Taming Tess (The St. John Sibling Series) (11 page)

"You bought this for me and my men?" he asked, accepting the kit from her.
Briefly, both their fingers held the case and a charge tingled up from Tess' hand.

"Don't get a swelled head, St. John," she said, releasing the kit to him.
"We princesses sometimes look out for the little people."

"Smart
princess, to take care of her subjects."

He set the kit on the vanity top next to her hip and popped it open.
She should say something in response to what he'd just said, especially since it sounded suspiciously like a compliment. But his long fingers stirring through the contents of the first aid kit beside her hip just wouldn't let her think of any smart comeback.

He selected a package of gauze pads and bobbed his chin toward the medicine cabinet above the sink.
"You got any peroxide in there?"

She nodded and retrieved the bottle before he could reach for it himself.
She didn't need him leaning any closer than he already was.

"Ready to test that theory about monkeys?" he asked
, holding up a peroxide soaked gauze pad in his hand.

She met his bemused eyes in the mirror.
"Just do it, St. John."

He dabbed at her shoulder with the pad.
Cold liquid dribbled down her back and she arched away from him.

"You had your belly button pierced.
This can't hurt worse than that," he contended.

"I didn't jump because the peroxide burned.
I jumped because it's cold and you dribbled it down my back."

"Ah."
He dabbed her shoulder with a freshly doused pad, catching the excess this time with a dry pad. "Why'd you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Pierce your belly button."

"To aggravate my father."

"That was grown up of you."

Tess
frowned. Roman was right. She'd done more than a few silly things in her youth to get her father's attention. No wonder the old man was certain she'd fail. He probably still saw her as that rebellious child motivated by all the wrong reasons.

She sighed.
"A lot has changed since those days."

"Like what?"
Roman asked, studying Tess' reflection in the vanity mirror.

Her gaze broke from his, the angle if her eyes seemingly fixed on the sink and she shrugged. "I grew up.
Chose a career path."

Given the way
she hugged the t-shirt to her stomach and puckered her brow, he'd bet dollars to doughnuts Tess Abbot had some unresolved father issues.

He spread an adhesive strip over the wound,
wanting to know more but fighting the urge to press for more. Look where comforting this woman had taken them last night. It was a mistake he wouldn't make again.

"There," he said, removing his hands from
her back, so far surviving the temptation she presented him. "Now all you have to do is stay out of places where you can get hurt."

"I was safe enough in the attic until you snuck up on me and startled me," she said, pulling the
t-shirt on over her head.

Damn
, but didn't he want to fit his hands around her…

She faced him and leaned back against the counter, her hands braced to the edge of the vanity
on either side of her hips. It was a challenging pose that almost took his mind off how inviting her bare skin had been just before it disappeared beneath the t-shirt--almost made him forget how, only moments ago, her shoulders had curled protectively in on her. She'd had the same defensive look about her last night as she'd recited the details of her near drowning. Damn, but the woman confused him.

"I didn't sneak up on you," he said, wanting to comfort her and throttle her all at the same time.

"You came checking up on me," she accused.

He rolled the bandage wrapper into a tight ball between his fingers.
"You obviously needed checking up on."

"Afraid I was going to tamper with evidence?"

He leaned in close to her in spite of the danger she presented. "Is that something I need to be concerned about with you, Princess?"

"No."

She didn't shrink from him. She didn't flinch. She didn't give an inch. And that single syllable word she'd spoken shaped her mouth into the most alluring circle.

He dropped the remaining gauze pads into the first aid kit, snapped its lid shut, and eased back from her.
"I came up to tell you that I was leaving."

"Good-bye," she said with effusive joy
.

"And that I pulled the power to the attic and called the electric company to reconnect you."

"I bet you were a Boy Scout when you were a kid, one of those boys with all the badges."

Roman
bit back a retort, refusing to rise to her baiting. "I'll come by later with Ray and we'll tarp your roof."

"Should
I
be concerned about you crossing that yellow tape?"

"We won't need to get inside the house to do it."

"Uh huh."

"And one more thing.
Mrs. Antonetti brought you a casserole."

