needed a hint of something surprising in its seductiveness.

Something that heated and lingered all at the same time.

Water sluiced down her back, caressing the fold of her shoulder where it tucked into her neck and releasing all the tension knit tightly in her body. The image of lean, corded muscles, fitting perfectly beneath taut skin swirled in her brain, and she let the picture form more clearly. No extravagantly bulging muscles on this hero forming in her mind, uh-uh. His outline spoke of something efficient and direct, almost raw in how pared down it was.

Sloane’s breath slid through her lungs more quickly as she pictured the guy against the backdrop of her closed eyelids. He was angular and silent and wicked in his intensity, the kind of man whose actions spoke volumes compared to his words. And those actions could make an absolute symphony of a woman’s body.

“Yeah,” she breathed, reaching a hand out toward the cool, slick tiles of the shower wall, steadying herself while fastening the passionate image securely into place. His hands would be the perfect combination of rough masculinity and agile grace, both strong and beautiful. He’d know just how to use them on a woman, coaxing her to perfection in deliberate strokes, like Michelangelo discovering the statue hidden inside a marble slab. And once he’d used those deft hands on every inch of her wanting skin, he’d start all over again.

With his mouth.

“Oh, God.” The juncture between Sloane’s thighs went tight and hot, spearing tendrils of want all the way up to her belly, and a keening sigh spilled from her lips. She needed to open her eyes and get this on the page, but the image was so lush and real, so goddamned
hot,
it was impossible to force her lids open.

Her brain gave another wanton shove, and suddenly, the man fit against her body, matching her warmth in all the right places. Sloane let her mind trail across the hard planes of his chest, pressed against her own with nothing but water and bad intentions between his slippery skin and hers.

His mouth was fast and unforgiving in her mind as he skimmed a hot line over her shoulder, setting the edge of his teeth to the slope of it with just enough pressure to balance the sensation with more excruciating heat. He lifted his eyes, locking them on hers, and for one suspended moment, Sloane lost herself in the depths of imaginary desire.

Until she connected the liquid brown gaze of her fantasy man with its real-world owner, and her breath slammed through her lungs in a hard gasp.