Wilde Magic (Wilde Women Book 3) (4 page)

“No more pills,” his friend scolded.

“Nah, man. Told you. Done with that shit. Haven’t taken anything stronger than some Ibuprofen in months. No worries on that score but seriously, when it gets bad like this I just have to sit the fuck down.”

“Go.” Hands pushed him gently in the direction of the villa. “Crepuscolo has your ass, Cal Tyler.”

“It’s back. Crepuscolo has my back,” he teased.

JP pulled himself up as tall as his five feet seven-inch frame could go and quipped, “If we had your back, this conversation would not be necessary.”

Clever play on words. Cal nodded approvingly. “Touché, my friend.”

E
RMYGAWD, IS THAT A JAR
of Skippy? Reaching as high as standing on her tippy toes would allow, Charlie mentally willed her fingers to connect with the unexpected treat.

“C’mon, you sucker!” Her growl was half frustration, half desperation. Peanut butter wasn’t entirely unheard of in Italy, but she was a Skippy girl and always had been. Spying a jar on a high shelf in the pantry, she was prepared to move heaven and earth getting to it.

Kicking off her shoes, she tried a straight jump, hoping to at least get high enough to tap the jar and maybe send it flying off the shelf. When that didn’t work, Charlie slapped defeated hands on her hips and sighed.

“Not fair,” she grumbled. Peanut butter was her crack and yes, she’d consider arm wrestling for a banana and peanut butter sandwich.

Maybe using the force might help. Couldn’t hurt, right? Holding her hand up, she closed her eyes and concentrated but not even pretending to possess the ability of mind tricks was going to get the jar into her hands.

Whirling around, she searched every nook and crannied space her eyes could find looking for something helpful. Maybe a long-handled tong from the kitchen?

Or, wait! She knew. A chair. Or a stool. That’s all she needed, and then the gooey ecstasy would be all hers.

Spying just what she needed at the kitchen island, Charlie grabbed a wooden stool and noisily dragged it to the walk-in pantry. While positioning it just so, she glanced briefly at the doors on the far end of the banquet-sized kitchen. On the other side of the massive, stained glass sliders a party raged on. A party she didn’t care about, hadn’t wanted to attend, and couldn’t wait to escape. Kind of explained why she was stalking some Skippy in a stranger’s kitchen. Desperate times call for desperate measures. She just hoped nobody caught her acting so foolishly.

Gathering the long skirt of her dress into a tail so she wouldn’t get tangled up in all the fabric, Charlie took firm hold of the stool’s tall back and tried to climb onto the seat. Right away she knew this was going to be harder than first thought. It was too high for her to climb on.

Great, she silently complained with an annoyed huff.

Hiking the skirt even higher, she swung a leg out and upward until her sole made contact where she aimed, and deftly tippy toed enough to get the leverage needed to hop all the way up.

Upright and steady at last, she laughed, did a shimmy, grunted a funny sounding woot-woot and threw her arms wide. “I’m the queen of the world!” she giggled. Every crazy situation needed a bad movie reference, right?

Reaching for the jar of Skippy, she briefly toed the edge of a lower shelf for balance, scooped the container forward enough to grab hold of and cried “Winning” when it was all hers at last. Gathering her skirt once more she eyed the distance to the floor and hesitated.

“Can I help you with that?” a deep voice edged with unmistakable humor growled.

Startled she wasn’t alone Charlie squeaked, “What?” Whipping around to see who was talking left her precariously off balance. All of a sudden her arms were flailing, the peanut butter container went sailing, and the foot she thought was on the edge of the stool met with air. Screeching, “Shiiiiiit,” her arms flapped to no avail, and she went flying off the stool face first and heading straight to the hard tiled floor.

Boof! The wind was knocked out of her lungs when she made contact, only instead of face-planting, she felt herself being swept up into a pair of arms. A few seconds of awkward jostling happened and, to her horror, Charlie realized whoever halted her fall had his hands full of bare flesh because her damn dress was wound around her waist.

A pained grunt rumbled from the chest she was crushed to. Could this be any more embarrassing, she thought. Not only was she flashing her goodies to a stranger, but she was heavy enough that holding her warranted sound effects.

As she slithered down his front on the way to regaining her footing, Charlie was acutely aware of two things. First, he smelled like home. Second, he was warm, solid and … dangerous.

“Care to explain why you’re raiding my pantry?”

They were so close she could feel his breath on her face and neck. And why? Because she was standing there like an imbecile, head cocked to one side and her hands resting on a massive chest as she gaped at him like a mindless idiot.

Oh. My. Dear. Sweet. Baby. Jesus. Who the hell was this guy?

Taller than her by several inches, he was big but not beefed up like an action hero. A simple white shirt made from the softest fabric she’d ever touched emphasized his shoulders and lean torso. Her eyes traveled slowly from the shirt opening at his throat, up his neck and finally onto his face before she stopped breathing.

He was … simply put … the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on.

Never thinking she was much of a lip biter, it came as a shock when she felt a sting as teeth worked her bottom lip. She couldn’t help her reaction. He had the sort of lips a girl could lose her shit over.

And his eyes? So many thoughts and emotions broke free inside her as she gazed helplessly into his that Charlie was lost. Blinking in slow motion, she tried to find some sense along with her voice. Unfortunately, her body’s reaction to being pressed intimately against a man she didn’t know was trashing her ability to think.

“Oh, um,” she muttered as a hot flush crept into her face. My goodness. She better step back and cool things off before the heat they generated set off the fire alarms.