Tess' face brightened and her defensive pose
disappeared. "A casserole? From Mrs. Antonetti?"

"Yeah."

"She's a really good cook." Tess licked her lips.

"Prize winning," he murmured,
distracted by the pink tip of her tongue sweeping across the cleft in her bottom lip.

She looked up at him and the brightness dimmed from her features. "You take the casserole.
I won't have any way of heating it up in a motel room."

"Get a condo at the ski hill with a kitchen.
Make that a kitchenette. No sense wasting a full kitchen on you."

"Just because I had a little mishap in your kitchen--"

"You call nearly setting fire to my kitchen a mishap?"

"You didn't even suffer smoke damage.
Take a whiff of my house."

He nodded.
"You need an ionizer. The people I recommended with the water extraction equipment do air purification also. Shall I give them the go ahead or do you want to handle it?"

"Yeah.
Tell them to take care of everything." She waved him out of her way, but paused with her hand on the doorknob. "Can you recommend a professional cleaner being you seem to know everyone in town? Every piece of clothing I have here reeks."

"Any of them will do a good job.
But they're open only until noon today."

"Another charm of Small Town USA.
Businesses close early on Saturdays. I'll be lucky if I see my clothes by midweek."

"You could take them to the Laundromat yourself."

A shadow darkened her eyes. Before Roman could figure out what it meant, she opened the door and stepped out into the roar of the fans. But he could still her. "I have a hole in my roof big enough to drive a bulldozer through. I'm in no mood to sit around any Laundromat waiting for my underwear to dry."

Like the u
nderwear piled on her bed no doubt. Silk scraps of lace trimmed and frothy colored.

The muscles in his groin cramped.
She was
not
the woman for him. But it was his fault her house had nearly burned down…that her underwear was presently unwearable. He owed her. He sighed. He was going to regret this.

"Take your stuff back to my place and use my washer and dryer."

Her chin came up. "Is that an order, St. John?"

"It's an offer."

Tess stared at the alien appliances in Roman's bathroom closet. Oh, she knew what a washer and dryer were. She even knew what they did. What she wasn't well versed in was how to operate them.

Why then had she taken Roman up on his offer to do her laundry at his house?

Because of ego. She didn't want Roman to know her experience with washing machines and dryers didn't exceed single digits. A few forays to the Laundromat during her college days and the novelty of doing her own wash had worn off. She simply had better things to do with her time.

Except now.
Right now, clean clothes were top priority. But how to accomplish the feat with a contraption that had entirely too many dials?

Did she use hot, cold, or warm water?
Full capacity, small load, or somewhere in between? Gentle wash, regular, or heavy duty?

At least the detergent boxes gave directions.
She just needed a couple hours to sit and read all the fine print.

Tess fingered the silk blouses and lingerie in the garbage bag.
She gave her favorite linen slacks a nudge. Gentle wash for sure. They probably should not be washed in hot water, either.

But, did she put everything in all at once?
Was Roman's extra strength laundry detergent too harsh for washable silk and linen? If she ruined her clothes, how long would it take for her favorite boutique to send replacements? She'd really had enough of the pretending-to-be-silk, Bargain Mart panties sticking currently to her butt.

She frowned at the appliances in the bathroom closet and hugged her bag of
delicates protectively. If only she knew her way around a clothes washer as well as she did a drafting table. If only she hadn't been too embarrassed to confess to Roman her limitations as a laundress. If only she had some items made of hardier fabric to practice on.

Her gaze wandered to Roman's dirty laundry in the clothesbasket on top of the dryer.
Jockey shorts, t-shirts, and towels. They certainly were made of sturdier stuff. Tess smiled. She could practice using the washer and dryer with those shorts, tees, and towels and, as a bonus, Roman would get clean laundry. If she put the load on heavy duty, she'd even have a nice long stretch of time to do some business via the web.

"Sounds like a winner to me," she chirped as she scooped the jockey shorts and
t-shirts into the top loader and piled the bath towels on top of them.

The water temperature dial was already punched on hot.
Seemed reasonable to her, at least for sturdy man-clothes.

"Maximum water level, heavy duty wash, and a cup of detergent.
Just like riding a bike," she murmured, watching the steamy water pour over Roman's white shorts, navy tees, and burgundy towels.

