Untitled (19 page)

      "If what?"

      "If..." He took another step back and the hand which he had held out to me now rested on his fly. I couldn't tear my gaze away from the fingers which stroked the prominent bulge through the fabric straining at the buttons. "If you can walk over here and come get it."

      Startled, not by his blatancy but by my willingness to take up the challenge despite my physical condition, I stood and a dimple appeared beside his mouth as he tried not to laugh out loud or even smile.

      "You look as if you need some help."

      "No, no, I'm fine," I reassured him. "Ooh... wait a minute... bloody hell, Leo..." My words came out in a breathless sigh, almost a groan as I put one foot in front of the other and neared him, fully expecting him to tease me by backing away.

      But he didn't. He slipped one arm around my waist as I stumbled, laughing under his breath, which whispered across the skin of my neck as he whispered in my ear. "Maybe later, then, once you've found your feet. Come on. Let's get you downstairs."

      I looked him in the eyes, unsure of what I'd find there and saw a combination of mischief and nefarious intent. "Do I have to have a bath now or should I meet your other bird first?"

      "Well, we're downstairs anyway. And yeah, I should probably take his cover off and let him see daylight; he's not had it off since I left to meet you yesterday. The cover I mean."

      "Quite." I winked, and he led the way across his living area to the bird cage on a stand against the wall between the two huge windows. "Um..." Left to walk unaided now, I watched his back—his bare back with tattooed shoulders— and shook my head to rid it of those kinds of thoughts. "One point."

      "Yeah?" He glanced over his shoulder, then back at the bird cage before removing the blanket, unleashing a torrent of flapping and squawking from the unholy creature there caged.

      "Your other bird is a bloke?" I came to stand beside him.

      "He is. Does that shock you?" Leo laughed as he folded the blanket and stored it on a nearby shelf.

      "Feck off!"

      "What the hell was that?" I asked, turning from Leo to the bird in the cage.

      "Um...yeah. Meet Hyde."

      "Hyde? Where's—"

      "Jekyll? Dead."

      "Oh I am sorry. Was she the girl, then?"

      "No, no, I had two who were both male."

      "Male what?"

      "Parakeets, of course. Don't you know a parakeet when you see one?"

      "Forgive me. I was shocked at the fact it swore. So... Jekyll and Hyde were blokey birds? Gay, were they?"

      "Probably. You should have seen what Hyde used to do to Jek—"

      "Jaysus Christ!" it squawked.

      "So basically you own a... a parakeet which bummed its companion to death?"

      Leo colored. "Yeah. It's my secret shame."

      "What's a guy like you doing owning a parakeet anyway?"

      "You don't think it's a very manly pet?"

      "Oh no, that's not it at all. You just strike me as the kind of guy to have a leopard prowling about the place, or perhaps a cougar. And you," I continued, turning back to Hyde, a bright green hurricane of profanities, "are a foul mouthed little thing, aren't you?"

      "Dorty fecker," he told me, and I straightened, raised my eyebrows at Leo.

      "I wonder who taught him that."

      He had the good grace to look abashed. "Uh, yes, he does seem to have picked up on my speech patterns."

      "What you mean is, you've passed on a terminal case of Tourette's to a poor, defenseless parakeet. Hey, Hyde," I said, running my finger along the bars of his cage. "It's not nice to—" Lightning fast, he bobbed forward, pecked my finger and I whipped it back. "You dirty bastard!"

      "See?" Leo burst out laughing. "That's where it comes from."

      I sucked my finger before examining the tip closely but there didn't seem to be any blood. "Flesh wound," I said. "You—" I jabbed my sore finger at its erstwhile attacker, "are probably in a bad mood because you have a very small penis."

      "We had trouble finding it when we sexed him so you could be right," Leo said and I grimaced.

      "I really didn't need to hear that." Still glaring at Hyde, I said, "That'll be why you swear so much. You're angry."

      "Christ, woman, I swear like a trooper and I've got a huge cock!"

      "There's just no arguing with that is there? Right." I clasped my hands in an I mean business gesture. "Bath for me. I stink of depravity. You said you'd get me something to wear? Not a skimpy hand towel to cover my modesty, I hope?"

      "As if you have any modesty left to cover," Leo quipped, but I didn't reply or look over my shoulder as I headed towards the door he'd earlier indicated led to the bathroom.

      The sheer opulence of the room made me shudder. Maybe not opulence in the strictest sense of the word, but again, in comparison to my home, his won out. Tiles covered every surface; no wallpaper or paintwork here, and this lent it the air of a show room; something one would see in a home improvements magazine.

      Grooming products lined the glass shelf above the pedestal sink but aside from that there was nothing there which could be construed as clutter. Either Leo was incredibly OCD about keeping his house tidy or he had a cleaner.

      It could have been that he'd only just moved in. Or he'd tidied up the day before, before leaving the house. Although it hadn't been part of the plan for me to come back here, it might have been an idea teasing at the back of his mind as he'd turned the key in the lock. Just in case.

      The free-standing shower unit looked big enough for two—more than two—and questions about Leo's history flashed into my mind before I instantly dismissed them.

      For some reason I'd expected him to have a corner bath with a Jacuzzi function but no; the claw foot bath surprised me with its sophistication. Simple, unpretentious and that itself made it a turn on. Leo Carson didn't need his fixtures, fittings and furnishings to be overtly sexual—that was a quality he could turn on and off at will, as I'd experienced in the past twenty-four hours. Less than that, even.

      Has it really been only around eighteen hours since we hooked up? I wondered, startled at how much we'd done in that time.

      "Admiring my bathroom, are you?" he asked, appearing in the doorway.