The jarring sound of loud, slow clapping encroached on the surreal interlude.

“Bravo, Ty. Setting a new speed record are you?”

Charlie gasped and turned toward the disembodied voice putting an end to whatever was happening. What she saw standing in the doorway was enough to make her shrink with concern.

A woman with an air of wealth and privilege wafting off her like a heavy perfume was glaring at her and the stranger in whose arms she was still held.

Uh oh, this wasn’t good.

She felt the man’s chest rise and fall with a deep sigh right about the same time Charlie belatedly realized his hand was still full of her exposed ass. Balling her fists, she pushed against the solid wall of a man and briefly considered running from the room like an outraged virgin.

When she snorted at her own joke, he glanced into her eyes and she was surprised to see her humor returned. Apparently, Mr. Sexy Pants found this amusing.

“Claudia,” he acknowledged flatly. “Why am I not surprised?”

Charlie tried not to snicker when he pronounced the name ‘Cloud-ia.’ Her sister Rhiann would get a kick out of the pretentious spin.

“Really Tyler,” the uptight bitch surveying them with an exaggerated sniff of disdain complained. “Putting your hands in some wait-girl’s knickers while you ignore your guests is rather,” she paused for good measure, “déclassé. Don’t you think?”

Déclassé? Good grief. Who was this crazy bitch? Her grandmother was a friggin’ Broadway legend which meant Charlie knew a little bit of a lot about using ten dollar words. Her shoulders tensed from the impulse to verbally annihilate the woman.

When the stranger who she now knew was named Tyler tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear, she shivered at the gentleness in his touch. Unaware of what she was doing until it was too late, Charlie bit down on her lip again only, this time, Tyler smoothed his thumb across her mouth to stop the mauling.

Their eyes met again as he rearranged the skirt of her dress, so she was decently covered. The decently covered part of things, however, didn’t stop him from palming her ass before stepping away.

To say she was flabbergasted when he reached for her hand and kept her close by was the understatement of all times.

“Sorry to disappoint.” Tyler shrugged.

Charlie watched the frigid exchange with avid interest.

“But the Signorina is a welcome guest in my home. Hardly the wait-staff.”

Oh, snap! The emphasis he put on saying she was welcome left no doubt that the cloud-bitch was not. And he still didn’t even know her name or who she was! This time, when Charlie bit her lip, it was to keep from laughing.

And then it was her turn to be startled when a second voice boomed, “Bloody hell, Baroness! You never told us that you knew the man himself.”

There was surreal and then whatever came after that. Maybe phantasmagorical? She liked that word. It was the epitome of awesomeness, only finding places to slip it into a conversation was practically non-existent. The scene unfolding in front of her felt like a hallucination, and she was gonna enjoy telling her sister, Rhi, this story.

Dan Pearcey pushed his way into the suddenly not-so-big pantry and ogled her from ears to ankles. Fucker. She detested the guy. He was the team runner for the rugby exhibition she worked for. Of course, he’d show up when and where he was least wanted. The asshole lived to make her life more difficult.

“Seems we have an audience.” Tyler chuckled. “Baroness,” he added at the last with a twisted grin.

“Mr. Tyler,” Dan wheezed as he shoved the end of a canapé in his mouth and wiped his hands down the front of his trousers. Offering a handshake like all this was normal, the guy was so dumb he didn’t pick up the cue when the man by her side just stared at him.

The cloud-bitch weighed in next. Waving her hands like an excited two-year-old, she snarkily hissed, “This is the highlight of my day. In the closet with Cal Tyler, Crepuscolo’s driver extraordinaire and his little troop of groupies.”

Charlie’s head snapped back at this news. He was a driver? Wow. She’d heard an earful about the legendary status of Europe’s formula one drivers. All of the top guys were reported to be sex gods. The type who ends up with whatever Victoria’s Secret model he wanted.

The arctic chill coming from her side turned the pantry into a freezer in seconds. Wasn’t hard to imagine icicles hanging from the cloud’s sculpted nose or Dan’s duck feet encased in a block of ice.

But her fingers? The ones clasped in a big, strong hand? Yeah. Not cold at all. In fact, she was acutely aware of their palms touching and the throb of heat she couldn’t ignore.

“Excuse us,” he ground out. Tugging her along, he walked them forward, forcing their audience to step out of the way as he casually blew right past them. His dismissive air was hilarious and eye-opening. Cal Tyler came off as someone you wouldn’t want as an enemy.

Right before they cleared the doorway she pulled back to get his attention. Eyes that scared as much as excited looked back at her.

“The Skippy,” she murmured and pointed at the forgotten container on the floor. “And my shoes.”

Where two seconds ago she’d seen a hardness that made her sit up and take notice, now she saw his powerful gaze soften with a glint of humor.

Quickly bending to retrieve her shoes and the jar of Skippy that started all this, Tyler picked it up, glanced at the label, quirked a wicked grin and said, “Creamy. Just the way I like it.”

Barefoot and stuck to his side by a grasping hand that left no wiggle room, Charlie tripped over her own feet when the grin changed to a suggestive leer. She’d been in her fair share of amateur stage productions starting in preschool when she landed the part of the apple in a salute to healthy snacks.

But this bit of theatrics was from a script she’d never read and improv wasn’t her best side. How was she supposed to perform? Vamp? Vixen? Virgin? Horny tourist? Race car driver groupie? The possibilities were endless.

But when all was said and done, being the youngest granddaughter of Bryanna Charles Baron-Wilde was all the background she needed to pull off her part in this hilarious farce.