#

It took an extra rinse cycle to get enough soap out of the towels and tees that they stopped producing suds in the rinse cycle. But even a third rinse didn't wash the pink tint out of Roman's jockey shorts.

Tess tucked the stack of pink underwear into Roman's dresser drawer under his last two pair of white ones.
Maybe he wouldn't notice. They were a very pale shade of pink. Hardly noticeable…except next to the bright white shorts. Good thing she'd opted for hand washing her dirty clothes.

She smoothed the dazzling white underwear over the fa
intly pink shorts even though she knew her misguided laundering would not go unnoticed by her eagle-eyed host.

#

Roman had a dead cell phone battery and a headache that measured in at about five foot six named Tess Abbot. It seemed his houseguest had gone directly back to his house after leaving hers and planted herself on his phone. Apparently she had done the same thing yesterday as well, given the endless string of complaints he'd gotten through the afternoon from clients and potential clients who'd tracked him down via his cell phone. Every one of them told the same story. They hadn't been able to get through to his land-line to leave a message on his answering machine.

Whatever had possessed him to invite Tess Abbot back into his home?

Long legs, perfect palm-sized breasts, and a full bottom lip with the slightest cleft dead center. The answer wandered through his over-taxed brain.

No.
No. No. He'd relented because she'd injured herself, she needed to wash her clothes, and it all came to the fire her was responsible for. He owed her.

More like he'd been suckered in.

Roman took the turn into his driveway a tad tight and hit the pothole he'd affectionately named Goodyear after it had blown one of Raymond's truck tires. The jostling that hole gave Roman, though, didn't evoke any humor today. It only rattled his already throbbing brain against his skull.

"For your sake, Tess Abbot, that phone had better be out of order."

He stormed into the house, barely glancing at her as she descended the steps. He went to the wall phone, lifted the receiver, listened, hung up, and turned to her. "It's not out of order."

She
blinked. "Did you expect it to be?"

"From what my clients who've been calling me all day on my cell phone tell me, I expected it
to be. That would be my clients and
potential
clients who've been trying to call and leave messages on my answering machine the past two days. Who the hell do you know around here well enough to spend all day on the phone talking to them?"

"I--"

"No. Don't tell me who. I don't care who you talk to. All I care about is that half the town of Pine Mountain now has my cell phone number and is using it to reach me."

She planted her hands on her hips and raised perfectly arched eyebrows at him.
"And as a man who owns his own contracting business this is bad how?"

"With my cell phone ringing all day long, I don't get a lot of work done."

"Have you ever considered hiring office staff to answer your phone?"

"The answering machine was working just fine until you came along.
Besides, even if I had an office staff, how were they going to answer a phone you were yapping on?"

"You know what your problem is, St. John?"

"I have a pampered princess tying up my phone?"

Through tight lips, Tess countered, "I am not a
princess. I am not pampered. And I did not use your phone to entertain myself. I was making business calls."

"You have
your cell phone back."

"
Which took time to charge."

"
That couldn't have taken all day."

"
But Internet out here in the boonies--"

"You used my computer?"

"Hello, mine is waterlogged with a serious dent in its lid because there was a fire in my house that dropped a ceiling on it. And whose fault--"

The veins popped out in Roman's neck.

Tess swallowed hard. "I do a lot of business via the Internet."

He
threw up his hands and stalked off down the hall, muttering, "I'm going to go and soak in the tub."

Mention of the bathroom
reminded Tess of her laundering job, specifically his shorts and towels. She turned after him. "Roman--"

"I don't want to hear anything else from you tonight," he called over his shoulder.

"But I washed your shorts and bath towels."

"Bully for you."

"You don't understand. The towels are burgundy and the shorts white."

He stopped on the
bathroom threshold and looked at her through narrowed eyes. "What? You want a medal for doing my wash, or a chest to pin it on?"

Tess folded her arms across her less than abundant chest.
He had some nerve making a comment like that after the way he'd pawed her breasts and played torturous games with her nipples.