      "This doesn't strike me as a bloke's bathroom."

      "That's because I'm not a bloke." He approached slowly and I tried not to quiver at the sight of him in nothing more than low-slung jeans riding tantalizingly close to his hip bones. "I'm a gentleman."

      "You've done some decidedly ungentlemanly things to me recently, Leo."

      "Quite." He wrapped one arm around himself as he walked and with the other hand pulled at his lip as if pondering on what to say next. "Though one could say—" he added, pointing at me for a second, "—that was only because the lady wanted me to."

      "Weren't you supposed to be finding me something to put on after my bath?"

      "There's not much point, is there? I mean... you're not going to need something of mine to put on unless you take everything of yours off."

      "Ah. So that's why you're here. You came to help."

      "I came to see if you needed anything, yes." He smirked, still with his forefinger worrying at his bottom lip. He had no idea what he was doing to me. Of course he knew what he was doing to me. And he did it deliberately, banking on my residual tenderness stopping me acting on my desires. Feminine frustration clearly turned him on.

      And boy, did he know how to work it.

      "Before I see to lunch I thought I'd come and help you undress."

      Arms crossed, I adopted an 'okay then, let's see what you've got' stance. "Thanks so much. But I think I can manage."

      "Well, I have to act like a gentleman, don't I?"

      "And it is an act, is it?"

      "Touché." He looked me up and down for far from the first time or even the hundredth. "There's no need to be shy around me, you know. I've seen you naked before. And hey, I've only got one item of clothing on. You have...?"

      I did a quick calculation in my head. "Three."

      "That's three too many," Leo shot back. Almost as if he'd been practicing the line in his head before I gave him the feed. His hand went for my waist and, in his cocky state, he was more able to deal with my fitted tee shirt than I. With one swift tug, he pulled it over my head and offering no resistance, I lifted my arms and let him.

      He dropped my top on the floor. "That's one." A finger traced a line from my collar bone down to the cup of my bra and teased at the edge of the fabric before lifting it ever so slightly, not letting me know whether he was going to venture further and cup my breast in his hand or not. Giving me no hint. "I might get carried away, you know."

      Heat shot from the point of contact on my skin down to my pussy and I wanted him again, whether it would hurt or not. Pain, or at the very least discomfort, would be worth the pleasure fucking him for the umpteenth time would bring.

      He raised his eyebrows while looking at me and running a finger back along my collarbone, his hand slipping under my bra strap and the look in his eyes almost asked for permission.

      I thought the hint of a smile tugging at my lips would be all the permission he sought but no, he evidently wanted me to say something. "Go ahead. I dare you." And I added a cheeky wink as well, knowing he'd be unable to resist a light laugh.

      Leo broke eye contact and watched himself flick the strap off my shoulder. Then my other side, before taking a step closer and our upper bodies made the slightest of contact, only a whisper of air separating the contours of our bodies.

      "And this..." He reached around me—with both hands, probably just to make sure he managed to execute the move—and unclasped the bra, drawing back just enough to allow it to fall. "Is two."

      I inhaled, drawing him closer once again. My hands on his pectorals, following the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

      Then his hands were at my waist, fiddling with the three studded buttons and the zip. Maybe he was quick, maybe I'd just lost all sense of time but in an instant my skirt slid to the floor and, his hands still around me, he looked me in the eye and said, "That's three."

      Breath caught in my throat, I was unable to reply past blinking rapidly against the well of tears stinging the backs of my eyes.

      "Now." Before I could protest, he lifted me clean off the floor and carried me over to the bath. "There."

      Though I now stood in the bath, ever so slightly higher than him on the floor, my arms were still around his neck, but he unhooked them. "Aren't you going to sit down?"

      "But..." But nothing, I added silently, slithering down

into the not too hot, not too cold water.

      "And now I've got you all wet..." He knelt by the bath, running a hand over the top of my head as I leaned back, my hair hanging over the edge of the roll top bath.

      I turned to look at him from that odd angle. "What?"

      "I'll go make us something to eat," he said with a wink, stood, and left the room.

      Lying in Leo's bath with my hair hanging over the side to keep it dry as I soaked, I stared up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, reflecting on the craziness of the past twenty-four hours. It was far from the first time I'd had a one night stand, far from the first time I'd had a 'session' of lovemaking as opposed to a once or twice go-around, but both together? No.

      Although, strictly speaking, if I'm staying here tonight, doesn't that make it a two night stand?

      Leo had run the bath to exactly the right temperature—was there nothing he didn't do to my satisfaction?—and its heat eased my aching muscles (and other parts), steamed all the toxins out of my skin and relaxed me to the point of borderline lethargy.

      I don't want to get out. I'd been there for what seemed like a full half hour. I really should. But if Leo's preparing lunch he'll call me if he's ready for me.

      I hauled myself into a sitting position, grabbed a towel from the shelf unit by the bath and pulled the plug.

      Cooking sounds came from the kitchen. Proper cooking sounds. Chopping, slicing, dicing, as opposed to tearing off a cardboard wrapper, piercing the film lid, the ping of the microwave.

      "Ah, there you are. Hope you're hungry. I suddenly am; can't think why..." Leo did a double take as I emerged from the bathroom, looking up then down, allowing his gaze to flick over me again, through his eyelashes.

      Don't think I didn't see that. "I hope you're not expecting me to keep this towel on for the rest of the day." Although I'd wrapped it tightly around my chest and tucked it in, I checked it for the umpteenth time, surprised at my sudden modesty. He too only wore one item of clothing, but damn, he looked hot in those jeans. As hot as he would have done had he not been wearing them. Sometimes a halfwrapped gift was as tempting as one given with no covering. More so.