She advanced on him in the narrow hall between the stairs and the bathroom, chin held high.
"I just--"

"--Wanted me to know you did something else besides talk on the phone today?
Fine. Now I know."

"But--"

"Peace and quiet. That's all I want."

"But--"

He pressed the side of his finger against her lips. "Not another sound. Not a peep."

He stepped into the bathroom and let out a god-awful groan.
She moved into the doorway behind him and found him tearing her panties and bras off the shower rod, towel racks, and from over the open closet doors.

"Some of those aren't dry yet," she protested as he dumped them into her arms.

Holding up one shushing finger, he shut the door in her face.

To hell with Roman St. John.
If he didn't want to hear her out, then let him find out on his own about his shorts. Infer that she needed a chest, would he? The next time he tried to cop a feel, he might just pull back a bloody stump.

#

The sunlight piercing the bedroom window hit Tess in the face. She blinked and bolted from the bed. She was halfway to the door before she remembered she didn't have to rely on Roman for a ride today. She had her own car.

She regarded the lumpy bed beckoning her.
But decided her time would be better spent at The Castle itemizing what needed to be done to put the house back in order. She could start tossing out a few things that were beyond repair.

No.
Wait. She couldn't go into The Castle. She'd arranged to have the place ionized and that meant she couldn't go inside until Monday morning.

The bed was looking more inviting by the minute.
Except, when she slept she dreamt of Roman and those dreams weren't sweet. More like triple X-rated.

She groaned and set about her morning ritual, selecting one of her skin lotions from the dresser top
…the good skin lotion, not the one she'd picked up at The Bargain Mart. That stuff was gunk…just like Roman had said.

She grunted.
Couldn't she even apply skin lotion without thinking of him? Maybe it was time she found a bed that wasn't upstairs of Roman's bedroom. Though, if she moved out, she wouldn't have Roman's computer at her disposal. And God knows how long it would take for the local computer company, the one and only computer repair shop in Pine Mountain, to repair her damaged laptop.

She scowled and spread a dollop of lotion up her arm.
Whatever had she done in life to deserve this rural hell besides walk out on her father? A father who consigned his daughters to domesticity. A father who valued them only for the quality of sons-in-law they could attract into the family.

A father who'd betrayed her when he should have lauded her. She was a good architect.
Why couldn't he accept that? Why did he have to treat every woman as if she had no more sense than a child?

Like Roman St. John who'd gone ballistic over his phone. She scrubbed
lubricating lotion into her elbow. Here she'd washed his underwear and all he could do was rant about her tying up his phone.

She wasn't a child to be dressed down.
That's what she should have shouted back at him instead of trying to explain about his shorts.

A
burning sensation radiated from her elbow. She stopped rubbing the perfumed skin cream into it, snapped the cap back on the tube of lotion, and examined her elbow in the dresser mirror. It was red…irritated from over stimulation…like her. That's what St. John did to her.

No wonder, by the time she'd found new places to spread out her drying undies and he was done with his bath, she no more wanted to talk to him than drive through a bad
Chicago neighborhood at three a.m. with an empty gas tank. Lucky for him, he'd had the sense to not comment on the hamburgers she'd cooked…not even when they crunched.

Oh, no way was she moving out.
She was nowhere near done punishing him.

She flung aside the tube o
f lotion and jerked opened the narrow top drawer where she'd put her underwear after it had dried. The box of condoms slid across the bottom of the drawer and butted up against her panties, and an unexpected pang of desire surged through her. How easily she could end this aching frustration for both of them.

She fingered the condom box in her lingerie drawer
…the
open
condom box. Some of the foil wrapped packets were missing. She'd checked. Where had Roman gone two nights ago to get that box of condoms? Not to a drug store. Drug stores didn't sell unsealed boxes of condoms with product missing. He'd have to have gone to a friend.

A friend.

So, Roman St. John had himself a friend he was close enough to that he could go to him in the middle of the night for a package of protection…when he was in dire need…when he had a woman ready and waiting. Not that she was all that surprised. He had a casual work relationship with his employees, judging by their overheard plans for "a beer after work" or the on-the-job teasing they exchanged. He was more than cordial with her neighbors, even flirting with the elderly Mrs. Antonetti.